A Year to remember

Before I get around to writing (and thinking about) any new years resolutions... I thought I'd highlight the last year... quite a bit has happened.

This time last year I was planning a wedding. Ugh. I will never do that again, ever. I liked picking out my dress... and that's about it. Everything else I found stressful. Oh, except picking out my photographer, that was a no brainer. Terra Cooper of Magnifique Photography is AWESOME, I highly recommend her. (Check her out here and here)

In January my cousin had a baby boy. First great-grandchild. Wait to go Elliot!

I was married in February and had my first trip to Europe. Justin and I went to Paris, France and London, England for our honeymoon. Loved it! My favorite parts were the Eiffel Tower at night and driving to see the American Cemetery. And, spending time with my grandparents at the London Temple, seeing Les Miserables on the front row, and the town of Salisbury.

My cousin got married a week after we got home from the honeymoon, in March.

And, I turned 27.

My little (big) brother got married in May.

I became an aunt in June! Thanks Laila.

I once again had 20/20 vision without the aide of glasses or contacts in August. All it took was a small loan and a big laser!

My beloved Red Sox won the 2007 World Series in October YEAH!
(let's not talk about what this guy did to the world series ball)

Justin and his dad and uncles bought Henstrom Generator in November

And then this happened in December.

What a year! Overall, I've enjoyed 2007, and I'm looking forward to a great 2008. (I usually try NOT to rhyme... but I couldn't help it.

Happy Boxing Day

You know... if we were in New Zealand (or any other country under the British Commonwealth, and maybe a few others) this would be a legal holiday. And... I wouldn't be writing this from work. We'd all be off work and shopping. Or... boxing things up, or something. I always forget what Boxing Day actually is.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We were able to see almost everyone (we did have to miss a few family gatherings for the sake of our sanity and driving miles) and had a really nice time everywhere we went. Here's a few pics from our family to yours. (Doesn't that sound like a hallmark card or something??)

View Album

Get your own

By the way... thank you for everyone who commented, called and made a point to express their concern over my last post. I'm feeling much better, thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.

The end to a very long week

How can you miss something that you never really had?
Today I found out. You can miss that thing very, very much.

I got the results of a test this morning that I had been waiting for since Wednesday. The waiting was killing me, but I found myself not wanting to hear the results, because I was pretty sure I already knew them.

I found out on Tuesday that Justin and I were expecting a baby. I was over-joyed and surprised that it had happened so quickly. I expected this week to be very long and slow-moving because I wanted to surprise him on Christmas morning with a baby nightie and to tell him were going to be parents next year.

Instead, he came home from work on Wednesday to a very distraught wife who told him, 'Honey, we're pregnant. And, I might be having a miscarriage.' It didn't go the way I had planned, to say the least.

So, after 22 hours of bliss, I've had to wait these last 4 days not knowing whether or not my body wanted to keep this pregnancy. At least I had those 22 hours... Justin wasn't even that lucky this time around.

Yes, I know there are good things that have come out of this. At least we know I can get pregnant, (and rather quickly, I might add) and this is a very common thing to happen to women. I know I'll be okay. I know that we'll try again. And I know this is a natural process the body sometimes needs to go through when things aren't going well at the beginning.

None of that matters very much right now though.

I still miss that baby that I never really had, very, very much.

It's Complicated...

I'm experiencing another one of those emotional and nostalgic moments where I think I have something to blog about, but it turns out to be much more complicated to put into words than it is in feeling... This week has been an extremely exauhsting, yet productive one. While businesses are all going positively, it seems that personal life manages to make up for the instability that must be present at all times - I assume for our growth and development.

My mind was left to wonder about times past and the associations that I have made in recent years. Why do the majority of friendships last such little time? You'd think that if we are only on earth for a moment, it would be much more beneficial and helpful for us if we kept every friend that we used our energy and time to gain.

The truth is I suppose that priorities change and it becomes more difficult to focus on the "neccessities of life" and simulatneously spread ones attention indefinately to all directions. The best people are those who can make everyone feel as though they are worth something special.

What's worse than packing?

I figured out what's worse than packing before your move. Getting to the new place, and it's not ready for you.
They were still painting and finishing the wiring when the movers got there yesterday. I ended up not even going in yesterday, and when I got there today it wasn't much better. My poor supervisor leaned up against a wall that the painters had just touched up (and didn't leave any sign of warning) and got paint all over her pants and jacket.
It reminded me (although not nearly as bad) when my family remodeled our kitchen and had to live in a partially working house for a couple of weeks. We don't have to do dishes in the bathtub or use a flashlight to go to the bathroom, but it's still terribly inconvenient and difficult to get any real work done.
Maybe tomorrow I'll have a phone in my office.

Christmas Questions Everyone Must Blog About

Because Kathy said so...

Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. I do gift bags for every other gift giving times -if I can help it, but for Christmas, you've got to wrap it.

Real tree or artificial? Okay, I'm a hypocrite on this one. I've always had real tree's, and always said I would have really tree's... and this year I caved and used a fake one my old roommate gave me last year.

When do you put up the tree? Anytime after Thanksgiving. This year, it happened to be when we got home from eating (our third) thanksgiving dinner. Hey... it was still after.

When do you take the tree down? Uh... it's usually down by the first of the year.

Do you like eggnog? Yeah, not large quantities, and I usually try to add either milk, or sprite.

Favorite gift received as a child? Hmmm... I'm not sure. I remember getting a little keyboard and anatomically correct dolls one year, and me and my sister were REALLY excited to get those dolls. I also remember as a kid how excited we were when Santa brought us a VCR.

Do you have a nativity scene? Yes... a few.

Hardest person to buy for? The last couple of years it's been Justin's family. And believe me... he's not much help.

Easiest person to buy for? little kids.

Worst Christmas gift ever received? This wasn't the worst present, but, it was a little surprising. I have one sister and 2 cousins (here and here) and we're all about the same age, give or take a couple of years. The tradition at the Petersens was to always have the 4 girls sit on grandma's couch and we would open up the same present from the same person at the same time. Because normally, it was the same gift just a different color or size.

One year we were opening up grandma's present and Annie, Haley and Jodi all got watches, and I opened up Caress body wash. I tried to look excited... but it didn't work, everyone just started laughing at my reaction. Grandma had given us 2 gifts that year, a watch and girly smelly body wash. So... I opened up my watch and was glad that my grandma wasn't trying to imply that I was the 'smelly' grandchild.

Favorite Christmas Movie? I'm supposed to say It's a Wonderful Life, I know. But it's not, it's Love Actually. If it didn't have the porn stand-ins, I think it would be more widely accepted as the best Christmas movie ever.

When do you start shopping for Christmas? I usually start thinking about what I can get people mid November, but this year, I had already started shopping by then, and can I tell you this has been the BEST December every? I'm going to get all of my Christmas done by December 1st more often. Plus... I've done almost all of my shopping online, so it pays to order early.

Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I don't think so.

Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? scones and honey butter. I also really like my mom's toffee.

Clear lights or colored on the tree? I use colored because my tree is kind of a hodge-podge of ornaments, but I actually like white lights.

Favorite Christmas song? Hmmm... I'm not sure. I really like 'Baby it's Cold Outside", is that a Christmas song? I'm also liking "The Magic of Christmas" by Celine Dion. Oh... and I LOVE the Silent Night that Garth Brooks did.

Travel at Christmas or stay home? Depends on what you mean by travel. All of Justin and my family live on the Wasatch Front, from Herriman to West Weber (about 70miles difference). Last year we went to 7 different homes on Christmas Eve and Christmas. We're hoping that we don't travel that much this year.

Moving Day

Well... I guess it's 'packing' day. Moving Day is on Tuesday. But... we have to have EVERYTHING boxed up Monday evening for the movers to start at 9am on Tuesday. And... with my job, you have to take every spare minute (or hour) that you can. Who knows what will happen over the weekend! (Which is why I'm not sure why I decided to sit down and blog).

Our team is moving to a new office building with 5 other teams, and, we're not very excited. Not very excited to move, (or pack). Almost all of us live closer to our office now, and I'm going to actually have to get on the freeway to get to work, which I hate. It's not a horribly bad time of the morning to go downtown, but I just hate using the freeways when there's an accident. Oh well, there's not much we can to about it.

I hate moving. Since my adult life (college) I've moved 10 times (it's 15 or 16 if you count my mission). I like going through things and trying to simplify (aka throw stuff away -hint, hint, Justin), but I HATE packing and moving. Not to mention, this is usually a pretty stressful time of year at work. We have kids that 'freak-out' during the holidays, many go into shelter for various reasons, we have fewer days to do the same amount of work, and getting anywhere (for visits and appointments) takes twice as long because of all you last minute shoppers!

Happy Holidays!

More pictures

I feel like all I've been posting lately is a slideshow and call it good. Either too much or not enough is going on, and... I think I'm suffering from november's blog-fest.

So... instead of a slideshow, here's a collage from Picasa. I'm pretty confident that Justin's dad and step mom don't read the blog, so I'll post them here. We had pictures taken of myself, Justin, and his brother and sister, Bryan and April, for Christmas. Bryan will be leaving the next few months (to an undisclosed location) to serve an LDS mission, so we thought it would be nice to get some photo's taken.
We had my cousin Annie take the photos, and she did a great job! (The collage cuts the pictures kind of funny, I promise we have our heads in all of the actual photo's)

Kris and Marime

Kris and Marime had their wedding ceremony (they were married quickly earlier this year). It was at Red Butte Gardens and very beautiful.

Morphing

Guess what I've been doing all night? This thing is pretty cool, especially if you have kids. Check it out (thanks to flip flop mama for the link)

How quickly time passes

Tonight, Melanie and I ran some errands which included picking out a Christmas ornament for the year (last years is a disney one from our first christmas in love), and then to scan some pictures for a project I'm working on for my grandfather. It's so funny to see these people when they were young like I am, and how similar we must be...young, carefree, thinking about the possibilities...










Then life comes at you fast and you get married and have a family...



Before you know it, the family you have is growing, growing, gone...


And you just have time to enjoy yourself and see what you've created in the meantime...

I love these two. How quickly the past year has gone!

21 days

13 hours and
13 minutes

I have to admit, I'm pretty excited about Christmas this year. Bryon posted a question on his webpage asking, "Do you spend more time thinking about gifts for other people or for yourself" previously. (When I went to his homepage for the link, I've just noticed he posted a new question, so you'll just have to take my word).

I spend more time thinking about gifts for other people, hands down, then for myself. I'm guessing that's true for (just about) any adult. I remember spending a lot of time thinking about my Christmas list as a kid, but I don't think I've spent more than 3 minutes thinking about what I would like for Christmas. (Although, as you've noticed I spend a fair amount of time on the internet during the whole year, and have managed to fill a rather random wishlist on froogle).

So... you get red and green colors on the blog. I really wanted to find a christmas template online, but then I'd have to go back to editing in html... and I just can't do that, so I got a little creative. Merry Christmas and Happy Shopping!