Water

I've never been a big fan of drinking water...swimming, fishing and any kind of water sport....well in my sisters words lets just say I have a family full of water babies. When I was really young we had a pool. We enjoyed that pool for a number of years till my parents moved. We have also enjoyed many trips in the boat. Skiing, tubing, knee boarding, and fishing. But back to the reason for this post. :p Ever since I can remember I have never liked water, its mainly the taste. I could sometimes stand it with ice on a hot summer day. But usually would turn to lemon aid before water. Well I married a man that LOVES water. He drinks 64Oz's a day and sometimes more. He has tried to get me to drink water too, but hasn't quite succeeded....until now....I think. A few weeks ago our Chiropractor told me that I needed to drink more water...about 50-60 Oz's a day. He told me that it would also help with my headaches. well I've been working on it and the other day I noticed that if I fill up my water bottle once in the morning by the time lunch rolls around I will have already gone through 25Oz's and if I really make sure I keep drinking that water. I can finish another 25Oz's by the time I go home...walla 50Oz's a day. and then if I drink a couple glasses when I get home I can meet my goal. :) The taste is still bad sometimes..but not all the time.

We Need Him!!

Well as some of you may know this month has been a little hard on me and I haven't been able to figure out why. James asked me the other day why I haven't been as happy in Feb. as I was in Jan. Well this got me thinking and yesterday ( I had a lot on my mind yesterday. :p) as I was struggling yet again and wondering why. I had a thought come to me asking what I have been doing differently this month compared to last month. Well last month James and I read our Scriptures and said our prayer every night. We had family home evenings, we went to church and we were nice to each other and complimented each other and focused more on the other person then on ourselves. Well in Feb. we haven't read our scriptures a whole lot, we don't pray as often as we should, and we haven't been attending our full meetings....when we go to church at all. Yeah I know you would think all of this would put up a red flag for us as to why we haven't been to happy lately. Last night though as I thought about all these things I told James about this thought and he said that that was probably why. So we decided that starting "now" (last night) that we would change all that and do all those things again. Well I couldn't sleep thinking about all this and the hymn I need thee every hour came to mind. We really do need our Savior every hour of every day. It's like that old seminary video about putting on the whole armor or God. When we don't do the things the Lord has asked..When we don't follow him and do those things that are right then we wont be happy. It says in the scriptures that wickedness never was happiness. Well I had always defined wickedness as a really bad thing...like Laman and Lemuel. But being wicked doesn't mean doing something extremely terrible like denying the prophet or rebelling after you've seen an angel. ( the whole Laman and Lemuel thing) It could just be when we don't follow the commandments of the Lord or at least strive to keep his commandments, that we could become "wicked" in a sense. What I'm trying to say is..the more good we try to do and the more we try to strive to do those things that the Lord would have us do the happier we will be. But if we give up in a sense and have an " I don't care" attitude. That's when we start to see a change not only in us but in those around us. Again I am sorry I have been so negative and down lately. But with my new acquired knowledge... :) I'll be back to myself in no time. ( I hope)

"Yea, he that truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed—yea, much more blessed than they who are compelled to be humble..." Alma 32:15

Motherhood

Yesterday we found out that Nikki and Justin ( my sister and brother in law) are going to have another baby. So first off CONGRATULATIONS to them. :) Being around babies this past year with Gavin, Aleisha, Rebecca and Elizabeth (the twins I talked about in a last blog) and now another on the way. Has really got me thinking about motherhood and the role of being a mom. James asked me awhile back why I wanted to be a mother. I have thought about this quite a lot every time the topic of motherhood comes along. This may sound weird but I am looking forward to the experience of pregnancy and having a cute little new born.
Well last night it kinda of hit me how great motherhood is. The love that you hold for your own children is a great love just like the love that our Heavenly Father has for us. It's a great responsibility and also a great blessing. You have an opportunity to feel a little of what our Heavenly Parents feel, the joys of watching your little ones succeed, the love and pride that you feel. The pain you feel for them when they are sad or sick. It must be a great thing to hear your little child tell you how much they love you...or to hear them tell someone else a lesson you taught them. Motherhood probably goes even way beyond that. I will probably never know all there is to know about motherhood till I become a mother...and even then I think I'll have a lot to learn as being a grandparent. :p Thank You to all the mothers out there who take on this responsibility but see it as a true blessing. Thanks You for your example to me. Congratulations again Nikki!!!!

James's first gig

Last Wed. James had a chance to play with the ward band for the talent show. This is one of the songs that they played and they also played mean woman blues. James has been practicing to do this for a little over a month. He was really nervous and didn't know what to expect. After the talent show was over he couldn't stop smiling about it. He said he had so much fun with it. The next day at work he took the video camera to work to show his good friend and guitar teacher Alex. I got a call at work later that day and James told me that Alex was so impressed that he has asked James to join him and his father in their little band. James is bursting he's so excited. We're going over to Alex's house later today so him and James can practice. :) It was a lot of fun watching James up there playing. I love seeing him perform at his many talents..like Tae Kwon Do and playing his guitar. he is a very talented person and has taught me a lot. I love that he is so fearless...and if he is scared he doesn't show it he just goes out there and does what ever he needs to do. I love you James! your the BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

President Bush in Africa

I found this on ONE.org and thought it was great....I hope you enjoy. :)

“Sparking” Interest in MalariaWednesday, February 20th, 2008
American Idol winner Jordin Sparks is sitting on the concrete floor of the airport here in Accra, Ghana thumbing away at her iPhone when she’s approached for her first autograph. “Of course,” she says, flashing the brillian smile that helped her to win over millions of Idol voters. She’s delighted and a bit surprised to be recognized so far from home.
Jordin has come to Ghana with Malaria No More to participate in the President’s trip to Africa and learn more about malaria, a disease which kills an estimated 900,000 Africans each year, mostly children and pregnant mothers.
Last year’s Idol Gives Back charity special raised $75 million for charities in American and Africa, including $17 million to fight malaria. Malaria No More used part of that money to protect 2 million moms and kids with insecticide treated bed nets in Angola, Madagascar, Mali, Uganda, and Zambia. The President and Mrs. Bush appeared on last year’s Idol Gives Back to thank viewers for their support. Now Jordin’s here to return the favor.
Today, she’ll appear alongside the First Couple at a series of events highlighting the US President’s Malaria Initiative, a $1.2 billion five-year program operating in 15 African countries and is just getting underway here in Ghana. She’ll do a bed net demonstration alongside Mrs. Bush at a malaria clinic on the impoverished fringes of Accra this afternoon. On the drive back from the rehearsal yesterday, our photographer, a cheery Ghanaian named Jeff, said that households in the area are stricken with 1 malaria case every month on average, a consequence of their windowless cinderblock homes and lack of bed nets. Malaria accounts for 22% of deaths among children under five here in Ghana and 44% of health clinic visits.
Tomorrow, we’ll head out into the field with a USAID rep named Bethanne to see the impact of malaria on rural communities and get a look at what they’re doing to fight back. Stay tuned. And if you’d like to help make a different, donate $10 for a bed net at http://www.malarianomore.org/.

Sorry!

I feel like I need to apologize. I havent been feeling quite myself lately. I have been feeling very down and depressed and just generally not good about myself in every way. So I am sorry I have been slacking in my writing and yesterday when I posted about James, I know it was short and didnt give a whole lot of detail so before I get into a little more detail about that I just again wanted to say sorry for being a pain lately. Okay with that said... :) James had his test on Feb. 8-9 he had to be at the test earlier then everyone was suppose to show up. So when I got there I was a little shocked to find he wasnt there. I found a seat next to a friend and saw that the reason I couldnt see him was cause he was at the front of the room. Mr. Shaw had made him a judge at this testing. He was going to be judging the people on balance as well as doing a review to see where he stands for when he really does test. The first night was mostly forms and some demonstrations. A black belt named Jarom did a break for his demonstration and a brown belt Jesse did his break early too. On saturday we were back bright and early. :) Today was the "fun" day meaning the day where I get nervous and cringe a little too. Saturday was board breaking, one steps and sparring. James did really well in all these. He did get a little hurt in his sparring match with Scott but not enough to really hurt. (if that makes sense) He said he didnt really enjoy judging as much as he thought he would have. He said it was hard to give people low scores. James really liked his review that he got. He said he felt really good about his sparring and breaking but he said he really wants to work on his forms and making them more clean. I thought they looked fine but i dont know a whole lot about whats going on.:p Overall it was a good testing....took up most of our weekend:p But it was really fun to watch. I have more video's if you want to see them.

Tae Kwon Do

This is the break James did for his Tae Kwon do review. He broke a cinder block (2 inchs thick) with a round kick and two boards with his flying side kick and two more boards with an elbow strike. It made me really nervous but he did a great job.

Just a thought on embarassing moments and family

I dont know why I was thinking about this but everyone says stuff like you thought that was embarrasing wait till you have kids. I get to hear about all these funny stories from friends and family of all the stuff their kids do that embarrass them. Well I was thinking about how teenagers always say they're embarrassed by their parents. So is that basically the roles reversing themselves? So sort of a parents subconsciously thinks that since their kids embarrasses them so much when they were younger now it's the parents turn to embarass the kids when they're older. :) Just a thought.

New Life....z

Well last Wednesday we got a phone call from my sister telling us that she had her twins :) James and I were so excited to hear that. Shelly had a hard last few months of her pregnancy and these last few weeks have been kind of rough on her. James and I were pretty worried. So not only were we excited to hear that she had the twins and everyone is fine and healthy. But we were also excited to see them. Its fun, between Shelly’s boy Josh, Nikki’s little boy Gavin, Brieanna’s little girl Aliesha and now the twins we have plenty of little babies and toddlers to play with. :) They are so cute. They haven’t quite decided on the names yet but are thinking of Rebecca and Elizabeth. They are a bout 5lbs 10 oz and the other one was 5 pounds 6 oz? I think. They are both healthy and so tiny. :) Baby A has brown hair and a lot of it. And Baby B has blonde hair and a lot as well. :) James and I went to go visit them on Thursday and when we got there there was quite a few people there and we spotted Greg and Brie sitting on the couch with Aleisha and since the twins were being held I wanted to hold Aleisha. :) She is getting so big and has such a cute little personality now. Brie said that when she was holding one of the twins compared to Aleisha she said it was a big difference. Aleisha is 2 months old…almost 3. :) I cant believe how fast they grow. We forgot to take our camera with us so we didnt get any pictures. But Nathan said that he would send us some. So when we get them I'll post them. :)

New first persidency

Well I took me awhile to share my feeling about this. :p Last Saturday James and I watched President Hinckleys funeral and I know that it's a happy time and after 4 years he's finally with his wife again. But it was hard for me to say goodbye. As I expressed this some people laughed at me and some even chastized me. But I couldnt imagine not being able to see President Hinckley anymore. So when 11 o' clock rolled around on...I think Monday. I (like everyone else here at the college) listened to the KSL broadcast of who the new president of the church would be. I was way excited to hear the the Lord wants President Monson to be our prophet. He's been a favorite of mine for awhile. I've always loved hearing his voice. It would stop me whereever I was and whatever I was doing. Well on the ride home James and I were talking about it and I just got this peaceful feeling and then an excitment. I am really excited for President Monson and I am really excited to see what his focus is on. One of the reporters asked if he was going to continue to build temples and it just made me realize how much President Hinckley did to help open the world up to the LDS church. I am very grateful to be alive during this time and to have seen what President Hinckley had done. I am very excited and eager to see how President Monson is going to carry us forward. This is indeed the Lords church and President Monson is the Lords prophet. I am very grateful for the chance I have t o hear the prophets voice and to know that there is a living prophet.

Super Bowl and Snow

Well this past sunday James and I woke up to another foot of snow on the ground and it was still snowing. Out our back window you can see Hwy 89 and across from that the albertsons, mcdonalds and other business's. Well not sunday morning. :p We couldnt see anything across the street..just a wall of white. It was great! We were going to Mom and Dad Armstrongs house to watch the game. So we were just enjoying the morning hoping that the snow would clear in time for us to go to stake conference. James couldnt even make it to choir practice sp he couldnt sing in stake conference anymore. Well around 10:00 we got a call from Nikki to say that Mom and Dad's power was out and her church was canceled. If church gets canceled that definately means the weather is bad. :) Well the snow continues till about 3:00 so we didnt get a chance to get to stake conference. Well James's sister Lisa came to our house at 4:00 and the snow was litely snowing but no bad. She said it was completely dry in Salt Lake and that the wind wasnt even blowing. When we got to Perry (where Mom and Dad live) it was coming down pretty hard out there. It was nice to be inside the nice warm house and watch the game and have the snow falling in the background. :) The game was a GREAT game. I usually cant watch an entire football game but this one was so great. Plus the added bonus of the Giants winning..oh yeah!. I was so excited. We were all cheering and clapping when they caught that last touchdown and were celebrating even louder when the Patriots player didnt catch the ball that could have put them in the lead. I think everyone in that house was cheering on the giants. The commercials were okay. There were a few funny ones. Well anyway I've rambling on. :) I hope everyone is enjoying the snow and has a great week. :)

Wanting to help make the world a better place

Before James and I met I thought I was a big U2 fan...until I met James. :) He always watched things about Bono and what he's been doing in the world, he's been to one of his concerts and James introduced me to the One campaign. (see the insert on the right under our pictures and stuff) Well I surprised James last weekend with tickets to the U2 3-D show at the Imax theater at Jordan Commons. So after work we met Nikki and Abby in the front loby of the college to go down to the show. Well before that I found a news article about another campaign that Bono started called (RED). This is a program that Bono started to help make the money needed for medication for the people in Africa. There are a lot of people in Africa who has Aids and although a cure hasnt been found there is a pill that can helpso that it cant spread to mothers with unborn children and it can continue to help them cope with this virus. All they need is 2 pills a day. Bono has teamed up with Bill Gates, Michael Dell and many others to help make this happen. They designed a new computer with the new Windows Ultimate program just for the red campaign. There are other big names that has helped out with this...Gap, Apple, Converse, etc. If you are interested in helping all you have to do is buy something. Thats it. If you have a need for a new computer, you could buy one from the red campaign and get a lot of fetures that most people wont have access to. Or if you wanted to go shopping at the Gap for a new shirt. There are some way cute shirts available under the red campaign that will help support this great effort. There is also a great interview with Bill, Bono and Michael on the (RED) website... http://www.joinred.com/ Isint it time we try to help make the world a better place? And what a great feeling of knowing that something as simple as buying a new shirt or pair of shoes can help give a person life by them getting the medication they need.