New Calling!

As predicted by Krystal, my former next-door neighbor, my new neighbor across the street, and myself, I have been called to serve in young mens in our new ward, for which I am very excited. I am the 1st counselor in the young mens presidency, which is also the teachers quorum advisor and varsity scout leader. I'm pretty excited because we've lived here in Springville for 3 or 4 months and I've not had a calling. Really the timing has been good. We had time to move in and finish everything up with my degree and get settled into my new job. After we moved here, I used to ride the bus back up to campus with our neighbor across the street, Nate, who does web development for BYU. He's in young mens and told me if I was in his ward (which we are oddly not) I would be in young mens. Krystal, on the other hand, who was fairly patient with me finishing school (while working part time and doing family web site development on the side... i.e. free), got fed up one day with all the time I wasn't putting in around home and said, "What's the point. As soon as you're done with school you'll just get called into young mens." To this end I was a little fearful to tell her about the calling. To my surprise she smiled and said "That's great." She's been very supportive so far, but then I've only had the calling for two weeks and have not abandoned her to go play in the woods yet.

Spill the Beans

Today we made the first bean harvest out of our garden. I couldn't believe how many beans we picked, and there are at least twice this many still on the plants that aren't big enough to pick, and more flowers. So we had fresh green beans to go with our dinner. Heaven. And once again, my children ate them no complaints because they were from our garden. Cool. 

The beans we didn't eat, we decided to freeze. It was super easy. I hope we grow enough to freeze enough to last until next year.

Freezing is accomplished in a few very simple steps.

1) Choose the freshest green beans you can find.

2) Rinse your green beans in cool water. Drain.

3) Cut the ends of the beans off. Cut the beans to whatever length you prefer.

4) Put the green beans into rapidly boiling water, cover the pot and boil them for 3 minutes. (You can re-use this water three to five times - but make sure it's brought back to a rolling boil).

5) Use a large slotted spoon to remove the green beans from the boiling water and immediately plunge them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Keep them in the ice water for 3 minutes. Drain them well.

6) If you have a FoodSaver a great time to use it is right now. If you don't, put the green beans into ziplock freezer bags. Make sure you get as much air out of the ziplock bag as possible to help prevent freezer burn.

7) Get ready to enjoy farm fresh green beans whenever you want!

Lookin' Back

I've always wanted to do a post like this, originally this was going to be a "The Last 10 Years" post, but I think I started it about a year ago, so now it'll have to be 11 years I guess. Oh well. I can tell you one thing though, my life sure has changed in the last 11 or so years. Wow! Enjoy...

 Jamie Fife, Shani Petersen, Laurie Christensen, Kristie Gangwer, Krystal Lemmon, Sheri Shrock, and Halee Schumers.

Softball was always a big part of my life growing up. The summer after 7th grade, I played for a team called Petersen Steel Fabrication (named after our sponsor). Our coach was Christy Creamer. She taught me a lot about softball. I played right field for her. She never even gave me an opportunity to catch. But I still feel like she was a great coach, and my fielding skills improved a lot from playing for her.

This is my 8th grade school picture. Remember tech vests and those necklaces that were supposed to look like tattoos?

Abby Weston, Alicia Sessions, and Krystal Lemmon

My best friends in Jr. High were Abby and Alicia. The three of us did everything together. One of our favorite things to do was make up dances to all the coolest music...Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Spice Girls, TLC, Brittany Spears, Mandy Moore. Alicia's mom and sisters even took us to a BSB concert. We loved to drink orange soda and eat Milky Ways. We called lots of boys on the phone. A fun thing we did on the weekends was play Wolf and other night games in my back yard. We slept out on the trap a lot, and sometimes snuck out to go toilet papering. Our favorite movie, which we watched at least 100 times, was Ace Ventura When Nature Calls. One night, during a sleep over, we pierced our own ears.

The summer after 8th grade, Petersen Steel Fabrication wasn't going to be a team anymore, so I went to play for the Shamrocks. Jeff and Dick Scadden and Kirt Story were our coaches. They gave me a chance to catch, and I switched off every other game or so with Kalee Story. Dick Scadden is one of my favorite people in the whole world. I spent a lot of time with him because I caught for him while he threw batting practice over all the years I played. I love Dick. He has a great sense of humor for one. And for another he knows his stuff. He always believed in me, and encouraged me. It was like he could see the player I had the potential to be, not the one that was making mistakes out of the field. He always spoke up for me to give me a chance. And I'm so grateful for that.

This is my 9th grade school picture. Yikes. Hello Utah hair, way too much makeup, and braces. This is the year white eye liner started getting popular. Thank goodness that's not a trend anymore.

Here's a much better picture. My officer pictures. In 9th grade I was the Honors Office President. I had all the same wonderful privileges as a regular 9th grade officer, except I also had the responsibility (along with the other Honors Officers) to plan and carry out the quarterly Honors Activities. Which meant I had to make the honor roll every quarter, by getting a 3.5 or better. I always did. The other Honors Officers were Sierra Hancock, Chad Gibson, Megan Bastian, and Ananda Jones. Our adviser was Mr. Brady, and he was little or no help, often argued with us, and told the other teachers we were horrible. So we often planned things without him or his advice. They turned out awesome too.

 
In 8th and 9th grade I played on the volleyball team. This is a picture of all the 9th graders my 9th grade year. I'm number 5. I loved volleyball. We had a lot of fun.

Alicia Sessions, Kalee Storey, Abby Weston, Heather Wayment, and Krystal Lemmon

I also played on the Jr. High softball team. I usually caught or played right field. In 9th grade we almost won the championship but last to Wahlquist Jr High. It was a sad day. The picture is of some of my friends and I as 9th graders.

The summer after 9th grade, I played for the Shamrocks again.. We were really good. We took 1st or 2nd in almost every tournament we were in. We traveled all over the state, and had a great summer.

My sophomore year of high school I made the volleyball team. That summer I ran my butt off, quite literally. Our coach was really big into conditioning. We ran a two and a half mile loop for warm up. I've never been in better shape in all my life. I loved volleyball. We listened to Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits when we warmed up for games, so now I can't hear any of those songs without thinking of volleyball. The assistant coach, Coach Hadley, was my favorite. I also had US History from him that year, I was the only sophomore in a class of juniors, and he always looked out for me. I was not very good at volleyball comparatively, and only ever played for the sophomore team. I did not try out for volleyball my junior year because that's right when everything was happening with my dad's cancer, and I thought I was more needed at home so my mom could drive back and forth to the hospital in Salt Lake every day. But I will always love volleyball and have some great memories from it.

Krystal and Abby in front of The Granster, on Krystal's 16th birthday 2002.

My sophomore year I turned 16! My parents bought me "The Granster" so named because they bought it from my grandma, Granny Jan. It was a 1990 Honda Accord with automatic everything, a decent stereo with cd player, and a sunroof. It is my favorite of all the cars I've ever had. I was so sad when it exploded my sophomore year at BYU.

The year I turned 16 was the year the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City. I went on my first date to a medal ceremony and Creed concert in Olympic Village. And I don't have a picture to prove it, but I was there. :)

Abby Weston, Natalie Haws, Shelly Widdison, Laurie Chambers, Krystal Lemmon, and Kamille Tubbs

These girls were some of my best friends my sophomore and junior year. Except for Abby, they are all a year older, but we still had some wonderful times. We loved to drive with the windows rolled down and the music blaring, singing Captain Hampton and the Midget Pirates of Willy Goat at the top of our lungs. We ate at Burger "Hole" Bar, a lot so we could visit Natalie at work. We loved to day dream about our futures and how we were all going to buy houses on the same street, and our husbands and kids were going to be best friends just like us. Things don't always turn out like you dream they will when you're a sophomore, but I still love these girls, and think about them a lot.

I made the high school softball team all three years, but this is the picture from sophomore year, because it's the only year I bought pictures. :) Sophomore year I was the back up catcher behind Sunny Schumers, who taught me a lot about catching, and made me a better player.

The summer after sophomore year I played for the Shamrocks. We still rocked it all over the place. :)

Abby Weston and Krystal Lemmon at Stewart Lemmon's funeral, October 2002.

My junior year was a rough year. My dad died in November that year, after battling cancer for about two years. So my family was kind of in a chaos. It was also a time when I made a shift in the people I was hanging out with, for various reasons, and so my social life was also in a chaos. I don't have very many pictures from this year. I mentioned already that I didn't play volleyball, because volleyball season is at the start of the school year. By March, when softball try outs are, I was ready for that as a distraction from life, so I still played softball.

I also went to Senior Cotillion, even though I was a junior. For the day activity we went four-wheeling, and we got muddy! Very fun. 

 Blake McDaniel, Krystal Lemmon, and Abby Weston

The summer after my junior year, my mom and brothers and I took a family vacation to Missouri to visit my Aunt Nan (mom's sister) and her family. We went to Nauvoo, and to a Royals Game, among other things. It's one of my favorite vacations that we went on.

My senior year was probably the best year of all my school years up until that point. Finally my senior year, I decided that I was happy with who I was, and that I didn't care what people thought of me. Consequently, I found myself in the marching band. I couldn't (and still can't) read a single musical note, but I wouldn't trade my days of marching band for anything. I made some great friends who helped me, and loved me, and who were amazing examples to me.

I am the cymbal player furthest to the right.

I've known Heidi Yamashita since Elementary School, and we've been good friends the whole time. Here is a picture of us after we chicken-napped Matt Gittins prized chickens. We tried to hold them for ransom, which was that Matt would have to take us on a date, but he never did, and some how he got the chickens back. I don't really remember the end of that. But we had fun.

Also my senior year, I was the co-editor-in-chief for the school newspaper. Chelsi (the other co-editor) and I spent a lot of time together. She is one of my favorite people. She never ridiculed or made fun of me or my opinions, but always managed to show me other ways of looking at things, and opening up my mind to things that I may have otherwise never considered. And even those times when I chose to stick to my original way of thinking, I still appreciated her insight, because I felt like I was more aware of the choice I was making, having seen more possibilities or view points. And even though I haven't seen her in years, we still keep in touch on facebook and blogs, and she's still one of my favorite people. Mrs. Perry, aka MP, was our advisor, and she was awesome too. I loved being involved with the school paper. (Chels, I stole this picture off your facebook, the only one I had was blurry. Hope you don't mind!)

Mrs. Perry, Chelsi Barnard, and Krystal Lemmon

This is the dress I wore for my Senior Cotillion. My mom had these shots taken as my senior pictures. We went in to have them done a couple different times. 

My letterman's jacket. How I loved my letterman's jacket. I wish it were cool to wear them after high school, because I totally would. It's so comfortable and warm. I lettered in softball, journalism, English, marching band, and pep band. Not too shabby. 

Senior year was fun because my brother Kyle was  a sophomore, so I saw him around school a lot. Here's a picture of us getting ready to leave for the Homecoming Dance, before my date came to pick me up. 

Jessica Noorlander, Alicia Sessions, Krystal Lemmon, Kelly Flinders

I played on the school softball team senior year. We were awesome. We took second place in the state tournament, and it broke our hearts. Fremont won state in softball the year after I graduated. Here are some high lights for me. :)

I miss softball. I think about it almost every day. Slow-pitch, and church ball, just are not the same thing.

Krystal Lemmon, Alicia Sessions, and Abby Weston at Graduation 2004

After graduation, I spent the summer getting ready to go to BYU. I moved to Provo in August 2004, and have been in Utah County pretty much ever since. 

Freshman year of college was another fabulous year in my life. I felt like my future was spread wide open before me, and that I could do anything. I made some great friends and some great memories.

This is the view out of my dorm room window in Deseret Towers. DT is no longer there anymore. They knocked them down because they weren't earth quake proof, or something like that. Being so close to the Bell Tower was my favorite. I loved listening to the happy sound of the bells. 

My roommate was Alyce Ford, from England. She was the best roommate I could ever have asked for (besides Aaron of course), and she and I had a lot of great times together. We hung the Union Jack up in our window. We scooted our beds together and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and other movies late into the night. I think we even made an obstacle course in our tiny room at one point. We went to all the sporting events we possibly could with our all-sports passes. 

In back: Paul Diehl with BYU ROCKS sign. Front: Alyce Ford, Cosmo, and Krystal Lemmon

I had lots of other great friends too, mostly from Washington. One of them being Whitney Taylor, who would later introduce me to Aaron. :) Here's some pictures from freshman year:

Kimmie, girl I don't know, Paul Diehl, Alyce, and Krystal after supporting Paul in the 5K

Me and Leslie

Grant Hardy, Tanner Lemmon, and Krystal Lemmon Easter weekend 2005

Back Row: Trevor Fitzgerald, Alyce Ford, Krystal Lemmon, Grant Hardy Front Row: Paul Diehl and Tanner Lemmon. These guys came and stayed Easter weekend with my family in Hooper. We had a blast.

These guys (Alyce is included in the term "guys") are some of the best friends I will ever have. They helped me through a lot of difficult things that were going on in my family at the time (mainly my mom getting remarried), and without them I think I would have handled a lot of situations very differently. I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father sent this group of kids into my life right when he did on purpose, because he knew how much I needed them and the things they taught me. I don't see many of them any more, Alyce and I keep in touch, but it kind of got a little awkward with the guys when they got home from their missions and I was already married with children. But I will always love this group, and think of them often.

Trevor Fitzgerald, Paul Diehl, Alyce Ford, and Krystal Lemmon outside the Provo temple after doing baptisms for the dead.

Jameson Jones teaching me how to repel at Rock Canyon Park. Our goal was to sneak into LaVell Edwards Stadium at night and repel off the top, but when we drove into the parking lot there was a cop there, and it foiled our plans. We never did go back and try again.

I went to Seattle with Trevor and Grant. It was my first visit to Washington. We had an awesome trip, and I met some great people from that group of friends who I will consider to be my friends for life.

It's funny how life can change so quickly and take you in a completely different direction than you intended to go. My friends from freshman year all left to go on missions, and I was heart broken and lonely, but fully determined to wait two long years for one of them to come home. That's when this handsome young man entered my life:

Whitney Taylor (my good friend from DT, and Aaron's cousin) introduced me to Aaron in August 2005, right before the semester started. I made it clear I was waiting for someone, but Whitney kept bringing Aaron around. He was nice, and since there was no prospective dating relationship, we became good friends. :) By October I knew we were supposed to get married, but Aaron took a little longer. He took me home to meet his family in January 2006. While there we went on a very romantic date to Multnoma Falls and had lunch by the big fireplace at the lodge. I thought he might propose to me then...but no.

I had to wait all the way until February 10th, but he finally proposed. He took me out to eat at Tucanos, then we hiked up the trail to the Y.

Me at Tucanos the night Aaron proposed.

Aaron and I in Hooper one of the many weekends we went up there to plan the wedding.

Then we got married in May 2006. I tried to post pictures that I haven't posted before, just for variety, that's why there isn't one of just Aaron and I.

Me and my mom...she loves me.

Kelly Swan, Aaron Swan, and Ryan Swan. This is one of my favorite pictures of Aaron and his brothers.

Me and my bridesmaids, clock wise starting with me: Me, Abby Weston, Alicia Sessions, Heidi Yamashita, Whitney Taylor, and Sydni Yoshioka.

In May 2007 we moved to Phoenix, AZ so that Aaron could install security systems for the summer.  I think it's awesome how the Lord prepares us for things in our life. At the time I was pregnant with Lincoln, and had no clue how to be a mother. Aaron's two sisters' husbands were working security systems too, so all three families got to live in the same apartment complex. Sydni and Stacey and I got to hang out every day, and I got to watch their wonderful examples of motherhood. I'm pretty sure being there with them for that summer changed my life, and the way that I mother my children, for the better. 

Stacey, Audrey, Bennett, Zac, Sydni, Me, and Baby Lincoln

Of course we had Lincoln in Phoenix, and becoming a mother changed my life forever as well, but I've done lots of post about that, so I won't go into any more of that in this post. 

In January 2008 we moved to Texas, and I started blogging, so our lives are pretty documented from that point on. But Texas was another one of those experiences where I felt like the Lord was preparing me for the rest of my life. I met some wonderful amazing people in our Texas ward. I went to playgroup, and book club, and girls' nights out. And at every one of those events, I felt so welcome and loved, and really felt like I bonded with the sisters in our ward because of those activities. When we left Texas, and moved back to Provo, I wasn't feeling very welcome, loved, or like I was bonding in our new neighborhood. Then suddenly, it occurred to me that I knew what to do to make those things happen. I started a play group, then a book club, and then started attending/hosting girls nights, and pretty soon, we had an awesome group of ladies in our apartment complex and we all felt welcome, loved, and bonded. And the great part is, I can take those things where ever I go from here on out. Because of Texas, I learned some ways to get women to come together so no one feels left out. I feel like that's so important.

In March 2009 my little Ivan Boy was born. Again, well documented, so I'm just going to mention it here.

In August 2009 Aaron graduated with his Bachelors degree in Electric Engineering. And decided he wanted to continue on for his masters. I'll admit, I didn't feel super supportive of this decision. During his undergrad, he'd been very pressed for time, he always had homework due, always seemed to be working on it, and always seemed to be behind in one class or another no matter how many hours he put it. I thought graduate work would be more of the same, but worse, plus I really wanted out of Provo, and I didn't know if I could survive it with two little boys to take care of.

Aaron graduating with his bachelor's from BYU

Luckily, I was wrong about graduate school. I'm sure it was still hard and stressful for Aaron, but because he didn't have the same class load and homework, we saw a lot more of him, and I'm so grateful for that. Plus, I feel like the extra years at school really helped Aaron decide what he wanted to do with his life, it gave him a lot more direction that he needed. 

In 2010 our major accomplishment was Adelia. :) 

She'll be one next week. I feel like this last year has been the hardest one so far in our marriage...everyone said it would be the first year, but I felt like we were still up in the clouds our whole first year. This last year though, we've had a lot of big decisions to make, and a lot more on our plates to try and juggle around, and I feel like in that aspect it's made it the hardest year so far.

So now it's 2011 and here we are.

It's kind of amazing to me how much a person (specifically me, in this case) can change in 11 years. And although things happened differently than I'd imagined they would in lots of different places in my life, I can look back and see how certain things effected me for the better (or for the worse) and molded and shaped me into who I am now. Pretty cool. I wonder if there is ever another 11 year stretch our there in my future where I will change as much as I did this past 11 years. It'll be great to find out.