A New Calling

I just got an additional calling this past Sunday that I'm pretty excited about.  I'm going to be the...........

Ward Girl's Camp Director!

Cabin Mom 2009

 Bring on the singing, woods, crafts, laughing and crying and over load of estrogen. I'm excited to get to know the Young Women in my ward.

Camp Lomia

My Nana

Brad and I had a wonderful time spending the holiday with our families. I didn't take any pictures, so once I gather up some from those that were good enough to take out their cameras I'll have to post some.  Over the holiday's I also attended the funerals for my Grandma (Nana) Sarah Utahna Luke Butler. My Dad's mom and the last of my Grandparents. She went by Utahna, named after and Indian Princess from the Legend about MT. Timpanogos in Utah.. She was as unique as her name. I love funerals because you learn so much about the  person who its for. Even though I had heard bits and pieces of most of the stories recounted, there is still things that you didn't know. I won't recount her whole life story or anything just a few memories of mine and some pictures that I have on my computer. Don't feel pressured to read the whole thing, I know its long.

Nana in the middle with all her family. My Grandpa John Dallas Butler pasted away about 31 years ago. She was a widow for a long time. She went on three missions after he passed away. She would (try at least) to teach the gospel to every one she met.

 

Me and Nana. She is wearing her World greatest Grandma sweatshirt. I remember for Christmas she would give us each $5 and I would get very excited for that. For a few years in a row she would also give our family a 10lb cylinder log of cheese, which I always thought was very funny. 

When I was younger Nana would take her Grand kids up to Eagar Arizona for  part of the Summer. My siblings have  lots of their own stories of Eagar . My memories are mostly with my cousin Jennifer. We are the youngest of her Grandchildren and she would call us her little munchkins. We would just run wild up there, playing in the pasture, the Barn, the tree house, it was so much fun. Nana didn't like to cook so we got to eat all the Corn flakes,Totinos pizzas, and butter pecan ice cream that we wanted. 

 

Nana could sleep any where, and she did! Nana seemed to always fall asleep when ever sitting on a couch. She would often have pull over and take a nap when driving up to Eagar.

Nana was a very slow driver, on one occasion I remember being in the car and she was pulled over by a cop because she was driving too slow. Another instance, She was driving Jennifer and I up to Eagar and we noticed a very long line of cars piling up behind us, we told her to pull over because the line was so long. Jennifer and I spent several minutes counting all the cars that had piled up. I don't remember the specific number but it was a lot! We probably drove our Nana crazy sometimes, but she was patient with us. 

Nana spent her summers in Eagar and winters in Mesa, and I had many slumber parties with her in her house across from the Mesa Temple. She would take Jennifer and I took my Uncle Nolan's house to see his wide array of animals. Nana was very supportive of me and she attended so many of my Choir concerts when I was in Middle and High school. I also had the neat experience to interview her while in High School when my Stake was doing a documentary of those who lived in the era of World War Two and she told me about when she was a part of the USO tour with some of her friends and toured around the country.

It was probably around when I started high school that Nana started declining with Alzheimer's. After a few years it got to the point where she had to be put in an assisted living home. While she was living there I had the opportunity to take her to church sometimes and frequently would drive her over to my parents house for Sunday dinners.  It was hard to watch as Nana's memory faded away. After a while you get used to how they are and you just enjoy the humerus things that happen. I have so many funny interactions with Nana.

Here is a sweet picture of Nana a couple of years ago at a family dinner at my parents house. 

Nana was such a sweet and funny lady. I love her and the great example she was to me. I appreciate all the time she spent with me and love that showed me. I'm so grateful that she is finally reunited with my Grandpa and her family and friends.

Family Fun

Spencer, Emily and their kids are in town, and we are having fun while they are here.

Feeding the Ducks

Seeing the Temple lights:

Lovely Faces :)

November 2010

November has been a great month to spend time with family, remember all we have to be grateful for, and get some sweet deals along the way.
While Brad was taking his finals for the first quarter, my sister, her three girls and I went to the AZ science center courtesy of the Library culture pass. We had such a blast in all the exhibits.


Once the exams were done and and Brad recovered from his Post Traumatic Test Disorder, we were able to get quite a few things done including our Semi-annual car wash. This time we did it style.... we had a coupon for a free full service from AZ Car Wash. Vacuumed, washed, waxed and dried... Sweet! Check out how filthy those wheel were getting...yikes!



For some reason ASU still thinks Brad is an employee and gave him free tickets to the ASU Men's Basketball game, but we aren't complaining. It ended up being really exciting with a 3 pointer with seconds left for ASU to win the game.

For Thanksgiving we had wonderful food at my parents house and Brad made some delicious pumpkin pies. We got to see Harry Potter and did a little Black Friday shopping, but no early morning deal hunting this year.
I know I sure enjoyed Brad's two week break. We had so much fun hanging out with family and friends. Man I'm going to miss having a house husband around to do all the dishes and cleaning when he goes back to school this next week.

Halloween

Here is a little bit of the Halloween celebrating we did this year.

I dressed up as a fifties housewife for an awesome Halloween carnival put on by Brad's aunt Carolyn. She had tons of games , activities, prizes and treats for the kids (and adults :) ) Carolyn knows how to put on a party!

I have recently started some research marketing where I get paid to take surveys and try products. It's pretty pathetic reimbursement, but its fun to try new products that companies are wanting to put on the market. I can't say what the most recent product is but it came by special delivery and had some dry ice in the package. Brad and I love to play with dry ice, so we made some "spooky" Gatorade with it.
One night for dinner this past week I made up some "Mummy" dogs. I got the idea from the Family fun website.

Makein it and Lovein it!

Recently my Sister-in-Law, Sarah, introduced me to this very cute crafty blog. "Make it and Love it"

http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2008/11/tutorials.html

I've had lots of fun looking through it and getting Ideas. (It's a real shame that I don't own a hot glue gun or more of those projects would come to pass.) I saw a tutorial for these silk flowers and I added that to my list of things I wanted to try someday. Then, this past Friday at our relief society craft night, it was one of the crafts, I was so excited!




They are so fun and easy to make! I put a clip and a pin on it so it could be put on a headband, sweater, bag, just about anywhere. I was excited about it, so I thought I would share.

Getting Cozy in the Ghetto

I feel like I'm really starting to settle in in North Phoenix. I've had time to discover my surroundings and am starting to make some new friends who have been so welcoming. Brad has become familiar with our home, the church, 101 freeway and Midwestern campus, and that's pretty much it (the life of a Med student... it's sad, but true.)

I knew that moving to "Phoenix" was going to be an adjustment from College Avenue in lovely 85282, and for the most part it hasn't been as scary as I thought it would be. I know that there are some really nice parts of Phoenix, but there are also some shady parts as well.
I would call our townhouses and surrounding area only somewhat shady, which is good. Right?
Nothing to be scared about and I'm not dissing my new abode, but I have made some interesting/funny observations this week in roaming around my "hood".

The Good and the Bad:
There is a Library just a little south of us and a perfect biking distance. The roads to the Library really shimmer in the sun, which is really kinda pretty, but it's too bad its due to the fact there's quite a bit of broken glass on the streets and sidewalks, and too bad it probably caused the flat tire on my bike. I'm still glad we have a library so close by.



We have a community center even closer, where there are always a lot of people,that has a park and all kinds of sporting areas and lots of grass to run around on. This morning as I went to go jog to the center I noticed someone selling something on the corner of our townhouses, and what was it she was selling? Knifes! Decorative knifes! What an odd thing to sell on a neighborhood side walk, but she did have two little kids with her so it did make the merchandise look more innocent, I guess.



As I'm typing this up I can hear the usual hum of the helicopters flying over my house, which we don't know if its due to the freeways nearby or if its a frantic search for someone.


So we are getting used to the feel of our new area. For some reason I thought it would be really different to live on the West Side of the Valley, but not much at all. It is just a little bit far from our families, but luckily close enough to visit often.