The Office

This season of the office is not going to disappoint. The season premier was on Thursday, but with my new job, I have been busy all week. Thank goodness for TiVo, I just go to see it today and LOVED it-hilarious!!

A perfect day

Today is one of those days that I hope I never forget. Nothing particularly exciting or special happened. It was just an ordinary Saturday. Dan and I went to dinner to a little Italian restaurant. We ordered pizza and it was so fresh and authentic tasting. We sat outside, watched the sunset, laughed and talked, eating our pizza. The weather was perfect, it was quiet and we got some much needed alone time together. I kept thinking, I don't ever want to forget this day. Do you ever have those overwhelming moments where you just feel so much love for another person? That's how I felt towards my sweetheart today.




I only have eyes for you, babe!

So grateful

In my new training class, I have become friends with three very pretty Hispanic girls. Yesterday we were driving to a blood drive and we got into a deep conversation about immigration and illegal aliens. One of the Hispanic girls, Myra, was born in Durango, Mexico. Her parents worked very hard so they could move here to America legally, but she knew of many who had gotten here illegally. I was very interested and asked her all sorts of question about how Hispanic people get here illegally. She said that many people will risk their lives to get here to America and it is very dangerous. Many of them pay a lot of money to have people help them get across the border. When they get to America successfully, the same people who help them get here demand even more money, usually thousands of dollars. The illegal aliens have no way to pay, and if they don't pay, they end up being killed.

But why? I asked, why do so many people, a lot of whom are young mothers with children, or families, risk their lives to be here in America. She explained that in Mexico, a good job would pay only $50 dollars a week and the cost of living is the same as it is in America. Myra also said there is organized crime, the "Mexican Mafia". They have pretty much taken over most of the more rural areas of Mexico and most of Durango, the state in Mexico where her family is from. They will force people in cars over to the side of the road and steal their cars. She told us several heinous crimes happening all the time there. Too horrible to write down. The police are scared of the Mafia, and let them run wild. No one goes out at night. After 11:00 P.M. the police have told everyone they are on their own. They will not respond, or help, or go out after 11 at night because it has gotten so bad. Most of Myra's extended family still lives in Durango but her family rarely goes to see them because it is too dangerous.

After this conversation, I just can't stop thinking about how good we have it here. I complain over the most ridiculous things and I really have no reason to complain at all. We are so blessed to live in America and I love my country.

Elder Bednar comes to town.

Today we had the privilege of having Elder Bednar speak at our stake conference. Dan and I were really excited to have a member of the Quorum of the Twelve come to our meeting. I wanted to write down a little bit of his message because it touched us so much. Not to get too cheesy on everyone, but it really is amazing how much the Lord knows us and what we need to hear. Today, the nail was hit right on the head with Elder Bednar's words for our little family. He talked about how, "Happiness is not the absence of a load, happiness is bearing the right load." By load, he meant our burdons and responsibilities in life. He explained that so many times in our lives we think, I will be so much happier when school is over, or the kids are older, or I have more money, or ____ insert whatever it is that may be our "load", is over or gone. But he wanted us all to realize that no matter the time in our lives, we will always have a load, but it is important that we fill our lives with the important and right loads in order to make us the happiest. Not that we aren't grateful and enjoy our lives right now, but so many times Dan and I have said, we can't wait for school to be over and he has his career going and we have a house, and, and, and..... the list goes on and on. Elder Bednar talked about when he was in school getting his Ph.d, his professor told him that he didn't think he could finish his schooling because he had 2 young children and a wife at home and it would just be too much for him to do. His time was too divided. He said he used to lay awake at night and say to his wife, "How can I do this? I have 2 children and I am the Young Men's president and the early morning seminary teacher. Everyone else in my class is unmarried with no kids or outside responsibilities. All they have to do all day is study." Dan and I looked at each other and smiled. I can't tell you how many times Dan has laid awake at night, with these similar worries and said to me, how can I do it all? Out of the 5 people in Elder Bednars Ph.d program, he was the only one who graduated! Wow, how inspiring is that? He also told us specifically to never let studying be an excuse for not fullfilling our church responsibilities. Yikes! Another one we needed to hear. Not that we don't try, but there is always room for improvement. To conclude his message, he talked about how we should not just avoid bad, but do and become good. Our new family motto! We plan to make a few changes, because no matter what the "load" is in life, and there always is one, it's time to start choosing more of the right loads.

Date night

As is the case with many other couples, Saturday is our date night. We both live for Saturdays. Dan's schedule is exactly what you would expect a medical students schedule to be, grueling and rigorous. He wakes up at 5:00 A.M. every morning and heads to school. He studies at school until 9:00 when his classes start. He is in classes from 9:00 A.M. to about 5:00 P.M. He comes home and studies all night until 11:00 P.M, goes to bed and then does it all over again the next day. This is his schedule all week, and the only breaks he takes are to eat dinner and go running. So as you can see, we get pretty excited when Saturday rolls around. Dan still studies all day on Saturday, but after 6:00 P.M. he is all mine! No talking, stressing about school, or doing homework is allowed after six o'clock, and it is my favorite time of the week. We go out to dinner, shopping, rent movies and just have a great time being together. Somehow our date night always seems to revolve around food. This Saturday, we went to a BBQ place, which was ok but nothing to write home about. Then after that we went and got ribs, and dessert, I will spare you all the boring details since this whole blog is turning into a food blog. We then rented Heroes and plan on staying up all night to catch up on all the super-hero filled action. And thanks to all the concerned phone calls about the hurricane. It hasn't hit us too bad here, just a lot of rain and wind, but we appreciate all your concern about us. We have been watching the news and Hurricane Ike has caused a lot of destruction in the Houston area. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those people who have been hurt or lost their homes and businesses.

We are back in business!

My very smart husband fixed the little site feed problem we were having. So you all can add us back to the side with your other family and friends because it now should work just fine!

Just so ya know...

Many of you are adding a new feature on your blogs with the family and friends link. It shows when each person updates their blogs and mine won't work! It links you to a deezer website. Anyway, it's weird but no one can get it to work. So I hope you all are still checking our site ;)