Early Birthday Gift

Ryan, my parents, and his parents got me a piano for my birthday!  Yeah!  It was such a surprise, I had no idea.  I walked in the house after work, and there's a giant box in our living room.  Ryan says, "Surprise!  I got you a new piano!  But it's broken!"  I guess my piano broke during shipping, and they had to send out for a new one.  And the new one arrived on Thursday, so Ryan and I put it together in about an hour.

So as many of you know, I have been taking piano lessons for almost two months, and I'm flying along.  I really enjoy playing, and I love my teacher, but I get nervous when I have to show her my "homework."  With having the piano now at home, I don't have to run over to our church building everyday to practice.  I can practice all day everyday now, and I love it!  It's an electric piano, but the keys are weighted just like a real piano (the harder you press the keys, the louder the sound).  And it can be played on all different settings.  I enjoy playing it on the harpsichord setting, and pretending I'm in one of Jane Austen's books.  Here are some pictures.  Isn't it cute?

Thank you so much Ryan, Mom and Dad, and Gary and Debbie!  I love it!

Expressions of Love

I saw this video on another blog, and it made me get teary eyed.  I hope you see your family's and spouses expressions of love, and reciprocate them daily.  This video makes me so happy.  It makes me love our church and the blessings we receive from it even more.  Enjoy.

Sunday Snooze-day

I love to take naps on Sunday, and I got a good one in yesterday.  Lately, our lives have been pretty low key.  This weekend, I practiced on my NEW piano (yes, I will be posting about that soon), and Ryan went on a camp out with the scouts to Crystal Cove.

And yesterday we had lunch, saw Ryan's brother off to BYU Jerusalem, laid around at the park and watched our dog sniff and wee-wee on every inch.  Then we came back home, made dinner and listened to our new favorite station on Pandora.  If you're looking for some happy, get up and dance music, make an Elvis Presley station.  It reminded me of old movies, and listening to some of my mom's favorite music on long road trips.  And I got in some good reading time.  I'm currently reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival.  It's a biography of Louie Zamperini, but it's so much more.  I've already learned so many new things about the lives of Americans during World War II.  Check it out.   Hope you had a relaxing weekend!

 Make him a new station.  If you love old/classic music, you'll love it.

Fall Catalogs

All of the Fall catalogs are arriving in my mailbox.  I thought I'd share with you some of the furniture and clothes that I'm drooling over.  Don't worry I'm stickin' to my budget :)

Lake Powell

This Lake is so beautiful.  I wish I could go there several times a year to see it during every season.  We had a wonderful time with Ryan's family and friends.  We did the usual wake boarding, tubing, trip to Rainbow bridge and "Hole in the Rock" and semi-regular ice cream stops at Dangling Rope.  And I came home with a nice little town.  Now Ryan calls me a "brown bear" instead of a "fair bear."  Not sure how I got those nicknames.

 Endless rocks were thrown into the lake by our nephew.

 Rainbow Bridge

Kids can fall asleep anywhere.

 That's Ryan's nephew on the rock trying to fish with a gatorade bottle cap, rope, a stick, and some bread.  I couldn't zoom in close enough to get him better we got some great shots of him.

Summer Lovin

Here's a week with the Jesperson family.  We:

-Rode the ferry to Coronado
-Swam in the pool
-Went to the Beach
-Ate Yogurt Mill
-Had a girl's night
-Watched the premiere of Project Runway (so exciting and as good as ever)
-Got to meet Elder Ballard and shake his hand (while of course tearing up)
-Lots of Costco and Target runs
-Setting up beach camp

Here are the pics from the last week.

Wonderfully crazy and loud weekend with the family.  And I'm sure from the pictures you can tell who I was loving all this week.  Now on to Lake Powell!