Front Runner

My dad wanted to take all the grandkids on a train ride on FrontRunner. Sam and I (and other family members) rode FrontRunner the first day it was running back in 2008, but this was the first time for Chris. Here are some pictures of our adventure.

We rode from Bountiful to Ogden, and then had some of our nieces and nephews join us in Layton and ended up in Bountiful again. If I counted right, we started with 8 adults and 5 kids, and then picked up 1 more adult and 8 more kids.

Frites and Waffles

A huge thanks to my cute sisters for sharing some of their pictures from our Utah trip. We took our camera, and didn't get many pictures. Oops! The next few posts will be about our trip to Utah we took in March. (And just so you know, we had a ton of fun with the Taylor side too, but no one got any pictures other than our family pictures).

We went to a little frite shop that's owned by a guy from Belgium for some authentic Belgian fries and waffles. Yum!
Chris and my brother-in-law Paul both served in the Belgium, Brussels mission, so they really enjoyed this. My mission (Switzerland, Geneva mission) included a tiny corner of Belgium. My companion and I took a train there one afternoon on a preparation day when I was serving in Luxembourg just to say that I had been there.

Here's my proof! See the flag?

Anyway, we got lots of tasty frites and wafflesAnd for those of you who know Belgium, you'll recognize this, Manneken Pis (I like the little University of Utah hat that was put on him! Go Utes!):

Family Pictures

During our short trip to Utah, we took family pictures with the Taylors. The last time we took family pictures with them, I was just a couple weeks pregnant with Sam--over four years ago. There have been a few changes in the family since then, so it was time for an updated picture.

It was super cold and windy outside, plus Sam was tired, so I'm really impressed our photographer was able to get a couple good shots. Thanks Amanda!

Another Hike--Barlow Pass

Here are more pictures to prove how beautiful Washington is--another effort in my campaign to get everyone to move up here!

Valentine's Day/Chinese New Years

February 14th this year we celebrated two holidays. We decorated Sam's bed with hearts while he slept, and he was so excited to see his valentines! It was so cute!

We had heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast.
That evening we had a Valentine's Day/Chinese New Years party at our friend Lisa's house.

This is July and her husband Dave

This is Glen (who sold us his Great Harvest), and our friend Tanya

This is me and Glen's wife Julee. They are amazing people!

At the end of the evening, the kids put together a Chinese dragon parade. Sam is under there somewhere. We had two dragons so everyone could fit.Fun was had by all! Happy Valentine's Day and Chinese New Years!

Hiking with Troy

Here are some pictures of a hike Troy took Chris and Sam on in January. We had a nice warm month last month--I think I heard somewhere that it was the warmest January on record in 80 years. Anyway, they hiked around Fort Ebey on Whidbey Island. Enjoy the pictures!

Sam's First Few Weeks in Primary

I am the Primary chorister at church. Sam is now old enough to be a brand new sunbeam in Primary. I knew it wasn't going to be any easy transition since he used to climb all over me while trying to do music time with the nursery classes. Take away all the toys, and make a large group of three year olds sit still through 50 minutes in one place is very difficult. Now add to that the fact that one of those three year old's moms is sitting up front, and he's not allowed to sit with her, climb all over her, and have her hold him... Yeah, it's not easy.

Sam's first week was awful. Chris was home sick, so I had to wrestle with him all by myself. He refused to sit with his class, so after lots of lip quivering, clinging, and crying I let him sit with me, until I had to start doing music time. While I try to teach jr. primary their new song, Sam and his little partners in crime decide to try jumping off of the chairs making shooting noises as they fight with their pretend finger guns. They are loud, and running all over the place. Our primary has 20 new sunbeams on the rolls--about 14 that come regularly, split between two classes. The first Sunday of the year is always chaotic, but knowing my kid was one who was causing some of the chaos was stressful. At class time, he left ok, but was later brought back to me sobbing his little heart out--right when it was my turn to do singing time with the senior primary. He refused to sit next to me, but insisted that I hold him. Holding a whimpering little boy while trying to teach a song was practically impossible.

Chris has had to sit with him during parts of opening exercises and class time but each week since then has progressively gotten better. This week was the first time he didn't need Chris at all. He was still loud and disruptive with his partner in crime, but he didn't have any emotional breakdowns at any time. I think we're headed in the right direction!

Here is a picture of Sam with his two teachers, Sis. Music and Sis. Shurtz.

Belated Christmas Celebration

Chris' family came to visit the week after Christmas, so we decided to postpone having our Christmas morning until they arrived. We had our Christmas Eve on New Year's Eve, and our Christmas morning on New Year's morning. Sam had no idea. We made a little Christmas count-down paper chain, and we just adjusted it to count down to the adjusted date. When we'd be out running errands after December 25th, people would ask Sam if Santa had come to visit him, and he'd say no, not yet. We got a few weird looks, so I would have to explain.

Anyway, we had such a good Christmas and were so happy that the Taylors could come celebrate with us. Here are a couple videos from our Christmas and visit with Chris' family.

This first clip is of our Christmas Eve which we celebrated December 31st. Chris was sick during the whole time his family was here (he gets sick at this time every year from exhaustion and lack of sleep). This also shows Sam decorating cookies for Santa.


This second clip is of our Christmas morning which we celebrated on January 1st.


This last video is of an afternoon we spent in Seattle. We ate at a Crab Pot, then Sam rode on a little carousel. While the rest of us went to Pike Market Place, Chris' dad and Sam went to the aquarium. We spent the evening swimming at the hotel and eating Great Harvest sandwiches.


Here are some more pictures of the fun we had during Chris' family's visit.

The Holidays

From the week of Thanksgiving through the end of December, we at the Taylor home worked our little tails off. Both Chris and I were each working 60-80 hour weeks between my full time job in the leasing office, his regular work hours at the bakery, and both of us working at our little kiosk at the mall. Chris has worked every holiday season like since 2004, but this was a first for me. Blegh! We were so happy for Christmas to come and be over with!

Here is a picture of our kiosk we had at the mall for the holiday season


A friend of ours asked if some people from his single's ward could use our bakery to make a gingerbread house. Apparently there was a competition between the Elder's Quorum and the Relief Society, or something. In any case, some people came, and Chris helped them bake TONS of gingerbread. They later brought the finished product back to our bakery to display (and yes, they won).


We put up our little Christmas tree at the bakery (my favorite was the cute little loaves of bread tied up in ribbons and bows under the tree), and then picked it up Christmas Day and took it back home for our Christmas celebration which started later than most people's. I'll talk more about our Christmas/New Year's in my next post.

Happy Birthday, Christopher!

Today Christopher turns old! So I wanted to dedicate two songs to the birthday boy. The first I would consider "our song" and it really explains well my feelings for Chris. The second is our runner up song (though not quite so romantic), it goes along with conversations we have from time to time and makes me smile:

Me: I love you!

Chris: Good thing, 'cause you're stuck!

Enjoy!

Pray for Haiti

My heart hurts every time I watch the news about the earthquake in Haiti. It is already such a poor country with so many problems. This is such a terrible tragedy.

Every time I see the images of the destruction, I think of an elder I knew in the MTC. His name was Elder Jean Louis and was from Haiti. He, along with three other missionaries from various francophone countries (Reunion, Tahiti, and France) joined my MTC district part way through my stay there before leaving for their missions in Quebec.

In the picture above, Elder Jean Louis is the second one from the left--he was about as tall as me, and had a great sense of humor. I remember one specific meal at the cafeteria we were all joking around as best we could in French (he didn't speak any English at that time), and he started laughing so hard that food came spewing out of his mouth. When my dad had his heart attack while I was in the MTC, both he and Elder Durand (who was from France) provided a lot of comfort and empathy.

This picture makes me smile. Many of our elders had a tendency to fall asleep during class time. Elder Jean Louis came up with this bright idea: if you draw a pair of eyes on paper and put them behind your glasses, it "looks" like you're awake, and you can sleep all you want!

I lost contact with Elder Jean Louis after the mission. I hope that he and his family are ok. I have absolutely no way of knowing. So when I see information about the death, damage, and destruction, I think of his gigantic smile and happy demeanor, and know there are so many other Haitians like him who have lost their homes, friends, and families.

Please pray for Haiti.

Financial Management and Analysis

A year ago, our little family was having a hard time in several aspects of life (isn't it annoying that difficult things often come in multiples?!). One of difficult things was our financial situation. The year 2008 was a big one for us: we moved to a new state and bought a business--both very expensive things. We were mostly doing fine and didn't pay too close attention to where our money was going. We are both pretty frugal people, so nothing outrageous was going on...just careless spending. I was getting too nervous to see how bad it was getting, so I got into the mindset that if I just didn't look at bank statements or bills, they would all magically be fine. Well, I discovered that is not a healthy way to deal with things, and something had to change.

My New Year's resolution for 2009 was to keep track of every penny that came in and out of our financial life. Another was to continue being a deal-seeker and coupon cutter (a hobby I had started in 2008). I'm happy to say that for the first time in my life I have actually been successful at keeping my New Year's resolution the whole year long; in fact, I think I'll continue doing it into next year and the year after that and hopefully forever!

Here is what I do: I have an Excel spreadsheet where I record every single thing we buy or bills we pay. I list the date, who the money went to, the cost, a description of what it was, which bank account it came out of, and what category of spending it came out of (I'm sure I could use some accounting software to make it easier...I do have Quickbooks that I do the bookkeeping with for the business. I have meant to try using it for our personal finances with, but haven't gotten around to setting it all up yet). At the end of the month, I look at how much total we have spent.

In another spreadsheet, I keep track of every penny we earn: I put the date we receive each paycheck (or extra random money we get), where it's from, how much it is, where it's deposited, and if I've paid tithing on it yet. I then add up how much we earned that month and compare it to how much we spent that month from the other spreadsheet. And like any good financial advisor would tell you, the goal is to spend less than you earn.

When Chris and I were engaged, we tried making a budget for ourselves for when we would be married, but I had a really hard time doing that because I had absolutely no idea how much money we would need for groceries, gas, or other necessities--I had never paid any attention to that before. If you start tracking your expenses, you have a better ability to predict how much money to allot for different things. And you realize where you're weakness are. A little burger here, and a little pizza there don't seem like much at the time, but when you add it all up, it can become a really big amount.

Tracking income and expenses alone would be sufficient enough to begin making a budget. But me, being a nerd who likes numbers, went way beyond this minimum have have analyzed our financial situation in great detail.

I have another spreadsheet that compares each category for each month. For example, I have a chart that compares how much we spent on groceries for each month of the year, and then the total amount we spent on groceries for the entire year and so on with gas, eating out, cell phone--basically any variable expense (though I also include our fixed expenses just so I can see how much for an entire year rent has cost us). Along the bottom of this chart, I put down our monthly income which does fluctuate somewhat, and then I can look a percentages (our rent compared to our take-home pay average is about 28%--a teensy bit above what Dave Ramsey suggests, though I've heard other financial advisers say it should be no higher than 30%, so I think we're doing ok).

I made cute little graphs that give a good visual of our spending habits, and a file listing the dates and amounts of our regular bills, and if they come out of our bank account automatically or if I have to remember to pay those myself. And to help me remember to pay certain bills on time or to transfer money between our accounts, I have a month calendar with each bill and amount to be paid. I keep both electronic files of all of this as well as hard copies (in a cute little folder from one of my most favorite stores--Office Depot!).

I was showing Chris some of these charts and files the other day, and I was getting all excited and giddy inside because I enjoy doing it so much, and I have so much more peace knowing where our money is going. It's like Dave Ramsey says, you have to live like no one else in order to live like no one else. We're working on that and are in a much healthier situation than we were a year ago.

Prophet of God, Santa, or Stalker?

I am a leasing consultant at an apartment complex, and as such I have the opportunity to meet and interact with a lot of different people--something I really enjoy. I helped a gentleman move in last summer--he's probably 50 years old and has a very strong faith in Christ. He's also a talker. When I talked to him on the phone the first time ever when he was still looking for a place to live, I think our conversation lasted probably 45 minutes. I sold him on the apartment over the phone, and he moved in shortly thereafter. He's been here six months and just renewed his lease for another six months at which time he is planning on being a missionary in third world countries for a few months. He's extremely nice, but sure can talk your ear off.

Today he came into the office with his rent check as well as some other questions. He asked how our Christmas was. He asked if we had gone down to Utah to see family, and I responded that Utah was actually coming to see us (Chris' family is coming up here tomorrow for the New Years weekend!). He then went off for a few minutes about how I need to make sure that I'm the perfect hostess for them--cook for them, take their plates for them, and basically don't let them help out at all. Sure, fine, I can do that, no problem. Then he said something kind of weird that caught me off guard:

Him: Make sure to serve them...cleverly.

Me: What did you just say?

Him: Make sure to serve them...cleverly.

Me: How do you know my maiden name?

Him: Do you remember when I first talked to you? I asked if you allow Christians to move into your apartment complex.

Me: Yeah, I remember you asking that.

Him: Well, I'm a prophet of God.

Me: Are you stalking me? (said jokingly)

He laughed and left the office. I sat there at my desk confused for the next five minutes or so racking my brain as to how he might have discovered my maiden name. And then I tried to remember if I had ever told him that I was from Utah. Maybe he is a prophet of God, but I don't think prophets are expected to know maiden names of random leasing consultants--that sounds more like Santa Claus who's supposed to know details like that. So maybe I have a stalker. I'm so confused! Maybe he's reading this? Eeek! Hi Tony!