Stuck

So I need some advise from all you LDS lovin pals. I have mentioned before my friend, Maria from Philadelphia. Well, she actually passed away last year while we were there. Long and unlucky story, she went to the ER the day she came home from visiting me in Utah, and I didn't find out until I was in Philly after our cruise, and she passed away about an hour later so I didn't even have a chance to visit her. It was a really sad time for me.

Her funeral was very different than anything I had ever experienced. It was not quiet, and not very focused on Maria. It was actually a little difficult for me to sit through the whole thing.

Anyway, now it has been over a year since she passed away. On the 1 year anniversary of her passing, I called her mom to see how she was doing. After talking for a while, I told her a little bit about what I believe about baptism as a member of the LDS church, and wanted to know if I could have permission to do ordinaces for Maria in the temple. Her mom said she was confused about what I believe, and had let the missionaries come over a few times after Maria passed but didn't want them to come back right now to teach her more about it. I don't know what to do or how to explain to her why this is so important to me. Is there a good article or anything out there that explains why it is so important for us? Maria was baptized when she was 12, so her mom doesn't understand why and/or how I could do it again for her. I have been wondering and worrying about this for a while now, and I know the longer I wait the harder it will be. She sounds like she just doesn't understand why I would want to do it. Maybe if she could then she would let me.....

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:

Look Unto Christ in Every Thought... Doubt Not, Fear Not!

This was the mantra of one of my favorite seminary teachers. One of the nice things about living in Utah was being able to take seminary during school instead of early in the morning, and having lots of great teachers. While I know there are a lot of great teachers that are called in other places to teach early morning seminary, it was nice to have teachers that were able to dedicate most of their time to teaching and planning their lessons. This particular teacher was very creative and effective in teaching, and I still remember some of the things we did in his class. One of them was the above phrase. Every single day at the end of class as we were all leaving, he would shout (depending on how loud we were as we were getting up to leave) "Look unto Christ in every thought!" and the class would respond with "Doubt not, fear not!" (reference Doctrine and Covenants 6:36). I also remember taking a challenge to do baptisms for the dead on a specific week, I went with my friend Kate Griffiths who was in the class with me.
Why do I bring up such a random, specific thing? I got a letter in the mail today. My own handwriting had written the address, and the return address was for "Bro. Mortensen." We called him Morty for short. Anyway, here is what was inside. There are a few errors, but hey, I was a kid! Try double clicking to make the images bigger:





"Youth Conference 2002"


"Me & My dance team in Cali!"


"In the car on the way to Cali"


"School picture 2002-2003"

Evil MOLD! oh, and Happy Mother's Day!

So this year for Mother's Day Todd and I decided to do something special for both my mom and for us (sounds selfish, I know). but how many people make some really nice improvements on a rental property, eh? Not that many. So on Monday morning we drove to Lowes to check out some laminate flooring. We picked out this really pretty oak laminate that has glueless installation, which of course was also the best price except for maybe the stick on kind. It was on sale. (For those of you who know my mom, you should know that she always likes her presents more if they were on sale). So we got home and Todd got right to ripping up the old, VERY ugly linoleum that has probably been in that kitchen for 60 years.

Well, at first all went well. The linoleum was only attached on the sides where it went up the wall a little bit, so the bottom was a cinch to pick off. But then we saw it. Mold. I didn't act too worried, but really inside I was freaking out a bit. I was worried that we would have to tell my mom so she could pay a professional to clean it up, then she would get mad since she just spent a bunch of money refinishing her hardwood floor and getting tile laid in the kitchen. I had work that night so I spent my extra time while patients slept looking up mold cleanup and when to call a specialist. We really wanted to get this done by Sunday.

Later in the evening I called Todd to tell him of my concerns and my research. Well, he let me go on for a bit, then told me I didn't have to worry about it. He had gone to the Home Depot and bought mold cleaner/remover, and had cleaned the whole floor already. I told him I was still a little mad because I was worried about his health being so close to it, only to be told he also wore a mask, gloves, and goggles. Wow. Sometimes the amazingness of my amazingly amazing husband just amazes me. :) I was shocked. Tuesday he went back over the whole floor with bleach just to make sure all was well. Then I did it again on Wednesday just for good measure.





Notice the linoleum that was there before- just so you know, it looks dirty in the picture, but that is how it looked right after mopping. Yuck!


So once we had all of that mess taken care of, we laid down the underlayment for the floor. It is anti-mold and keeps moisture from coming up from below. It was sometimes a bit frustrating to try to get all the wrinkles out of it, but I think we did a pretty good job.







Once we had all that down, it was time to start laying the laminate wood. The first piece we did was around a doorway, and took us about 2 hours to complete. That was a little discouraging, as we had hoped to lay down the whole floor in one day. Luckily the first piece that we cut really bad ended up being usable in another section of the floor that we had to cut the pieces lengthwise, so at least we had that goin' for us.



We suckered Nikenzie into helping us cut some wood when my parents left her to us to watch while they were at Lauren's ballroom concert. All she had to do was help the clamp keep the wood in place and hold a flashlight. As a 12 year old, she complained a lot while we attempted to break child labor laws, but didn't fail to take credit later during the big reveal.




Some of our fine handywork:







Things were plugging along really well, but went exponentially better when Anna and Will came to town. Will had helped place laminate flooring before, and having three people along the length of the room to "click" in each row made the goings much, much easier. The room came together quite well.







Nope, we are not smart enough to get pictures of my mom seeing the new floor for the first time. Sorry.

So at our awesome ward, the Elders quorum has some sort of reward for the guy who has the coolest moment of the week. It is sort of a trumped up version of a "good news moment." Todd said that he had been trying to win the reward, a trophy the man gets to take home for the week, since it was introduced a few months ago. He said he had to do some persuading, but ended up winning the award for laying the floor down for my mom.

Change

So on Sunday Todd was sustained as part of the new bishopric of our singles ward. We have been waiting long months to find out if we would be released with the new bishop or if we would get to stay our full year assignment. We are pretty much distraught that we don't get to stay longer. We absolutely love it. No offense to the married student ward, but I am not very excited to go back in October. It is just too much fun to be where we're at.

I thought a lot about how crazy life is and how things work out. Way back last April Todd and I found out we had to move out from our amazing apartment because it was being sold. I was really excited to look for a new place. Not long after we found out we had to move, we found out that the people living in the "little house" at my parent's were moving out sometime in the fall/winter. My parents sort of have 2 houses on their lot and they let people stay there in exchange for doing chores as "part of the family." Todd and I really felt we had to consider this as an option, and eventually felt very strongly that we needed to make the move. We ended up moving in mid-August.

The first month of church in our ward we missed 2/4 Sundays. We were called as Sunday school teachers, and I taught 1 class while Todd was out of town. The next week we were transferred down to the singles ward.

About a month after got there, a girl that I didn't even know yet heard I was looking for a job as a nurse. The next day she called me and gave me her managers phone number at UVRMC, and when I called him he said he was just about to call me. In my interview he told me he was going to offer me the job, and I had been very highly recommended (mind you, the only thing I had ever said to this girl was "yes, I am looking for a job as a nurse"). Now I am in the best starter job I could ever imagine and Miriam and I are great friends.

These are only a few of the things that we have noticed that have allowed us to have this opportunity and that have been blessings because of it. Todd was released and re-called under the new bishop, so he got to be set apart again. I love to hear him being blessed to be able to improve in his calling and at home. My favorite part of the blessing was when the stake president said that Todd would be a "good boy." What a simple yet wonderful blessing. He is, of course, already a good boy, but what a blessing to watch an unseen hand change our lives and ourselves so much.

For me, I am mostly in the background. But I just love to watch Todd interact with the ward members. They all love him. One time he looked at me from the stand during a talk in sacrament meeting, and mouthed to me "Wake up!" I was extremely offended (jokingly so), as I was not sleepig nor had I even been closing my eyes. He justified himself later by saying no one saw, but oh was he wrong. I had to assure a few people that I do NOT sleep during sacrament meeting.

I have read a few of the articles the stake has had bishoprics read and been able to see him integrate the counsel and goals of the stake presidency in teaching and example for the ward. I love to hear his testimony so often and see how willing he is to come to meetings at 7:00 a.m., stay for meetings all the way until church at 1:30, then offer to count tithing to allow the 1st counselor to go home, even when it is not Todd's turn. I think his only complaint is that he can rarely eat the food at munch and mingle because it is too unhealthy or the spagetti is overcooked or it is just something he doesn't eat like red meat. Other than that (I feel bad stuffing my face while he sits there hungry since he hasn't eaten ALL day), we would both be happy to stay in the ward as long as we live in Utah.

Writer's Block

So I have been trying to think of something cool to write about. I suppose my life is pretty boring. I don't really have anything to say, and no picture to speak of. I suppose I could chat about how Nikenzie and I finished Donkey Kong Country II on Tuesday, with a 102% completion rate. It was awesome. We just had time to turn on DKC III and Nikenzie just about cried at how "ugly" the new Kong character is. She basically begged me to never make her play him. I told her to bad! We will switch off to make it fair.

Todd finished up his finals today (as in Wednesday), but he still isn't feeling relief because we have to see what his final grades end up being. I'm sure he did great, he has worked really hard and had a really tough semester.

The peas in our garden have sprouted! I wish spring would stick around for more than a day at a time.

We FINALLY got internet working on our new computer in our house. We have been able to hook up our really old, really slow computer to the cable, but for some reason our new computer we bought last September never worked. My amazing (yet tardy) daddy came and gave us WIRELESS!!!!! We thought even when it worked we would have to plug it in, but we don't. I'm thrilled.

Pickles eat chocolate!

Random

Shelly in her gray hitler stach:

(p.s. my mom paid a whopping $0.25 for this, and wanted to return it when she found out it wasn't black or barbell. However, it is difficult to return items to a quarter machine)

I defrosted my mom's freezer:


For Spinal Interventions (my old and Todd's current workplace) Christmas Party (I know, WAY long ago), we went to the Jazz Game and got box seats. At the beginning of the game we went down, split into 2 groups, and hi-fived the players as they ran onto the court. Unfortunately, the boss, owner, and entire reason the rest of us were there got stuck hi-fiving the OTHER team, while Todd and I got lucky with the Jazz. See his disappointment:

Well, I suppose you can better see his disappointment in the attitude of his 3 daughters who got dragged to the wrong team with him

Photo shoot

So my good friend Lauren Billings is starting a new awesome hobby of picture taking. She even has a way nice camera and one of those huge fold up light reflector/light blocker circle thingies. To practice, she took pictures of her little sister and some of her friends, including Nikenzie. I went along to hold that big circle. I also got a few shots myself. Note that I am not the master poser, Lauren is the one who came up with all the locations and stances for the girls.

The pro stance:


West Side Story:


I like shoes? This one was mine....


Nikenzies new apology card cover:


Sacrificing for the shot: