Fall 2013 Recap

These past few months have been crazy at best so it's no wonder I haven't had time to blog about it. Please accept my apology for the lateness of these posts, but check out how much fun we've been having!

August: I went back to school!!!! This is huge for me! Not only did I go back, but I got accepted to a program that is 180 degrees different than I ever imagined I would want to do. I'm at the UMKC Bloch School of Business to get a Master's of Business Administration in Entrepreneurship. I've already completed one semester and I love it! It's super hard work and a lot of studying but I love the challenge!

All ready for the first day of school:

Alexander also got a new job at H&R Block Corporate headquarters. Within a few weeks, he was given a great promotion, along with a nice raise. :) He doesn't love the work, but he is respected and has done very well in his department.

Alexander turned 31!

Just before school started, I snuck back to Utah for a quick girls weekend in Park City with my high school besties. We had so much fun! A total flashback to sleepovers when we were teenagers. :)

September:

In September some of our bestest friends, Zuke and Melissa, came to visit for a few days. We had a blast at the Renaissance Festival, visiting church history sites and eating some darn good food! I wish I had written about this soon after, but alas.

At Adam-ondi-ahman:

Eating green jello!

Here are some of our highlights from the Renaissance Festival!

We threw dangerous weapons:

We pretended to be Robin Hood:

We put Melissa in the stocks:

Alexander found a dragon:

Melissa found a wooden mug:

I RODE AN ELEPHANT!! It was awesome..

We later went back to the Ren Fest with our other good friends, Joe and Kathy. Needless to say, we had a little too much fun with our food. We really enjoyed our turkey legs and cider floats :)

Joe, Kathy, Audrey and Alexander in the dragon:

In October we were incredibly busy. We moved into a new, beautiful (and much larger) home, we rushed to complete our adoption homestudy and we had our super awesome Halloween Party. We had over 40 people in our home for the party which featured costumes, soup and salad, treats galore, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown for the little kids, much WII gaming for the teenagers and tons of great conversation for the adults. I didn't get a single picture during the party, however, I did take a few of the aftermath. ;)

We were invited to murder mystery dinner. Here are our costumes:

Miss Jade:

Sir Ruelion:

For Halloween, we dressed up as Vercingetorix and Cartimandua of the Celtic people:

The aftermath of the Halloween party:

Leila

This past month I lost one of my dearest Kansas City friends. Leila passed away suddenly and tragically and I am still heartbroken about losing her. She was so sincere and loving and was a true friend to me. She came through many times when I needed help most and I will always be grateful for her influence in my life.

I remember seeing Leila in sacrament meeting soon after moving into the ward. She was so full of confidence, wearing a beautiful scarf and sky-high heels. She spoke with eloquence and wisdom beyond her years and I was shocked to learn she was only in her mid-twenties. We later got to know each other better at a mutual friend's Sunday evening gathering. We were fast friends. A few weeks later, after hearing me share my story of my trial to have children, she came to me and offered her advice on adoption, as she was a family attorney. I felt so relieved to have someone to ask all my legal questions and who could give me a good referral on a wonderful attorney.

In April 2012, we served as tour guides together at the Kansas City Temple Open House. As we were waiting to lead our groups, I mentioned that I was a little nervous and, as she always did, Leila assured me that I would be great. She never let me belittle myself, she was the most encouraging person I've ever encountered. She quickly taught me that I shouldn't voice my doubts, as she would inevitably make a big deal out of my competence.

Our friendship grew as we attended each other's parties (we both LOVE parties!). When she was "sort of" dating her future husband, Leila and I conspired for me to invite Sky and Leila separately over for dinner, thereby sneaking them another date. It turned out to be a really fun evening and the first of many date-night dinners that we shared with them.

More recently, when I brought my wedding business out to KC, she was one of the first to offer to help. And she did! Even though she was several months pregnant, Leila was my saving grace at a wedding I did in June. I honestly couldn't have done it without her. She was a constant support and I told her that she was thereafter my personnel manager and that I needed her at all my events.

On August 2, I was doing a large event and she had committed to helping with the transportation of my workers. However, that morning she was very sick and couldn't come. Instead, I had her wonderful sister, Alisha, who willingly helped me even though she was only there to take pictures. Apparently life-savers run in that family! I will ever be grateful that I was able to stop and talk to Leila at church briefly that Sunday, August 4. She was lovely in her cute coral dress and apologetic for not helping me. I assured her that it all worked out and to tell her sister again how much I appreciated her. We separated on the promise that I would be bringing some fruit to her house in the next few days. I now wish I had gone over and visited her that evening.

At 3am the next morning, having rushed to the ER for abdominal pains, she had a seizure and lost consciousness and never woke again. Her last words were to make sure her baby was okay. It turns out she had a brain hemorrhage and there was nothing the doctors could do. She was exactly 36 weeks pregnant and they took the baby by C-section within minutes. He was small but healthy.

She spent 6 days in a coma on life support in the ICU before her family decided to let her go on Aug 10, the day that I was supposed to have thrown her baby shower. I spent much of that week there, sharing in the sweet spirit of her wonderful family and trying to come to grips with losing someone so unexpectedly who had so much more life to live. That week in the hospital was a bittersweet experience for me and I will treasure the opportunity I had to spend a few quiet moments by her bedside.

I am so grateful for the many prayers offered on behalf of Leila's family for I am sure that I too received some of that comfort. The Lord has a plan for all of us but sometimes it is so hard to understand that plan in our mortality. More than ever I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of the Plan of Happiness and that we can be with our loved ones again.


Leila and Sky at our 2013 St. Patrick's Day Party earlier this year:

Denise's Summer Break Blast!

The fun never stops around here!! Denise drove back with us from Utah and stayed 9 days! We did our best to fill them with unforgettable fun.

Here's the breakdown that is sure to make all the rest of you wish you were here! (Please come! You are always welcome! We love excuses to do fun things!)

We arrived late on July 8th so we just went to bed. On the 9th we mostly hung around and slept a bit but that night we went to our favorite movie theater (with recliner chairs) to watch Despicable Me 2. It was so cute!

On July 10th I spent most of the day studying. Denise was a lifesaver as she helped me cram formulas for triangles and how to find the area of rectangles. Come to find out, it was a major blessing as there were at least four questions on the GMAT that referred to that Trig.

On July 11th, I woke up early and left at 7:30am to take the GMAT. I was sooo nervous. They have more security there than a prison, I'm sure. Each time we entered or left the room they did a palm scan and checked our IDs. It was a four hour exam with a 30 min analytic writing section, 30 minute integrated reasoning, 75 min quantitative, 75 min verbal section and two optional breaks (which I didn't take). When it was finally over, I was sure I had failed. However, I didn't fail. I didn't do well enough to get into Harvard, but UMKC will take me. :)

When I got home we decided to go out to lunch to celebrate. We went to BRGR for some gourmet burgers and fries. We then visited the Nelson-Atkins for some cultural enrichment. We tried to explain to Denise why Picasso, Monet and Van Gough were famous, but she just liked taking funny pictures. ;)

Alexander with his Assyrian Genie friend.

Denise also made a new friend...

We tried to imitate the expression on her, uh, face. 

I think Picasso was a little confused about where the mouth should go...

July 12th was spent getting ready for my party on the 13th. Sunday, the 14th, we went to church and had a roast beef dinner. It was kinda nice to just be a bit lazy.

July 15th we drove down to Branson. We ate lunch at Lambert's Cafe (famous for their "throwed rolls"). The food was delicious and the helpings were huge! We had to roll ourselves out of the restaurant!

They served the water in big gas station jugs, which was a good idea as we were extra thirsty!

We then drove down Branson's strip and went to the Branson Belle Showboat. We boarded at 4pm and they took our picture as we entered. They had some pretty darn good pink lemonade and I think the three of us drank at least a gallon, if not more. They fed us roast beef, chicken, mashed potatoes and snow peas. It was really good (though we weren't really hungry due to our large lunches). The show was pretty entertaining. The Showmen were a group of 5 young men with great voices and Janice Martin, violinist, pianist, vocalist, and acrobatic performed as well. She was incredible! I was blown away by all the talent!

The entrance to the landing. 

The Branson Belle Showboat

Table Rock Lake

Denise is ready to sail!

Playing in the gift shop.

Denise is lookin' good!

They took this picture for us :)

Pretty sweet organ.

Overlooking the dining hall.

I am so short!

While we ate dinner and watched the show, the boat cruised around Table Rock Lake. We had an intermission that allowed us to take pictures on the deck. We had so much fun! When the show ended we walked out into pouring rain, which was a bit of a surprise!

Caught in the Rain!

On July 16th, I turned 30 years old. I woke up to find that Denise had blown up balloons and written sweet things on them such as, beautiful, fantastic smile, good example, etc. Denise and Alexander were very sweet to humor me and go with me to the zoo even though it was quite hot. We decided that if we left early enough we would miss most of the heat. It was good that we had done that as the afternoon was super hot and we would have melted!

We are hardcore jungle explorers!

Fun on the Sky Tram

See Alexander photo bombing in the back?

And the giraffe is photo bombing off to the right in this picture.

Denise with lions in the background.

Denise thought she would go to Australia.

This giraffe is pretty.

We are such a heavenly couple!

The lion wasn't too pleased about the heat.

Meerkat!

Rhino!

For dinner we made my traditional birthday dinner of bacon and tomato sandwiches with Eton Mess for dessert. Delicious!!

On the 17th, we went down to Union Station to see if we could sneak in their featured exhibit before Denise flew home. We were lucky and got in just in time. The exhibit was called Real Pirates and was put on by National Geographic (so you know it's gonna be good!). It featured the artifacts recovered from a wrecked pirate ship, the Whydah. The ship started out as a slave transport ship but was captured by famous pirate Sam Bellamy who claimed her as his flagship. He only had the ship a short time before it wrecked in 1717 in a huge Nor'easter off of Cape Cod. The artifacts were incredible. It was amazing what the divers had been able to recover!

Blurry, but it proved we were all there together. :)

It was fun because Union Station is all decked out with pirates and ship decor. We had fun with some of the statues.

I think Denise has found herself a new man!

Jealous, Alexander?

After the pirate adventure, we took Denise to the airport to fly home. It was so much fun having her here and we really missed her when she left. Godiva was sad the whole rest of the day and wouldn't leave the guest bedroom in the hopes that Denise would be back.