Friday, January 15, 2010

7 + 1 = 8 little nephews!


Congratulations to Tara and Darce for adding precious little Andrew Steven Barrus to the family!



Born: January 14 @ 5:07 pm.


6 pounds 6 ounces


18.5 Inches


Cute as can be!


Drew is nephew #8 for John and I! We spent the evening praying for this little guy, as he had a little hole in one of his lungs and was having difficulty breathing. After spening the night in the NICU he is doing much better today and his lung seems to be healing itself. We are hoping to meet him tonight! I already love him so much :)


I love being an Auntie.


Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Please help...

I know money is tight everywhere, but I don't know anyone who can't sacrifice $10 to help aid those in Haiti right now whose lives have been shattered in the earthquake. I know if I were there, I would be on my knees begging God, praying for help from people like you and me. We are all so blessed people!!! We can't sit here and allow those people to suffer without offering the slightest bit of help. Right now is the time to help.

Read this article.

Really, just take the 5 minutes and read it please.

Did you read the part that states there could be as many as 100,000 dead? Or maybe even up to 500,000 dead?? Or more???? I can't even imagine the heartache involved in such a disaster.

For those interested in helping immediately, simply text "HAITI" to "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill (I checked it out and it's 100% legit, set up by the mGive Foundation. Every penny of that $10 goes straight to the Red Cross). Once you text, they will text you back asking to confirm. Reply "YES". Then they will send you 2 more texts and you just reply "STOP" to never hear from them again. Simple as can be!

Click here for other ways to help!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Happy New Year!!


2010- That's weird!

Well here I am, 1 month after blogging last... woops!!

The #1 AWESOME thing that has happened in our life since I last blogged is that JOHN GRADUATED FROM WEBER STATE!!! WOW. It still seems kind of unreal to me, since he has been going to school since the day we met. I've never known the John that doesn't have class, or homework, or some project or another. He graduated on December 11, with a 3.95 gpa. I am so so SO proud of him! We celebrated by eating delicious ribs at his parents house the following Sunday, with all of his fam and my parents and Alex. I had wanted to throw him a big party but figured he would be happier keeping it low key. He gets a little sheepish when it comes to being the center of attention ;) So he officially has his Masters in Accounting, and I know that will be SUCH a huge blessing to him and our family for the rest of our lives! I really couldn't be more proud and I just hope he knows that.

The Holiday season was pretty good. It seemed more relaxing and laid back than normal, which is a very good thing! We spent Thanksgiving at the Elder's and Christmas at the Black's. 2 days before Christmas John and my parents and I helped serve food to the homeless and needy at the Marshall White center here in Ogden. It was a really good experience and something we would like to do more often. Then on Christmas Eve John's parents made a gigantic pot of (the most delicious) chicken noodle soup, and we handed it out to people on the streets downtown here in Ogden. We had a ton left over and gave it to the rescue mission. Also rather than exchange gifts with our families this year we all donated $$ to two different families that we knew were in need of help. So overall it was a great Holiday season, and helping others was the perfect way to focus more on the TRUE meaning of Christmas and have less focus on ourselves. I'm sure that's why it seemed so much less stressful and more enjoyable than previous years.

In the past month John and I also spent as much time as we possibly could playing Super Mario Bro's on the wii. It's the funnest game EVER and we have seriously spent countless hours playing together. We have so much fun just goofing off together, even if it just involves sitting on the foot of the bed staring at the tv for hours on end as we try to pass the almost impossible levels in the Star World on Mario. We usually try to be more active, but when it's so dang cold outside we can't really do the fun things that we like to do in the warmer months so for now the Wii will do!

New Year's eve ended up being a blast as well. We had planned to go to Lava Hot Springs with some friends but at the last minute they ditched out on us! We were really bummed and couldn't decide what to do, but we figured we may as well go anyway and we ended up having the most fun EVER! We came to the conclusion that it was by far the best New Year's Eve either of us have ever had. Our hotel room wasn't super fancy, but it had a fireplace and was right across the road from the Hot pools, we had a yummy steak and shrimp dinner, a 2 hour relaxing soak in the tubs, and went downtown and danced the night away as we rang in the new year. It was sooo much fun! Sometimes I just can't believe how much my life has changed since meeting John. It was so bland before! But I feel like we are always on some adventure or another, and I love it so much.

Over the weekend 2 of my best friends from Mtn. Home came and stayed with us. It was GREAT. I don't have any really close friends here in Utah (I'm a bit reserved when it comes to meeting new people and kind of have a hard time opening up [as I've been stabbed in the back 1 too many times by someone I thought was a good friend] but I really wish I wasn't!) so it was really great having a visit from the girls I grew up with. We went shopping, out to eat, rented movies and stayed up till wee hours of the morning talking. Oh how I miss having my girls close by! Anyway it was a blast and I'm grateful for good friends, even if they are hours away.

As for the new year... I am ANTI new year's resolution, BUT I do have 2 goals for this year:

#1- Attend the temple more often. So if you ever want to go on a temple date, call us and we are there! Really!

#2- Once it's warmed up a little, get back into running and sign up for (and run) lots and lots of 5k's.

And there they are, 2 goals that I'm absolutely going to achieve this year.

How do you feel about new years resolutions?? Do you have any this year????