A Note from Pat

This week I came home to an empty house. I saw this note from Pat and it made me laugh so hard. 

"Went running. I have my phone so feel free to call me if you need something. If I don't answer right away that is because I might not be able to hear/feel the phone on my hip as I am running. I am going to try and run a lap around Central Park! So I may be gone for a while.

Things I have w/ me:

-Phone

-ID

-Credit Card

-Sweets"

As you can tell from this note I am bit paranoid. More than a few times I have FREAKED out when Pat hasn't answered his phone and I always ask him if he has all of the items he listed in his note if he is going running by himself.

I saw a similar graph to the one below, but I adapted it to apply to me and exactly what I think. 

Our Tiny Christmas Tree

One of the traditions I wanted to start was to set up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving; however, we decided that we wanted to switch that the first Monday after Thanksgiving, since every Monday in our church are designated as Family Night.

When we moved to NYC I gave away our 6ft Christmas tree because we didn't have room to store it or even to put it up. This year I bought a much smaller artificial Christmas tree, but still the only place to put it is on top of our two-seater dining table.

We tried to be festive this year by playing Christmas music while we set the tree up, but since our fake 4 foot Christmas tree only took about 10 minutes to set up, the music was short lived.

Last minute we also thought it would be fun to put one gift for each person under the tree right after the Christmas tree was set up. Pat didn't like the wrapping paper we had on hand, so he is waiting to wrap his gift with some paper that he like better than the one I wrapped his with.

Every year, since we have been married,  I have boughten a Christmas ornament.
2011 will be our 5th Christmas ornament. 

Montee apparently really likes the taste of plastic Christmas trees. 

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade & Dinner

This year Pat and I decided to be the ultimate tourists and to make sure we did all the NYC touristy things around the holidays. Last year, I was a bit of a bah-hum-bug and never wanted to put forth the effort and brave the crowds for those infamous New York celebrations. 

One such event, is the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Last year, I didn't want to wake up early and get seats for the parade, so we ended getting to the parade just as Santa passed by. Pat was very depressed that he missed it all, so I vowed we would do it the following year. I am proud to say I follow through with my promises, even if it does mean waking up at 4:45am on Thanksgiving morning. I don't feel like there are many things in life that warrant waking up before 5am; however, I am glad to say the Thanksgiving Parade is one of those exceptions. 

We claimed our seats by 5:45am, with our friends, Tommy and Amanda, when there were only a handful of people on the street. We kept ourselves warm, happy, and full by eating breakfast sandwiches and drinking hot cocoa. 

The time actually went by really quickly in the wee morning hours as we watched the sun rise above central park and the city. 

As the sidewalks fill with people and the parade was set to start any minute, Pat decides he needs to go to the bathroom. He has been holding it for a few hours and he can't bare it any longer. So minutes before the parade begins Pat has no choice but to leave and find a bathroom, no easy feat in NYC, let alone Thanksgiving morning. With the crowds of people I really didn't think Pat would ever be able to make it back in time. I couldn't believe that Pat was going to miss the parade for the second year in a row!

Niel Diamond was by far the most entertaining celebrity on a float.
He was singing and dancing with his old man dance moves
as he filmed the crowd from his own personal camera. I loved that
he was so excited to be on a float that he was documenting it himself!

I was really excited to see Scotty McCreery. He was one of our favorites last season on American Idol. 

Fully expecting not to see Pat until the parade was over, I watched the first hour of the parade feeling so sad for Pat that he was missing all the action. Finally, by some miracle, Pat was able to make it back to our seats, only after having to take a taxi to and back from his work over 30 blocks away. I was so happy he was able to make it for the remaining hour of the parade. 

I really couldn't believe how fun and entertaining the parade was. I really enjoyed the whole experience, especially with our friends Tommy and Amanda. I am surprised to say that I had so much fun that I would gladly do it all again next year.

After the parade I was totally exhausted. The minute I came home I jumped into bed and took a nap before our Thanksgiving dinner at our friends house, the Newmans. We volunteered to bring a few sides, mashed potatoes and yams, so I set my alarm to be able to wake up on time to make it. However, Pat being the wonderful husband he is, knowing that I was so tired, did it all himself! When I woke up, he told me to go back to bed and that he was already taking care of it! I couldn't believe, that was by fat the sweetest thing he could have possibly done. I didn't argue with him one bit. I just turned around and went back to bed until it was time to leave.

The dinner was amazing. However, I was so impressed with their decorations and preparations of the meal that I totally forgot to take pictures of the most important part...the PEOPLE!!!!  So sad and a major fail on my part.

Our friends, Maria and Matt, invited us to this dinner and I am so glad they did. We had such a fun time  having the a traditional Thanksgiving meal in NYC, no easy feat. We really enjoyed getting to know people we otherwise wouldn't have been able to spend time with and of course the food was amazing. 

We played a really fun game after dinner that is a tradition in the Newman family. After dinner everyone sat in a circle on the floor and each person was given three die. However, these were not normal die, but rather wooden die with a letter written on each side: J, O, and Y. A pile of candy was placed in the center of the circle, along with some big ticket items (king size candy bars). A timer was set for 60 or 90 seconds. When the time begins everyone rolling their die and tried to spell our the word "Joy." When your die spelled out the word you were able to pick a candy from the pile in the middle or take a candy from anyone else's pile. When the time ran out you got to keep any candy that is left in your pile. I know I didn't do a very good job at explaining how to play the game, but trust me, it was so much fun and I fully intend on stealing this tradition for future Thanksgivings. 

Singing Amazon.com's Praises

A few weeks ago we got a new mattress. After extensive research online we chose an inexpensive memory foam mattress and decided to purchase it from Amazon. I was not nervous about ordering the mattress because I figured anything would be better than our mattress now and it has 5 out of 5 stars with over 500 reviews on Amazon's review system. Of course there were a few bad reviews, but we figured we would trust the numbers and go for it. 

The day the mattress arrived we were so exited. Since it was a memory foam mattress it came in a relatively small box. Once the mattress was taken out of the box and the plastic covering removed, within seconds we had a full size king size mattress. 

However, after the first night out all our excitement was quickly depleted as the mattress was extremely firm. We knew it usually takes a few weeks to get used to a new mattress so we gave it a shot; however, after a week of no sleep we decided the mattress need to go back. But how!?

The mattress weighs 100lbs and it no longer fits in the original box. So, to make a very long story it was a nightmare to send at 6ft by 6ft mattress in NYC back to Amazon, but despite the headache this was Amazon refunded us the money with not hassle at all.

After fighting with UPS for days on end they finally agreed to pick up our mattress. Luckily, when they picked it up when my dad was in town on business, and let me tell you he certainly earned his keep while staying with us. At first Pat would not tell me what happened because it was such an awful experience for the, but after prying he finally relented.

We had purchased a mattress box to put our mattress box in. However, when Pat and my dad tried to get the mattress in the box down our stairwell 1/2 before the driver was to arrive they realized it wouldn't fit. They managed to get the mattress back in the apartment and took the mattress out of the box. They we able to fold the mattress in half using using tie downs. Then they had to rip up the box, run to the store to get tape, find some more cardboard and make a box around the folded mattress. This took way longer than 1/2 hour so the UPS guy was there and waiting AND my dad ended up being late to a business dinner appointment. I am so glad I wasn't there. I would have just broke down and started crying.  I am sure I didn't do the story justice but I am so thankful for my husband and dad figure that all out. WAY TO GO! 

"Only" 5 minutes

Face of Jesus Christ, Head of Christ

Artist is: Akiane who is a young girl who painted this when she was only 8 years old. 

This last Sunday, I was asked to give a 5 minute speech during our church service. This church service was special in that it was devoted to inviting people who are not of our faith so they can see what an LDS service, or Mormon service, is like and also learn more about our faith. 

Typically, as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints you are asked to give speeches during the first hour of service about once a year. Since we do not have any paid clergy, the members are the ones that do the teaching on Sundays both in our Sacrament service, Sunday School and other meetings. 

I typically do not get too nervous to speak in public, but since I am a little out of practice and I felt a little more pressure since it was a special service, I was very nervous and didn't know what to talk about. Even though it was only 5 minutes long and not much information can be covered in that short of time, it was very hard for me to think of exactly what I wanted to convey to the congregation on "how my beliefs and being a member of this church bless my life." 

Generally when I give talks I don't write it out but instead I have bullet points of stories or thoughts I want to talk about. However, this time, for whatever reason, I felt it necessary to write everything out to make sure that I covered everything I wanted to talk about. 

Since I already have it all written out, I thought I would share my thoughts with you. 

Several years ago I was having a religious conversation with a friend. At one point in the conversation I was talking about truth and he stopped me mid-sentence and asked me what “truth” means.

I was thrown off by the question and didn’t know how to answer. My mind went blank and the only answer I could give him was “Well it is something that is true!” He smiled and said “Lindsay, I think you should go find out what truth is,” and the conversation was over.

After this instance I was ashamed of myself for not knowing the definition of truth. I had thrown that word around so casually my whole life and I didn’t even know what it meant. However, I was comforted by the fact that when I looked up the definition of “truth” in the dictionary, Merriam and Webster both gave me almost the same answer that I gave my friend: “The quality or state of being true”! I was relieved to see that my answer was not that far off from the mark.

This started me on a journey of discovering what “truth” meant to me. I do not remember how long it took me to create my own definition but I finally came up with an explanation that made perfect sense to me: “Truth is something that never changes.”

There are certain truths that I have come to believe or know as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of later-day Saints. Some of these truths are:

The truth that Jesus Christ is my Savior.

The truth that through His sacrifice I am able to overcome any obstacle.

The truth that God loves all his children regardless of what they say, look like, have, or do.

The truth that God has given us prophets to give us direction and guidance since the time of Adam, to Noah, to Abraham and even today.

The truth that God has given us the ability to have our families united forever.

The truth that prayers are heard and answered.

The truth that we can receive guidance, direction, and comfort in our lives if we choose to seek it.

I have found that when I live these truths and choose to follow them that I am happier and I can see things more clearly.

Since I was a small girl I have always been very fond of a scripture that is found in the Book of Mormon. It reads: “Men are that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). Or even more simply stated “We are here to experience happiness.”

The way we are able to obtain this happiness that will last forever and not just the happiness that is experienced for a small moment is by learning and following truth.

When I was a young girl I was on a swim team. Before one of my swim meets my friend told me that she heard that if we ate a lot of candy before we swam that it would give us a lot of energy and make us swim really fast.

Since my goal at that time was to get as many ribbons as possible, and a kid can never turn down candy, we decided to gorge ourselves full of candy right before the meet.

As I am sure many of you know, and may have experience first hand, we did get a lot of energy shortly after eating the candy, but our energy did not last long. We were quickly left exhausted, burnt out and feeling sick to our stomachs.

It is the same with happiness. When we fill our lives with things that do not last but only make us happy for that moment, we are only temporarily satisfied. However, when we fill our lives with things that are nutritious, good, and true, our happiness will not be fleeting.

What I learned from my friend’s admonition that day to “go find out what truth is” has been life changing. I discovered that these truths, regardless if I believe them or choose to use them will always be the same and never change. I am grateful for this knowledge as these eternal truths bring eternal happiness and joy into my everyday life. 

Bill and Val

 

It has been a while since we have been able to visit with both Bill and Valerie, my parents-in-law, at the same time. Valerie has been able to visit us in New York, just a few months back, but Bill hasn't been able to make a similar journey just yet. 

It was great to be able to spend so much time with them when we went back to Colorado. On our last evening together, Valerie was so nice to take us out to her favorite restaurant in her area called "White Fence Farm." It was a cute family-style restaurant that has a classy farm feel to it. Hard to explain but it was great, especially the cornfritters! 

Thanks Bill and Valerie for spending so much time with us!

Garden of the Gods

While Pat and I were in Colorado we took a little day trip out to Colorado Springs to see a famous park called "Garden of the Gods." Garden of the Gods is a free public park with trails and cool red rock formations. Since I have never been to Colorado Spring and have never seen anything close to it before, I was really excited to go and to just be in nature. 

 

 

 
 

The park was great. We took a walk around and looked and read about the beauty that can come from a pocket of interesting red rock formations in the middle of no where. 

After the park Pat was excited to be driving a car and decided to take a scenic route by taking a mountain road through an area that Pat used to go camping with friends during high school. He thought it wouldn't take much longer than taking the highway; however, a hour journey back home became 3 1/2 hours! 

It was so funny as we made our way through the snowy mountain in our Ford Focus, through winding roads and steep hills. There were a few times that we were not sure if we were going to make it home, but we did! All thanks to Pat's great driving skills. 

This actually ended up being Pat's favorite part of the the trip, which left him exhausted the rest of the night from all the adrenaline he felt not knowing if the car would make it up a snow packed hill. 

The drive was actually really relaxing (for me at least). We stopped a few times along the way to both go to the bathroom, camping style, and to enjoy the view. During the whole 3. 5 hours we were driving on this road we only saw two other vehicles. It was so quiet. The only sound was that of the wind passing through the trees. 

Pat made an interesting observation as we drove down a dirty road that was lined with thousand of trees that we could barely see the sky. He said "See, it is just like we are New York, except that the trees would be buildings." 

I love Pat's perspective on life. If only I had the ability to see things as he does.