Happy Birthday, Amy!

The first time I saw Amy was at a Dancers' Company concert. She was so much fun to watch and I asked Nathan after who she was and told him he should date her. He laughed at me. Then sometime later in the semester I ran into him on campus and he gave me a big hug, picking me up and swinging me around. I went back to my apartment and called Mom to see if she knew what was going on! She said, find out who he's dating! He had been with Amy. :)
I remember Amy telling Charity that there was "magic" in love and finding who you wanted to marry. Thanks, Amy, for the magic and fun and laughter you bring to our brother and the rest of us! Happy Birthday!

Just love

Thought the title should be changed up a bit. :) This is a kind of fun prompt-- Everyone remembers different things! So here I go, in order of birthdays.

It's kind of hard for me to peg a first memory of Amy, other than that the first time she came home with Nathan I was really excited and I made a little bouquet of somewhat smelly flowers to give to her. It is equally difficult to come up with a favorite memory because there are so many! I've actually lived with Amy almost more than anyone! At least I remember living with Amy more because I was older the times she stayed here. She's been an awesome friend to me though. I believe we both learned to single ski the same summer, and we have had fun watching So You Think You Can Dance together. I also really liked the time she made up a song for me to sing to boys who couldn't take a hint, "I...do not like you...no no no no no no" haha. I think you probably had to be there. Of course we all know that Amy has an awesome sense of humor so we've definitely laughed a lot together. She's pretty fantastic!

Coming up with a first memory of Julie is even more difficult, because I was very young when she and Raymond got married. I do remember thinking she was pretty well perfect. I totally idolized her. I remember telling her (I think...maybe it was someone else) that she was FOR SURE going to the Celestial Kingdom. I also liked when I would visit them and people would ask if I was her daughter because I thought she was so pretty and liked the thought that other people might think I looked like her. Probably my favorite memory is also when they were living in Provo. Julie was making an apple pie and let me help her. I don't think I got to help cook all that much at that point and I felt important. Plus then she made a little leaf with the crust to put on top and it was pretty and fancy. I liked that a lot.

It's sort of hard to choose favorites with April too, but I remember when she and Mike were in Provo still and they would play games with Andrew and I a lot. Harry Potter Uno was a favorite. That's also where I was introduced to Pride & Prejudice. I watched it with them, and then later read the book (I know, wrong order). I also had a lot of fun with April and Mike in Hawaii, and Nauvoo. I've definitely had a lot of good conversations with April. It was also fun when we got our ears pierced together :) it made it more fun to me not to feel like a pariah. April definitely made that whole thing more fun, and has given me some fun earrings since! :)

Three very fantastic ladies born this month! Love you all!

April love...

It was a good title so I'll stick with it.

I guess since I’m from Idaho that makes me a participa’tator’, as well as a repeater of cheesy tator jokes. So I will contribute to this family history, which I think is a great idea. I guess my thoughts of April went this way because of the original idea which was about priesthood. I remember every Testimony meeting at church April would stand up and say she’s thankful that her Dad’s the Bishop. I probably inappropriately teased her about it at the time but I think she was proud that her Dad was a worthy priesthood holder. Looking back I think was very sweet and very touching.

When Julie came into our family she made me feel welcome and comfortable which normally would be perceived as our duty as the in-laws to do that for her. I was and am very impressed by that and it inspired me to make more of an effort to be welcoming to my in-laws when I got married.

I first heard about Amy in letters from siblings while on my mission and was impressed before we ever met in person. She is such a doll! She’s got a great sense of humor which is great because I love to laugh. Unfortunately, I think I’m scarred for life at the memory of watching her drag face first across the beach sand behind our boat. Yikes! Hopefully someday we will be able to launch parasailors right off the back of the boat. Then we can make it up to her.

I think April, Julie, and Amy all fall into the category of supermoms that can and do do anything and everything. When I see moms like that I think that maybe you guys should come and do some of my stuff.:) I am a better person because of these three amazing ladies and am very thankful to have them in my life.

April, love . . .

Guess I'll start first since this was my idea. Recall that the prompt is "First/favorite memories of April, Amy, and Julie." I'm starting with April, super glad for the opportunity that I gave myself b/c I had to share some words at April's engagement dinner and didn't have any idea until the day of. And I did a terrible job - luckily, April doesn't remember much about it. :) So here's to redeeming myself for my own satisfaction. Ha!
April, I think, has always marched to the beat of her own drum. I don't think she ever felt compelled to do anything just because other people were doing it. And she didn't back down from doing anything she took it in her mind to do even if it was possibly weird.
A prime example of this is something that she did in 6th or 7th grade I think. We lived in Boise at the time and April's best friend was Deanna Foutz. I have no idea where they learned it, but they sang a little song called "The Hairy Blues." Lyrics are as follows:

I've got it all over my belly,  I've got it all over my back. You better watch out, I'm gonna have a hair attack! I've got the hairy blues, I've got the hairy, hairy blues.

They had some actions, too! April sang it with gusto. The memory of it totally makes me giggle. One other fun fact, that may be surprising to some of you - April played football with the boys in elementary. It's true. :)
Julie had me impressed from the beginning. My first recollection of her is that she dared to mock Raymond.  I enjoyed it b/c before Julie entered our lives Raymond was just an idol (at least to me). I loved him a lot - how could I not? He proudly claimed me as his birthday present every time he introduced me to someone! But everything Mom said about him painted him in the light of perfection. Kind of hard to relate to, y'know? She made fun of him, and it humanized him for me! It simultaneously made both Julie and Raymond relatable.
I have been racking my brain for very specific memories of Amy, but I can't really think of any that are specific! Nathan and Amy got married during my freshman year at BYU, and I plunged head first into dating after I arrived there. As was inevitable, I had many dating woes that needed talking over and Amy was a sympathetic and helpful listener having fairly recently just exited the dating game herself. And I don't recall that I met her that night, but the first night I saw her was onstage with Nathan and the rest of Dancer's Company. I was instantly in love with her hair (duh), but we found out later that we unknowingly witnessed hers and Nathan's first kiss; he stole one behind the cowboy hat that was part of his costume for a dance they did to Aaron Copland's Rodeo. *gasp*

Balance

This semester for my religion class I am taking Family Foundations. It is basically a course centered around the Family Proclamation. It's really been a good class and there have been a lot of great projects and articles that I have read, but this week seemed like it could be especially helpful so I thought I'd share. Every two weeks we start a new project which usually involved trying to build a good habit. The first unit it was finding a way to improve personal scripture study, the second was improving physical health. This unit we are supposed to choose from topics in the LDS family services section on lds.org and improve in one of the areas we study. I read this article in the "Stress" section and thought it was very helpful. It's about finding balance in our lives and not trying to do more than we are capable of. It's really so great. Read it! :) Love you all.

Read this awesome article! :)

To: Grandma, From: Kate

Resneps

Spencer went to work on building the house with Tim on his birthday and got cold and started walking home without telling anyone. When Tim realized he was gone he drove home hoping he would see him on the way. When he got home and asked me if Spencer was here I felt sick to my stomach to realize he was lost. About 10 min. later I called Tim to see if he had found him and he had. Spencer was two houses down from the house we are building, at the Binghams house. They didn’t recognize him so they asked him his name and he said “Spencer” then they asked him his last name and he said “ Resneps”. What?!.. When they told me that I could not figure out what possessed him to say that. Tim figured it out. Resneps is in fact his name backwards and not his last name. Hahaha… It was scary but I am thankful for good neighbors and good laughs as well. And now Spencer knows the difference between his last name and his backwards name. J