Jess and Jeremy

I write to process feelings.  I always have.  I have a personal little private blog that I use as a journal.  Tonight for some reason, I was reading through old posts and I came across this one from June.  Grandma passed away in December and this day is still clear in my mind.  I'm glad I took the time to write about it so that it always will be.  Not sure why I felt compelled to share.  I'm fairly certain this is basically a private blog as well, but nonetheless, I post:

I love you Grandma.

I think in life, we don't take enough advantage of learning a bit from those who have been through it all before. I talk to my mom a lot and I like to talk to friends and co-workers, but I realized today that I really don't take enough opportunity to hear what my elders really have to say. I think that we often end up seeing visits to grandparents as somewhat of a chore unfortunately. I feel bad even saying it but I think it is true.

I went to visit my grandma today in the hospital in Ogden. Her hair is thinning, almost gone really, her legs are frail and thin, her arms are bruised and swollen from the chemo and the needle pricks. But her eyes were still the same. Her voice was still my grandma. Of course, she said that she didn't want me to have come, she wanted to save me the trip and the time, but her eyes told a different story. It was a couple of hours in my life, but had I not made the trip, I may have never known that my grandma had her reception for her wedding as a house-warming party with the oddest guest list ever. The first to arrive were the parents of her ex-husband, followed by church clergy, beer salesmen, businessmen, bartenders, and everything in between. Grandpa Ted spent the majority of the affair passed out in the bedroom after being delivered home by his friends from the bar. She told me about Grandpa Ted's logging adventures and about how she would follow him to the site in the pickup and run to town for supplies and about the time he wowed her with his ability to navigate out through the forest using his intuition alone only to find out later that he had marked the trees in the path along the way. She talked about the Saturday mornings in Ventura when she would take my mom and uncles to the beach for a picnic and because of the fog, would end up back at home in the backyard eating their chicken and salads. We talked about my mom and dad and about sadness and frustration over how things ended up. She told me how proud she was of me, told me to enjoy the moments of my life, and to be careful not to wish them away.

I walked out of the hospital this morning with an indescribable happiness. One that comes from knowing that you made someone's day, one that comes from the joy of being tied to something way bigger and longer lasting than just yourself - a happiness that I don't ever allow myself to enjoy enough. I could have justified for a thousand reasons for not taking the few hours to drive up there. Lord knows that I have a million things on my to-do list before leaving to go out of town on Monday, between the wedding and everything else. But I would have really missed out if I hadn't gone. It makes me wonder how many other amazing experiences that I miss out on by justifying not doing it - by being too busy and caught up in the things that really ultimately don't matter, only to sacrifice the moments and things in life that do.

Another element to the whole big puzzle I suppose.....I think that I need to make a pretty big effort to look at the things in my life that I spend my time doing and evaluate which of those things really matter. Granted, I do love to work, I love to be a busy body, but I think a good inventory of where I spend my time in relationship to my actual priorities is not a bad idea. I may be surprised where I am wasting energy that could be spent on my happiness!

http://www.enticelabs.com/ 

Well, I think we've officially established that traveling for Christmas is going to be the continued tradition for our team.  I think it comes down to the fact that at this point, we would rather have the memories and the time together doing something fun and amazing than we would the monetary things that quite honestly we just don't need.  It's the best of both worlds really.  So this year, we headed off to warm and sunny Puerto Vallarta!

I have been to quite a few places in Mexico now in my life, but this was my first go round to PV.  I wasn't sure exactly what to expect and we really did this plan pretty last minute (typical for us).  So, we were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at our beautiful resort in this beautiful place.

This was an all inclusive, so to say that we had our fair share of food and drinks would be an understatement - it seemed like we would finish one meal and then it was time for the next!  We hit the town for some shopping and of course an appearance and Senior Frogs.  We spent a lot of time playing on the beach, chasing crabs and wrestling with the waves (I typically lost this battle unfortunately). 







But the highlight of the trip was absolutely our adventure into the jungle.  It started with a trip on a little pontoon boat of sorts as we headed along the coast and over to this cute little tucked away beach area about 40 minutes from downtown.  We got off the boat and loaded up into these military style vehicles where we belted in the backseat and cruised up the switchbacks toward the top of the mountain.  (I could have done without this part).


When we arrived at the "camp" from there, we loaded on to our mules and completed the journey to the top of the mountain.  This was Jeremy's first experience on any sort of mule or horse-like animal.  He claimed not to be looking forward to this, but I think he appears to be pretty happy with the little guy!  One thing I did not know about mules is that they are not as lazy or slow as you might expect.  In fact, a couple of the guys who were in our group and riding them up by Veronica and I found it to be incredibly amusing to race their mules as fast as they could.  Apparently when one mule is running, the rest quickly follow.  The screeching and screaming that V and I innately did as a result was enough to encourage them to continue the entire ride.

Once we reached the top, the really amazing part began.  We proceeded back down through the jungle on 14 different ziplines and 2 repel courses.  It was honestly one of the most amazing experiences in my life.  Repelling down 100 foot waterfall in the Mexican jungle was pretty incredible!  The girls were the youngest of the group and were champs!





We seriously had such an amazing time!  I would jump at the chance to zipline in any jungle again in the future!

Then here are some more fun pics of us on our balcony and just hanging out enjoying our holiday :)

So, 2010 marks the year of my first official preparation and hosting of Thanksgiving dinner!  I was so happy that we were able to have Nick and Harm down for a few days to soak up some time with them and the kids.  We started off the weekend's events with some gingerbread house making.  Xander felt like it was highly necessary to clean the tip of the icing after each application to ensure that there was no build up.  They were mini houses, but they turned out pretty cute!

The girls both drove up in the morning and mom and Danyelle joined as well.  The house is built more for a family like the Littles but it always forces us to be close and cozy if nothing else! :) 

I cooked the world's biggest turkey.  I can't believe I didn't get a picture.  I didn't realize just how out of control it was until I saw everyone's reaction.  I asked mom and she told me 20 lbs, so I figured 24 would be perfect.  (this is my typical logic for things)
Jeremy made me take care of all of the yucky innards and stuff but luckily helped with the actual roasting of the bird.  It turned out amazing if I do say so myself!  And as Veronica kept saying we had lots of "chicken" left over too. 
The rest of the day was spent playing lots and lots of games.  Danyelle mastered  DJ Hero while Kynlee entertained the crowd with her backup dancing while she scratched.  I busted out some pretty amazing vocals on Beatles Rock Band, and the ipad was a very popular item.  Board games have never been an overly successful thing with this crowd, but add a digital element and we're all over it!



It was a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend.  I love my family so so much!  I can't wait til I can host again.... maybe next time with a bit bigger house hopefully!

So, the time has come that Veronica is driving all the time and needs to be able to get herself to school and work and all of that grown up stuff!  We started looking for cars a couple of months ago and the idea evolved a bit on what we would get for her.  We know how much our little family loves surprises (Jeremy especially loves to plan them) and we decided on surprising her with a cute little bug - the car she has always wanted.  It's the perfect teenage girl car and we just couldn't resist!

On the Saturday morning that we planned to do some car shopping, we had V looking up cars on KSL that were the cheapest we could find.  We wanted to get her in that mindset and thinking that those were the types of cars that were her options.  One of the things I love most about the girls is that when we do things like this - they always amaze me at how thankful they are for things, despite the fact that we do tend to spoil them a bit.  V was perfectly content and excited about these crappy little beater cars that she was looking at!

Jeremy and I had spent the week getting the car all ready - oil change, new tires, detailed inside and out, waxed, inspected, registered, insured, and ready for her to drive.  I tracked down a giant bow that morning and we pulled the car onto the lawn for the big reveal!
Veronica was beside herself she was so excited.  The tears came almost immediately, along with jumping up and down and screaming in disbelief!  I can't even begin to describe the happiness that you feel when you get to do things like this for your kids.  It might be the greatest feeling ever!

We spent the rest of the weekend teaching her and practicing with her on mastering how to drive a stick shift.  She actually picked it up really quickly and did amazing!  It was a pretty crazy feeling on Sunday night when our weekend was over to send the girls home, on their own!  I seriously can't believe they are that big now!  So surreal!

I'm sure V looks way too cute cruising around in her little beetle :)