Pretty Clouds, Wet Skies, and Family Love

This weekend went way too fast, but it was just what I needed.  Some time with family :) My cousin Sarah go married, which is why I came home :)  It was the perfect weekend! 

I LOVED her idea for a seating chart!  I never thought I'd want to seat people, but this made it all more organized and fun....Our names were printed out on little cardstock sheets with the table we were assigned to....

For the guest hand-out gifts, we all got these cute little bags of gourmet popcorn with "Sarah and Brian" printed on them (and the wedding date) Cute!

Also, I didn't get a picture (dangit!) But they had a PHOTO BOOTH!  you know, the kind you see at carnivals...with lots of cute props to take pictures with!  (Hats, funny glasses, feathery boa things...)  Then, when you took your pictures, it printed out a double copy of the pictures, so you could keep your 4, and so that you could past the other half of it into the SCRAPBOOK she had made up as her guest book!!  And you wrote some kind of a note and signed it by your picture if you wanted. SUCH a cute idea!!  

By the way, I never would expect the inside of an airport to look like THIS!  (I dont really get the "exotics" shoe type...I can only imagine..ha...only in Vegas)

And finally, amidst all the crazy fires we have had in Utah, we were blessed with a good, long, steady rain!  THANK YOU!!

(This one below is the American Fork Canyon fire....you could see it from my work!)

This lovely morning picture is something I am going to miss about Utah...you don't see mountains like this everywhere :( 

And this is my wonderful aunt, Ramona. She has lung cancer which has become brain cancer and cancer in some other places as well. :(  I hate cancer. Please, someone, think of a cure for it!  She's in so much pain. She's on the highest dose of chemo that they have and it is creating so many other problems in her body. 

OK these pictures are all over the place...but these below are from a walk I took from my apartment to the Provo temple one Sunday (yeah, pretty blessed to have a temple within walking distance!)

The End. 

"The Beginning of Love...

Thank you for the four of you who gave advice  (Sarah, Becky, Rachel, and Shara :)  ) , I thought it was lovely and I would love to keep it with me and try to bury it into my brain so that I can be a better wife and mother when the time comes!  And I am still very open to hearing advice, so the more advice the merrier :)

My friend Christie posted this quote on Facebook today and I LOVED it:


"The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”--Thomas Mertin

I think this is a lesson I have to learn better! It probably takes a lifetime to get there though, and its a lot easier to say it in theory than in actual practice, but it sounds to me like a good thing to think about.  I've also heard that to love someone means to see their potential and to focus on that and to love them for what they CAN be. I'm not sure how true that is but that also sounds good.

Marriage Advice Anyone? ;)

This whole recent break-up thing has got me thinking.....ha!

For those of you who are married, I know usually people only give advice on those advice cards during bridal showers and in wedding books, right? haha....(yeah right! ;)  )

But I really am asking:  What is some of the best advice or knowledge or lessons YOU have learned from being married?  What would you say to someone the vital lessons and things they need to learn before they get there?  What are the things you learned the hard way once you were in it??  What do you think are the hardest things to adjust to??  I dont even know what to ask, but share with me all of your secrets. :)  I am totally listening!

Loves,
Shayna :)

Breath of Fresh Air!

Oh man!  Today was SO LONG at work!!! But then again, it totally wasn't!!!

It began with some random car alarm going off right outside.  It kept going and going, and I was like "ugh....people!"  But then a thought went through my head, "Maybe the Lord is trying to tell you something, Shayna. Turn around and look at your clock."  So, I did it, for some reason....and it was 20 minutes PAST the time I was supposed to get up and get going!!  OH NO! and then again, as soon as I was alert enough, I realized the car alarm wasn't going off anymore...I've been wondering all day if that really was a car alarm, or if there was some alarm going off in my brain! ha!  (hey, it could happen!)  Talk about a tender mercy!!

Anyway, I was soooo dreading working a double!! That is 16 hours of work...crazyyy!   My one ray of hope was that I got to pick the unit I worked on for the second half, and I chose Children's!!! I haven't been there for about 2 months! OH MAN I have MISSED that place!!  I hoped that they weren't going to send me somewhere else...because, they do that. Thankfully, they DIDN'T!!

The second I walked through the doors, it was like a light went on inside of me!  This may sound really dorky, but it happened :)  I felt so many good things just walking into the building :)  And being around all of those wonderfully crazy kids was like a breath of fresh air.  I didn't even feel like I had worked at all that day, and the whole shift went amazingly fast and beautifully. We played basketball in the sunshine, watched some TV, ate dinner together.... It was like Heavenly Father was not only helping me through the day, but helping me to forget myself and just enjoy the zeal and vigor and happiness that oozes out of kids.  Even with all their wiggles and tantrums, they giggle, they goof off, they flip you off, they ask for hugs, they are so dependent on you as a mentor (so you better be on guard), they rip out their hair and get mad, they want to get up and do things every 5 minutes....and they are always coming up with the funniest things!!  HA Even when they are mad, its so cute! lol :)

I am definitely grateful for today :) And definitely grateful that I was able to work on Children's...it was just what I needed!  Kids are awesome.