Change of plans

Life has been a bit crazy lately. Which is probably one of the reasons my blog has been severly neglected. That said, I'm trying to do better now that my Christmas cards are addressed and ready to be mailed. :)

We've had a bit of a change of plans this holiday season. My grandma passed away last Monday, so Kate and I changed our tickets that were originally for the 19th, and came a week early so we could attend the funeral. It came as a bit of a shock for me and was very sad. I'm not sad for her, since she was 91, and she really wanted to go--but sad for the loss of a woman who has part of so many fun and special memories for me growing up. It was a really nice service, and the best part was spending time with so many family members that I rarely get to see. It just brings to my mind more focus on the things that really matter in this life--family, especially.

So, here I am, with this extra week of vacation that I wasn't planning on. It's kinda nice I have to admit. Nice to escape the stress that was very prevalent last week as I hurriedly got ready to leave town for 3 weeks--doing laundry, baking several different types of cookies and toffee for teacher and friend gifts, cleaning the house, making costumes for the ward Christmas party, making arrangements for my kids during the days I'm gone, and trying not to get an ulcer! I swear I need therapy. Trevor walked in the door the night before I was to leave, saw what I had been doing all day, and said, "you know this is all self-inflicted stress, right?" He was referring to all the baking I had been doing all day. All I could say was, "I know! You are married to a crazy person!" So my goal this week is to de-stress, and do the things I couldn't seem to get done at home--updating my blog, sending out the Christmas cards, and maybe even getting caught up on my photobooks! I have Kate with me, and Trevor will come with the other girls this coming Friday.

If you're in town, give me a call! Let's plan a gathering!!

A Holiday Photoshoot

What a little stinker this little girl was...I'm surprised that we got any good ones of her!

A long overdue post

Okay, so it's two weeks late...but better late than never, right? I'm a little disappointed with our picture taking on Halloween night. This was the best one of the three girls together. Grace was a "Sparkle" witch (whatever that is), Holly was Tinkerbell (she even had her little stuffed bear in a tinkerbell costume!), and Kate was Minnie Mouse--she kept the headband in her hair for, oh, maybe 5 minutes. But it was cute while it lasted. Our ward has a trunk or treat every year. The primary presidency was in charge of the cake walk, so that's where I was all night. Trevor signed up to do the donut on a string. It was a great success! But also very busy; hence the lack of good pictures. The kids had so much fun.

This is a terrible picture of our cute pumpkins. Here in Houston, you can't carve your pumpkins more than 24 hours in advance because they start to mold and attract bugs, etc. So, about an hour before we had to be at the church we started the mad dash of carving 5 pumpkins. I was quite impressed with the turnout considering we did it all in about 30 minutes. The one on the end spelled "TREAT." The one to the far left, Grace did the carving. Holly designed the middle pumpkin. Anyway, this is not all that interesting, but they did look very cute at the donut on a string booth.

After the trunk or treat, we took the girls to the local high school football game. A bunch of families in our ward have kids in the marching band, so we went to support them. It was a blast!

HSM3

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Trevor - I thought this was funny and Annie hadn't posted anything for awhile. She has been meaning to take Grace and Holly to see HSM3...maybe this will motivate her to go. XOXO

Switzerland

Our trip was so fun! Here's a quick rundown of our whirlwind week.

Saturday: flew from Houston to Lyon, France via Paris.

Sunday: arrived in Lyon--it was a really long flight. Met Trevor at our hotel, went out to dinner, tried to get some sleep since I couldn't get any on the flight.

Monday: took train to Lausanne, Switzerland-- the Olympic capital of the world. The city sits right on the edge of Lake Geneva, which is absolutely breathtaking.

Tuesday: Spent the morning exploring the Chauteau de Chillon that was built in the 12th century, and had been beautifully restored. Then we took a beautifully scenic train through the alps to Gruyere, where the cheese comes from. We watched them make it, and we had some really delicious fondue. Then we continued on the train high up into the alps to the Berner Oberland region. I think this was probably the coolest part of our trip.I mean, words or pictures can't even describe the beauty, and absolute majesty of these mountains. We stayed in a village called Gimmelwald. Its a small village that sits on the edge of a sheer cliff, and can only be accessed by tram.

The peaks from left to right are the Eiger (ogre), Monch (monk), and the Jungfrau (maiden).
We arrived in the evening. And this is what we woke up to. Are you kidding me? Doesn't it just make you want to sing? It almost brings tears to my eyes just looking at the pictures.

Wednesday: Took early lift to the Schilthorn, ate breakfast in a revolving restaurant where we had 360 degree views of the alps. And it was also famous for filming one (it might have been the first) of the James Bond movies.

A lot of these pictures were taken on a hike that we took just above our village. It was the best day. We were surrounding by amazing views and walking in Sound of Music meadows. We both felt like bursting into song whenever we looked up--and sometimes we did! Seriously, it was that pretty. Pictures just can't do it justice. I tried to put some of the best ones, since I am sure you don't want to look at the millions we took.

If I could do the week all over again, I would spend more time high in the alps. What an amazing place.

Thursday, we woke up with the intention of staying the entire day and going up to the top of the Jungfrau, but we were fogged in. It was devastating. What was so clear and beautiful the day before, was still beautiful, we just couldn't see any mountains. So we headed out and spent a couple of days in Lucerne. I've been to Lucerne before. Eight years ago, when Megan and Kate and I went to Europe we stayed there. It's a beautiful city that sits on a really pretty lake with swans, etc. But I don't remember it being so huge 8 years ago. I think it's really grown. We had fun, though. We went to the Picasso museum, and the glacier museum, and we shopped, ate, and walked a ton. We even went to a movie. We hadn't seen The Dark Knight, so we found a theater that was running it in english with german subtitles.

Friday, we spent the day in Lucerne. We took a 2 hour boat cruise on the lake to see the different towns around, and it was really beautiful. We also had to figure out our travel plans. We were supposed to go to Zurich and both fly home together. But the hurricane had totally changed Trevor's travel plans, so we ended up going to Paris instead of Zurich so we could catch his flight.

Saturday: We took the morning train to Paris. It was the most beautiful and perfect day to be in Paris. Just gorgeous. We had worn jackets and coats all week, but not in Paris. Blue skies, in one of the most beautiful cities on earth. We only had time to see the main sights: Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysses, the Louvre (we didn't get to go in, though...next time!) I think we ate in the same cafe that Megan and Kate and I ate in right by Notredame. Memories! We took a cruise down the Seine River. It was such a lovely day, we wished we'd had more time.

Look at those gorgeous parisian bridges all lit up!

Sunday: Sadly, we had to fly home. But, we were happy to come home and find our kids and grandparents all alive and happy and living in a house with newly-restored power (it had just come back on the night before.)

What a blast.

My house is no longer a third world country...

Okay, I'm finally posting pictures! All I have to say is, September was a CRAZY month. Ike hit Houston on the 12th, and this is what my house and neighborhood looked like when I drove around taking pictures on the 13th...

our fence in the backyard.
part of our neighbor's tree was blocking our driveway.
a couple of houses down...there were a TON of trees like this in our neighborhood.
that's right, the tree is IN their house. Wish I could say that it was the only one I saw...
this was my across the street neighbor's garage.

I still can't believe that my house was literally unscathed. We had a ton of debris to cleanup, but that is really all. When we drove around our neighborhood, it looked like a bomb went off or something. Phones were out for several days. Cell phone coverage was very spotty. Gas stations did not have gas, and stores didn't have power, so many were not open. Trevor got on one of the first flights out after the airport opened back up to leave for France, and so the girls and I camped out on our own...and the power was out for us for two full weeks. That was a bit of a nightmare. Luckily, the weather was unseasonably cool and pleasant. So we were able to open the windows to keep things cool. Some friends of ours that had power restored to their house very soon after the hurricane lent us their generator so that we could keep our fridge and freezer cold. So many blessings to be grateful for. I don't think I realized just how much we relied on power until it just wasn't there. You can't run your dishwasher, or garbage disposal, cooking becomes very difficult, no tv, no phone, no internet, I could go on and on. And it gets very very dark, very very early. My poor girls became very well acquainted with their flashlights. But they were troopers. It was sort of like camping and being on vacation. Everything on our calendar (including school) was just cancelled, so we hung out with friends a lot and played. Slowly more stores opened, and gas stations that had gas didn't have lines a mile long anymore, and the cell phone service improved. Eventually, the city did pick up the mountain of debris sitting on my front lawn. But we are still waiting for them to pick up the mountain of bagged debris that is still out there. But at least we have power...hallelujah! Kind of a surreal experience...one that we survived, but wouldn't wish on anyone. Those poor people on the coast have it so much worse, and it will be months if not years before life is normal for them again.

My house is a third world country...

Well, I only have a few minutes to post an update. The hurricane hit last Saturday, and it is now Friday and we still have no power to our house. Luckily, the weather has been unseasonably cool, which has been a major blessing. I have so many pics of the damage to our neighborhood, but since I don't have internet at my house, I'll have to post them when I get back from Switzerland. Hopefully within another week we will have power restored so I can share with you our "exciting" hurricane story. (Not really very exciting, though.) Our house is fine. Our fence in our backyard blew over in one section, and we had a lot of debris from a tree falling on our driveway. But that is really all. We are so blessed...so many people had their entire houses destroyed. My across the street neighbors had a huge tree take out their garage. What a mess! The grocery stores are slowly getting back to normal, and gas was hard to find at first, but is starting to normalize too.
I'm leaving tomorrow for Switzerland and I'm so excited...but I feel bad leaving my inlaws with my children in my house without power. Pray for cool weather! :)