The Weekend BYU Beat Air Force

Fall is finally here! The first pictures were from Saturday the 22nd right after the rain stopped and the sun was coming out, setting the mountains on fire. These are the mountains right outside my door.





On Sunday the 23rd Mandy, Amanda, and I headed up Big Cottonwood, or somewhere near there.:) It was beautiful! We were still in our church clothes because we went straight to hear Elder Holland speak at the U Institute building. There were over 6,000 young single adults, so we ended up sitting on the floor of one of the chapels on the opposite side of the building. We were actually on the floor of the stage!





Mandy played around with the f stops on my camera to let in more light, so that's why the picture are funky. The room was actually dark. Cool, huh? Elder Holland is my favorite apostle (if I'm allowed to have a favorite). He's just so passionate about us realizing how much Christ suffered for us and never letting that testimony we have die. He goes "ballistic" on return missionaries who think they should "go back to real life" after the mission. Living the gospel is real life. Being a witness of our Savior is real life. There's no going backward, only moving forward or standing with our feet firmly planted. I love Elder Holland!

Emma Time

I've been getting some requests for more Emma pictures, so here they are. Mom spent the last two weeks (minus the weekends) down with Brad, Chels, and Emma. Now she's having Emma withdrawls.:) Dad and I went down to the BYU vs. Air Force Game on Saturday and stopped by their house afterwards, so I've had my dose of Emma for the next couple days.:) She's just so adorable! I wish I'd had my camera when I was there. Chels's cute mom, Becky, is there now, so we had fun waking Emma up and watching her stretch and squirm. We love her so much!

Friday’s Greats

Words. They tell so much.
Silence.
California days, like yesterday—warm and breezy.
Darkness and sunshine.
Izzy, who’s so excited when I walk in the door.
Strength to overcome anything.
The future. The present.
Learning from the past.
Beauty—you can find it anywhere.
People who teach me to look harder and think longer.
Moments of pure inspiration.
Trying to be okay with the unknown.
Fridays that seem to shout, “The weekend's here!”
Music. Noise. Busyness. Movement. Water.

No Speeding Zone

Until tonight, I was just like you—an advocate for speed dating, thinking it would be so much fun because it is in the movies. Now I know the truth, and I will strongly advise you to do something more productive with your time. The weird thing is that on Tuesday I told Mandy that our ward should plan a speed dating activity. I have no idea how that idea popped into my head, but then this week I got invited to speed date tonight and just got back. (Jacq, your sister-in-law Kathy was there, by the way!) There were some nice guys there . . . but lots of VERY interesting ones, too. We had about 2–3 minutes with each guy. My favorite was when a guy sat down and the first thing he said, “Right now I just want to rip your shoe off and massage your foot! Why do you have shoes on?” Hahahahaha!!! Ha ha ha. Oh man. He was touching my foot and ready to pull my slip-on shoe off! For real! I had witnesses. After meeting fifty guys I was drained and couldn’t talk or smile because the muscles around my mouth were so sore. No more speeding for me. I'm writing this purely for comic relief. I also want you to feel sorry for me.:) Good night!

Beautiful Baby Emma's Here!

Little Emma arrived Sunday (yesterday) at 1:08 p.m., and we already love her (and miss her) so much! Brad called us Saturday night around midnight to say that Chels's water had broken and that they were keeping her at the hospital. Mom came in to my room to see if I wanted to go, but I knew I needed to be at church for at least a couple hours in the morning, so Mom left right then for Orem, an hour away. When Chels got to the hospital she was in a lot of pain, so they gave her an epidural even though she was only a 2. I don't know if it worked right about because there was some video of Chelsea looking like she was going to die in her hospital bed, but maybe Rheanna was videoing before they came in to give her the epidural. Around 5 a.m. I rolled over and decided to text Brad and see how things were going. He said that "Mom and baby are fine," so I thought Emma was here already! Nope. Not yet.
I got home from church around noon and called, and Mom said Chelsea had just started pushing so I hurried and ate something quick and left. Brad, Rheanna (Chels's sister), Sarah (Chels's brother's sister), and Mom were there in the delivery room to help. When I was thirty minutes away from the hospital I called to check in, and Emma was already ten minutes old! Brad said she was 7 lbs, 7 oz and 20 inches long and had lots of dark hair, which is a new thing for the bald-headed Newbold babies. We're pretty sure all her dark hair will turn white-blonde like Chelsea's did.
When I got there I was amazed at how wide awake she was and how tiny her little head and nose and mouth were! Yes, I've seen babies before and I know they are little, but she's so petite. My brothers all had bowling-ball heads. Emma would just looking around and stare at my blurry face and stick her tongue out. All newborn babies I've seen have there eyes closed, so it was kind of crazy to see Emma so alert. She was a real live baby!:) She's just so cute, and it's so fun to see Brad as the proud daddy. He's already cleaning poopy diapers and is oh-so good at it! Chelsea will forever be Wonder Woman to me. She's been sick through the entire pregnancy and was even throwing up during labor. She's not to do anything for the next two weeks in order to fully recover, so I'm going to be mailing out sign-up lists for taking meals in and baby-sitting. I mean, I will be doing all the baby-sitting. I will be sending out a list for people to cover for me at work! Hee hee. We'll see if they have any more kids after all Chels has been through.:) But Chelsea will soon forget all the horror Emma caused her, because Emma is so adorable and cute. I can't wait to see what Emma looks like next week!

Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

Riding the Provo River is my new favorite thing to do. I lived in Provo for six years and never went down it, which I know sounds ridiculous, but now that I live an hour away it's worth the trip. A group of my friends went about a month ago and had a blast, so we knew we wanted to go back before summer ended. Last time it was SO warm and nice even though we didn't get on the river until 5 p.m. The sun was going down and making the canyon look beautiful. There is one spot where the bank is lower and met up with a spot where horses were grazing. There was even a cute little colt prancing around. It just made me so grateful to be so close to nature where I live.
It takes about two hours to ride the river . . . or at least that's how long it usually takes us. Somehow we always get stuck or get thrown out, so it slows us down. Saturday was a completely different climate—ice water and a cold breeze! It was crazy. We had some good adventures, though. This time there were twelve of us, but we weren't together the whole time. Our trusty raft sprung a leak after half an hour, which was a huge bummer. For a while we doubled up on the tubes, but that was sort of a disaster. Then Scott and Jeremy found some rope and wrapped up the corner where the tear was. That worked great until we decided to fit four people (instead of our usual three) and popped the rope off. We didn't tell the guys that's what had happened.:) It got tiring after a while because we kept losing air and sinking and hitting our bottoms on the rocks and shivering, but it was worth all the laughs and close encounters with death. A tree even came floating down the river at one point when we were standing and reblowing up the raft and smacked right into the back of my knees! That's what makes the river so fun!:)

Only the best days of my life

So far these have been the best last couple of days ever, and for some reason all the little things are what make me feel that way! I've been noticing the mountains and shadows and days without headaches and people's smiles.

On Friday I got to work at 8:40 a.m. (instead of 9) so that I could take a lunch break. I haven't been diagnosed as a workaholic, but I just never take a lunch break so that I can work 9–5. Lately I've realized that my stress level drops when I actually take breaks during the day. "It's only a book." None of my authors are going to die from hyperventilation if I leave my desk for half an hour. So I got to work early, walked in, and ran into Melissa, one of my coworkers, who tells me that Booger (the cat) got stuck in my office overnight. She could smell poop, but she couldn't find it. Happy Friday to me!:) I started the poop search and soon found it right under my desk all over the cords and power strip. Nice. As a side note, this cat has been sick, so this was not friendly poop. It takes a surprising amount of time to clean up the mess. So the day goes on, and I'm recharging my iPod and notice that my plug-in-to-an-electrical-outlet changer comes apart and has a USB connection inside!!! That made Friday the best day ever.:)

Saturday was another good day because I bought clothes.:) Hee hee. I haven't been shopping in SO long, and it felt SO good. I'm not a shopaholic, either, I promise. Carrie and I went up to the Park City Outlets and got some pretty sweet deals. My entire outfit I wore to church yesterday was care of Saturday shopping. On the way home from the outlets I stopped at Ross, TJ Max, and Famous Footwear, and found some really cute red flats at TJ Max. I've had a Visa gift card in my wallet that I was pretty sure I'd used up but just in case I tried it, and there was still $11.86 left on it. Aren't surprises great? So my shoes were half price! Then I decided to head next door to Cafe Rio to bring home some food for me and my mom . . . and I noticed that my three Cafe Rio stamp cards equalled a free meal!:) Saturday definitely beat out Friday.

And then Sunday was even better because I felt so much peace all day long. Sundays can be uptight sometimes because I'm worried about getting to my morning meeting on time, my counselors being on time, the chorister showing up, answering questions while trying to gather announcements and get people to say the opening and closing prayers, making the new girls feel welcome, etc. Yesterday I fasted, which I haven't been able to do in about three years, and it was amazing how the Lord blessed me with strength and health and peace! All of those usually Sunday stresses weren't there. I needed to do the same things, but I didn't let myself get stressed. There's a girl named Camille Cleverly missing down in Provo, and my friend Ashley let me know Saturday night, asking if I would fast for her. Camille was last seen on Thursday and the only clue they have is that her bike is also gone. There was another search all day yesterday, but they still haven't found anything to help them know where she is. She's tall and blonde and 22 years old, so please remember her in your prayers.

Brad and Chelsea were here when I got home from church, and it was so fun to see them. Chelsea is due on Friday, so little Emma should be here any day! I'm so excited, and so is Chelsea. She's VERY ready to have this baby. She hasn't been feeling well the whole pregnancy, and now to top things off she's starting to get a cold. I'm glad they still came up to see us even though Chels wasn't feeling great. Next time we see them will probably be in the Orem Community Hospital!

The first Sunday of every month we have a Newbold Family Night with my dad's side of the family. Usually we go to my grandparents' house, but this time we went to my Aunt Cynthia and Uncle John's down in Pleasant Grove. It's always great to see all my cousins and family and catch up with everyone, but for some reason yesterday was just so nice and made me love my family even more. Sometimes I try to look at my family the way an outsider would and it makes me laugh. When we were trying to get started Uncle David kept interupting Cynthia to explain to my grandma why Great-Grandpa Sperry was a Pirates fan. Baseball is part of every Newbold gathering. After the lesson we played a game where, for example, we had to name an Old Testament character beginning with the letter G. My aunt had a stack of questions and a stack of card with alphabet letters, and we would yell out the answer. When it was H and the question was "Word of Wisdom," my dad said "Health" fastest and won a chocolate kiss. The next time H was used, the question was "Thou shalt . . ." and my dad said "Health" again. He of course lost. When H came around again, it was something like "A word from one of Jesus's parables." Uncle David said, "Health" just to tease my dad :) Brad won with "Husbandman" cuz he's smart like that.