Perspective

As I got in the car this morning I looked in the rear view mirror and thought "wow that fog is really thick on my back window, maybe I should clean it off."  Then I quickly realized "oh yes, Oley ran to the post office in my car last night so all the mirrors were set for him, and that really isn't the back window, that's the ceiling of my car."  I adjusted the mirror as I backed out of the drive way, and was onto other thoughts.  As I went to look in my side view mirror, once again I had forgotten that Oley had driven my car and couldn't figure out why I was staring at the sky and nothing else.  I quickly figured it out and away I went. 
I drove on a little further and realized there is a lesson I need to learn here, even though Oley and I are sitting in the same car, in the exact same seat, looking into the exact same mirrors we are seeing things in a totally different perspective.  I realized I really need to appreciate the perspective Oley brings into my life, because it is so much different than mine.  Heavenly Father gave each of us our individual worth to lighten the load of others and bring perspective they may not have seen. 
I drove along in the thick morning fog and let that settle a little bit more. A much deeper thought then surfaced.  I realized I really couldn't see more than 20 yards in front of me.  I could make out that there were signs on the side of the road, but I was unable to read them until I got within about 20 ft or so.  Some were even blinking and those were easier to to see through the fog, but I still couldn't read them.  There then were some patchy areas, I would be able to see at least 50 to 75 yards, and then I would get back into the thick areas losing that distant vision.
I realized this is a lot like our life here on earth.  The perspective that we have may be a little foggy, but we have to have the faith that we are going in the right direction.  Sometimes we get to points in our lives where we are feeling pretty good and we are able to see for more than 75 yards, but a lot of the time we are traveling on a path in which we are uncertain what the Lord has in store for us, and when we are given trials He sets the signs and lights out for us, we just have to have the faith to follow them.  And isn't it coincidental that we meet certain people at just the most convenient time for them to be apart of our lives?  The Lord has a plan for us, and even though our perspective on that plan may be much different than His, we must have the faith, and be receptive of the perspective of others as we journey on this earth together.
This was exactly what I needed to have this morning.  Since we learned that things were not going to work with the adoption we have kind of just been floating. Trying to figure out why everything worked out so perfectly, and then was all taken away in one short text message, "I am going to keep her".  I have been only viewing it from my perspective and haven't looked at it in through the Lord's light.  He uses these experiences to help build us so that we are able to be the instrument He needs in order to accomplish the work we were sent here to do.  I am so glad my parents raised me strong in the gospel, so that as I have these experiences I can stay strong to the principles that will bring me closer to peace and answers and I know He will always be there to carry us through the hard times.
As I got onto LDS.org to plan my lesson I clicked on this and it went perfectly with the insights I had been given today. 

It also reminded me of one of my favorite songs, by one of my favorite artists Hilary Weeks.  Love this song!

 

Tacoma Site Seeing Adventures

You know you had a great weekend when the dogs don't even perk up when you say the word "walk" on Sunday evening.  We intended on going to Mt. Rainier on Saturday, but after our run at Lake Spanaway and meeting up with a friend to trade off some free fair tickets it was already close to noon.  But the family run we went on Saturday morning made up for the chores that didn't get done around the house.

Me and my Running Buddy

He loves to go running, he's not the greatest at keeping up though.

The dogs were exhausted and this was only the beginning of the days adventures.

Lake Spanaway

Oley and his running buddy!

After getting showered we hopped in the car with the intention of getting on the highway going towards Mt. Rainier, but noticing how cloudy it was and the fact we were going to see a mountain changed our direction.  Instead we took the highway the opposite direction and went to explore Point Defiance.  What an awesome little part of Tacoma.  We had a great time and were exhausted by the end of the day.

Lily loves to chase anything that will run away from her.

Love this pic of these two!

Awesome Dog bowl by the drinking fountain.

So glad Oley is so willing to let me take his picture ALL the time!

My two boys wishing they could have a boat.

After walking for well over 3 hours, and Lily having a hard time keeping up we decided to call it quits for the day.  We unsuccessfully found the automatic dog fountain again, and so yes I am one of those crazy people that stops at Dairy Queen to get my dogs a cup of water becuase I am too disgusted to let them drink out of the dirty ponds or the salty watered sound.  But gave use an excuse to treat ourselves as well.
As I have been eluding to the past 3 posts I finally had a little bit of time to spend putting the desk together in the den.  Thank goodness!  Even though we are still missing a chair I am glad to finally have it done.  Now maybe some of my editing will get done.. . Maybe.

Going to the Fair!

I can't believe we are already almost all the way through September.  It seems as though it were just June.  I am loving the cool, crisp, fall mornings and early afternoon sunsets, I have always loved Fall!  As I was reflecting why I love Fall so much, I came to the conclusion becuase it used to be the start of 9 of the best months of my life growing up...Soccer!  Soccer always started in mid-August with highschool soccer try-outs and never really ended till the last weekend in May with a final competitive soccer tourney!  Oh how I miss those days. 
Anyway, the other great thing that happens in the Fall is the state fair.  Last year we went to the Eastern Washington State Fair, and this year we got to go to the Western Washington State Fair.  Much different than the Eastern Idaho State Fair, but the food was just as horrible for your body, which in turn makes it delicious right.  Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of us together. . . bummer but I did take a few other shots. 

So I lied we did get one very blurry picture of us.

We have also been trying to get our upstairs put together.  We had everything on hold as we waited to see if the baby was going to come through, and now that we know she isn't we are trying to put everything together.  Monday we took down all the baby oriented things and put them in a Tupperware container with the hopes that we will get to use them soon, and put together the shelving unit we had bought for down stairs.  Since Oley hadn't put his TV/Entertainment nonsense on it yet, I found a better use for it, and I built it all by myself!! 

Hopefully by the end of this weekend we will have the office/den and the craft room all put together! 

I love to see the Temple!

The past week was a crazy one with late work meetings, Oley's new route, and just trying to stay caught up it was so relaxing to be able to do sealings with our ward on Saturday at the temple.
As I drive to work every morning I have noticed a very interesting parallel and that is when I drive out of our neighborhood in the mornings, which is a middle class neighborhood, the bus stop is at the corner that I drive past.  It's interesting becuase at this bus stop it seems as though the parent to child ratio is 1 to 1 maybe even 1.5 parents to 1 child.  But as I drive a little farther down the road there is a lower class neighborhood and the parent to child ratio there is on average 1 parent to 4 children.  Which to me is very interesting in the involvement these parents have in their children's lives.  As Oley and I talked about it a little more he did bring up a good point that maybe a lot of these parents are working so they can't be there, but really who gets the child ready for school than?!?  I don't know what the impact this has on the child's learning, development, or relationship with their parent is but I would suspect there is an impact. I hope that we can be the type of parents that are able to be involved and make sure our children know we are committed and have a high level of involvement.  We both came from parents who did their very best at being involved in our lives so we hope to be able to pass that on to our children.  Kind of random, I know. 
Friday I got to go do Habitat for Humanity.  I was so excited to be able to do this, I have seen advertising for it and I was ready to build a house.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to build the house, but I did learn a new skill and that is how to tile a floor, and put the grout in it.  What an awesome program habitat for humanity is, not only for the families it is helping but they also let you go and learn new skills.  For example, if you want to learn how to put radiant heating in your home they can teach you how to do it, and then you are well prepared to do it yourself. . . Awesome right!  
Saturday morning we did the usual, breakfast, walk the dogs, and then got started on some of the projects we had outlined for the day.  Our Mr. Fix It Oley put together our new bookshelf.  I am so excited to finally have it done, now we can get the rest of the office put together and then the craft room.

Although we still have a very long list of projects that need done, one at a time and we will eventually get them all done.  I was  hoping to get a little more done but what can ya do, right. 
We then went to the temple and what a great opportunity that was.  This is the first time we have been since we learned of what would become of Callie, so to be able to do sealings was a great blessing for us.  We are so grateful to be able to have one another and even though this baby didn't work out we know that the right one will come along.  The temple is the greatest blessing that the Lord could provide for us here on this earth and we are grateful for the blessings we continually get from attending regularly. 
I was super excited to get to go becuase I remembered to bring my camera with us.  We were able to get a lot of pictures and I am so excited to fix them up a bit to add to my blog, but here are some of the raw images. 

        We love the temple.  We spoke on Love at Home last week in church, we strive to  have a celestial home where love is abounding and the spirit can reside.  One of my favorite quotes that I used within my talk was by President McKay,  “A true Mormon home is one in which if Christ should chance to enter, He would be pleased to linger and to rest.”

·         I than finished this thought with "Would your home be a welcoming place for Christ if He knocked on your door today?  Would Christ feel comfortable sitting at our dinner table engaging in our conversation, or do we sometimes become impatient with one another speak in harsher tones?  Would we have to pretend like we gathered around for family prayer and scripture study because He was there or would this be a habitual thing that our children and families knew we did on a daily basis?  In Josh 24:15 – "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord".  How dedicated are we to serving the Lord, is it a once a week for three hours commitment, or do we sincerely try to make our homes a place where the spirit can abide?  Do we ask for His constant companionship within our home and engage in activities that would allow for Him to join?  

      Just a little food for thought!  

Yay for the Weekend!

It's hard to believe but we have lived here for almost 4 months, and we have not yet had a weekend where we just stayed at the house.  So we decided we would hold off on our adventures and just relax for a weekend.  We had big plans, we were going to do the yard work, get the garage cleaned out and rearranged for my car, get the office/den put together, redo the craft room, ride our bikes, and finally just get a good productive weekend under our belt.  What really happened was the yard work, a little decorating, and a bike ride.  But all and all I wouldn't have asked for it any other way.

 Oley's bike tire has the tendency to pop, so we had to take a little break to fix the tire, which also gave me time to get a quick shot of the view of Mt. Rainier.  Love the pacific northwest!

 I love fall and was so excited to be able to get out what few fall decorations we have.  This is one of my favorite wreaths that I have made! 

Dinky and Lily love to do yard word with us.  We were so glad just to have a Saturday where we could get some work done even though it wasn't everything we were hoping to get done.  Sunday we spent the day lounging and enjoying the time we have together. 

I told Oley to smile and all of his smiles didn't look like a smile so I told him to show his teeth,  this is what I got. . .Haha!

Labor Day Weekend~ Day 3

Phew. . . and this is the last of the three day weekend.  We woke up and had breakfast burritos with Laur, Doug, and Liz before we headed home.  We were also able to stop and see Liz's new place.  It's super nice, and will be a lot of fun for her to make it her own. 
Once we were on the road we opted to drive a different route hoping to miss traffic, and becuase it was faster.  I am so glad we did, it was beautiful!

My phone doesn't do this ride it's justice.  Well and the fact we were going 60mph and have bugs splattered all over the windows.  Guess you will just have to come and visit us to see for yourself. 
We are more than glad to be back home and back to work.  It was a lot of fun seeing family, but it was a quick trip with little sleep.  The first night back in our bed we all were so tired we zonked when we laid down.