Everything's Bigger in Texas

Including, it seems the ice storms. But I'll get to that in a minute. I am happy to report that I was able to get in some much needed sister and new niece time this last week. Michaela and I hopped on a plane last Wednesday the 26th of January and flew to Fort Worth Texas to visit Jen and Nick and my new niece Quincy Anne Sadler. For those of you who don't know, Jen had Quincy 7 and a half weeks early on December 11, 2010 and they spent a month in the NICU. They are now home and pretty well adjusted to this amazing new family life. I went down there with the expectation of having a glorious visit of not leaving the house and we pretty much succeeded. We went to Target one day for a quick trip and that was it. We literally were in the house the entire rest of the time! I loved it! Quin is now just over 6 pounds at 8 weeks old. She is tiny and I love her! Michaela was very curious and she kept reaching out to grab Quins hand while it was waving about. Jen and I were so anxious to get the new cousins together. We both agree that they should be related in a way that is closer than a cousin. I mean, Jen is my sister and best friend and so it only seems right that our daughters should be sisters too, right? Well, hopefully they will be good friends as they grow and we can thank modern technology for things like skype so we can be close while we are far away. My sister is reveling in this new role of mommy and I love to watch her with her new blessing! I know how Michaela has changed my life and what she has taught me about love and I am so glad that Jen gets to experience that for herself now too! My brother in law Nick is an amazing and attentive daddy. He feeds and burps and changes diapers and snuggles and loves and cleans the house and feeds the dogs and gets bottles ready and helps Jen while she's pumping and many many more things. He is a rock star husband and I am so happy that my sister has found such a great man to love her and take care of her. Jen and Nick are experts on preemie babies now and I would refer anyone who has a similar situation to them for advice and empathy. They are amazing people and I am blessed to call them family! The visit ended with a bonus 2 days! We got iced in. You could have ice skated on the inches of ice in the street in front of the house. It was crazy! I've never seen anything like it. Oh yeah, and there is this little thing called the Super Bowl that is pretty much all anyone on the news talked about and how the weather was going to affect the Super Bowl and the fans and the city...blah blah blah blah blah my water?! I can understand all of the excitement and there were actually fans outside at the NFL experience in the 15 degree weather. Yeah, that would never happen. You couldn't pay me to stand there for hours in the frigid air to stare at a bunch of NFL memorabilia. Ok, maybe you could pay me. Anyway, what a grand and glorious trip it was to sit around the house with our babies and watch movies and HGTV. Thank you Sadler family for the great trip!

So, after a big travel debacle, Miki Jo and I made it home on Thursday night at 8:30. (We were supposed to get here at 5:30.) Matt picked us up at the airport. I almost forgot what he looked like it had been so long since we had seen each other. We came home and got in bed and put Miki to sleep and then fell asleep by 10:45 and then I got up and went to work on Friday at 6:30 am. Blech. And now, Matt is in Oklahoma playing a gig at a friends dad's 50th birthday party! Yay! Ok, maybe not yay. We are home with our crazy dog elle who has an 8 inch stapled up incision on her back from recent back surgery. (Don't even get me started!) And gonna just relax with friends and wait for daddy to come home on Sunday. If he gets stuck in OK because of the weather I seriously will throw a fit. I think I may go get my hair trimmed today. I need to lose like 10 pounds in the next 3 weeks too because.... da da da daaaaa I GET TO GO TO UTAH FOR LISA'S WEDDING!!!

Oh yeah, Lisa is getting married to Hondo Guzman on February 25th in Provo and I am going only because I have the best friends in the world who payed for a ticket for me and Miki Jo to fly there for the wedding! Missing a sisters wedding was not going to sit very well with me and we knew we just couldn't afford it after me being in Texas for this last trip and Heavenly Father has blessed us with loving, kind, giving people who will certainly be blessed for their generosity! I promise to pay it forward someday and also to repay the kindness as soon as possible. Thank you my dear friends!

We continue to work hard and pray for Matt to be successful this year with his music career somehow. He is working on selling some of his songs and possibly doing a tour this summer. We both feel like this is the year that something grand is going to happen. We don't know what but we will work hard and hope that the fruits of our labors are good. Thank you all for your continued love and support! Signing off for now! Love and blessings.