Baptism Day

Bryson and Courtney started dating about 5 months ago when he was waiting for his mission call. He was a little nervous to tell her that he was leaving to go on a mission because he was afraid that would be the end of them. She was not a member of the church and he wasn't sure she would understand his choice. 

Brian and I had our own concerns when they started dating. We found out she was a junior in high school and we were a little "unsettled" that our 20 year old Marine son, soon to be missionary, was dating someone so young. But as the last 5 months have progressed, we have grown to love Courtney and have felt that she was meant to come into Bryson's life. As they talked about him serving a mission, he bore simple testimony to her often and she started asking questions. These discussions progressed to the point of calling the missionaries to teach her the lessons. She had her first lesson up in Bountiful at Bryson's friend's house who just returned from his mission. She wanted to continue taking the lessons so we then called the Sister Missionaries in our stake and had the remaining lessons taught in our home. The spirit was always strong throughout the lessons and as Courtney began to read the Book of Mormon her testimony began to blossom. She made the decision to be baptized and we are so grateful we were able to be a part of her process and witness this amazing day. 

She asked Bryson to baptize her and she asked her Grandpa to confirm her tomorrow during sacrament meeting in her new ward.

 We had a luncheon at our house after the baptism and her family brought most of the food and her grandpa helped set everything up. She has a great family who is very supportive of her and obviously loves her very much!

 I love this picture of Sis. Cochrane!

 I love this picture below and I don't even know who took it. But Courtney's aunt and I were talking about how each of the families felt when we found out each of their ages. Her aunt's husband is very protective of her and he flipped when he found out Courtney was dating a 20 year old. Same way we felt when we found out she was 16. :) But look at the amazing thing that has come out of this...she is now a member of the church...something her extended family had been praying for for a long time.

Tough Sister

Don't mess with the Sisters. :)

Sis. Dahl loved Bryson's fighting gear. Maybe she could use it to get people to listen to her message. :)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was awesome except for I missed not having my parents over this year. It wasn't the same without them!

But it was great to have our table filled with the energy of these fun kids...and yes, they're all kids to me even though a couple of them are 20. :) (That's how old I am.)

We had Bryson & Courtney, Nick, Hailey and the Sister Missionaries who have been teaching Courtney the missionary lessons, Sis. Dahl and Sis. Cochrane. These girls have become part of our family!!

 Sis. Dahl made these awesome swans with the napkins. :) Fancy!

 Poor Hailey was still sore and swollen so her Thanksgiving dinner consisted of mashed potatoes...and pie without the crust.

 Sis. Dahl and Sis. Cochrane showed off their artistic abilities and made this gratitude tree. We all wrote on the leaves what we were thankful for. This tree is so cute I'm going to leave it up till I put up my Christmas decorations.

 Bryson is really bugged by the fact that he can't hug the sisters so he chose to give them an air hug instead. :)

He better get used to that as that is all he'll be able to do to ANY girl in about a week. :)

It was a day filled with love and gratitude and I came away feeling very thankful for all of my blessings! I hope next year my parents will also be back at my Thanksgiving table!

Surgeries

As if we didn't have enough excitement going on around here, we decided to add a couple of surgeries into one day...two days before Thanksgiving. 

When Nick was a baby he had an umbilical hernia and lately he has been having a lot of pain in that area. So we took him into the surgeon and he said it was probably a small hernia still but he needed to go in and close it off. Nick wanted to have time to recover over Thanksgiving so he wouldn't have to miss any school so we scheduled it for Tuesday.

It was about an hour surgery and went great. They even turned his "outie" belly button into an "innie" so he was pretty excited about that.

Hailey was told at her last dentist appointment that her wisdom teeth needed to come out ASAP. So we called the oral surgeon and the only day they had available was Tuesday. haha So now we had 2 kids scheduled for surgery on the same day...Nick at 10:30 and Hailey at 3:00. I thought that would be plenty of time for me to be at both but when Nick was really nauseous after his surgery and couldn't sit up without feeling like he was going to throw up or pass out, I started to get a little panicky that I wouldn't be able to get him home and over to the school to pick up Hailey to get her to her appointment in time. Nick said he was fine to stay there till Brian could get there to take him home but because he is a minor, the hospital wouldn't let me leave and have him be there alone. So as soon as I saw Brian come around the corner I ran out of there as fast as I could and scrambled to get Hailey and we ended up only being a couple minutes late.

Hailey was hilarious coming out of the anesthesia but once the numbness wore off she was in quite a bit of pain. Luckily Faith was there to help cheer her up.

 She has some poofy little cheeks today and looks like she's storing nuts for the winter in there. The poor girl will certainly not be enjoying a normal Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

Farewell

Now it is real. 

When Bryson opened his mission call back in the beginning of September, it seemed like we had a long time before he actually reported to the MTC and almost unreal that he was actually leaving. With his farewell today, it is now very real.

We took some pictures before leaving for the church. It seems like I can't stop taking pictures of him these days. :) 

He has spent the last 2 months writing his talk for today and he did an amazing job. He did not look nervous or have to use his notes very much. He spoke from the heart and bore a powerful testimony of Jesus Christ. He is ready to give two years of his life serving the Lord and teaching others about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are very proud of his efforts to get himself to this point.

Afterwards, we had about 75-80 people come over to our house for lunch and to show him support. It was literally standing room only and we were very grateful for every single person there who was willing to show their love for him by coming. Of course, I didn't take any pictures of everyone, but did manage to snap a few photos afterwards.

It was a little bit of a bittersweet day for Courtney...she's very excited for the opportunity he has to go, but is not looking forward to him being away for the next two years.

Jessica's Wedding

Brian was mission companions with John Atkinson, Jessica's dad, and Jessica's mom, Ana, was a sister missionary in their mission. I met the Atkinson's when Brian and I had been married about 3 years and we have become life-long friends. Jessica was 5 years old then and today she is a beautiful bride. 

I was so happy that Jessica's wedding date was before Bryson left on his mission so he could attend the sealing as well. He and Jessica "grew up" together and even went on a date right before she met her husband to be. :)

 Notice our resident photo bomber in the backgroud? Haha

Temple

We have been trying for awhile now to get to the temple as a family and tonight we finally made it. 

It was the first time all 5 of us have been in the temple together. We were "in line" behind a singles ward to do baptisms so we had to wait quite awhile for our turn but as I saw Nick and Hailey go down into the water and Bryson able to baptize each one of them for those that have gone on before us, it was worth every minute of the wait. 

I love the temple and I love my family. 

Sadie Hawkins Dance

Masey asked Nick to the Sadie Hawkins dance at school and it was a cowboy theme. I thought they looked super cute and Masey's mom took them down to the railroad tracks and took a few pictures as well.