My husband rocks!!

This is how he went to school today....

Love you, babe!
(More Halloween pics to come)

And, they're off!!

Remember these guys....?
Well, you won't be seeing them around in any of our pictures for a while (who knows how long, really). They've up and left us and MOVED TO AUSTRALIA!!! Honestly?! Why not American Fork or even Brigham City, or St. George? Maybe even Florida, or California? I could handle them being out of the state, maybe....But out of the country? And half way across the world for that matter!! *Sigh*

We're definitely going to miss them. In fact, we miss them already!! Luckily we just downloaded Skype so we can see and talk to them over the internet. The problem will probably be the time difference. They're pretty much 16ish hours ahead of us time-wise, so it may be a challenge to line up times so we can chat. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, here are some pics of them leaving us....

J left first, on September 25th, to get things ready for T & R to follow

J's farewell crew

More of the crew

The boys

Then, T & R left today. T's mom and brother went with them to help with the travel & visit Aussieland for a few days before coming back.

R and her cousin

Me and R
(We had to bribe her with using my chap-stick in order to get this picture of us. She's a chap-stick maniac thanks to me. Sorry T!)

R & some more of her cousins

Last sight of them, and Mike showing off his cute pink luggage ;)

Have a safe flight, you guys!! We love you!! Come back to us as soon as you can!

P.S. If any of you faithful readers feel compelled to donate to the "D & K Australian Vacation Fund," we'll gladly accept donations of any amount :)

T'was a blustery morning!!

This is no joke. This morning just as I was leaving my house heading towards the freeway on my way to school, I was completely startled when I saw something HUGE coming towards my car. A tumbleweed that was at least half the size of my car was headed straight towards me!! The thing was ginormous!!!! No kidding! I think it missed my car by only about 3 inches. It didn't help that it was still pitch black outside, so I didn't see it until it was about 5 feet away. The wind was blowing so hard the tumbleweed was coming fast! Thank goodness for those close encounters that don't actually become encounters :) I swear...this only happens in Utah!!

Have a great day!!

2009 Conference on Adoption

I've been privileged to sit on the planning committee at UVU for the 2009 Conference on Adoption. It's going to be AWESOME!!! Seriously. It's a yearly conference, but we're hosting it this year.

I'm positing this because it's a free conference open to the public, and will be held on November 2nd from 9am-4pm in the Student Center on UVU Campus. I know several of you who read my blog are social workers, or you have adopted children for yourselves, or you have been involved with adoption in some way, so this conference would be great for you to attend! (Every one else is invited too, no worries.) Here's the most exciting part about the conference...are you ready? Michael McLean is the keynote!! Woot! Woot! And...of course Michael McLean can't come talk about adoption without singing his amazing song "From God's Arms, to My Arms, to Yours." You have no idea how excited I am for that! (Also, as a little side note, if you do decide to attend, make sure you bring some cash or your check book because he's going to be selling CDs and stuff too.)

If you're interested in attending, click on this link for more information. At that link you can print the program and pre-register for the conference as well. You can also ask me if you have any questions...I know quite a bit about this conference, so I should be able to answer your questions. I hope some of you are able to come attend! I'll be there all day starting at 7:30, so let me know if you're going to come, and make sure you come say hi to me!!

He's a genius!

I just want to say how proud I am of my genius husband. About a month ago he had to take a couple of Praxis tests for his teaching job, and we just found out that he scored in the top 15% of everyone who has ever taken it! Great job, babe! I'm so proud of you!! Not only that though, he is also in the top 10% of his Masters program, he has a 4.0 gpa for his entire program so far. Woot! Woot! Keep up the hard work, my love. You rock!

P.S. For those of you who don't get the picture of Sid the Sloth being put up with this post, Sid claims "I'm a genius" in the movie Ice Age. If you haven't seen it, repent and sin no more ;)

Monster Mash, anyone?

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Truly blessed!!

Despite my crazy, busy schedule it seems like things are really going my way, and I can't help but smile and be happy. First off, I have a wonderful life, with the most amazing husband in the world who loves me more than life itself. What more could you ask for after that, right? I honestly don't know what I've done to deserve the incredible life, husband, family, in-laws, and friends that I have been blessed with, but Heavenly Father continues to pour down blessings upon me, and I thank Him every day for it because I know how truly blessed I am!

Today was one of the neatest days of my life, and definitely one to remember!! You ready for this?! Today I got to shake the hand of not one, not TWO, but THREE Apostles of God. Honestly. I even have a witness! ;)

Today was the inauguration of UVU's new President, Matthew S. Holland, son of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. As my friend, Janice, and I were standing by our seats waiting for all of the "important people" to walk in and take their seats, I was spotted by Jack R. Christiansen, an amazing member of the Church, previous president of the Orem Institute, and newly made VP of Student Engagement on campus. He is such a great man, and such an amazing example to D and I, and the many, many others who have been privileged to know him. Shortly after Jack walked by and shook my hand, a tall man came walking down the isle in an extremely bright pick graduation gown. That tall man was none other than President Henry B. Eyring of the 1st Presidency. Janice and I looked at each other, smiled our beautiful smiles at President Eyring, and he took the time to smile back and shake both of our hands. That totally made our day, and we would have been satisfied with that, honestly. :) The inauguration was amazing, and we were both glad we decided to skip our classes today to attend this once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity. Following the inauguration, we wanted to see if we could find Elder Holland to shake his hand and thank him for his amazing talk he just gave in General Conference this past weekend. As we were walking toward the front where he was standing with his wife and grandchildren, I spotted Elder Neil L. Anderson, the most recently called Apostle. His wife shook Janice and my hands first, and then we were able to shake the hand of our second Apostle of the day :) This was almost too much for us to handle. Just kidding. We finally made our way up to where Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was standing and greeting everyone who wanted to talk to him. He was seriously so genuine and so happy. He asked me how I was doing, and when I replied, "I'm great, thank you," he responded back after looking in my eyes, "Yes, you are great, aren't you?" It was seriously one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. To be able to look into the eyes of a true Apostle of God, and have him tell you "you're great" gave me a feeling I can't describe. I even got close enough to see that he has amazingly crystal blue eyes, and on top of being privileged to shake his hand and speak with him, he also gave me a half-hug as he talked to us for a second and said he's totally okay with adopting Wolverine Green over the BYU Blue he's been used to. Haha. He told Janice and I that were completely justified in skipping our classes for this wonderful event when we told him we missed class to attend. What an amazing day. It's not very often anyone has the privilege of shaking the hand of one Apostle, let alone be in the same room as them. Being able to shake the hands of three living and true Apostles of God is surely a day and an event to remember.

We are extremely excited to have Matthew Holland as our new UVU President, and he has been doing amazing things on campus already. He is super funny and so down to earth. It has been a privilege to meet him in person as well. Welcome to UVU President Holland!!






P.S. Last week I won one of these little beauties at school....
All I did was dress up for the career fair, put my name in the drawing, and finally won something!! But not just something...an iPod! Yeah, it's just 1GB, and only an iPod shuffle, but since we're slow on the technology updates, and we didn't have an iPod yet, this is a good start for us. I swear I never win anything! Maybe my luck is changing ;)