Christmas- How are we doing?

Last Christmas morning I wrote about the need to adapt and change our celebration of Christmas because of the stage of life we are in so I thought I would throw out a few comments on how that is coming along.
This year I felt so good leading up to Christmas!  We had all of our shopping done long ahead of time, we had the goodies made and the recipiants chosen, we had a nice fun house to decorate and all the decorations were up and lit, we had two parties and enjoyed the feelings of the "old days". We attended a Christmas Tree lighting, a Parade, the Temple, 3 Christmas Concerts and a wedding reception.   I was able to go spend an entire day with one of my sisters helping another of my sisters and Christmas Eve was a lot of fun.  Emilie, Logan, Tommy and Jack came over and we  unwrapped gifts, we had a nice family dinner (note the red chargers Hope!) and we got an X-Box 360 with Kinex which everyone had fun doing!

 Dad, JJ and I read the Christmas story accounts from Mathew, Luke and Nephi together and enjoyed those quiet moments with the last child home (maybe his last?)  So far so good!  On Christmas morning is was nice to have a reason to get up so we could watch JJ open his gifts.  I made a breakfast casserole (thank you June Smiley from one of our retreats in Newberg!) and Emile brought the boys over for awhile while Logan slept.  I got to watch Toy Story 3 with Tommy (and cried...again!) but all too soon they too had to go home and the house was quiet.  I ate too much junk ( I gave up on points for the day), listened to Christmas music and watched the light snow begin to fall, and started to fall into a bit of a funk (maybe the sugar!). 
So the upstart of all this is that we have made progress toward our "new" celebration but I found the hole...Christmas day itself.  I think I have discovered that I  haven't learned to just relax and enjoy the moments of quiet.  I feel like I should be doing something all the time.  That somehow just sitting and reading a book is shirking my duty.  Dad and I finally sat down and watched one of my favorite Christmas movies...You've Got Mail (right up there with Sleepless in Seattle and While you were Sleeping!) and I felt better! 
Somehow I think that moving into the house and all of the decorations made me feel like things really were like they used to be.I realized though that with half of our family on the other side of the country and everyone having their own lives to worry about the reality is that I need to change focus.  The incident with my sister's health this year also reminded me once again of the fact that we never know if there will be a next Christmas for us.  That each one is special in it's own way and that we need to enjoy all of life and the love and connections we do have today.
 They canceled church for our ward this morning because of the weather but Emilie's ward still had church so we were able to go and it really changed my attitude.  When we discussed in Relief Society the difference between Joy and Happiness I realized that I had been looking at the wrong thing.  That we can always have Joy and that Happiness is fleeting.  Joy comes from within and Happiness is dependent on outside factors.  What I was missing was the JOY of Christmas.  That what really does matter is that Christ really did bring JOY to the World, and to me.

Pretty video of Mary Did You Know

I was looking for a video of "Mary's Lullaby" and came across this one of" Mary Did You Know" so I thought I would share it.

Home at last

This past week we had two parties in our new home and it felt so good to finally be back in a position to open our home to others.
After 3 years of having things packed away it was an early Christmas just getting to see our belongings again! Having the parties pushed us to get boxes unpacked and things on the wall and so now we truly are all moved in.  The house has such a warm, cozy feeling now that it is personalized with our belongings. I made a little video but for some reason it wouldn't upload so here are pictures of some of my favorite things in my new house.

Our practically perfect tree! It's a fraser fir from North Carolina.

My lovely Nativity:

Our living room with the tree of life.  You can't tell from the pictures but the walls are painted perfect colors for our furniture!

My Creation Spheres right where they belong!

Our new nifty bookcase (it turns!) along with some old friends:

Our dining room decked out for the holidays (I wouldn't have picked the wall paper!)

Dad's wall in his office and our great wood sculptures from John

Dad's favorite toy is back out!

Our Bedroom with our new lamps and our Lake Oswego comforter:

And Emma has taken her place back in my room. I love this picture.

My fun wall in my kitchen (some updating of pictures needed!)

Dad has been having a great time baking and getting things ready for Christmas.  He and Emilie have made quite a few goodies this year including some new ones. We made pepperment bark from a receipe in our ward newsletter, covered ginger cookies with chocolate, made the ever popular peanut butter fudge, chocolate fudge, almond joys, and peanut brittle and   I even made Stollen again this year for the first time in ages.  Tommy and Jack enjoyed playing while we baked and last weekend Brittany came and got in on some of the experimental baking!

I love Christmas, it brings back so many wonderful memories for me...and it lets me accessorize!

Whew!

I haven't posted for awhile because things have been a little busy!  First of all we moved into a new house on the 13th of November and it was like Christmas as we unpacked boxes of things we haven't seen in 3 years! Here is a picture of the new house.(we are just renting)

We are enjoying having lots of space but it seems very odd after having lived such "tiny"lives for these last several years.  We decided to move when we found out that a friend had been trying to sell their house for 2 years and had no offers.  They own the home outright so they can afford to rent it which is nice.   We don't know how long we will be here since it will remain on the market but nothing over $150,000 has been selling around here for a couple of years.

We had Thanksgiving in our new home with Emilie, Logan, Tommy, Jack and JJ.  JJ has now moved back in with us and has a nice space downstairs which will allow him to save money. These pictures were taken after the dinner, thus the naked Turkey! It's great to have space for everyone and a place for the kids to play!

We had a surprise snow last week so here are a few shots from the fleeting snow.  We had gone to DC to the temple and it snowed while we were gone.  It was the perfect snow in that it didn't stick to the sidewalks or roads but coated everything with a beautiful glistening snow.It was all gone by the time we got home from church the next morning which was a little sad.

  It is now biting cold out (20degrees) and Dad is out  putting up the christmas lights.  We have two parties here next week and we are trying to get all decked out for those. It is fun to actually be able to do all of this!  We had to go to get our tree on our lunch hour yesterday because we don't have any time after work.  There are events in the town or school every night this week (which is fun but a little exhausting). 

Last week my wonderful sister Kathy ended up in the hospital and she is still there.  She had emergency surgey on her intestines. The surgery went really well but she had problems with breathing after the surgery and she is  in the ICU because they still have her on a ventilator.  Dad took me up on Monday so that I could be with her and I had a very special time of sitting with her and having her communicate to me through writing. I loved being able to just sit with her and serve her.  She has always been such a serving person to others. She is healing well from the surgery so once the breathing issue is over she should be able to come home after a few more days in the hospital.

  We (the sisters) are scheduled to go to the Greenbriar on Dec 19-21 but they are willing to move our reservations if necessary.  Please keep her in your prayers.

Dad is having his baking day this Saturday and Emilie and Britney are coming over to help.  He has new receipes that he is anxious to try out and will do the old favorites too.  We might even make stollen this year!

I LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME!

Magical Time in the Mountains

I had been looking forward to this weekend for a long time and it didn't disappoint!  Several months ago when we went to the West Virginia State Fair we learned of scenic train rides that they have through the Mountains in the Monagahela Forest of West Virginia.  We wanted to go on a dinner train and the only one that worked for us was this weekend which just happend to be the last ride of the season (except a special Christmas one) and it was also a "Murder Mystery" ride.  We had a beautiful 3 hour ride through the mountains and along the way we stopped at several different places.  As we crossed the mountains we were on what was an old turnpike.  We stopped where the old toll booth used to be and looked at the gorgeous view:

A Family used to live on the property and collected tolls and that is how they made their living .  People would pass this way on their way to Bath County where the hot mineral springs are. (thus the name Bath)

 We, of course, read all historical markers along the way.  This one represented another sad aspect of the civil war-brother against brother.

 I thought this one was interesting because I had never heard of this problem in the Congo before.

 Directly across from these markers were the Jefferson Pools. These bath houses have been in use for over 200 years.

This wooden structure was built in 1761 and has a pool inside that is 120 ft in circumference and holds $40,000 gallons of constantly flowing, crystal clear mineral spring water.  There is a "ducking chair" inside that was used to help invalids into the pool.  It was used by Mrs Robert E Lee before and during the civil war to help with her rheumatioid arthritis.It is considered the oldest spa in America and  Thomsas Jefferson used the pools in 1818 at the age of 75 for his arthritis.  He would come and stay for 3 weeks at a time to "take the waters".

After soaking in the pools they would drink the water from this pool

some interesting information on the contents of the pool:

You can still come and soak in the pools for $17 an hour and we are planning on going back to give it a try sometime.  We think we'll do the family time when bathing suits are NOT OPTIONAL!  They have a ladies pool and a men's pool but during family time you can be in the same one!

We then traveled to our destination of Elkins West Virginia where we boarded the Mountain Explorer train.

Here is the crowd with the conductor:

Here is our table and some pictures along the way.We got to choose between Salmon, Prime Rib and Pork with apples. It was all very good!

 We sat with a nice couple from Harrisonburg VA, the Hams.  They work with at risk children and have had many foster children in their home and are getting ready for a permanent placement child.  He is a fish and wildlife patrolman and they were very interesting to get to talk to. Those are the menus propped up against the window. The sceanery was gorgeous and most of the time we were along the river. The leaves this year are not as spectacular because it has been dry and off and on cold and warm and we have had tremendous winds so most of them had blown off.  By the time we got to the waterfall it was dark outside and that is where some of the "murders" took place 

We thought these people might be part of the cast so we took their picture.  It turned out that they had just dressed up as characters from CLUE(expect Sherlock Holmes!) for the fun of it.

Here is one of the actors in the mystery (and our waitress). She ended up dead and we didn't guess the right murderer but it was fun anyway!

Here is the last part of our trip. Guess where you think we are by these pictures:

If you said Hospital or Hotel you would be right because it was an old hospital that they turned into a Days Inn but they have't  done much remodeling!  It SMELLED like a hospital (not my favorite fragrance) and the bottom two floors had Dr's offices, a lawyer and bondsman and the lobby had a gift shop!  We had booked from Hotels.com and now we know why it was so inexpensive!  At least the bed was comfortable and didn't have a crank!

There is definately plenty  more  to see and do in the mountains of West Virginia and we look forward to having more adventures there! 

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween!

Temple Trip

This video is of the sculptures that we saw at the visitor center at the DC Temple last weekend. These will eventually be made into large statues and put in a sculpture garden at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi Utah and they are truly amazing.

  It was our stake day in the temple and some people worked on the grounds while others went in to do ordinance work.  They light the temple up at Christmas time and so they have wards come in to get all the trees ready.  They also planted tulips for spring.  John and I went in to do a session with a member of our Temple Preparation class that was going for her own endowments and then John stayed to help with the veil and I went out so Emilie could go in and do a session. 
It was a gorgeous fall day with a breeze and we had a very large portion of our stake there. (the goal was 100%)  It takes 3 hours to get to the Temple and the traffic around the beltway in DC is terrible so it always takes a long time to get home but is sooo worth the trip!
When Tommy went in to see the sculpures with me (he had already been with his Mom) he ran right up to the largest statue of Jesus and ran his finger across Jesus' foot and said Ow wee.  It was  a tender moment and you could feel the spirit.  One moment amidst all the running around he did, but one very special moment!
I watched the video on the building of the Salt Lake Temple on Sunday and once again it reinforced in me how grateful I am for all those who sacrificed so much so that we could enjoy such wonderful fruits.  How blessed we are to have Temples so close.

The Healing Power of Jesus Christ - Sculptures by Angela Johnson

Little updates

I can't believe that I have neglected my blog for so long!  It's not that we haven't done anything it is just that I haven't mustered up the time to write.
Three saturday's ago we went to New Market Battlefield for another dose of the civil war.  We have been meaning to go ever since we came here and we pass it every time we go to DC.We even went there one time for a Cross Country race but just haven't gone as "tourists".  It was a gorgeous,  warm (almost 90) fall day and so we ventured on up the road.  For those of you who don't know, the battle of New Market occurred when the Southern Troops were trying to keep the Yankees out of the Shanandoah Valley.  The south didn't have enough troops to hold off against the ones that were coming and so they requested that the 257 Cadets from VMI come to fight with them.  The Cadets marched from Lexington (6 miles from where we live) to New Market about 80 miles away in  4 days.  These young cadets, half of whom were freshman,  were used to marching and studying war but had never had to fight.  The intention was not to use them if at all possible but it became clear they needed them.  The battle took place around the family farm of the Bushong's who took cover in their basement.  There was a hole in the middle of the line and the cadets were used to plug the hole and served valiantly.  There had been a lot of rain and the field they crossed is now called the field of lost shoes because as they ran across it, it sucked the shoes right off of their feet! Five of the cadets were killed and five later died as a result of the battle but the battle itself was won because of the cadets.  In the chapel at VMI there is a large mural of the battle and every year they have a ceremony honoring those who died.  Also, every May there is a reenactment of the battle at New Market.
 As a result of this battle ten days later the Yankees came and burned VMI down while the cadets were in Richmond helping train other troops. Feelings still run very high here over this battle. One of the cadets later became a famous sculpture and his statue Virginia Mourning Her Dead stands on the grounds of VMI.
  My greatest feeling while at the battlefield was of sadness that this country ever had to go through this terrible war with itself.  How grateful we should all be that this nation survived!

John and a "Cadet"

Kitchen of the Bushong Farm

Edge of the" field of lost shoes" and the Blue Ridge Mountains

shanandoah River

This week we had the dedication and renaming of the student union.  It is now the J Golden Kimball Student Center.  J Golden Kimball was one of the missionaries that first brought the gospel to this part of the country and it was one of the most difficult missions he ever served.  The local people even tried to drown him the the Maury river which runs through town! 
The school held a dedicatory service on Friday and they did a tribute to him and you can't talk about him without telling some great stories and hearing some colorful language!  I think he would be amazed to see what has happened here and to know that there are now 7 wards in this tiny town! (5 of those are student wards) along with an entire stake.
This week was homecoming week and Dad is in charge of Alumni relations so he was a busy guy.  We recently had a donor give us money to fix up one of the old houses on campus to make it an Alumni house and so it had to be cleaned up so alumni could actually go through it.  He also had the first SVU candy bar introduced.  It is being made by a chocolate store over in Lexington and it has a raised relief of Main Hall on it!  It looks really neat and tastes great!

Alumni House

Our New Chocolate Bar (Emilie made the sign)

Tonight we went over to celebrate Tommy's 3rd birthday so here are some pictures of him with his cake.

Notice Buz and Woody right next to him!

It is so hard to believe that he is 3, that JJ left on his mission 3 years ago (and has now been back 1!) and that I have been back in Virginia for 3 years!!!