Looking Forward to Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I have always loved the idea of giving thanks. I also love family coming together and of course the food. Another thing that is appealing to me is that Thanksgiving doesn't seem to be as commercial as some of the other holiday's. In more recent years Thanksgiving has had a more special meaning to our family. Our son Nicholas was born on Thanksgiving Day November 28th, 2002. Then one year later on his first birthday which was the day after Thanksgiving we had Nicholas sealed to us in the Mesa Arizona Temple. That night we celebrated with 69 friends in our new home in Maricopa. This picture is the one that was on the invitations. Nicholas is 11 months in this picture. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving this year because once again I will be blessed to have my sister Cathenia and her family coming down from Utah to celebrate with us. Also my neice Janine and her family will be here as well. We play a mean game of football on the big day if anyone would like to challege us. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Happy Halloween

Well for the first time since Nicholas was born we all dressed up for Halloween. It was so much fun. Dale did make me promise that next year his costume would not require make-up. I can't blame him on that one. He did look like an amazing vampire. We dressed up two nights in a row. On the 31st we attended a party at our friends the Farabee's. On the 1st we attended our annual block party. Both parties were great. This will be a hard year to beat.

Weekend Highlights

Saturday
This has been a great weekend. On Saturday our nephew Joshua Boice got baptized. It was a beautiful baptism. I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. In preparing my talk I was reminded of all the ways the Holy Ghost has touched my life. I told the story of when I was a young teenager and my mother became very ill. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance. When we were finally allowed to see my mother she looked gravely ill. She was white as a ghost and had tubes coming out of every part of her body. She could hardly speak she was so weak. She was bleeding internally but they could not tell where she was bleeding from. This was in the early 80's so technology was limited, especially in the small town where we lived. I thought my mother was dying. I prayed to Heavenly Father and said, "Please don't let my mother die. I need her." I distinctly remember a feeling of peace and comfort coming over me. I know the Holy Ghost was letting me know that my mother would be okay. My mother ended up having surgery twice with many complictions. In fact she was in the hospital for over 6 weeks. It was a difficult time for our family but I never doubted that my mother would live.

After the baptism we all went out for a late lunch to Chili's. We celebrated Joshua's baptism as well as Dale's birthday which is on the 26th.


Sunday
Today we celebrated Dale's 42nd birthday as a family. Makoto and Yukino came over to help us celebrate. I made Dale a special dinner of shrimp alfredo over whole wheat noodles. It turned out really good even though I did not use a recipe (not that I ever do). I am so grateful to have such a wonderful, kind man to be my husband. We will be married 18 years this December. We have been so blessed over the years in so many ways. I am looking forward to many more years together.


The family. One of the few pictures with Dale's eye's open. You can't see all of Nick but you can tell he is smirking. I think it is cute.


Nicholas with his cousins Yukino and Makoto. He loves being around these guys as you can tell. I love how I caught Nick mid giggle.

This picture was a complete fluke. I love how it turned out. Maybe it is a picture of Nick's aura?

Disneyland

While we were in California we took Nicholas to Disneyland for the first time. It was a perfect time to take him in my opinion. He was tall enough to ride all of the rides (technically he was 47 1/2 inches but we made sure to not cut his hair before the trip so he would have that extra 1/2 inch) and he is old enough to remember all of it. We had a great experience the 2 days we were there. The weather was great and it was busy but not too busy. We were able see all that we really wanted to see. I still think that Soaring Over California is my favorite. We got to ride it twice which was good for me. The highlight of day one was when Nicholas got picked to do the Jedi Training. I was practically in tears. I would not make a good stage Mom. The highlight of day two was watching the show with Koda and Kenai and then meeting them afterward. Brother Bear and Brother Bear 2 have been 2 of Nick's favorite movies. Overall it was a great trip but I don't want to do it for another 5 years (exhausting).

Nick's favorite ride was Buzz Lightyear.

Nicholas and Dale in Tarzan's treehouse.

My little Jedi.

Waiting for the Toon Town roller coaster.

Nick's favorite character by far.

Dale refused to ride the spinny rides.

Beginning of day 2.

A rare picture of the family together.

Best Friends Through the Years!

Jeff and Memory Aviles moved into our ward in Chandler just after Nicholas was born. Shortly after Memory gave birth to Andrew. Ever since then Nicholas and Andrew have been best friends. Things were sometimes rough in the beginning (Nicholas had a small biting problem) but they always loved to see each other. When Nicholas was 10 months old we moved to Maricopa. Shortly thereafter the Aviles family followed. For the next several months Memory and I would go walking 3-4 miles a day with our babies in their strollers. I think the boys bonded even more during this time. When Nicholas was 3 Jeff and Memory moved to California (their original home). It was a sad day in the Boice home. For months after that Nicholas would tell us he wanted to move to California. He would also ask to go visit California constantly. If you ask Nicholas who his best friend is, to this day he will say Andrew. We recently took a trip to California to go to Disneyland. Every night when we left the park Nicholas would say are we going to Andrew's house. On Saturday we were able to spend the entire day with the Aviles family. Dale and I took the older boys to Chuck E Cheese and had a great time (or at least the boys did). We then went to a park. The weather was beautiful so we really enjoyed being outside. Where Memory lives there are lots of trees and rolling hills so it was very beautiful. That night we all went out to dinner which was fun. I'm glad we are able to keep in touch with good friends even though they move far away. The last picture is the 4 boys Andrew, Zachary, Nicholas and Ethan.

Bye to LTS

Today was my last day as a teacher's aide at Legacy Traditional School. The enrollment is down because of lack of space so as a result they told the aide's that we would all have to cut our hours in half. Since I was already half day it did not really affect me. After the meeting there were a couple of people who were pretty emotional. I don't really need to work so I told LTS that if someone else needed the hours I would leave. I surprized myself the next day when I got really emotional after they told me they would take me up on my offer. I thought about not seeing those precious little 4 and 5 year old faces everyday. Our class was so awesome and I will truly miss seeing them. I know they are in good hands with Ms. Carvel and Mrs. McEvers. This was just another stepping stone on my journey in life.

On a brighter note since I started working at LTS I hardly get a chance to go to town. I am now looking forward to being able to go to town more often. Hopefully that does not mean spending all the money I made in the last 7 weeks.

I am looking forward to Conference this weekend. I am hoping to gain some insight on what to do with my life.

Heavenly Father Knows Best

I have to admit reading other people’s blogs has been intimidating to me. I am just not much of a writer. Traditionally it has not been my strong suite. I refuse to let this hold me back so here it goes. Recently I was called in to speak to Brother Roos in the Bishopric. I thought to myself, I just gave a talk and I already have a calling so what could it be? Well Bro Roos decided to extend a second calling to me. The calling is youth Sunday school teacher (scary). I do love the youth but teaching them Sunday school put the fear in me. I never listened as a youth in Sunday school and I was a relatively good kid. Because I have another calling as visiting teaching coordinator he said I could think about it. Personally I would rather just be extended the call and not have to make the choice. I told him I would substitute for a few weeks and then let him know if it became too overwhelming. As I studied for my first lesson I realized something. I have been praying to Heavenly Father to help me to improve my scripture study. Well what do you know, when I have this calling in Sunday school I am forced to study my scriptures. My prayers have definitely been answered, just not in the way I expected them to be. So far I have really enjoyed teaching the kids. The bonus is studying scriptures just seems to make everything in my life better.

On a side note last Saturday was a most uplifting day. First was an amazing baptism in our ward of Dennis Neader. The spirit was so strong. I was then able to enjoy the Relief Society broadcast from Salt Lake. When President Uchtdorf spoke I was in awe. His talk truly spoke to my heart. I want to work on creating more of what I want in my life. I am so grateful for the life I have. I feel very blessed. Hugs to all my wonderful friends and family.