The Latest News

Well, there have been some pretty big things in the news for the last couple of days. First of all, Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison for all of the illegal stuff he did while he was governor! It's nice to finally see some justice. I was looking back at my blog posts from 2008 when they were going to close the state historic sites. I was SO upset about everything. One thing I said was, "I hope that someday Governor Blagojevich has to answer to Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, and a whole bunch of other people for his actions." It's nice to finally see him have to answer for what he did as governor.

And, today we received the sad news that our favorite baseball player, Albert Pujols, will be leaving the St. Louis Cardinals and heading to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. I feel kind of like I did when Karl Malone left the Utah Jazz for the Los Angeles Lakers--funny that Los Angeles is always involved. Oh well, they offered him more money for a longer period of time than anyone else. But really, I don't think he's hurting for money! But anyway, I've always kind of liked the Angels because their AAA team is the Salt Lake Bees, and the Orem Owlz are also an affiliate of the Angels. At least he didn't go to some team like the New York Yankees or the Milwaukee Brewers! But it will be a big loss for the Cardinals. At least we still have David Freese!

Unfortunately my dad has to have more surgery tomorrow :-( He's been having digestive problems for a while now, so they're going to go in and see if they can find and fix the problem. Hopefully the surgery will help him be able to eat without getting sick! Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow. I think he's getting pretty tired of having surgeries.

The Big #1

Today is my sweet nephew Ben's big #1 birthday!! I am so happy that I was out in Utah last year when he was born. He was such a sweet little guy, and he gets cuter every day. My sister Lindy said that he even decided to take a few steps on his own the other day--he is growing up so fast! December is quite the birthday month. December 1 was my friend Susan's birthday, yesterday was my friend Emily's and Aunt Karalie's birthday, today is Ben's birthday, and Mom's and Sid's birthdays are later this month--what a happy time of year! I wish I could have been there for Ben's party tonight, but I'm sure everyone will have a great time. Happy Birthday, Big Ben!

Since yesterday was Emily's birthday, I thought I would post my favorite picture of the two of us. This was when we were roommates for the BYU Semester in Nauvoo back in 2003. I love how there is a raging fire behind us, and we're just standing there smiling like nothing out of the ordinary is going on! :-) We were at a prairie grass fire demonstration, and there were fire trucks on-hand, so I suppose we weren't in serious danger :-) Happy Birthday yesterday, Em!

'Tis the Season

I can't believe it is December already! This year seems to be going by so fast. Fortunately we haven't had to deal with any winter weather (a.k.a. freezing rain) yet (knock on wood), but it has been quite chilly out. On Tuesday Greg and I met up with our friends Rose, Chris, John, and Jen at the St. Louis Science Center to see the Star Trek Exhibition. It was SO COOL! I was never really into Star Trek until Greg and I watched the "Voyager" series last year, and I loved it. I especially loved Captain Janeway, so the highlight for me on Tuesday was seeing an actual uniform worn by Captain Janeway! Unfortunately they didn't let us take pictures in the exhibit. You could have your picture taken by the exhibit staff at various locations, but the pictures were crazy expensive, so we just took pictures with our minds. We had a great time!

Things have started looking pretty Christmasy around here--especially with Spike Claus walking around! As you can see, he doesn't really like the Santa suit we picked up for him. It was a little too small, so we had to take it back, and they didn't have one his size, so he got off lucky :-) But he looked so cute!



And here is our pretty Christmas tree (a.k.a. giant cat toy). Lily loves it when we get the Christmas tree out . . .









(flashback to three years ago when Lily was a brand-new kitty who loved to climb the Christmas tree)

Fortunately she doesn't climb the tree anymore, but the ornaments are still too tempting!





And here are our stockings (the Spikes share a stocking) all ready for Santa's visit later this month.









And we've been doing a few little improvements around the house. Look at this coolest towel rack I found at Hobby Lobby (my favorite store) for our Route 66 bathroom! We thought it looked very Route 66-ish. We also installed a cool Ford light switch in the bathroom.





Today at work something pretty cool happened. Some folks from Arkansas showed up and were interested in learning about the 30th Illinois Infantry in the Civil War. It turns out that the man's great-grandfather fought for the Confederate Army in a Tennessee regiment. During battle in 1864, his great-grandfather captured the 30th Illinois flag. He later gave the flag to his commanding officer. Before his commanding officer died, he returned the flag to the great-grandfather, who then sent it back to Illinois. So I got to take this gentleman over to the base and show him the very flag that his great-grandfather had captured 147 years ago! It was really cool.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, yesterday! I missed being with my family, but it sounds like everyone had a wonderful day, so that is good. We had a nice day as well. Greg and I got up bright and early and drove to his Aunt Linda and Uncle Steve's house in Farmington, Iowa. It was fun to see Greg's cousins and everyone, and we had so much delicious food! We also enjoyed watching some football and exploring Linda and Steve's property. They have a lake which is really pretty! It was such a nice, relaxing day. Our drive back to Springfield last night was very quiet until we reached Springfield at about 10 p.m.--then we entered a world of Black Friday madness (but it was still Thursday!). The traffic was insane, but we finally made it home. Today we had to venture out to have a CD player installed in my car (it is awesome!!), and it was pretty scary out and about. But we did stop at Denny's for some bread pudding French toast and pumpkin pancakes--divine! We also went to the mall and Best Buy (crazy, I know) because we had some coupons to use. But we made it back home in one piece. Now it's time for some leftover turkey sandwiches--one of the best parts of Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow I have to work, but I was glad to have the day off today. I'm kind of nervous about work these days because some pretty weird stuff has been going on there. On Wednesday I was opening up the museum by myself, and I turned on the lights in our conference area. I then went down the ramp and was turning on the lights in the bathrooms when I looked back over my shoulder at the conference area . . . and I literally watched the lights turn off by themselves. It was super creepy! My co-worker Peter has been hearing footsteps upstairs, and the elevator keeps running on its own without anyone in it. I don't know what's going on, but it's giving me the creeps!

But anyway, at this time of year I enjoy reflecting on all of the many things I am grateful for. I am especially grateful for my family! Yesterday I was remembering all of the fun Thanksgivings we had when I was growing up. I am also grateful for Greg and our animal children, our friends, our nice house, our jobs, and our cars that don't break down. And I am of course grateful for the gospel in our lives! I am so very blessed. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Violet!

Thank you, Mom and Rich, for your new car name ideas! After much contemplation, I have decided to name the new car Violet. Violet wasn't Greg and Rich's favorite name idea, but since Mom and I both thought of Violet, I decided to go with that name. She kind of looks like a Violet, don't you think? As Rich suggested, she can go by "Vie" for short. Rich's name suggestion of Rally (after the rally squirrel!) was the runner-up. Greg's suggestion of Barack was not even considered :-) Here are some more pictures of Violet. You'll notice that her first accessory was a St. Louis Cardinals 2011 World Series Champions license plate frame!