Snow Fun!

This morning we took the girls out for a fun snow day right here at Lake Limerick. We went snowshoeing as a family and then sledding right after. It was so wonderful and I truly believe that wholesome recreational activities are a necessary and powerful way to bring families closer together. I know it does ours.

Happy New Year

What an amazing year 2008 has been- it has gone by so fast! I love when the new year comes; it is such a great chance to reflect on the last and improve on the coming. Today we celebrated our new year by going to visit some friends in Vancouver and Portland. We had a wonderful time, safe travel, and really just a great start to what I hope will be a fabulous new year. We are so blessed.

Christ

This holiday season I feel very blessed to really have focused on Christ. He truly is the reason for the season and it has been extra special this year to help Abigail and Lauren come to realize that. We have had so much fun acting out the nativity story, watching a few videos celebrating His birth, singing carols that praise Him and having Christ be the center of our celebrations. It is so sweet to see little Abigail talk about Jesus and how she just loves Him so much. She always says, " I want Jesus to come to my house" and that is what I've been aiming for this holiday season- and to carry on- to have Christ be the center of our home. Lauren is so sweet as well and carries the plastic baby Jesus from our Little People nativity around with her everywhere. She loves her "baby" and makes sure every year that it doesn't get put away when Christmas is over. I am thankful for Christmas and the miracle of Christ's birth. I am thankful for my own children and the miracles that they are to me. I am grateful for this wonderful season that helped me really put those two miracles together.

Family

We are so blessed to have two such wonderful extended families. This holiday season it was so great to visit with most of them and to go from one to the other. We were so happy to go to Couer d'Alene and see family there and so happy to return and see family here. We really are blessed. I am grateful for the extra love I have personally felt for each family member this holiday season. It is amazing to see this love grow and to watch others' joys become my own and others' sorrows become mine as well. There is a unifying power from sharing our experiences with those we love most and I am grateful for that and for such wonderful family.

Food

Food is a blessing! I know that it is necessary for survival and sometimes even seems like a maintenance burden to have to always make time for, but it really is such a blessing. This holiday season, maybe too much so, has really helped me realize how much I love food and how blessed we are to have the abundance that we do. While we were in Idaho I felt that I ate like a king! There was just so much delicious homemade food and goodies and snacks and my tummy was happy beyond belief.

I've been thinking about how the scriptures have been compared to food and how we can feast upon the scriptures daily to replenish our spirits. I guess I am just motivated to increase my love and excitement for the scriptures to that which I have for food. We can go from spiritually starving to a daily maintenace and schedule of study to really feasting and being excited about the words of the Lord. I am blessed for great physical and spirital nourishment.

Travel

For the remainder of my December posts I thought I'd record my blessings by a few topics instead of by date. With the holidays and traveling and limited internet access it has been difficult to record my daily blessings in the typical format so I'm going to improvise and post a few of the topics that have been such big blessings for me for the end of the year.

First is travel. We did a bit of traveling this Christmas season to Idaho and back. For the last couple of weeks the stress of traveling has been in the back of my mind and it usually builds up until we arrive safely at our destination and then isn't completely gone until we're back at home. This year I was blessed to do much better. I feel so grateful that I was able to be so close to the Spirit and to follow its promptings.

We were planning to leave on Monday and stay for the weekend so we could see Melissa and so I could teach my Sunday School class and then come back the following Saturday. But, Friday night as I was checking the weather and pass reports and praying about when we should leave I felt very strongly that we needed to leave sooner. We packed that night and left the following morning, and what a blessing that was. We were just ahead of the snow and made the long drive safely. We were blessed with two extra days with Drew's family. Our two reasons for staying became inapplicable as Melissa didn't even make it home until Monday and church was cancelled that Sunday because of all the snow. I don't even know if we would have made it or how much extra time it sould have taken us if we'd left when we originally planned. We are blessed.

For the return journey we planned on leaving on Saturday and honestly I didn't even check weather or pass reports or anything until Friday so I could just enjoy the holiday season without worrying about traveling. When I did finally check the conditions were not good. Friday night chains were required through the heavy snow in the pass and Saturday morning the pass was completely closed for avalanche control. But, when I prayed about it I still felt that we should leave and that we should travel by faith and not fear.

This was probably my most relaxed cross-state drive yet. We were heading towards a pass that wasn't even open, but I was blessed to feel at peace. We checked the pass report as we travelled and it progressed from closed to open with packed snow and ice to only bare and wet roads with standing water by the time we arrived. We were able to make it safely home again and I am so grateful.

Traveling is a time when I really rely on the Lord and while I have sometimes hated the stress of traveling I am learning to realize that it is a time when I can live with greater faith and rely on the Lord to bring us home safely according to His will.