What Happened to February?

Wow, what happened to February? I turn around and it's more than 1/2 over! So many things have already happened this year. Darvin's Uncle Heber (his Dad's brother) passed away, then his Mom passed away, and last week his Aunt Nione (his Dad's little sister) passed away. Around the beginning of the year Ivan got a new job here in Yakima as a car salesman at Bob Hall's Auto Dealership and then proceeded to get a new job as a salesman in Dallas, TX with ADP Software Company. We're very happy for him as it will be a great opportunity for Ivan, but very sad as their family (who've lived with us for the past 7 months) will be moving to Texas. We've had a daily 'fix' of sweet, rambunctious little boys and it's hard not to mourn their loss even before they've left, which incidentally begins this next Thursday. Ivan will pick up the moving truck on Wednesday. Family, friends and Elder's Quorum will help load Wednesday night and then he'll start driving down to Texas pulling their car behind the moving truck on Thursday. Briana was set to fly down to Texas with the boys the following week on the 29th. Pops and I thought it was pretty crazy for her to attempt to fly by herself with two little boys on a trip which included a connecting flight, so Nana volunteered to travel with them. And I figured if I was going down to Texas, I might as well take advantage and stay for a week to visit our other family down there!

Darvin and I just returned from a weekend trip to the Seattle area. For our anniversary in August I'd purchased a couples massage workshop in the Seattle area. We had finally scheduled to go in January and then the weather was so bad in Seattle that they weren't sure whether or not they would have to cancel it, so we rescheduled for yesterday. We headed over on Friday, had lunch at Willie's Taste of Soul BBQ with Mike. The food was OK, but nothing spectacular. The company was great. It was so nice to see Mike again and be able to chat with him for a while. As an added bonus he had Molly out in the car waiting to visit with us. We stayed at the La Quinta in Kirkland. Friday evening we did some window shopping and found a Bed, Bath and Beyond and exchanged the 7 opening frame that I'd bought broken in Yakima for one that wasn't broken (HOORAY!). I'm super excited to order the family picture prints for it and get it hung on the wall. We went to a french bakery and bought some desserts and then went back to the hotel and enjoyed our evening together. We got up relatively late yesterday morning. Got dressed, went to the movies (Ghost Rider 2-very dark movie) then out to lunch at the Kauai Family Restaurant. They have authentic hawaiian food. It's a little hole in the wall restaurant. Apparently they were short staffed that day and it took forever for the service. Fortunately the company was good and we weren't in a rush. The food was pretty good. We went back to the hotel for a little while and then got ready for our massage workshop. It was a GREAT experience. I would highly recommend it for any couple near Seattle. It's run by the Northwest School of Massage and Joe Lavin a massage therapist and his wife Wendy Lavin a physical therapist run the workshop. It's a great way to learn some massage techniques to use on your spouse. Darvin and I both felt that it was well worth our time and money and I'm currently looking for a deal on a massage table! It was great timing as we've had so much stress in our lives lately.

We had another 'sleep in' this morning, although we got up early enough to enjoy the breakfast buffet at the hotel, then we got ready and headed to Mike's to pick up the rest of Ashley's stuff that was still there. We loaded it in Darvin's pickup truck and headed for home. We stopped at Darvin's Dad's once we arrived back in Yakima and chatted with him for a while and I copied some documents to start working on for him. Then we headed for home. We were sorely disappointed when we arrived at home and the two little boys weren't waiting for us! When they finally did get home we had fun feeding them dinner, playing with them and getting them back up after their parents put them to bed!

Wendy Middleton and I are hosting a baby shower for Lindsey towards the end of March and so I've been busily looking for ideas for party themes, invitations, etc. I think I'm getting some ideas in my mind. Hopefully they'll all come together and it'll look good, food will taste good and we'll have a good party!