A tender mercy is...

*Loving every minute of a hike in Great Falls on the Billy Goat Trail and living to tell about it. (We were seriously scaling boulders like we were billy goats, and there were a few moments when I wondered...).



*Gearing up for my hubbie to be gone all the time working with the young men (rumors were flying that he was being considered), and then receiving the BEST CALLING EVER instead when we got called in for an interview: Youth Sunday School Teachers. Working with the youth: check. Doing it together: check. Getting to teach & feel like we're making a difference (which is something I actually love, as long as it's not adults): check. Getting a break from the intense callings of our last ward that required lots of evenings away from home: check. Perfect: check. So excited: check. Inspired bishop: check.

*Getting to sit together during all 3 hours of church. Love those 5th Sundays.

*Returning home after church to see the neighbor that has been keeping us up ALL NIGHT EVERY NIGHT with a blasting TV loading up a moving truck. We couldn't help but celebrate with a little dance once we were respectably inside our apartment.

*Finally getting ahold of the right technician who could get my business website back online. After 4 days of it being down, and countless other technicians assuring me it was deleted forever and there was nothing they could do, I was beginning to panic. Then, whala. Miracle.

*Finding a new brand of gluten-free hot dog buns that taste so normal, even Brian is impressed.

*Walking in the bathroom to find that Bri has fixed the plug in our tub. It's been broken for months, and occasionally my sore joints crave a soak! (I'd tried and tried. He is self-admittedly NOT a handyman, so I was pretty dang impressed.)

*Discovering that I can make phone calls from gmail. After over a month of having really spotty coverage in and around our apartment, it was getting hard to be patient as t-mobile fixes the tower problem. Finding that I can still harass my family whenever I want to definitely helps.

*Spending a long weekend together, enjoying the pool opening, a night at the movies and just being us. Heaven.

I know more than I know anything that Heavenly Father is always blessing his kids in ways too numerous for us to count... blessings tiny, big and everything-in-between. Some days it's just easier to see the tender mercies than others. Like this weekend...and man-alive, are we grateful!

Lessons we learned in Disneyworld...

We learned lots of other things too: dancing at a pier in Downtown Disney to a live band can be very romantic...Amber is like a two year old when getting in a cold pool (20 minutes later she might be fully submerged...maybe)...Florida is definitely pony-tail appropriate & ONLY pony-tail appropriate (hot...wet...hot)... Amber can't bring herself to let Brian kill an oyster for a pearl souvenir--wanted to, but just couldn't...we might prefer Disneyland over Disneyworld...after a Disney vacation you need a vacation from the vacation...

But maybe the most important lesson: coming back to reality is tough! Yo Ho Yo Ho, a pirate's life is for us! Until next time Disney, thanks for the memories and fun!

How to get excited for vacation Amber style:

Step One: Load cheesy Disney music on your playlist (You are so benefiting...lucky lucky ducks!)

Step Two: Buy a cute, new swimdress (Even cuter with the halter strap attached)


Step Three: Buy 90 degree appropriate clothing for not just you, but your husband. And then make sure he has loaded more than one pair of shorts and one tee in the suitcase.

Step Four: Do laundry so you have something to pack, and deep clean the apartment (Mom always taught me you gotta come back to a clean place). Huh. Somehow this one keeps getting put off.

Step Five: Instead of step four, watch old Disney commercials online.

My fav:


Cheesiest for your viewing pleasure: (WHAT in the world?)


Step Six: Make reservations at Tony's (Lady & The Tramp themed restaurant), the Coral Reef (a restaurant with aquarium walls) and the Rainforest Cafe...gluten-free goodness, here I come!

Step Seven: Constantly barrage your husband whenever he walks in the door with the "Guess where we'll be in 7 days? 6 days? 5 days?..." game. (Believe me...you'll stump him every time :))

Step Eight: Blog about it. Then repeat. :)

How do YOU get yourself pumped? The countdown is ON!

How to spend a gorgeous spring weekend...

*Ooh-ing and ah-ing over all the pink frills and pretties at a baby shower for a good friend. (Congrats to Brooke and baby Olivia! Can't wait to meet her!)

*Golfing in perfect 60 something degree weather with a view of the monuments (there are perks to your wife being at a baby shower, although he'd never openly say that :)).

*Braving the crowds to see the National Arboretum's Azaleas.

*Getting in a few good smooches (yeah yeah...you're probably grossed out...but it's what we do :) MWAH)

*Walking gorgeous, forestry trails that have sudden bursts of colors from the azaleas randomly mixed in.

*Strolling a more controlled, orderly garden of azaleas (that P.S...cost $2million a year to maintain. WHOA buddy... thank you generous (and WAY too wealthy) flower donors!)

*Admiring the state flower (and tree) of Virginia--the dogwood. You should see them in pink...beautiful.

*Celebrating a 40th birthday at a good friend's Luau, and reconnecting with friends who have moved out of the ward.

*Finding out at stake conference that WE'RE moving out of the ward. 3 wards in our building have now become 5, and we were one of the "lucky" winners who got booted out of our ward and will be joining a different ward... and we'll be moving back to a 3-6pm time slot (kinda a bummer...but we're hoping to make the best of it. I'm sure it happened for a reason...some reason... :))

*Getting your bumper all scratch and gouged by a landscape truck (ok...don't recommend this one... at all. Should I really be surprised, though? Poor Tink seems to be on a 6 month cycle. Soooooooo ready for a garage. But at least my knight in shining armour is taking care of dealing with it all...love that kid.)

*Chatting about anything and everything Disney related in a vain attempt to get even MORE excited for our upcoming vacation (like THAT's possible).




WELCOME SPRING!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

Eggs-tra Memorable

So, I'm always telling my brides that the mishaps make the memories. I don't like to see them bridezilla-ing about the little things that go wrong on their big day, because I honestly think that the little "oopsies" always end up making the best memories (for example, our wedding video that played at our reception and said "Amber & Brent (my dad)" instead of "Amber & Brian"...hilarious...we still laugh...). If my theory holds true, Easter 2011 will go down in the books as extra special and extra memorable.

Memory Worthy Event #1: Opened my eyes at 6:30 a.m and realized a smell had woke me up. And not a pleasant smell. More of a really-really-really-burnt-tuna-melt smell. Nope...wasn't Brian. :) It was our apartment. Those of you who know me well, know that I have a freakishly good nose--got it from my mom. We're talking...I can smell things seconds before a pregnant woman can (yeah...it's bad). But when Brian woke up, he smelled it too so I knew we were in trouble. He stuck his head out of our apartment, and our stairwell smelt AWFUL. Now, we've had neighbor's snoring, and neighbor's squeaking, and neighbor's talking, and neighbor's fighting filter into our apartment before, but NEVER neighbor's smells. Yuck. Brian propped open the building door, we opened every windnow we have and went crazy with the Lysol, and I spent the next 3 hours at church terrified that the drunken neighbor who passed out with a tuna melt on the stove in the wee hours was still out-of-it, and was going to burn down our apartment (and I wouldn't even be there to grab my honeymoon oil painting).

Memory Worthy Event #2: Full of paranoia, I was leading the way to the car so we could leave for church. I heard a crash. Turned around to see Brian looking down at what used to be one of my cute, dressy dinner plates. Broken into bits in the parking lot. At least the young women's treats hadn't been unwrapped and put on it yet.

Memory Worthy Event #3: I was talking to my parents on the phone, wishing them a happy Easter. As I talked, I was pushing the sides of my tuna-melt-fighting spring candle (my BURNING tuna-melt-fighting spring candle) down into the already melted wax with a popsicle stick, trying to even things up a bit. WHAM and splash...just like that, I had wax splattered all over the carpet, the counter and ME. Face...hair...shirt...arms...hands...covered. That was fun to get off. But at least I smelled like a Lily/Peony/Flower Market mix. :)

E
Memory Worthy Event #4: We're dying away at our eggs, when suddenly the cup of blue dye is down for the count (it was me...clutzy things that go on in our apartment are always me...except for the plate episode...:)). The dye is getting closer and closer to the edge of the counter...I'm containing it with my hands and screaming, "Grab the dish towel...grab the dish towel...it's gonna get our carpet!!!" Brian brings me ONE sqaure of paper towel. I'm screaming, "No No No! The DISH TOWEL. The DISH TOWEL." He comes back with 3 squares of paper towel, saying, "Dish towel? Dish towel? What????" He's all in a fluster, running back toward the paper towels as I'm screaming, "The CARPET...grab the DISH TOWEL on the OVEN!" He brings...the dish towel. But too late. The dye has started trickling under my arms on to the carpet. Luckily, by the time I'm scrubbing our capet with stain stick, we're laughing. He never said, "Who is THAT clutzy?" and I never said, "Really? One sqaure of paper towel?" :). But we DID comment on how our poor carpet had had quite a blue, waxy day. :)

Memory Worthy Event #5: We're winding down our day with an inspirational Hallmark movie after watching the Cowboys get kicked off the Amazing Race (NOT a memory worthy mishap, just plain crappy). Suddenly, a crash SO loud I jumped out of my seat (literally). Brian is laughing his head off because his wife went balistic over thunder... but the laughing stopped when CRAZY hail started pelting our building. I'm thinking, "Great...this is gonna be the acorns of 2009, except now we have 2 nice cars to worry about..." But it all turned out ok...I think...Brian checked the cars this morning and said they were fine. :)

Quite the memorable holiday, right? Not so memorable, but still great events:

*A great Easter program at church--amazing music and messages
*A cute Easter dress from my parents

*An AWESOME Easter bunny who filled our baskets with all kinds of amazing and thoughtful things
*A scrumptious Easter dinner of spiral ham, au gratin potatoes, fresh beans and fruit salad
*A satisfied 3 year craving for my favorite Marie Callender Lemon Sour Cream pie. I found a knock-off recipe, altered it to be gluten-free, and delighted in the deliciousness that followed. Even Brian was astounded. Heaven. I tell you. Heaven.