It's beginning to look allot like Christmas....

Last Friday when I got to work, it was hard to concentrate, Marlana and I both LOVE the snow...

And it was snowing like crazy right outside our window.

It was so beautiful!!  (focus, focus, focus)

Then Friday night when we got home from working all day, I tried to convince my strong silent mysterious man that we needed to go downtown and see the tree lighting.

He gave me his annual no way, you go ahead.

So I found some friends that were taking their 

daughter and friends that were over for a birthday party... perfect!  

So I tagged along, I love good friends!

Before we got to the lights, we ran into Santa and unlike my son when he was a teenager, these girls WANTED their picture with him :)  Yay!!!  

You would think this was building to sights of beautiful lights... but no.  I only managed to get a ton of blurred photos.  Not sure what happened, I tried every setting on my little instant camera, and they were bad and worse.  

Just trust me when I say the lights were beautiful and there were tons of them.

If you could see them, this would be walking through them across the bridge...

And along the water..

And I have no idea why I can't get these pictures turned, this is a new problem I have never had troubles with before.

More teenage girls...

And dark blurred pictures...

Okay... under protest I will throw in a self portrait...

And a side ways picture that fought to stay that way... 

But don't we all look warm and cozy with our hot cocoa cups and gloves and hats.

This would have been the best picture, if it were clear... I wanted to steal her cute kitten hat off her head all night.  But held myself back from being the creepy hat stealing tag along friend :)

This is a waterfall of lights, if you could see it.

And our dear friend at the train depot all dressed up in his top hat (must have been one of Santa's body guards?)

And I big ol' full sized camel!!!  What???

And a real reindeer!!  So cool!

Plus some other random critters that I have to ooh and aww and take a picture and move on, or I will want to take them all home with me. 

Wouldn't he fit right in at my house?  I think yes!

And a baby camel... so pretty, super soft, but we heard kind of temperamental... I can resist taking him home, I definitely don't need temperamental at my house.   But so adorable.

I really good time was had by all, except the strong silent mysterious man who never knows what he is missing out on.

Time is flying...

Since the missionary left Utah for Paraguay, he has been on my mind.

It's been hard to focus on much else.

I don't worry so much, because everything he writes and all the pictures he sends have been so wonderful and my heart is really at peace.  

But.... I miss him!

I miss him so much sometimes it hurts .

I am so happy his adult life is beginning with this beautiful journey of service... but I still miss him.

I have been able to stay busy, and that makes the time FLY by... I can't believe he will have been in Paraguay for two weeks tomorrow already!!!

So here is a summary of a few clips of the past two weeks....

Serving with the missionaries.... that always makes my heart full.

 We raked leaves... it ended up being a full day of leaf raking with a trailer full of bags of leaves... which left me with a pinched nerve or something in my back.  I am dealing with that later today finally, but been a gimp for the past two weeks.  AHhhhhhh!!!!!!!

 A visit from our Duck family!

With early condolence pictures for the slaughter that would occur later that night.

And puppy chow!  (aka muddy buddies... with a twist of nuts and m&m's YUM)

 And her new fuchie face!  ha ha ha ha

 I had a birthday and was showered with gifts... if I smell like a big satsuma orange, this is why!

 New boots!

 Adorably cute!

 Some specialty hot cocoa mix... I broke into the pkg and drank the vanilla marshmallow with my strong silent mysterious man before we got a picture of the whole pkg. wrapped. 

So cute, so perfect.... it has been hot cocoa weather.

 And whole wheat waffles... it was a gift to myself. 

My strong silent mysterious man takes it so serious when you say you don't really "need" anything for your birthday.  Remind me not to use those words again.

 We went out and voted...

 I asked him if this is how he felt about voting, he said "no this is how I feel about self portraits".

And I have a whole photo story of my travels to Emmett twice a month for work... I will save those for another post.  But it is safe to say I LOVE MY JOB!!  

We were rewarded for all the leaf raking with a trip to see our neighbors daughter sing at the jazz cafe with the missionaries.

 It was awesome!  If you don't think you like jazz music, but have an opportunity to go listen, even to music students... GO!!! You will love it.

 This place was called "The Blue Door" and it reminded me of the movie... Monsters Inc.

 With doors hanging from the ceiling.

And if you go read the missionaries blog, you will see we have gotten the best letters and pictures from him.

He sounds wonderful and if I stay busy enough, the next two years will be gone in a flash!

It's been a wonderful couple of weeks. 

I always feel so special on my birthday.

I love fall weather.

If I can get my back fixed today, I will be in GREAT shape to keep blogging!

There is a new missionary in town...

Running on pure adrenaline the past two days, I am officially exhausted (emotional drain, I can't imagine how those missionaries feel right now?).
Two phone calls later, we talked, I got to tell him how much I love him!!
I got to hear how much he loves us!!  A few funny stories, a little bit of Spanish and some sniffling tears of joy!

The missionary should have been in Paraguay about 30 min ago!!!

If all went well with the last flight. I was able to find all his flights and check on them and the weather all the way to Brazil... not one delay (is that weird that I stalked him all the way down?), but from Brazil to Paraguay they do not share that information on their websites.

It's funny as much as I stalk etc... that I am not the least bit worried about him arriving, his safety, or his luggage (which I have heard often gets lost on that last transfer).  I have so much peace and joy in my heart right now, my cup is totally full!!!

I can't wait to hear from him on P-day (when ever that is for him now???) !!!