Stephanie Rovetti Came to Town

 These are pictures of me and one of my first Beehives.  Ruston and I were in our first family ward ever as a married couple and I got called to YW as the 2nd Counselor.  So that was about 7 years ago, and apparently when you leave a place everyone keeps growing, and so my cute little Beehive is now the point guard for the BYU women's Basketball team!

I loved that they played and beat the pants off of Seattle Pacific, and I loved it even more that I got to bring my daughter, and see my super cute beehive take it to the hoop.  Stephanie was awesome!  Can't wait till she comes again next year.

Japan

Ruston had a trip to Japan a while back, and I always meant to post a few pictures from his adventure. He had a really good time and because of the time change, he got to sleep in super late and was still up by about 4 in the morning.  Meetings didn't usually start until 9, so he had 5 hours every morning to site see. He saw some truly Japanese things, some truly american things, and a few things that were really neither.

It's hard to see it very clearly, but the bicycle says "Chevrolet" on it...... sure why not.

These lower ones were some of our favorites to giggle with.  It's not really funny; it's just a bunch of Japanese people in the park doing calisthenics.  Really it's no different than seeing a bunch of people in a park doing yoga.  But it's so classically Japanese, that it makes us giggle.

Ruston was only in Tokyo and he was only there for five days, but he really loved it.  Loved the food, loved the sites and loved the people he met.  Hopefully next time I'll get to go with him!

My New Hobby

So this is my new hobby. Just by chance I went to an hour long class on balloon twisting, and viola.....

five million balloons! 

I have to admit that my skills are pretty beginner, but it's amazing what a beginner can do!  I can make a helicopter, bunny, fish on a fishing pole, monkey in a tree, teddy bear, three different swords, flowers, and an astronaut that will hopefully evolve to more of a superman/batman.  The kids love it!

Christmas.... a couple months late

You know how they say you can still send out Christmas cards in January.... did it. How abot Christmas pictures is March? Is is too late?


Never.

We had a fabulous Christmas this year. We were able to spend a week before Christmas in Salt Lake and then drove to Denver on Christmas Eve and spent the following week with my mom and dad, David and Andrew. The highlights were by far the fact that Ruston was there the whole time as well as my dad. Everything else was icing on the cake.

And for anyone who knows my dad, you'll know that he's up to his old fork trick. It was a hit with the grand kids. They LOVED IT!

Seattle Ice Storm

Back in January we were able to experience our first ice storm. It all started with a lovely snow, but it's Seattle and by the next day, it was no longer cold enough to snow. So it rained . . . on top of the snow, making an ice storm. We lost power on a Wednesday and got it back late Friday night. So this is what you do when you have no power.

Read next to the window

Camp out by the fire.

And knock ice off your tree before the ice breaks all the limbs or worse, pulls it out of the ground. Every tree in the area lost something, and several were completely uprooted.

In the end we were able to save this tree, but we had to pull it back into place with our truck and then tie it to a couple of poles until the roots grow back.

For the most part the kids had a blast, but there were definitely times when we were all driving each other crazy! It's a good thing our fireplace wasn't electric or we would have been REALLY cold. As it was, in the living room it only got down to 59, thanks to hanging some quilts up in doorways to block in the heat.

I've never seen a sideways snowman. He was upright until the rain made him sag, and then the ice kept him that way. It took almost a week for him to melt because he became almost solid ice.

Heaven

We all have our own image of what heaven will look like.....

this is mine.

Special thanks to an AWESOME friend who showed me how to do it.

Happy Valentine's Day!