Obama's Boys

In order to ensure the boys were cheering for the right team and sporting the appropriate attire, I headed to OR to celebrate inauguration weekend with my favorite nephews. As you can see they were dressed to impressed and pumped to cheer on their president. Sadly, their parents set poor voting examples but one can only "HOPE" that in four years C and K can influence their 'rents to make a better choice:)

Even though we cried ourselves to sleep each night wishing Syd was with us to complete a true girls weekend, we did honor her by doing some shopping and buying lots of fun things for her big day. Darel's favorite part was watching the BBC 4 hour version of Jane Eyre!



One of the best things we did was go to the park and feed the ducks. The boys were a little nervous or maybe just freezing--it was pretty close. But eventually they loved it!


When I returned to DC, Hill Rod (aka Hillary Clinton) was waiting for me at my office. She spoke to our agency and while I don't care for her, she said some great things about our agency and her hopes to improve its potential in her position as Secretary of State (she is over our agency). It was fun to be able to see her (only a few feet away) in person--I guess there are perks to my job. I have attached a link that shows what she said and also has a pic. I was about 4 people behind the group shown in the pic. One of the best things she said was that development is an equal partner with military action in fighting against terrorism. So I guess I can add "fighting terrorism" to my resume!
http://ghintranet.usaid.gov/GH/index.aspx
http://www.usaid.gov/press/speeches/2009/sp090123.html

Also is a link is a what Obama has been doing that directly affects my office. Whenever the presidency changes from one political party to another the Mexico City policy is also changed. The article explains most of it but I wanted to include it so you could see what I spend most of my day doing when I'm not stalking Darc and Brent's blog. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/MexicoCityPolicy-VoluntaryPopulationPlanning/

The Latter Day Calvary

Our stake (including Little D and Big D) participated in the flood relief provided by the Selah Washington Stake to the Ellensburg homes affected by the floods. Our stake provide hundreds of volunteers and thousands of hours. President Grow (whom I affectionately refer to as "Kasumoto" (from the lead Samurai character in The Last Samurai)) was amazing in his role as Stake President. Below are some pics from this event.

Missing you

As I sat tonight cleaning Christmas pictures off my camera, I came across several incriminating photos of my super hot sistas. As I clicked through each photo, the chicks just got hotter and hotter. It was therefore difficult to choose just one photo, but I think you will agree that I chose wisely, unlike those of you who decided to jack my camera for your own enjoyment.
Lest you think I am cruel, I am also posting a smokin' hot photo of myself over the holidays. This is my preferred position when watching movies these days as my husband can attest. Being a mom brings out the real party animal in me.

I also wanted to captivate a few other fond memories of our holidays together. First of which is proof of Keith's first bloody nose. Brent was quite proud of his son's accomplishment and insisted that I take a picture. Keith took it like a man and didn't even cry--no doubt his father's influence.

The second is a less manly photo of Cole. I think he would make a good addition to the Teletubby family. He could barely walk in this snowsuit, so needless to say, we did not pack it up to Yak-town.


This post would be incomplete without photos of Kota. The boys loved riding him and feeding him at all hours of the early morning. Sorry to those of you sleeping!










And finally, I just couldn't pass up the chance to thank you all for a good laugh as we participated in another worthy Christmas Eve game created by Dad. Even though my team came in dead last, I give props to Nick for not walking out when we insisted he wear antlers made of pantyhose. And I might add that Darel makes a pretty sexy reindeer, second only to my husband. Rarr...



I miss all of you and can't wait to rendezvous in SoCal this May!

Surviving Utah the Sundance way

If anybody has some spare time in the next few days, call Nick and congratulate him. He has achieved his ultimate goal - turning his fiancee into an O.C.S. (Obsessive Compulsive Snowboarder) Despite my best efforts to break my tailbone, I can officially say that I've caught the snowboarding bug. Nick talked me into getting a season pass at Sundance so we could "spend some quality time together," but don't think that I couldn't see right through his little scheme. As you can see, we've had plenty of quality time and then some. We go snowboarding every Wednesday and Friday morning, which Nick conveniently cleared our class schedules for. Dad was very supportive and helped me get all the gear required for keeping up with Nicholas. I got a great snowboard, bindings, boots, and goggles. I am officially the most "popular" snowgirl on the mountain. (I can thank my good genes for 90% of that title) So even though it's freezing here and school is...school, Nick and I have got each other, lots of snow, and some good friends (Jennica, Tyler, and Hyrum pictured above) to keep us company on our weekly adventures. 

I am in dire need of a can opener

So I had a couple hours between my Psych 111 class and Middle East class today so I thought I'd post something, partially from my utter boredom (all my friends are studying or at class) and the nagging of both mother and father. Typically when I think of blogs I cant help but think of this link http://www.dullestblog.com/ and mixed with the fact that our family has never been the most tech-savvy I thought we might use this blog for about a week, maybe a month tops. I've come to find that I am pretty much the only one that has not posted anything (other than maybe Darel and yes that is a call out to you Darel). Well it happened today. The one thing that I was praying for not to happen everyday since last August when I arrived. As I was sprinting to class for my 8 in the morning class (don't get too excited at me being up this early I woke up at 7:45, no shower, no breakfast) I had barely gotten 100 yards from my apartment door and I did an incredible feet-from-under-me-straight-to-my-back fall from the invisible sidewalk ice. My body literally made a parallel line with the concrete. Luckily no one was around because if they had I'm sure I would have heard them laughing quite loudly. I think I may need to borrow some cramp-ons from Dad just to get to class in the mornings. Theres about three feet of snow on the ground, more in other areas. I'll have to take a picture of the bike racks for everyone, they are entirely buried by snow. As much snow and ice as there has been here, its been rather warm. I still haven't had to use my snowboarding jacket. I could be getting used to the cold or maybe I'm just too numb to feel the cold. There is one thing I find very similar between Rexburg and Yakima though is that the sky is stunning almost every night. My friend Tyson said it one day and we started taking pictures of it. I'm hoping I can figure out how to post them on here. On another note it appears that we have 3 1/2 roommates. No not half of a person, but at first me and my other two roommates (Luke and Josh) thought that it would just be the 3 of us in our small apartment which we were more than excited about. We have been noticing lately that things keep showing up in our apartment that is none of ours. For example two sweatshirts have magically apeared on the empty bed in my room, and this morning two bags full of clothes, and other personal belongings were found on our couch. We have yet to find our other invisible roommate, and we have even debated if someone is feeling pity on poor college students and giving away bags of clothes and personal belongings. We are all keeping our fingers crossed that it is the latter of the two. It has also come to our attention that after our last roommate Joel left that all of our dishes have disappeared. Interesting enough is that the invisible roommate's bags contain no dishes or silverware of any kind. Anyways I was craving canned oranges for breakfast today and found that we have no can opener. Finally after about a thousand stabs with a butter knife (which took about a half hour) I managed to pry open a small hole big enough for the small orange bits to slide out of. I think its interesting how much better they tasted after having to work so hard for something so insignificant. Anyways its about time I go to class, hopefully I'll have more time later to keep you all posted on the amazing small victories here in Rexburg.

DC's New Year

On New Years we got together with a few friends to celebrate.



It wouldn't be complete with out the celebrity guessing game. We had four categories including celebrities, sports, politics and church. Sarah won the politics one and Melissa one the celebrity one. The game was a huge hit!!





On New Year Day, we went to the temple to see the lights and watch a Christmas performance of the Baltimore Missionaries. I talked to President and Sister Moody and saw Elder Mugleston-Anne Mugleston's little brother. We topped the night off with dinner and season one of Gray's Anatomy. It brought back lots of good memories of the summer Syd, Mary, Darel and I watched all three seasons in a week.

Shea's Most Excellent Eagle Scout Court of Honor

Well, he earned it over a year ago, but we finally got around to honoring Shea with his Eagle Scout award. The primary reason for not doing the Court of Honor was because Shea did not want to be bothered. He is a humble young man and does not like drawing attention to himself. Truly, he is happy not being in the limelight. As parents, we really wanted a chance to brag about Shea and honor his efforts and commitment. He was really sick that night, but we made him go receive his awards and accolades regardless.