The Faber's Come to Town

At the end of June all my sisters and their families came out and we were able to spend some time together. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of most of the things we did. We mostly catered to all the little chillens. Activities were planned around naps and bedtimes, and we did a lot of things that they would enjoy like the Children's Museum in Salt Lake, Toy Story , the Princess Festival for the little girls, and lots of swimming in the parent's new pool that was built especially for little kids (about 4 feet deep at the deepest spot). It was a lot of fun to see how much fun the kids were having.

One of my favorite parts was getting together with the adults to play some games. It is always fun to remember how much I enjoy being with my big and little sisters. To bad "brotha" wasn't able to be with us, we missed him. There was one night we did more of an adult night, some of us went to play on a ropes course and go canoeing. I was very impressed because Todd actually participated! He had sworn to me a few years ago that he would never go on a zipline for his fear of heights. He has made leaps and bounds since then! Although he was hesitant, he even climbed the pole to get up to the place where you get to zip down. We hadn't realized before that you would have to do the climbing on your own, instead of walking or hiking to some platform. He even tried out the climbing wall without any encouragement. He sure is impressive!

Brayden getting all harnessed up!



Todd at the top ready to zip



Jessica gets her feet in the air



Taylor was the first to make it to the top


Todd and his bravery


After the ropes we put our cameras away to protect them from water in case our canoes tipped. Our guide took us halfway to the river and pointed the rest of the way. He told us to replace the canoes the way we found them when we were done, that we could go about 1.5 miles uprivier or 1 mile downriver. However, if we were to go downriver we shouldn't go into the lake because it is too shallow and can be dangerous. In fact, someone died by doing that only 3 days before. Then he told us to have fun and took off! He didn't even walk us to the canoes! We were a little bit shocked, and decided to head upriver.

We also spent a day at Trafalga. The kids loved all the arcade games and mini golf. A bunch of us also raced around on the go carts, and Todd and I did some batting practice. We seemed to gravitate mostly around the "Deal or No Deal" game, where we won 100 or 200 tickets a couple of times. It was pretty fun.

I'm glad everyone had such a good time. Of course there were times that it was hard to agree on what to do with so many people and schedules and opinions, but I quite enjoyed my time. I am never sad when I get to see the ones I love the most!


One night when Playing Yahtzee, both Matt and Will accidentally dropped their remaining dice in the cup- which ended up being their drinking cups!


Grandma with Great-granddaughters Mikayla and Kylee


Hi Reese!


Ellie playing mini golf


Adam with his aunt Lauren and Grandpa Faber

Oh Boy

So when Todd and I were not even engaged, but very close to it, we were already talking about baby names. We picked out a name for our first girl- Lila. It is the name of my grandmother, whom I love and adore and admire. Plus it is a beautiful name. I can just picture this little girl with her hands behind her back, twisting back and forth, with her head down but her eyes peeking up at you answering "Lila Itri" when someone asks her name. A cute little shy gal with the perfect name.

Unfortunately, with boys we aren't so lucky. Although yes, we have been married 1 week shy of 3 years and have no kids to actually have to worry about this, we have discussed many, many times boy names. We cannot agree. EVER!!! It is awful. Todd really likes traditional names like James or John or Nick (after his dad). I personally don't have specific favorites, but I would like to choose a name that is a little less traditional. It is made additionally hard by the fact I can't even give you an example- I guess I don't really like boy names in general, so who knows what will happen when we actually have to pick one.

However, Todd has recently set his heart on Joe. He has also decided that Lila's middle name is Glenna. You see, Lila is my grandmother and Glenna was Todd's. They both have similar life-stories and were wonderful role-models as far as faithfulness in church goes. I wouldn't mind it so much if it didn't cause alliteration, but the two "uh"s so close together are not so pretty in my opinion. But back to Joe. Glenna's husband (and therefore Todd's grandfather)was Joe. And Lila's husband was Dorian. So we played around with the idea of Lila Glenna and Joe Dorian, after our grandparents. (My other set of grandparents already have grandchildren named after them, and Todd's other grandparents- well, while we love them we aren't so hot on their names. I know, I apologize if that seems extremely rude.....) But to make up for it, I am not totally sold on Joe, either. In general I would never consider it. But as a family name.... maybe.

Girls Night Out!

Last night the single's ward had a Relief Society sleepover. All the ladies got together, made home-made Cafe Rio style salads, played games, watched a chick flick, went to bed, and made breakfast together. I felt a little shy about going but ended up having a really fun time. Todd made pasta for dinner, so I ate at home and went a little late (I pretty much LOVE pasta). I got there just as they were finishing up volleyball. We then played a game that is really similar to Mafia. It is an actual game that you buy, so each game the card you drew was totally random. The setting was a little town with warewolves eating all the people. I actually quite enjoyed it, although in about 6 or 7 games I was never a warewolf but I got accused almost every time, and killed a few times for it. I did get a chance to be a few other cool characters, including a witch 3 times. When I got that card I was able to either save the person the warewolves attacked, or kill someone else of my choice. I could only do each once per game, so it was hard because you don't want to waste your powers, but you want to use them before you die too!

We then hung out and played some other games, then watched Leap Year (is that what it's called?), which I liked until I thought about what a bad idea it was for the two main characters to get together. They had only known each other for a few days, and they had been a very hard few days with a lot of trials to go through. OF COURSE you are attracted to someone you have gone through that kind of stuff with! But will they actually like each other in real life? Probably not! Get real! Anyway, there are plenty of movies where that happens, but for some reason it stuck out to me in this one. Oh well!

I decided not to stay the night because I already spend at least 3 nights a week away from home, but I quite enjoyed my time hangin out with the ladies!

Happy

So, life is good. Here are a few bits and pieces of my life that have been going on that are too little to be their own post, but maybe will be more interesting all together.

Work is great. For some reason lately when I think about going, I dread it, but once I get here and get going, I always remember why I love being a nurse. Sometimes the nights are hard, and it is especially difficult when my patients are grumpy, but usually I am able to at least make them a bit more comfortable so they are ok. I also am getting better at calling the big MDs. I used to get so nervous I would say way to much or not enough and was yelled at a few times. While I still get pretty anxious when I call, I have much improved in my approach-which has made the docs and me a lot happier!

I pretty much think Todd is the greatest. Of course he has always been great, but for some reason the last few months he has just been absolutely amazing. He is so sweet and thoughtful and really helpful with all the housework that needs to be done. I know a lot of other people brag about their husbands, so I want to put in a a nice little plug for my sweetheart.

I have a new calling in the singles ward. Ready for this? I am the marriage and family relations sunday school teacher. It is a bit nerve racking. The first week I tried to just get people to be more open to hearing about marriage. The bishopric asked a few specific people to attend the class, so I am not so sure that everyone wanted to be there. I was hoping to get across that the class is not about pushing everyone to get married right away, but to help them keep an open mind so they are prepared when it eventually happens. I hope I do an ok job. This week the topic was keeping love alive in marriage, of which intimacy was part of the topic. I was extremely nervous for the lesson, but decided to simply talk about it in a straightforward way instead of treating them like babies that weren't mature enough. I think a lot of the people appreciated the lesson, and I only noticed giggling once the whole time. I hope people keep coming to the class!

The End

Hypocracy

Did I spell that right? Anyway, many nights I am at work and all my patients want to do is sleep. Come on, doesn't anyone need anything at 3:00 in the morning? Well, sometimes the answer is yes, but sometimes I just have to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. I often check out all the blogs of my friends and family, only to be disappointed that no one has updated since my shift the night before. So I whine and complain to myself that no one posts enough. I have several post titles memorized from clicking on people's blogs and seeing the same line over and over and over. Come on people I need something to read in these wee hours!!

But then again, how much do I share? Sometimes I get a sharply written email from my grandmother pointing out that I haven't posted anything for quite some time. I just don't ever know what to write unless I am telling a story around or describing a picture. I don't know if I have any general thoughts worth sharing- I usually just post about things that we have done, which often isn't that much or isn't really interesting enough to write about. So I just whine and complain about how OTHER people don't bother to share enough.

I am trying to be slightly less hypocritical tonight, so I decided to share the thoughts on my mind. I hope no one thinks less of me for my hypocritialness.

Familglia Itri

At the end of May Todd's whole family came out to Utah to visit. It is always fun to see everyone together. We are pretty bad at taking lots of pictures, but managed to get a few. The trip has been planned for a while because Todd's youngest brother, Kyle, is going on a Mission soon. His birthday was yesterday, but we planned the trip before so that we could make sure we caught him before his MTC date. As it turns out, he now isn't leaving until September, but there was no way we could have known that. He is going to the Quito Ecuador mission.

We all had the opportunity to go through the temple with Kyle for his first time. What a blessing it is to see a family together for such an occasion. I love times like this that you can really see the hand of the Lord in blessing the lives of those who live according to his example and strive to be like Him, especially in keeping families close. Todd has one brother, Brian, who is down syndrome and not able to go through the temple with us. However, the officiator in our session was "Brian Geoffrey", which happens to be Brian's EXACT name. Such a tender mercy from the Lord.





The rest of the time we spent visiting extended family, eating lots of food, taking family pictures, and of course playing volleyball and softball on memorial day. The ladies even spent some time AWAY from all that testosterone, which was a nice little break.

The fancy feast for ladies only:


Brian in his new hat:


Grandma Johnson with Crystal:


Todd playing with Reagan:


This is Seth at Kyle's mission call opening a few weeks earlier:


Don't we have such cute nieces and nephews?


The whole family: