Merry Christmas!

I know, a lot of photo posts, but who cares?! Hope you all had a great day!

(wanna see more photos? ;) check out facebook...)

Plaid Tidings

Plaid Tidings!!!

 

Winter Wonderland

Snow has never looked so cute. 

Baby June's first snow!

Christmas Time

Yay for Christmas decorations. (thanks to my family.) I was worried about Christmas this year because last year during the season I was newly pregnant and super nauseous. So this whole year when I thought about Christmas it made me actually feel sick again. I wasn't looking forward to it.

But then there was baby June.
And even though she will only be five months once the big day hits, it has been so fun to have a holiday with her and she has added magic somehow. We can't wait to keep going with life and holidays and all the fantastic celebrations on earth.

Happy June Bug Holidays

I can't help it. She's just so dang cute.

Hope your Decembers are going well!

Lunarious

I woke up right after the first bite had been taken. I was excited to see my first lunar eclipse. As the earth’s shadow devoured the light I realized that my heart was pounding hard and I could feel the pulse in my ears. I was nervous. It was as if God Himself was erasing the moon from His holy canvas. What if He chose not to draw it back again? What would we do without our silver sentinel each night?

And with that- it was gone. A small chorus of morning stars rushed the empty stage as the denim sky sunk the invisible moon. Somehow I felt apart of the alignment, sandwiched in. From the sun to the earth to me up to the moon.

 Taken when the last sliver of moon was left, right before it all disappeared.

Remembering

Today is a day to remember. First of all it's the memorial day for the Pearl Harbor attacks, which is where my Grandpa Dabel served during WWII. He survived but of course many did not. I have also been able to visit the memorial site in Hawaii. It was crazy to be there and to see and know that one of the ships was just below my feet. War is crazy.

Today is also important to me because it is the memorial day of the major earthquake that hit Armenia in 1988. I served in the main city up north that was hit by it. 25,000 people died. (which you've read a lot about by now from me.) I know that I have been writing a lot about Armenia lately it seems, but for some reason it's been on my mind more than ever. I think it's because I am finally ready to face it and everything that happened there. So forgive me as I go back there again in my head.... (although you really don't have to read this, of course.)

Our last day together, my temporary Armenian  companion, Sister Helelyan, and I had had an unusual day. We were serving up in the country’s second largest city Gyumri. In 1988 Gyumri was devastated by a massive earthquake, killing thousands and it had never been able to rebuild.

            The people talked about the earthquake everyday. It was still so fresh for them, even though it had been 19 years. I couldn’t blame them though, the fallen city still looked like it recently shook. Just around the corner of the city square still laid the massive crumbled church. Grass now grew in its cracks, the black stones lifelessly scattered around as if the earthquake had happened yesterday. Many of the people still lived in their “temporary” homes called “domiks.” What they really were, were decaying box cars without wheels. And they were not temporary.

            Sometimes when we would walk by a heap of mangled concrete, I wondered if there were still bodies buried underneath.

            In each home the family would have a photo on the wall of each loved one who had died, many of those victims of the earthquake.  They took the deceased person’s passport photo, had it enlarged, and then framed it. It was always a faded blue tinted photo with the person frowning or straight faced at best. It was depressing.

            Some homes had many of these photos up. Every home had at least one. Once I met a man who lost his wife and children in the earthquake. He spent his days drinking.

            And all of this in the middle of a freezing cold and miserable winter.

            It happened on December 7^th, 1988.

            Fast forward 19 years and there we were. Sister Helelyan and I. December 7^th, 2007. We didn’t get many verbal lessons taught that day to people investigating the church. Instead we wandered to the graveyard like everyone else. People played sad and melancholy duduk music from the stores and speakers on the street, haunting us everywhere we went.

            It was snowing.

            We helped an old woman walk up to her son’s grave and put the two flowers down she had brought. To give someone an even number of flowers represents death and an odd number is life. (So it’s not very nice to give a living person an even number of flowers.) Everyone had brooms and were sweeping all the snow off the tombstones. We brushed at the woman’s son’s grave with our gloves. That day we taught missionary discussions with our actions and reverence alone.

            Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that I saw the things that I did and lived the way I did. Being in Armenia is like going back in time- a real way to time travel. It was encapsulated in gray colors and dust, hidden away from the rest of this world. It was sad and forgotten.

            And it was magnificent.

That night as I laid in bed I thought about all the gravestones and snow.

And tonight, December 7, 2011, I will think of it again. 

I will never forget.

I Love You to Mars and Back

I'll admit it right now. I'm a believer in dreams. Not ALL dreams, but some. Some of my dreams are clearly nothing more than a sign that I drank too much milk before bed, perhaps. They are random and disconnected and quite frankly, like a Lewis Carroll novel. (Alice in Wonderland. Yeah, he wrote that sucker under the influence of drugs. I'm also a believer in that.) BUT then there are other dreams. Stuffed full of symbolism. I've had some super spiritual dreams, too personal to write here. I've had other morbid and terrifying ones, reoccurring at that. I've had weather dreams. Like when I was engaged and then when I was pregnant I had all sorts of terrifying tsunami dreams. Or later in pregnancy I had some really scary dreams of being attacked and abused. When I was a child I often dreamed of tornadoes. I could go on about what these dreams meant for me, but I'll spare you. But just know that people who do not believe in dreams will never get answers or insights from them.

So why am I rambling about dreams? Well, because. I've had two, count em TWO dreams now within a month of each other about going to MARS. The first one I chalked it up to the milk before bed theory but now two?

And they're not just any Mars dreams. Both times I get stuck up there and it turns out a lot of other people have too and there is a city there. And we are all trapped. Like the first time I was on a space mission (hahahahaha) and once we got to Mars we had to run from the cold, dark side of the planet to the warm and super bright side. Once we got there we realized it had all been a trap and we were now stuck in a city on Mars with many other people. The city was kind of cool but I end up having a few run ins with the evil man who has done all of this. In the end, though, I meet Buck and we fall in love.  It is also in this dream that I have another baby girl and we name her Hazel. (and, true story, now we plan to name our next girl, on EARTH, Hazel.)

Then the one two nights ago- I get captured this time and taken to Mars where there are many other people. We are all stuck. Only this time people keep dying and it's really eerie. We later find out that they are killing the dumber people and keeping the smarter ones to turn them into Nazis so something like that. Somehow I escape back to Earth and then I'm in a car with random people I know, like my uncle Hans and my friend Carrie's mom. June is there too. We are driving down a long road in the middle of nowhere and the clouds are the darkest black and blue. All of the sudden there is a swirling opening in the clouds and giant semi trucks come flying out, crashing towards us. I think this is where I woke up.

I looked up online, haha, which can be a joke, but it said: (and yes, they had Mars on the list. Guess I'm not the only one...)

To see Mars in your dream symbolizes energy, drive, passion, fearlessness and  ambition. It also represents war, violence and masculine power.

Wow. Thanks for that enlightening description. Well, which one is it?! 

Or it said this about planets in general:

 

To see a planet in your dream signifies creativity, exploration, and new adventures. You are trying to align yourself with untapped energies that you never knew you had. Alternatively, to dream of planets suggests that you are trying to escape from your own waking reality 

 

Why is Mars in my dreams?! Any thoughts? 

It was a busy weekend, despite Buck's massive pile of homework. Who thought it was a good idea to put the end of semester at Christmas time?

So Friday night we went to good old Nickel City.

 And June was in heaven. A room full of things that light up and make noise and lots of bright colors. Are you kidding me? I need one of these in my house!

 She was enthralled the whole time.

 As for Buck and me? Well, we decided that I may be blessed, but I'm not very lucky. 

Buck, on the other hand, won us most of our tickets.

And what did we "purchase" with our tickets? 

A blow up monkey head, a fortune telling fish, a plastic shark, two drink umbrellas and ONE warhead candy.

Afterwards we got dinner at "The Awful Waffle." Which was really tasty, but awful because it was OUTSIDE. Psychos.

Saturday was our ward Christmas party/breakfast.

 June went as "baby Santa Claus" (I corrected the child who called her this to
"baby Ms. Claus." Hi, she's in a dress.)

After that we went to my cousin Zane's baptism. Such a great thing to watch every time.

And here's June the celebrity. All the cousins love her and always surround her like this.

Her great grandparents entertain her.

haha her face. Grandpa was making Donald Duck noises.

Then that night we went to see "White Christmas" at BYU. (birthday present from the folks) And it was FANTASTIC! Tap dancing and all. So much talent! I recommend it to everyone!

And here's a real great picture of Buck and me....

 And here it looks like I got beat up by a rainbow.

Fhew! And somehow in there Buck did homework and I finished my grocery shopping. (yet somehow I still managed to forget the bacon...)

I LOVE SPENDING TIME WITH BUCK AND BABY JUNE!!!!

More Advice

I'm telling you, these things are showing up everywhere here in American Fork UT.

(scroll down to see the other two)

Thanksgiving

I can't believe it's December. But I'm actually glad. Let's get this winter business started and over with! (But I'll have you know that I am going to try and embrace it as much as I can. I have igloo building plans, dog sledding dreams, and a warm fireplace. Good right?) So anyway, before it gets too far into the Christmas madness, let us talk about Thanksgiving.

We went to Boise for a week, which was both relaxing and super stressful. Relaxing to be home, sit in the hot tub, see, a movie, eat good food, go out to eat, see old friends, watch my dad play Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, go to the festival of trees and of course having Thanksgiving dinner. Stressful because of, well, June.

She screamed all week. It was hard to tell if she was hurting or just angry at the world because she wasn't in her familiar home. Either way, it made for a long week. Guess my baby girl isn't the most adaptable of the bunch. It's okay though, we still love her. ;) And she would only calm down for Buck or my dad. But us women? We might as well have been holding her with spurs.

But enough of that. We're just happy to have her. And you'll be surprised to know that I didn't take a TON of pictures (but my small amount is still probably larger than a normal person's large amount) but here they are!

I think everyone had these turkey treats this year.

"feed meeeee!"

our cat, Chewbaca

Uh oh! ..... Thanksgiving food belly ;)

Rice cereal! (not going so well...)

Guess where that drool landed?

Festival of trees. This was a Hawaiian themed tree

My dad as Scrooge