Memorial Day Weekend

Dinner up Emigration Canyon to Ruth's Diner with grandma and grandpa Viers. They visited us from Folsom, CA and we always love it when they come to town.

Here's Nate jumping over Matt and a couple of neighborhood boys...

...and another angle...this one taken from road-kill perspective.

Another DC Trip! May 13-17, 2008

This time our trip to DC was for work (National Association of Realtors midyear meetings). My coworkers all went to the Orioles/Redsox game on Tuesday night - very fun! Matt hadn't been to Camden Yards before and the weather/evening couldn't have been more perfect.
More time with the gang! Here we have Heather and Michael Bush, Jill Chappell, Amber Sechrist, Margaret Owens (peeking out the back), Matt, me, and Caroline.
Erika (Thew) and Travis Bowen met us at our favorite Carlyle Grand Cafe - wonderful to spend time with them. Love you guys so much!

Mother's Day highs and lows but mostly highs... and some wonderful time with the Herger's!

On Mother's Day we had wonderful guests for dinner - the Herger clan and also Laura Cannon. I worked for Congressman Herger in Washington, DC for 5 years, and then Laura replaced me in that position when I left. Laura now lives here in Utah and works with me. So the Herger's were in town visiting their daughter, Julie (her husband Wil and daughter, Reagan are all in the picture) and wanted to come by and see us before they left town. What a perfect Mother's Day to share it with them.

I have to also say (while talking about Mother's Day) that I am truly humbled by my family/kids/husband. I didn't know how personal to be in this post, but this whole experience turned out to be so tender and special that I feel okay sharing it. I found out just before Mother's Day that I was about to miscarry our little baby (I was barely pregnant and many people didn't even know, yet). As you can imagine I was heartbroken (and found it a bit ironic that this all happened over Mother's Day weekend). But what began as true sorrow and suffering turned into the most tender and rewarding of experiences as the kids (and sweet Matt) created such a special home and experience for our family. When we told the kids (can't hide crying from them), amazing Kayla vanished to her room for a while, and then all of a sudden our dog, Sadie, came to me with a letter sticking out of her dog-collar. I pulled it out and read the most humbling letter from my sweet daughter. At first I didn't feel much like going to church that day, but with Kayla's letter about how much she loves me and praising my efforts at mothering her and Nate, and with Nate singing in the primary program during church, I had a change of heart, and I'm so grateful that I did. Tears streamed down my face during church as I felt overwhelmed for these 2 little kids that I get to mother - how could I be sad when they love me more than I could have ever imagined. The day ended perfectly with such dear friends over in our home (and my dad, too). I truly felt the love from our Heavenly Father and couldn't deny the blessings that are so abundant in our lives.

BYU Women's Conference May 1-2, 2008

This is the second year that a few of us have attended BYU Women's Conference and this year I had such a pleasant surprise happen. This couple that I'm pictured with here are two very important people to me from my upbringing. They are Jim and Karen Talbot; Jim was my bishop when I was in High School while Karen was my Young Women's President. While browsing the class catalogue, I saw Karen's name as an instructor and I made the trek across campus to catch the class. She is amazing - always was as a teacher in my youth. Afterward, I made my way to the front to reunite after so many years (I haven't seen them since I was 18) and it was such a fun reunion. Bishop Talbot (Jim) was a wonderful leader as well, and they were such a strong example to me as the kind of couple to emulate my future marriage off of. What a blessing to see them again.

St. George Weekend April 18-20, 2008

My cute parents. They took us on a walk up Snow Canyon and it was beautiful. Matt and Nate rode their bikes (shocking... and we had already gone mountain biking that morning!) and we walked with the dog.

Nate's so good...

We had the most wonderful time in St. George with my parents! This is at a favorite restaurant, the Painted Pony.