Always a New Adventure

    This past week I have been reflecting on this past year and all the things that have happened. What an amazing year it has been.     The year started out with Jamal and I already together (we had met the November before). We had been dating for a couple of months and were starting to think about marriage. January kicked off with us having the opportunity to drop my handsome brother Mark off at the MTC on January 30th. It was a bittersweet moment. We were and are so proud of him but it was hard to say goodbye too. He likes to color coordinate his pen, tie, and sunglasses. What a stud!  On April 1st, Jamal proposed (and no, it wasn't a joke!) What a happy day! our first engagement picture A couple weeks later, my parents came out for my sister Emily's wedding. They were able to meet Jamal and spend some time getting to know him. Of course, Emily and Adam's wedding day was beautiful and we were so grateful we were able to attend.  Emily's wed

      Have you ever had one of those days where you don't want it to end because it was so great? Yesterday was one of those days for me. It was a Saturday which is one of my favorite days anyways because Jamal has Saturdays off. We decided to spend the day getting some things done that we needed to.    We headed off to IKEA, our new favorite furniture place. Previously we've bought our dresser and coffee table from there. A lot of our motivation to go there comes from the fact that A. it's cheaper than other places, and B, it's in small box and we have a tiny car to tote things in. At IKEA, we decided on a bookshelf. I had a gift card from school so we finally felt like we should get one. Emily (my sister), called and was close by. We decided to go visit her. However, we realized that it might be hard to bring her around if we had taken all the space in our car up with our IKEA box. We decided to leave the box at IKEA, go hang with Emily, and then come back for it.  

      Yesterday marked a small milestone for Jamal and I that we want to celebrate. Yesterday was our 6th month anniversary. We woke up yesterday and wished each other a happy 6th month anniversary and reflected on some of our experiences of the last year we've known each other. It's mind boggling how fast time can go by.  We truly  feel blessed that we both are married to each other.         Yesterday we watched some of the Christmas videos. They were a really good reminder of the reason for this season and why we should celebrate Christ's birth.      After the videos, we thought about how we send birthday cards to people when it's their birthday, and why shouldn't we write a birthday card to Christ? We each took a minute and wrote one which proved to be an excellent reminder of all the things we are thankful for that Christ has given us. Some things we listed were: our families, faith of our parents even amidst trials, meeting each other, and always h

     Today was our stake conference. We had the pleasure of having Elder Quentin L. Cook come speak to us. Jamal was an usher so we were able to have really good seats. Our stake presidency was released and a new presidency was sustained.     One of the things that resonated with both Jamal and I was a story about the son of our stake president, a  young man who has down syndrome. Jamal works with him in Young Mens. The stake president talked about how he never knew before having his son how much he would learn from him. He pointed out that his son has gone through delayed stages of growth physically, socially, emotionally, and verbally, but that one thing had remained constant, and that was his son's ability to love. He told of how his son has always been able to love anyone no matter what. He loves the man leaving Walmart with a bald tattoo covered head just has much as he loves his grandpa. The reason for this is because his son does not judge. He sees everyone as Heavenly Fath

     Thanksgiving break was great. Jamal and I went to his family's house the Sunday before Thanksgiving and celebrated Thanksgiving with his side of the family. The food was really good and Jamal made rolls. He's a roll fanatic. He is very particular with how he wants his rolls to turn out. He was disappointed because felt they weren't perfect. Despite my best attempts to make him feel better about the situation, he still thought they were awful. (Everyone loved them).      On Thanksgiving day, Jamal and I went to my aunt's house. On the way, we listened to the Josh Groban song, "Thankful" It's a great song for this season. We reflected on all the things we were thankful for this season; for our jobs, being together, our families, and time to spend with others.                  When we got to my aunt's house, I got to help my aunt prepare the food for Thanksgiving, and Jamal helped by keeping the kids out of the kitchen. It was really fun to talk

         This time of year, I think that everyone's thoughts turn to being thankful. As a child, my family always had a tradition (and it's still continued at home), where we would write 1 thing we were thankful for on a paper feather each night and paste it up on a laminated picture of a turkey on the fridge. As our family grew, it was fun to see the brightly colored turkey covered in feathers of all shapes and sizes, and reading all the different things each person in our family was thankful for. Our fridge always ended up looking something like this.          Even though I'm not home this year, my mom has still continued the tradition. She asked Jamal and I to email her a list of all the things we were thankful for, and then she posted them on the fridge. It's neat to think that we're there in spirit even if we can't be there physically.         Tomorrow I am going to have my students make a thankful turkey. As I toyed over all the different activitie