Rusty Korean

One of my Korean mission companions just moved to Provo to study English. It doesn't feel like it's been 4 years since I got back from my mission, but when I try to speak Korean it feels like I almost never went. Good thing she's here to study English so I made sure to speak plenty of it... ya know... to help her practice.

It was SO MUCH FUN to see her again! We served together for just one transfer, but boy what a transfer that was! We had fun reminiscing about old times. She caught me up on the lives of all of my other companions (who were all Korean). She told me funny stories about our mission president, who is now the President of the Seoul Temple.

She'd never been to Temple Square, so we went, despite the cold weather and snow.

She kept hoping to bump into the prophet, but we had no luck in that department.

We took a tour of the Conference Center, which was really neat! I hadn't toured that building since it first opened. The coolest part was being able to go on the roof. Now I'm probably way behind the times, but I remember hearing that they'd closed the roof to the public after that poor boy died. And I always assumed that it was still off-limits, and that always made me sad because as a young woman, we did a service project where we helped plant some of the stuff up there. But I was thrilled when our tour guide said that you CAN tour the roof with an escort. They don't let you out if there is any sign of inclement weather, but the snow had stopped and the sun had come out by the time we got up there. It was so neat!


They have it organized so one side reflects foliage you would find in the mountains, and the other side represented the desert. Very cool! And very peaceful!

And they had this neat monument that reminded me of the Korean War Memorial.

Anyways, if you have a chance and you haven't done it for awhile, I would definitely recommend touring the Conference Center!

Easter

Happy Easter! Our day could be summed up in one word: bleh! All of us were sick. My dad came home with a cold, and Ellie quickly caught it and passed it on to Mike and me. We managed to make it to sacrament meeting, but then came home and spent most of the rest of the day sniffling, coughing, and aching. But Ellie did get to wear her new Easter dress for a little while.


Here she is pretending to be a puppy (one of her favorite words to say). She took Grandpa Ken for a walk around the house, and it was the highlight of her day!

Due to our sick condition, we had to postpone our Easter Egg Hunt, but when it finally did happen, Ellie was absolutely thrilled! What? You can open these colorful plastic eggs an find candy inside?!? Best day ever!

In reverence of the holiday, and all that it means, I'd like to share one of my all-time favorite quotes, by Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

"As this Easter day draws to a close, how fitting that we contemplate atoning Jesus--bending and curved in Gethsemane. His bleeding curvature transformed the grammar of death. Until Gethsemane and Calvary, death was a punctuating, rigid exclamation point! Then death too, curved-- into a mere comma!" (Ensign, May 1994, p. 91)

15 Month Appointment

This is a little late, but Ellie had her 15 month Well Child Checkup at the doctor's office. She's still underweight (5th percentile), with a giant head (97th percentile). Yes, we do have trouble putting shirts on over her massive noggin, in case you were wondering.

She got her immunizations. It was heartbreaking this time because she knew exactly what was going on. The second the nurse came in the room and we made her lay down, she started screaming. Poor baby!

Who would be heartless enough to forever document the pain she had to endure with a picture, you might ask? Well it wasn't me. I'm not that cruel. (Although, I AM posting this on the blog, so I guess that doesn't make me any better.)

Mike thought it would be a good idea to give her a Dum-Dum afterwards, to try and stop the crying and get her mind off the trauma. Yeah, it didn't work so well. Especially when we had to take it away from her to put her jacket on. She screamed even worse than when she got the shots. But she sure looked adorable eating a sucker on her own.

I think I know the reason why the sucker didn't assuage the pain. It's because Mike picked the Mystery Flavor Dum-Dum from the bowl. Everyone knows the Mystery Flavor Dum-Dums are foul. I would've cried too, Ellie!

Techno-Baby

Ellie + iPod = cute photo opportunity

It's actually really cute. She'll just sit on my dad's lap and bounce to the music. (And yes... that's chocolate all over her face. I have no control over what she eats when I'm at work.)

And now she has turned the iPod into an iPhone. "Hi mama" she says.

You can tell we're from different generations. These are the phones I used to play with.

How times change! Ellie won't even know what this is.

Giddy up!

The other morning, Ellie woke up a little earlier than normal. I had worked the night before and was still groggy when I went to get her. I took her back to our room and had her lay down next to me in the bed. She contentedly laid there, while I rubbed her belly. Then she started babbling in Ellie-speak, which consists mainly of gibberish with a "puppy" or "cookie" thrown in every once in awhile. She looked at me and said, "Daddy? Daddy?" Then she turned around to try and find Mike, who was sound asleep on the other side of the bed. She sat up, scrambled over to him and started climbing on top of him. She planted her little diaper bum right on top of his head, with one leg on either side of him. She looked at me, cracked a huge grin and said, "Horsey! Horsey!" as she started bouncing up and down on the unsuspecting daddy's head. I'm not sure if Mike thought it was very funny, but I've never laughed so hard! She just keeps getting cuter!

Déjà vu

Didn't we just do this? For the third time in 16 months, we moved. This time it's back to South Jordan to live with my parents. They are kind enough to house us for 3 months before we make ANOTHER move to Phoenix in July. Ugh... I hate moving.

Things I'll miss about Murray:

1) My 3 minute commute to work.
2) Our 5 minute walk to the library.
3) Living within 5 minutes of just about every store or restaurant you can imagine.

Things I WON'T miss about Murray:

1) The incredibly squeaky floors in our apartment.
2) Being able to hear everything our neighbors were doing, and vice versa.
3) The creepy people in the apartment complex down the street from us.

Another nice thing about moving now is that all of our stuff is packed away in a storage unit and is ready to throw in a U-haul when the time comes.

Packing with a 15 month old toddler was fun. Well, maybe fun isn't the right word for it. Challenging. Yeah, challenginig is more like it. Bless her heart, she sure thought she was helping. She mainly just took things out of boxes.

Here are a few pictures of her other contributions:

Swimming in a box of foam peanuts.

Somebody has to eat all the extra food in our pantry. Thanks for stepping up to the plate, Ellie.

Nilla Wafers actually distracted her long enough for us to get stuff done. Thank you Nilla Wafers!

Now we just have to survive the move to Phoenix and hopefully we'll settle down in one place for a few years.

Summer?

I woke up this morning and checked the weather on KSL. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Does that mean summer is here?