T-Mac and the Boogers

Well, I have tried to avoid doing the totally sappy posts… Alas, I feel like this occasion deserves a little sap and a lot of love to one person!  I can’t even believe that today is Jeff and mine 10th anniversary… 10 YEARS… That feels huge and fabulous, but in actuality it doesn’t always feel like a long time, some days it feels like just yesterday I was at the temple hearing about my FIL how hadn’t packed a white shirt to wear to the temple, just a red a green stripes one, just yesterday I was all nervous and anxious to kneel across the altar… But so excited to before eternity with Jeff.  But, other days it feels like I have been with Jeff forever!  He seems to know me so well, and knows how to deal with my moods, craziness and everything that makes me such a catch to be married to (!).  It seems like we have been a family for such a long time, and I love that!  It makes me happy and it comforts me.  I know that he was the person I was supposed to be with, and I am so grateful for the blessing of eternal marriage, for the opportunity that we have to be sealed together forever!

In honor of our 10th anniversary, here are 10 reasons that I love my husband!

1. He is super funny- seriously, he makes me laugh all time… and it is possible I think he is super funny because we have the same sense of humor- I am ok with that bias!  We enjoy the same types of movies for this exact reason.

2. He is an amazing Dad.  He was so worried about having a houseful of girls… he only had brothers- but he is the perfect daddy for our princesses.  They have the best mix of sports love and girly.  It is a 50/50 shot if Sophie will come down wearing an A’s shirt/Eagles jersey or a super froofy princess outfit- and I love that.  How many little girls get excited about baseball season?

3. He is competitive- weird, I know, to love that about my husband- but it is such a good trait.  He works so hard to be good at what he does.  He doesn’t just coast, he is always trying hard to understand and perfect his trade, and I love that people at work recognize that about him.  His competitive nature also allows him to understand why I am so crazy about winning!  He doesn’t think I am crazy, he just understands.

4. He is a worthy priesthood holder.  I am grateful for this everyday.  How fabulous it is to have a worthy, spiritual man at the head of our household- and for my daughters to see him excercise that power regularly.  I love that he tries hard to excel at his callings, even if that means extra time, work and stress.  I love that our daughters have this example of a righteous man in their lives.

5. He inspires me to take better care of myself!  Besides that Jeff’s family tends to live FOREVER compared to mine (seriously, his great grandmother was 95) Jeff is good at nicely encouraging me to be a more fit/healthier person.  He never tells me that I need to lose weight, instead he encourages me to continue with activities that I enjoy and that make me healthier.  When I decided to play tennis (despite years of resisting even liking the sport) he bought me new clothes and encouraged me to take a second class a week when I expressed interest.

6. He gets excited about adventures.  The perfect example is us living in Angola!  But, besides that he will spend days and weeks planning trips.  I think he has itineraries for several trips that we haven’t even booked, because it excites him to find out anything and everything about a new place.  When we went to Cape Town Jeff had figured out plans for the entire trip, with backups- and made sure they were things that the girls and I would also enjoy.  He does this for every day things too.  When he used to have every other Friday off he would plan things for the girls to do with him while I was working, or for us to do together as a family.  His excitement is catching, we have so much fun.

7. He is super cute- I love that hot man!  I also love that our girls have his cute nose (as opposed to my lovely one).

8. He is patient.  3 girls in a house doesn’t always equal calm, and he is able to put up with us with surprisingly few boys nights out.  I love that he is happy spending his nights with us watching movies or reading books.

9. He is smart.  Watching Jeff work hard through law school was great (especially as we met his senior year at BYU and he only had 4 classes on his schedule)- and then he switched from law to technical writing, to law (again) and then moved to contracts/supply chain.  He has done well at each of those positions, and has been able to pick up new information and new processes and succeed.

10. He loves me!  And really, isn’t that a great reason to love him?!?!  He sure is the best person ever- my best friend, and my favorite person to be around.  I can’t believe that it has been 10 years, we have lived on both sides of the country, and 2 continents.  We have 2 2/3 children… we survived 2 graduate schools, several tough times, and some truly fabulous wonderful times.  Life is better because Jeff is with me.

Filed under: My crazy life, The Mayor on May 17th, 2013 | 2 Comments »

For the Grandmas… and me, cause seriously, tennis clothes on little girls is ridiculously cute!  And the girls are getting better and better.  They have been working on serves, so that is adorable, and they are doing better at listening to Alex’s directions.  Love these girls!

Filed under: Angola, Sophie, Violet on May 10th, 2013 | 3 Comments »

I had my birthday a few weeks ago and Jeff planned to have our closest Monte Belo friends over for brunch… you know, all 40 of them!  Though, that included kids, and was eventually cut down by the school soccer tournament that was last minute scheduled for the same day.  We had debated moving the party after Jeff got Dengue fever early in the week, but by Saturday he felt good enough to scramble eggs and socialize, and we knew it was probably the best day to party.  He did take a nap afterwards!  (I  should probably do a whole post on his Dengue fever… but let’s just say, he slept for about 3 days straight… I would wake him up just to make sure he was alive… he was so weak that going to the bathroom would wear him out for hours… the rash he got afterwards made his ankles swell and his legs look sunburned from a distance… sucky disease… sucky recovery… we don’t recommend it at all!  He did lose over 6 pounds in less than 4 days… so there is that.)

I totally snaked the waffle bar idea off of Pinterest… and used leftover paper from the move to cover the table and write “directions.”  It also made cleanup a lot easier!

We had waffles with multiple toppings (whipped cream, American syrup, several jams, peanut butter, Nutella, bananas) apples, scrambled eggs, hash browns and rolls that my friend Jane made from scratch!  The hash browns were my one hang up… i usually don’t make hash browns from scratch, but thanks to several Pinterest ideas found a way to make my own frozen bags of hash browns and they turned out delicious (and I have more for later!)…

It was a lot of fun having friends over, and brunch was a nice change from the normal dinners/cocktail hours… and the kids weren’t cranky yet!  I tried to take more pictures… but felt awkward taking photos instead of socializing… so here a few shots from the morning.

My friend, Vivian, made a delicious Dulce de Leche cake (Jeff had been too sick to worry about cake.  I told him to stick a candle in a waffle and he and Vivian gave me a dirty look…) and we all had to have some even after all the other food.

I had to post both group shots as some people are hidden in one or the other!  I sure do love the community we have here in Angola, and we all have such a good time together.  It is also pretty nice that every single one of those folks lives within a 2 minute walk from my house!  Too much fun!

Filed under: Angola, My crazy life, Odds N' Ends on May 10th, 2013 | 1 Comment »

I can’t believe my baby girl is 6!  She is such a big girl now.  I meant to write a little about Sophie the day of her birthday, but the craziness of the party made that not happen.  So I hope you will indulge me if I preface her party pictures with a little about how grown up she is getting now!

Sophie has grown p so much since we have moved to Angola.  She has really come out of her shell and is so much more confident.  She is always wanting to go bike riding, ride her scooter, swim or play with friends.  It has made for a lot of “I want to do something new” moments at home (which is great and also kinda hard… she has so many toys… why do they not interest her?) and a lot of her wanting to do things that are just a little too hard for her.  She is trying a lot of new things and getting better at them.  She dives and swims under water all the time… she can’t wait to start piano lessons, and I need to get the keyboard out so we can start…  I also love that she is always trying and wanting to help… though it seems to be more with things Mom is doing and less with things that Mom wants HER to do.  I love that sweet little girl!

For her birthday we decided to have girls only over for a Tinkerbell/Fairy party.  Really this only left out one of her friends here in Monte Belo and I think that Toby won’t feel bad that he didn’t get new wings or a tutu…!

I set up with a small dinner (fruit, chips, BBQ chicken sandwiches and PB & J) and then we had a table set up for nail painting and tattoos later in the night.  A friend of mine lent me some star decorations and they made the final touches… the joy of living here is that ever house is the same and most the furniture is the same, so no one really notices the decor all that much!

When the girls arrived we let them each pick a tutu and a set of wings.  We had quite a range of girls… and the older girls, not so into dress up (though I had a thought they might not be), but the Sophie and younger set LOVED them… which was great!

The girls played until everyone had shown up and then we played a few games.  We had just had a party where hot potato was a huge success… so we played a version with a fancy Tinkerbell ring.  It again was a fantastic hit… and Jeff was controlling the music from another room so no one accused him of cheating when our 2 girls were the last 2 left in the circle!

We also played “Fairy, Fairy, Frog” which is like “Duck, Duck, Goose” but, ya know, special!  Then when I was looking for one more thing to do before my special guests arrived to paint nails Sophie suggested Freeze Dance- which is a dance party with intermittent pauses at which point you have to freeze in place.  This game turned into a giant dance party… the girls were thrilled!  Our special guests eventually arrived (3 12 year olds from the compound) to paint nails and apply fairy tattoos to various body parts.  12 year old girls are so fun, they were happy, excited and had even planned to match so they would be a “team.”  Adorable.  The girls all loved being pampered and Vivian and I wondered if we should have gotten in line as well.

The final game was a treasure hunt that ended with the girls finding the birthday cake in the fridge.

That cake was quickly eaten, and the teenagers ended their night by eating Tink’s head… The standard practice here in Angola is to wait for guests to leave before opening presents- kind of a bummer, as that always eats up a good amount of party time.  But nice because no kids are fighting over presents.  So after all our guests went home we opened presents from friends and family.  When Jeff was in the states he brought back a good number of presents from the grandma’s.  Then we got Sophie a scooter (as she had been coveting her Violet’s scooter for weeks), she was thrilled, and has ridden it almost every day since!

We had a great time, and more importantly, Soph loved it!  These girls are so much fun!

Filed under: Sophie on April 24th, 2013 | 2 Comments »

I received a few emails that you couldn’t post comments on the blog… I have changed some settings, so let me know if it is working now… Otherwise I will need to fix something else!  Thanks!

Filed under: Uncategorized on April 18th, 2013 | 3 Comments »

Today was an interesting day.  It started in Portuguese class where we had been given the assignment (so I was told, I missed the last class) to write a letter to a friend.  We had a whole discussion of our friends in Angola.  One lady, when asked who her best friend was in Angola, said she didn’t have one, she just talked to friends back home.  This led to another lady being concerned for the first… expressing how important it is to have a friend here in Angola, that having an in-person friend or group that understands what it is like to live in Angola is a big part of feeling at home, and feeling accepted.  I whole-heartedly agreed with the second person.  My Angola friends are my family here.  They watch my kids, they take care of me when my husband is out of town, they worry for me and with me and pick me up when I am feeling crappy… and my friends back home do that as well, but when you in the states are still asleep, sometimes I need immediate help!

Today was a decent day, with one giant hiccup in the middle… Jeff had told me that some plans of ours might have to change, and I wasn’t (in all my pregnant glory) prepared for that kind of “news.”  So between hanging up on him several times and having a good cry I wasn’t sure what I could do.  About 30 minutes after Jeff had told me what was going on I headed to quilt group.  There have been about 5 of us regularly attending, and we have a good time… today while we were chatting a subject related to my unhappiness came up.  I vented (and cried) to my friends and they instantly worked on making me feel better.  It was a little different than friends at home… more choice language and some good threats that probably wouldn’t have appeared at home… but 3 ladies who ultimately put my fears/concerns aside, helped me figure out a solution (through their great expat experience) and allowed me to enjoy quilt group thoroughly.  It really only took them 5 minutes to make me feel better!  It also allowed me to calm down and look at the situation in a reasonable light and gave Jeff and I time to figure out a couple options that satisfy us.  When I got home 2 of them called again to check in and make sure I was still doing ok.  So sweet.

Today was not the only time this has happened.  There was the one time that I just couldn’t handle the clinic cancelling an appointment and my friend, Catherine, dropped everything to come over, chat and take a nice long walk with me.  Or the time where that same appointment was rescheduled for a Saturday when Jeff was out of town and Vivian and Lance took my girls for a very long afternoon of swimming, lunch and playing and then had the three of us over again for dinner just hours after I returned.  Or the times where I just show up at my friend Jane’s home for no other reason than I was needing a friend.

I miss my friends and family in the states a lot, but how grateful and blessed I am that I have a support group that I can count on, trust and love here in Angola.  It makes a world of difference and as the lady in Portuguese said- it makes me feel at home here!

Filed under: Angola, My crazy life, Odds N' Ends on April 16th, 2013 | 1 Comment »

We flew back from Mauritius on Easter Sunday.  That meant that we weren’t able to attend church that day, so the girls wore their new dresses the Sunday before we left.  Thanks to Grandma for the cutie dresses!

When we got home we rested, unpacked and then headed over to the Rec Center for a community Easter Egg Hunt.  One of the ladies from another compound brought about 40 hula hoops.  The kids LOVED them and played with them until the hunt started.

The hunt was fun, and the kids totally enjoyed it… it was so hot, many of the chocolates were melty- but no one seemed to care!  We love the Monte Belo activities, they sure do make being here easier…

The girls carried around their Minnie Mouse dolls that Easter Bunny Dad brought home from Vegas all afternoon.  It was a fun afternoon with our friends.

Filed under: Angola, My crazy life, Sophie, The Mayor, Violet on April 16th, 2013 | 1 Comment »

*Our favorite day of the trip was the day we charted a boat.  We had decided before that we would go on at least one excursion while we were in Mauritius, several of our friends never left the resort (which would have been easy and totally fabulous), but we really love boating and thought it would be fun to take the girls to see the dolphins and maybe get the girls to snorkel.  We chatted with the activity people at the resort, and considered chartering a speed boat with them for a day.  Jeff found us a charter catamaran online for half the cost and we were set!

The boat sent a smaller raft to pick us up from the dock at the resort and off we went.  We were served breakfast when we first got on the boat, as we were headed off to find dolphins.  Our boat was HUGE.  It could hold 40 people, and there were only the 4 of us and our crew (2 gentlemen) on the boat.  We could spread out, we had our own bathroom and we didn’t have to stay in one little corner of the boat (like we have done on previous trips when the boat was super full).  It was perfect for the girls, and Jeff and I were in boating heaven.  It was a perfect day on the water!

My favorite part of the boat were the 2 nets stretched out between the 2 hulls.  We spent most of the time upon the nets.  It was great you got a breeze from underneath off the water and you were right up in the bow, so you could see everything.  The girls loved laying down and looking for fish through the nets.

We found dolphins, but every time we got close the other boats would speed over and scare the dolphins away.  But we did catch sight of several.  Sophie found her favorite place to spot the dolphins, right up front!

We got to stop and snorkel.  Violet was not a huge fan, and Sophie did well until she got some water in her tube… then she was mad.  We eventually got her back out without the tube; she just held her breath and did well.  The best part of having our own boat was that the girls could get in the water and out without bugging anyone, and we didn’t have to fight with anyone for space in the water.  The crew cooked us a barbecue lunch while we were out in the water.  Chicken, fish and hot dogs, a couple salads- it was delicious.

We travelled for a little while to reach an island beach.  We got to see a HUGE piece of coral sticking up out of the water and we got to play on the beach for a while.  No pictures, I didn’t want to have to worry about the camera when we jumped out of the raft to get to shore.  But a lot of pictures of us relaxing on the boat!

After we played on the beach we sailed back to the resort.  It was fabulous.  They feed us fruit and bread and brought us drinks… they also put out some fishing lines in the hope that they would catch their dinner (no luck!).  Violet managed to find a perfect place to take a nap and she slept the whole way back to the resort!

We had a fabulous time!

Filed under: My crazy life, Sophie, The Mayor, Violet on April 10th, 2013 | No Comments »

Are you ready for picture overload?!?!  1 whole week in Mauritius in pictures, and as most days were occupied with beach, pool, froofy drinks and sunshine I don’t feel like separating each day out!  There was one day on a boat- so that will be a separate post (it was my favorite day of the trip, so much fun… and I took way too many pictures!) but the rest of it will just be in what may as well be called a picture dump!

Mauritius is an island off the coast of Madagascar… the official language is English- but the main language of the natives if French.  I would dare say that most the Americans that visit are Ex-Pats, they said they almost never get Americans at the resort, and really it is just because of how long it would take to get there!  The island was beautiful and we stayed at the Club Med d’Albion Plantation.  We have never done a Club Med vacation- but it was pretty great.  A little cruise-y but with more space to escape the activities if you weren’t interested in them.  All-Inclusive was great, but we ate WAY too much!  Buffets all the time and so many delicious desserts!  Jeff managed to play tennis at least 3 times, and I got out there 1 time and the girls even played 1 time.  The pool was nice and looked out over the ocean/beach.  The beach was calm and quite shallow.  The forcast had predicted rain for almost everyday we were in town, but we only had rain 1 day, and we just sat in the ocean while it rained and then went to the bar afterwards and got ourselves some yummy fruity drinks!  Every other day was nice and the weather was perfect, a little overcast, but no rain!

Anyway, onto the photos (as I know that is what the Grandparents are waiting for!)…

After the rains on that first day the most GINORMOUS snails showed up everywhere… they were huge and all over the sidewalks.  Ick!

Anyways… we spent a lot of days at the beach and pool, so most of my pictures- well are in either of those places!

The girls spent some time instructing me on how to build a sand castle and Jeff spent some time digging a VERY deep hole to hold the castle prisoners!

Most days we spent half the day at the pool, had lunch and then headed to the beach (or sometimes we switched it up and started at the beach and ended at the pool… the excitement of it all…), after the beach we would go sit near the bar and order virgin pina coladas or something yummy and enjoy our relaxing time.

After our relaxing drinks we would head to the hotel room, the girls would take a bath and we would all get ready for dinner.  The girls also enjoyed their towel animals when we came home from playing all day.

The infinity pool looked out over the beach, and so one day I stuck the camera in the waterproof case to try and get some pictures… they are definitely foggy, but you get the idea!

The beach was super shallow and the girls could walk out forever without even having to go on their tiptoes.  One morning there were hundreds of little fish in the shallow water.  We spent a whole morning trying to catch fish in our buckets with no dice.  Those fishies were FAST!

We ate oh so much… and the pasta as you like it bar was the girls favorite… along with hot dogs and fries.  I found these noodles at the Chinese station… you could add anything you wanted and they were so good… I ate them for a couple meals.  Yummmmmm…

We took a taxi one morning and went to the market.  It was right on the waterfront, but we were so glad that we were staying at the Club Med, it was so much more convenient to the swimming beaches.  I did get a new tablecloth… did you know that the official bird for Mauritius is the Dodo?  Neither did I, but I loved it!  My tablecloth has embroidered dodo birds on it, and it makes me super happy.  Even more happy when Jeff bargained it down from over 120$ to 50$.

On our last day there Sophie was brave and tried the trapeze.  She was great.  She was hooked up to the harness, climbed up the ladder (which included switching sides halfway through) and then when she was at the top she reached out for the bar, jumped and swung out over the net!  She did a couple dance poses and then when she let go they told her to do a flip- and she performed a slow back flip!  She was super brave and I am so glad she did it.

One night we had reservations at the nice restaurant- we usually ate at the buffet.  But the nice restaurant was right on the water and outside, very pretty, not the best option for the kids as they didn’t have a lot of options and they served the adults 4 courses and the kids 2… they were bored.  But we got a good dressed up picture for our troubles (and then headed to the buffet for lemon meringue pie for dessert!).

We had so much fun!  More about our fabulous boat trip later!

Filed under: My crazy life, Odds N' Ends, Sophie, The Mayor, Violet on April 6th, 2013 | No Comments »

One of my favorite things about LIS (Sophie’s school) is that they have swim lessons 1 time a week.  Sophie has become so much more confident in the water this year and I attribute a huge part of that to her being in the water far more than ever before.  Right before Spring Break the elementary grades hosted a Swim Gala to show off what the kids have learned throughout the year.  The day we attended the Year 1, 2 and 3 kids participated.  Each grade raced in heats and then had a final swim for the winners of each heat.  The Year 1 students used frog floaties for their front stroke and noodles for their backstroke (regardless of ability, some kids also had swim belts, if they needed extra help).

Sophie’s first race was with the frog float.

Then she swam the backstroke with the noodle and WON HER HEAT!!!!  It was a totally exciting race, and got really close by the end!

Before Sophie’s final race Violet decided to keep herself busy!

Then Sophie’s final race came up… she swam great and came in 4th… we were super proud of her, 4th place out of 3 classes of Year 1 students!

Filed under: Angola, Sophie on April 5th, 2013 | No Comments »