Make A Difference

There is a story that reads: 

"Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up. As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean. He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?" The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean." "I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man. To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die." Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!" At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."" 

Moral of the story is one by one people will and can make a difference in the lives of God's precious creatures. Please do your part to make a difference in their lives.

Love Notes

Here is a couple pictures of the little notes that have been left around the house for Christmas.

Buffalo Tears

I saw this circulate on facebook. Not sure if this is true because I did not get the chance to look into it.

"According to the news release from China’s People’s News, whether people believe it or not, this incident actually happened in Hong Kong. The Weekly World News reported that a group of workers were bringing a water buffalo into a packaging factory, ready to slaughter it to make steak and beef stew.
When they approached the front door of the slaughterhouse, the sorrowful buffalo suddenly stood still, refusing to move forward, kneeling on its two front knees, and with tears streaming from its eyes.
How could the buffalo have already been aware that it was going to be slaughtered, before entering the slaughterhouse? This shows that it was even more alert than many a person. "When I saw what is believed to be a stupid animal actually crying, and when I noticed that its eyes were full of fear and sadness, I could not help but shiver."
 

Extremely shocked by this, butcher Shiu Tat-Nin recalled: "I quickly called other people to come see, and they were as surprised as I was! We pushed and pulled the water buffalo, but it would not move; it just sat there crying constantly."
 
Billy Fong, the boss of the Hong Kong packaging plant said, "Mankind has always thought that animals are not like people who can cry, but this buffalo is really sobbing like a baby!"
 
At that time there were at least a dozen strong, burly men present, but their hearts were softened by the buffalo's crying, and those who were responsible for killing water buffaloes were even more touched by this, tears welling out of their eyes.

When workers from other slaughterhouses heard the news, they also ran to the crying and kneeling buffalo, and the site was soon crowded with people who were astonished at what they saw. Three of them were so shocked that they said that from now on, even when they slaughter other kinds of animals, they will never forget that buffalo tears.
 
At the point when a buffalo is crying and people are crying as well, we can all be sure that none of them will kill the buffalo now. Then the question was how to take care of this matter. Finally, they decided to buy the water buffalo with cash, and then they sent it to a Buddhist temple, for the monastic to take good care of it, so that it could be assured of living out its life peacefully.
 
When this decision was made, an amazing thing happened again: "When there was an assurance that the buffalo would not be killed, it finally agreed to move, got up, and it is here with us." How could a water buffalo understand human words?
 
Shiu said: "Whether you believe it or not, this is really true, although it sounds really incredible." Undoubtedly, this buffalo has changed the lives of these butchers"

Husky Care

Important things to remember when adding a husky to your family.

Modern Perspective on Nauvoo

I am not sure if I have posted this before. But I would really like to read this book.

Lovebug

On the fifth day of Christmas Matt received these magnets. We call each other love bug. So it was a perfect gift. He also received a note. I'll have to see if Matt can get a picture of it because I could not seem to get a good picture. 

Waiting For Mommy

I swear this could be Ty... just waiting for me to call. He loves to be with me.

Santa's Early

Yesterday, I came home to find "Santa" had left tons of gifts under the tree.

Light Me Up

The fourth day of Christmas involved dancing... It was great! Although Matt had to go work on my car for a little bit, we had a wonderful time before he left. His stocking had a LED flashlight for his keychain because he lights up my life. Then we also danced to one of our favorite songs. You can hear it below.

On the Third Day of Christmas

Christmas continues with a gift under the tree and a note in Mr. Clark's stocking.

12 Days of Christmas

Day Two of Christmas was not so nice to me... I hit a stinking deer on my way home. But anyways yesterdays theme was "your love keeps me going" and there were energizer batteries in Matt's stocking. ...I wonder what will be under the tree?

Stray Rescue Fundraiser

Just so everyone is aware I'm going to be doing a fundraiser after Christmas. So start putting some money aside to help a wonderful organization. It will be for the Stracks fund that Stray Rescue of St. Louis has. Donations to the Stracks Funds helps medically treat the animals. To learn more click here.

Christmas Has Begun

This year I decided to do something a little more special leading up to Christmas. Each day there will be gifts, notes, candy and surprises in the stockings. For the first day of the twelve days of Christmas Matt got some Hershey Kisses in his stocking, a gift under the tree and a cute little note written on the mirror that read "Love Your Kisses". I was going to let him open his gift but I decided he should wait for Christmas. I have this thing about having all the presents in front of the tree so I can get a picture of all the gifts before opening them. So tune in on Christmas to see what he gets under the tree.

Anyways, last night as we are in the living room I noticed Ty licking something. Matt got up to investigate what  he was doing. Come to find out he had got Matt's stocking, had it inside out and ate all of Matt's chocolate foil and all. Not good. Luckily by morning he had got most of the foil up... we believe.

Stray Rescue

Of course everyone knows I love to network dogs. One shelter I love to help in anyway I can is Stray Rescue of St. Louis. Just take a look at this organization and see why I LOVE them.

Christmas!

Our tree is up. In fact we put it up before Halloween. I wanted to do it sooner but I held off as long as I could.

 

Matt has also been busy putting up items that we were able to purchase from our wedding gift cards. Here is the fan we were able to get from the Menard's gift card given to us by some of Matt's lovely co-workers.

 

We were also able to get some items for our bedroom (curtains and wall decor) from bed bath and beyond. I plan to spice the curtains up some and paint the walls in the next few months.

Mutt Strut

As many of know I am all about advocating for animals. This weekend we went to the Mutt Strut in Quincy. It was a fundraising event for the Quincy Humane Society. It was freezing but fun. Ty got all dressed up in a Halloween costume and strutted his stuff.

This month on the 24 from 5 - 8 pm there is another event for the Quincy Humane Society called Spayghetti and No Balls Dinner at Tiramisu. It sounds really really yummy! So go enjoy a delicious dinner while supporting a great cause.

As a note that I'm sure many of you probably have heard me say every year many animals are euthanized due to humans over breeding them. I believe the statistic is like 800 - 900 animals die every hour or something like that. Spaying and neutering your pet can help reduce the population. There are low cost spaying/neutering programs. But to fund these programs it takes fundraisers like the above mentioned event.

In Florida, one guy stayed the night in a Miami shelter for two nights during an adoption event to raise awareness for animals. Below is a video about this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7laJWRmXZM

Our Wedding Cake

Check out my awesome cake Joanne did for our wedding. Thanks Joanne!

Pretty Piece A Cake

Beavertails

While in Niagara Falls our cinematographers told us to try Beavertails when we got to Collingwood.

Yum!!! Yum!!

Niagara Falls Trip Cont.

Niagara Trip/Wedding Part 1

This past week has went by super fast; I wish I had more time to relax and take it in, but I knew with all that was going on it would. Anyways, it was everything I wanted it to be (except for the driving) and that is what counts.

We were going to take a bus. However, not as many people who said they were going to go ended up going. As a result, we took four vehicles: a RV, a full size van, Escalade and our car. Kendall drove the RV. I felt so bad because he didn't have anyone that could switch him driving. He had to drive the whole way. They stopped several times for him to try and rest, so he got in much later at the Tamarack.

My dad and mom drove the van. They also stopped once to rest. The Escalade was driven by Dick and Lance. Matt's dad also helped drive our car. I swear he didn't sleep the whole trip there. He looked so tired.

Kenny, our photographer who rode with us, drove our car as well. He was a great help. We would have most likely been lost without him. Literally he helped navigate us among other things.

Anyways, we got off to a late start on Tuesday night. Within a few hours everyone was getting tired. Dick, on the other hand, was wide awake so he wanted to keep going. Therefore, the decision was made that those in the rv and van would stay behind to sleep at a rest stop while those in the Escalade and car would continue.

We arrived at the Tamarack Wednesday afternoon. It was beautiful, both the scenery and resort! Love it. Only downfall was that I had to hide Ty in the resort. He did amazing though! So it was all good.

The next day was a little more crazy dealing with Ty and trying to check out but it all worked out. Plus nobody listened to me when I said we needed to get on the road. On our way we were going to pick up my friend, Brandy, but just as we got ready to turn on the exit to get her from the airport we got a text saying she was going to be late. We decided to go on and come back but when we got to the hotel we decided traveling back would be more crazy. Therefore, we had a taxi pick her up. While we were waiting for her Matt and I went to get our marriage license. Kenny went with us and took some pictures, which I'm sure will be awesome.

The rest of our party had went to Palmyra, NY, and got in much later than we did. While we were waiting for them we just walked around, took pictures of the area and ate at Planet Hollywood with Kenny and Brandy. It was fun to do a little relaxing. 

Once the rest of the party got there it was a little more stressful in that there was so much that needed to be done. Plus the Bishop had not showed up yet and at 11:30 we thought he wasn't coming so we spread everyone out a little. But shortly after that he showed up and my mom had to do some rearranging. I felt horrible for that. Brandy also helped me get a lot of stuff done and contact all of those needing contacted.

The next morning my mom managed to get everything done (dry clean dress, flowers, shoes for bridesmaids, etc)... thank goodness. Kenny and PGP crew showed up to do their work. So the day was going rather smooth and  all was working out except for the fact that I didn't have a makeup artist, but I was lucky enough to have Makayla there to do makeup for me.

As everyone was heading to the wedding location, no one could find Matt nor would anyone answer their phones so we didn't know if Matt had the marriage license or locket. Once we got there we realized that he didn't have the stuff we needed because he had not taken the car.... that put a damper on things. Lance and Robert ran back to get the stuff and we were only about a half hour late starting...LOL. Everything turned out though and I think it was really nice, especially for not having a rehearsal. I would have liked the decorations to be put up a little sooner too. But overall I thought it was really nice, thanks to the hard work my parents put into it. I'm excited to see the video and photos of everything.

Peek-A-Boo

Stroll

I've been worried about Ty and Niagara. So to make the trip easier and safer for Ty I bought him this yesterday. It should be here in the next week. Then we can test it out before leaving.

Invites are practically done there are others we could send to and would love to send to but we don't have their address. So for now I'm going to finish up a few more invitations. Hopefully, tonight or tomorrow.

Sammy

This Just In

Ty's tux came in yesterday!

Blah Blah Blah

So many things to do and I don't even know where to start. Sigh...I have school work to do... even though classes have not started yet. I have to have a portfolio and application filled out for the next portion of KSU's program. I've also got tons of net learning modules for my new job that is due in two weeks. And I have tons of preparing things for the wedding to do. There is too much to do now... why I wanted to have wedding stuff done in January when I was not as busy. Now I can't even enjoy planning the wedding... annoying.

At least today I've managed to get most of the envelopes for the invitations printed. Now if the ribbon would come in we could have majority of the invites out.

Count Down

Oh my goodness!!!! Wedding in 38 days! And we leave in like 35 days!!! Yay!!!! Can't wait!

Elves

Life is great! Trying to get these silly invitations done. It's taking a lot longer than I thought. I've got 84 done thanks to the help of my little elves: Matt, Joanne, Mom and Dad. Now I just got to get these 84 addressed and then work on the other invitations. I'll be glad to get them done so my kitchen table is not decorated with invitation materials.

Invites

Making these invites is a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be. Probably because Matt and I are so picky. Hopefully I get them finished up and mailed out by tomorrow but I will definitely need some help. Any takers?

My Friend Brandy

I have some GREAT friends especially my friend Brandy. She is amazing! I've know her since grade school. And while we don't get to talk  much like we use to and states keep us apart she will always be my friend ...and a great one at that! 

I'm glad and so excited that she is making the effort to come to our wedding in September despite having to travel so far and having had a baby within the last few months. Who could ask for a better friend? Not I because I already have one of the greatest friends ever. Thanks for your support and love! Can't wait to see you!

56 Days!!!!

One test left to take and then my classes will be done for a couple of weeks!!! Woohoo! However, I have lots to do to prepare for this upcoming semester though especially since I will be taking a couple of weeks for the wedding.

The main goal the next couple of weeks finish up wedding stuff and finish my portfolio/application for the next step in my dietetic program.

Lately I've kept busy trying to maintain A's for the semester and work. I know I mastered an A in my one class approximately 104%. Yay for me! However, my other class is just borderline A and B, approximately 90%. This test will determine what I get. But I have not had time to study much for it. My previous test was not as good as the first because I didn't get to study a lot for it either. In fact I took it the same day I studied for it and didn't get to go over two of the chapters.

The good news is although I've been busy I have a schedule at work and I am able to find squeeze in a few fun things here and there. For the fourth of July we got to go watch the fireworks twice. First, we got to watch them at Warsaw, which I actually thought was going to be boring. But it was one of the most fun times I've had watching fireworks. Then Lance took his boat out and we watched them from on the river. Both times were a lot of fun. And it was great getting to hang out with Brittany, Lance and Maci.

Here are some pictures from the second round of watching fireworks.

Maci was not having the life jacket.

Ty and Teddy got their haircuts! They look so nice all cleaned up and smell good too! Teddy also got his teeth cleaned.

I had a hard time getting a picture of Teddy. But you can kind of see how nice his hair looks.