Cell Phones Bug.

I have to take a minute and vent a little frustration that Clark and I have been having. I have been on a family plan with T-Mobile with my family. Because I still had time left on my contract, while we were dating, Clark changed to T-Mobile so we could be with the same company. My contract just ended and so the time came for us to both be on the same contract.

Clark still has a year left in his contract with T-Mobile now though. My family is changing to Verizon, and all of Clark's family is on Verizon. Meaning that we are two lame-o's who are stuck with T-mobile because of a stupid contract. I HATE cell phone contracts. I also get terrible service at my work with my phone. We tried to tell the T-Mobile people this but they said "according to their radars...the area has 5 bars!" I almost lost it and told him exactly what I thought of his radars.

But never-the-less, we added me to Clark's plan, which entered me into a year contract, which is okay, because he has a year left in his. The man on the phone "helping" us kept telling us that we needed more minutes and more texts according to our "usage trends"! I finally got on the phone and said "Sir, if you don't mind we've already talked this over and we want the plan we've previously told you, we don't care if we've used more than that previously, we are going to cut back a little, is that okay with you?" He apologized and said that it was fine with him.

But no no, we were still on the phone with him for an hour, he rambled on and on, and I can't believe how bad he frustrated Clark and I. We almost through the phone across the room.

To sum everything up, I hate cell phones, I hate cell phones that break, I hate contracts, I hate customer service representatives at cell phone places, I hate paying my cell phone bill which is always somehow ten dollars more that what I signed up for because of weird fees, I hate it all. But, I hate not having a cell phone, so I guess I'll deal with it. That is all.

Valentines Day...the day of love and chemistry!

They always say that love is chemistry!!! We really experienced that this year. Clark is working full time and also taking a challenging chemistry class at the college here. Needless to say, he is very busy and works very hard to get everything done. I'm so proud of him and appreciate all the work and sacrifice he is putting in for our family.

But luckily we were able to do other things besides chemistry. We went with our ward to do sealings at the temple in the morning. We saw Jed and Jami there who were down visiting form Boise. Jed is Clark's oldest brother and Jami is his amazing wife. They have the cutest little family and we look up to them a lot! It was fun to spend time with them this weekend.

Then we came home and did some homework. After a couple hours we were both getting stir crazy and needed to get out. So we decided to go skiing.

We studied chemistry on the way up, on the lift riding up the hill, and on the way back home. But on the way down the mountain we didn't even think about chemistry! We had so much fun, and our little civic made it up and back down the mountain just great! Thanks Roger for letting us use your skiis!

A weekend with the Williams Family...

This weekend my family came up to spend time with us and to go to my cousins homecoming talk who lives here in Twin Falls. They got here Saturday about five and unloaded their stuff! Our two bedroom apartment was quite full, there were twelve of us sleeping here on Saturday night! My little sisters slept on the floor of me and Clark's bedroom, and all night we heard a squeaky sound that sounded like a mouse in our heating vent, when we woke up in the morning we realized it was my little sister sucking on her fingers!

We spent the night eating dinner, playing Settlers of Catan, and going down to our hot tub. We had a blast. It actually wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be, it was such a fun weekend having my family up here with us!

Sunday we even figured out how to all get showered and to church by 9:00 am! It was a miracle. They left Sunday night, and I was so sad to see them go. I have a great family, and I wish I lived closer so I could see them more. But I guess living far away gives me a chance to have fun visits like this weekend. Here are some pictures from our weekend!

What our kids may (hopefully not...) look like!!

I saw this on a friends blog and thought it was funny! I hope I will control their hair a little better than these pictures in real life!

Finding Joy in Life

Clark's parents sent us a great talk to read and asked that we each make a comment on our blogs so that we could learn from each other. So, Clark and I read it yesterday, and it was a talk that came at the perfect time for us. It was the talk, Finding Joy in Life, by Elder Richard G. Scott. I've posted the link in case anyone wants to read it. So here are the things that stood out to us:

Sadness, Disappointment, and challenges are events in life, not life itself.
The things that go on in our lives sometimes seem so large and unbearable that we often think they are our lives. The truth is, they are just events that go on in our lives. It is our job to try to put these events in their proper places, knowing that the Lord has a plan for us and that the events are all part of his great plan and are often his way of helping us become the people we need to become. Elder Scott said, "Challenges are growth experiences, temporary scenes to be played out on the background of a pleasant life."

Men are that they MIGHT have joy.
Elder Scott points out that this is a conditional statement, it doesn't say, Men will have joy. It says men might have joy. It is our job to find joy in life...despite all that goes on around us. We are promised that we will find this joy as we are obedient to the commandments, have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and attempt to do all we can on this earth to have joy.

Your joy in life depends upon your trust in Heavenly Father and His holy Son.
This one hit home for both Clark and I as we realized how closely related our joy was to our faith and trust in our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We realized, once again, that the first place to start is faith and trust. When we have faith and trust we know that the Lord is guiding our lives and that he will not leave us alone. The happiness and joy that comes from knowing that a higher power is guiding your life, is one of the best feelings I've ever felt.

A pebble held close to the eye appears to be a gigantic obstacle. Cast on the ground, it is seen in perspective.
This one is so true! It always seems that our troubles are so big and we don't understand them, but if we can set them aside a little we can put them into proper perspective. I remember in seminary my teacher showed us a picture of a little boy pushing another little boy, they seemed to both be going after a ball. The teacher asked us what we thought about the picture. We all said that the little boy that was pushing was being mean and trying to push the little boy out of the way so he could get the ball first. The teacher the put up a larger picture. It contained the same two boys, but now in the larger picture it showed an oncoming car. The little boy was pushing the other little boy out of the way of the car. The little boy being pushed didn't see the car because he was so focused on the ball.

I think this is often what Heavenly Father does with us. We feel like we are being pushed. We feel and often ask why certain things are happening to us. Perhaps if we saw the big picture we would see that we were being pushed away from something that could harm us, or being pushed to a path that we needed. Sometimes these pushes are necessary because we are so focused on our own "balls" that we don't see the big picture.