Live Like You Believe

Recently, I read through a General Conference talk from last October, Be Ye Converted. In reading the words of Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, I was suddenly reminded of one week several years ago that I spent near Manteca, California. I was a young teenager, excited for a trip away from home. Not too far from home, though, as I was going to stay with my Aunt Kathy. I flew by myself for the first time, and cried a little bit as I said goodbye to my mom. I really had no idea what to expect that week, but the things I learned changed my entire life.

My activity in the church started when I was barely 13, as a New Years' resolution. I could see that my friends were happier than me and church attendance was really the only difference between my life and theirs. I know, not exactly typical. I'm not entirely sure if my trip was the immediate Summer or the one following, but I was still getting a feel for the spiritual life.

 I always loved seeing my Aunt Kathy, and this year she offered for me to come visit for a week and attend girls' camp with her ward. She helped plan the camp and was going to be up there all week with the other 12-18 year old girls in her area. I was really excited for the opportunity, but also very nervous to be somewhere so new with people I didn't know.

While I don't remember a lot of details about that week, I remember being so touched and inspired. The theme was based on a song by Jenny Phillips - Live Like You Believe. I was in awe at the strength and happiness of my new friends. I grew up surrounded by the LDS faith. I basically lived the standards by default. These California natives talked all week about the trials they went through in picking good friends and sometimes being teased for the decisions they made based on faith. As a 14-year-old, I was incredibly impressed. I felt so fortunate. Besides the moral strength, the spiritual maturity in this group touched my heart.

On one afternoon, we had a special guest come up to camp. Lucky me, it happened to be my cousin, Matt Daley and his new wife, Kimber. In true youth activity fashion, they changed into their wedding outfits and visited with us about their story together. They put emphasis on a temple marriage. From the short time hearing from them, I saw honesty, love, and happiness in their relationship. From that time forward, a temple marriage became one of my biggest goals. I wanted so badly to have a relationship like Matt and Kimber...now they have two kids and live in Texas, and I'm hoping my family life will be just like theirs.

By the end of the week, I was so excited about life. I learned about camping, tying knots, hiking, and a lot of spirituality. All of these memories flood back to me each time I listen to "Live Like You Believe." Even without an emotional connection, the song is just beautiful. It has such a special place in my heart. I hope you enjoy:

Weekend Roundup

We've done quite a lot this weekend! The indoor soccer tournament I had registered for with a few buddies started on Thursday night. The tournament lasted from Thursday to Saturday night. We had a record of 3-2 during the group stage and were knocked out in the first round of the tournament. I scored three goals during our games! It was great, our team was full of upbeat and fun people. A lot of the teams in the tournament were really intense and would get mad at their own teammates for making mistakes. Watching them reminded me of a huge reason why I didn't stick with soccer. After the tournament was over, I was really hungry. Craving some calorie-dense food, my mind was stuck on eating a Big Mac meal. True to form, I had not used some McDonald's gift certificates that I had been given as part of a birthday gift about 8 years ago, so we drove home to get them. After 8 years, McDonald's accounts payable account finally balanced. And their accountants rejoiced exceedingly. Trisha and my teammates' wives/significant others were our team supporters, they provided us with halftime snacks and a solid cheering section, it was really great! I'm glad that Trish is such a good sport, coming to each of my games to support me.
After our games on Friday night, we hosted some of our team for a FIFA party. We had ice cream and played FIFA for a few hours. It was fun to relax at the start of the weekend and having played two games that night.
On Saturday morning, we went to a marriage symposium that had some great speakers. First, we heard from John Bytheway! I remember all of us loving his tapes with funny songs. He gave a great talk that gave 10 principles for a happy marriage. Along with the great lesson, he did a perfect impression of Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show. It was amazing! Following his remarks, we heard from Brother Goodman, a professor from BYU. He gave a great talk about intimacy within marriage. He focused on the Godly nature of this gift and how we can increase our love for each other through it. We were able to sit next to some good friends during this symposium and had lunch with them afterwards.
That's it for this week. Stay tuned for more regular updates :) Until next time!
Dave

A Return to the Blog

Soo... Sorry that we haven't posted anything in ages, I wish we had a good excuse, but it's mostly that we just forget we have a blog and then remember when we're going to bed and resolve to do it the next day, but never do. Then we repeat this cycle. However, today we are breaking out of our Groundhog Day-ish routine to bring you an update of our lives.
The beginning of the year has brought a lot of change in our house. For starters, we lost our roommate! Tyler moved up north for a good job opportunity. We miss him, but he really loves the job and sounds like he will do well with it. To compensate for not playing racquetball anymore, I have started doing "Insanity" with some goods friends up here in Cedar. If you have not heard of insanity, here is a link with a sample of a workout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLK28BHJDd8. These workouts last for 45 minutes and they are the most intense workouts I have ever done. The first few days were unpleasant, but now following each workout I feel so good! It's weird, but nice:)
Another change is that Trisha has taken the semester off from school because she will start coaching softball for the Canyon View freshman team! She will be altering her work schedule so she can attend the practices and games. She'll start work at 7am, work during lunch, and leave at 3 so she can make it to the field for practice, which is held from 3-6. Needless to say, she will be very busy this semester! She is really excited, and I know she'll do great!
We have more to report, but for the sake of retaining reader interest, I will separate that into another post so those with glazed-over eyes can take a break. Again, we are very sorry for shirking our blogging, we'll put our shoulder to the wheel and blog along :)

My first Black Friday

We spent Thanksgiving up in Elk Ridge with Trisha's family this year. It was filled with good food and good company! We had a great meal and I was introduced to a few secret family cuisines such as Giggle Juice. The recipe is a close-kept family secret; don't ask me for it or I'll force it down your throat and have you giggling until Easter! The feast was great and we visited for a few hours afterwards over pie. After we had recovered enough, we prepared ourselves for.....BLACK FRIDAY(it was Thursday night, but it counts)! I wasn't sure what to expect as we began our descent off of the mountain to our first target, er, destination: Wal-mart. We went straight for the super-cheap movies that were lined up against the meat aisle spanning the entire length of the store. The deal officially began at 6 pm, so there were scores of people lined up waiting to break through the tape that separated them from their prizes. At 6 o'clock, the barrier was removed and people flooded the area and picked up as many movies as they could hold. Luckily, we had our handy-dandy 11-year old that could dodge and weave between people as she bravely plucked movies from the shelves and returned them to us so we could take inventory. I got into the heat of it and snatched a copy of Despicable Me from some unsuspecting child. He already had three, save some for the fishies, kid. I know it's harsh, but the kid needed to learn a lesson about life, and what better time to learn than on Black Friday? I'm just kidding, that was a work of fiction; I'm not that heartless :)
Following Wal-mart, we went to Kohl's and Shopko. There were some serious deals! We saved $102 at Kohl's and only spent $34! In fact, we were basically done with our Christmas shopping before December even began! And we got 3 Harry Potter movies for less than $5 at Wal-mart. I had a great time with family as we awed at the spectacles that accompany this event. The moral of the story is that although Black Friday is portrayed as this crazy event, there are great deals, and great fun to be had.
On Actual Black Friday, Tyler, Kamri, and I went to Lowe's Air Sports in Provo while Trisha worked on a research paper. It is an open gymnastic gym for anyone to play around in. They have a lot of foam pits and Olympic quality trampolines to play on. We had a great time on the 20 foot rock wall that hung above a foam pit so you could jump off once you reached the top. Kamri said it was fun to just fall backwards once you had reached the top, it was so fun! It is a surprisingly long freefall! Tyler convinced me to try backflips on a mat. He would spot me and help me improve my form. I got pretty close to landing a few, but couldn't quite hold my tuck for long enough. There was also a trapeze that we swung from into a foam pit. Tyler dared me to try a backflip from the trapeze to the pit, he was hesitant to do it after he had landed weirdly the last time he tried. I went a few times but chickened out when I let go. Finally I decided I would regret it if I didn't do it, so I got up there and did it! It was so cool! On a side note, I've decided to give up school and pursue trapeze-artistry. It's real.
So that about sums up our Thanksgiving weekend, sorry it was such a lengthy account! Also, if you pay for Trisha and I to come visit you, I will teach you the art of the trapeze. Or, to save some money, look for my act coming to a circus near you.

A Real early morning

My favorite sports team, Real Salt Lake (Soccer) has been doing very well this season, so well that they have made it to the Finals in the playoffs! Throughout the off-season, local TV stations have been airing their games, which is so great! Trish, Dad, and I have been able to watch their games and follow the team quite well this season. Unfortunately, the past two playoff games have been on Sunday nights, but there are replays posted online an hour after the game. I didn't want to watch the game on Sunday, so this I went on a Facebook and phone fast so that no one would accidentally tell me the score, there is nothing worse than watching a 90 minute soccer game when you know the score beforehand. Trisha's brother, Tyler, our friend Adam, and I all woke up at 4:30 on Monday morning to watch the replay before school and work since the score was bound to be mentioned at some point throughout the day. We though we might as well make it a bit more pleasant, so we hooked up a computer to the TV for a bigger screen and had a french toast breakfast before we started the game! It was a ton of fun supporting a great team with great friends. Real Salt Lake takes on Sporting Kansas City on December 7th for the MLS Cup! Luckily this game is on a Saturday :)

A few new things

First off, let me start by apologizing to our blog for the two-month period of neglect. To be quite honest, I completely forgot that we had a blog, but Trisha recently brought up the fact and so here we are! Wow, these past two months have been very busy with work, school, travel, and a bunch of fun! School has been keeping our household quite busy, the semester is coming to a close. If I'm correct, we only have 3 weeks until finals, holy cow! On the work side, I got a new job in Student Services on campus as a budget assistant. I manage department budgets, set up new ones, and talk soccer with my supervisor. I quite enjoy that part :) Trisha's office recently had a huge organizational shift, she has a new supervisor and the organizational hierarchy has been changed. So far so good, but she is sad to see her other supervisor go since he had been coming out of his shell a bit more in recent weeks. 

Trisha's brother, Tyler and I have become great friends! He and I have recently taken up racquetball and play every night at the PE building on campus. I currently hold the advantage in games won 12-9, but that can change quickly, we are really evenly matched. My body is taking a beating though, diving on that floor has left me with some good bumps, bruises, and floorburn. 

We dressed up as partners in crime for Halloween and accompanied Mckay, Benson, and Lily as they trick-or-treated in mom and dad's neighborhood. A lot of fun was had by all! I had wanted to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" on Halloween. But since we didn't have it, we watched Alvin and the Chipmunks: Jekyll and Hyde with Benson, Mckay and Beej. It was quite ridiculous, but filled us with a good amount of Halloween cheer. 

Trisha helped her mom coach a 12-U softball team this weekend. I was able to go and watch all of the games. It was a great tournament! Trisha loves to be with the girls and does a terrific job of teaching them while making it fun for the girls. It is very cute to watch as she interacts with them. :) She is very much looking forward to coaching Canyon View this Spring. She will be amazing!

We recently celebrated our 6-month wedding anniversary.....that is crazy! Time is really flying by. I love Trisha more and more each day. She really is the best :) She treats me so wonderfully and knows my likes and dislikes. For my birthday she secretly purchased tickets to a Real Salt Lake game and surprised me with them the week before my birthday. She is amazing and I couldn't ask for anything better :) 

Well, that sums up the past few months. I promise we will be better at keeping up with the blog in the future. Until next time!

My David

Much has happened since Christmas in July: Real Salt Lake vs. Portland, Onion Days, Fall semester, an extra roommate....hopefully more details for those will be coming soon. Today, my loving husband is 22 years old. It's almost 9 pm and I've only seen him for about 15 minutes, but I've been able to think all day long about how much I love him. And now you get to hear some of those thoughts =)

David is everything I could ask for. He is always telling me how cute I look or how much he loves me. We'll have a 3 second conversation on the phone (like when he calls to say he's outside of my office to pick me up) and he always says he loves me. It's so hard to get out of bed in the mornings, because after the alarm, David cuddles up to me. But it's hard to get ready quickly, because he hugs me at least 4 times while I'm doing my hair and make-up. And RIGHT when I walk through the door after work, he wants to hug me. He's just so full of love and affection. Any girl would love to hear those things, and I get them everyday.

He also is so patient, kind, and helpful. We have been know to push each other out of the way, in a battle to do the dishes. He's so good at listening that I used to beg him for his own stories and opinion. In owning a home, we have experienced several things that newlyweds typically don't go through, like nursing a yard back to life, setting up a washer and dryer, and replacing a toilet flapper (I actually don't know what it's called, because David fixed it. But I do know it looks like a flapper). He is so willing to help with dinner or the laundry when I don't have enough time at home to do so. As I hear some of my other friends talk about their role in the home, I'm so grateful that David looks for opportunity to do things around the house for me. Sometimes I let my work, school, and busy schedule get the best of me. Of all the things I'm learning from our marriage, David is teaching me to love the little things, and just relax.

I love him more and more everyday. He is such a part of my life. Recently, he left for a day and a half to help the SUU soccer team on an away game. I got so lonely! I look forward to loving him forever and ever. I sure love you, David. Happy birthday.