My Family Together After 4 Years!!!

So I need to charge my camera battery for the only picture that my camera had life to take - our group that came for Thanksgiving. I believe there were 20 people there with us for Thanksgiving. It was a true miracle. My dad got moved to Kissimmee and was given the opportunity to come home for Thanksgiving. This was his first time home in 4 years and the first time our family has been together for Thanksgiving since 2005, right before I went on my mission. My mom's letter to the family sort of explains it...
"Craig was moved on Tuesday to Kissimmee but was told yesterday that he would
not be eligible for a furlough until he got a job. Although glad that he is
so close, I felt impressed that he was meant to be home with us this
Thanksgiving. This morning I began calling the Work Release Center to speak
to the classification officer. I finally reached him around 1 PM and
explained to him that Craig had been eligible for furloughs at the St. Pete
Work Release Center where he had been and asked him if I could pick him up
tomorrow for Thanksgiving. The officer seemed surprised and said he would
have to look at his file and for me to call back at 4 PM. When I called
back he told me that Craig could go on a furlough tomorrow! Oh Happy Day!
So, I will be picking him up tomorrow morning and bringing him home for the
day to be with us. Our family will finally be together again. Thank you
all for your prayers. I know that they were heard.
Love,
Laura"

I must say that I was not only praying for him, but I did put his name on the payer roll at the Temple when I went the other week. I know that the Lord answers prayers.

Thanksgiving was delicious as usual with our normal trimming of turkey, cranberry sauce, rolls, sweet and mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, rolls, zucchini and banana bread, creamed onions and creamed squash, homemade ice cream and apple pie. One of the only traditions we did not do this year was to go and see a movie together in the theaters.

We were blessed to have Diana & Marshall, Mary, Meg, and Ben, Nancy, Micah (& he brought a friend), Jaime and Steven, Aaron, Nicole, Levi and Croix joined us at our house.

Later that evening we went and visited Dianna and Turner and everyone at their house. They had a fire in the fire pit outside. It was one of the first evenings to have cooler weather here in Florida. It was nice to visit with them.

New Moon Opening Night

Last weekend was a little hectic. I had a work event Thursday night and then had to go home and prepare for the opening of New Moon that was to come out that night. Omar had never seen the first movie, Twilight, so I forced him to watch it earlier that day so he knew what it was all about. He really had no interest in either movie, but that is one of the benefits of being married - you do things you don't always want to because you love someone.

I got the tickets for us and this one other couple that we know from church, Brandon & Brianna. Brianna is SO pregnant - due in a few weeks. We got to the theater at about 10 PM for the midnight showing. I was wondering how Brianna was going to do with standing up that long. Well the General Manager of the theater came up to her and asked if she would like to sit down. She just kind of looked at him. Then he asked how many people are in our party. She told him that there are 4 of us. HE then looked at us all and asked how e would like to go and see the last 5 minutes of the movie 2012 because that theater the showing of New Moon would be next and we could then choose whatever seats we wanted.

Boy did we score! I love pregnant people benefits!!! We did indeed have the best seats in the house - they were the ones where you can put your feet on the bar. I don't really care to see 2012 in the theater anymore, but it was so nice to not have to stand in line. I must say that New Moon was way better than Twilight and that Edward was super nasty looking in this movie. His paleness and lack of meat on his body, is not very attractive. I guess I just love my guy who has color and meat. Surprisingly enough Omar actually liked the movie and did not fall asleep.

Where did November Go? Work, Baby Shower, and Southern T-giving

So this past month has been very busy as we have been approaching the holidays. We have been bbq-ing up a storm at our house. Omar has really been taking advantage of our grill and so we eat bbq almost every night. So yummy! We have had a few couples from church over to eat with us a few times too.

2 weeks ago we went over to Orlando so that Omar could put up a new flat screen TV and surround sound system for my mom. My mom wanted to get everything completed for Thanksgiving Day. So we spent Friday night at the Temple and Saturday Omar got called to work in Orlando so I stayed at my mom's house and did literally nothing all day. Very boring. He finally got home early evening and I then helped him do all the stuff for my mom. The next day we went and visited my dad over in Tampa. Little did we know that it would be his last time in Tampa.

Last weekend was pretty busy. My friend Casey had her baby shower. It was a nice time. I ended up taking the pictures for her with her camera and so did not get any pictures really for myself. The next day, Saturday, there was a cookie decorating activity for the kids at work. I baked over 200 cookies for it. It took me over 6 hours to do. I left the party to go to our Southern Thanksgiving/Omar's birthday celebration with our friends, Casey & Victor. Omar's birthday was in September but he wanted to have a southern boil again and it took us this long to schedule it. It actually turned into Casey & Vic's Thanksgiving with their family in McClenney. I had never been to McClenney before. Boy is it a drive. I twas delicious as usual and you can refer to pictures from our last boil that we had. I again failed to take pictures.

Lizzy's Wedding!

The wedding took place at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville. Both Omar and I had never been there before. It was actually really beautiful.
I loved the flowers!
The Groom - Rick
The Bride - Lizzy
the Lovely Couple
The kiss
While the Bride and Groom took pictures together, we decided to take pictures together as well while we waited for the reception. We only knew 2 other people at the wedding, Rebecca and her husband from church. Rebecca is the Relief Society president of the ward we just came from and I was her secretary for about 1 month before we moved.







So I made everyone be really goofy in a few pictures too. I was in a funny mood!



Mr. & Mrs. Rick Ignelzi!
love the groom's cake



It was a beautiful wedding and we had a blast! Lizzy was my visiting teaching companion in my last ward and she took my place as the secretary when we moved. She is awesome!

Speech, Speech, Speech

Today I gave my first speech for Toastmasters, the club I recently joined to help my public speaking skills. The first speech is the Icebreaker Speech which is basically 4-6 minutes of me talking about wonderful me! My speech was entitled “How Mormonism Brought Me to Northeast Florida.” It is interesting because I have spoken in public many times and with different sizes of audiences. This was probably my smallest audience and I was plain nervous. So nervous that my knees literally were knocking. Thank goodness I have pretty good speaking skills, because no one could tell. I actually was voted best speaker of the day.

I get home and what happens we are asked to speak in church this Sunday! Ughh…this will be my 4th talk in church since I moved to NEFL in March of 2008. This will be something like my 14th church talk since returning from my mission (July 2007). Speak, speak, speak, how exhausting. This time Omar will be speaking with me and this will actually be his first speech in an English ward. Wish us luck!

Get Motivated

So I went to the Get Motivated seminar today. It was wonderful and I am so glad that I went, although it made for a VERY long day (8 AM and we left at 5pm).
Me, Rachel, Ansley, and Ansley's Father-in-law
Erica and Jeff Foster

There were a lot of people that spoke to us LIVE and IN PERSON. I did forget to take pictures of everyone or the picture did not come out well. There was a hilarious portion where the ex-lead singer of Santana had us sing this ridiculous song. My camera battery died, so I will have to upload the video later. I think we will have to teach the song to our office along with the actions. It was so funny seeing middle-aged to old people singing this song in a large arena.
Steve Forbes
Zig Ziglar
Bob Kittell
Phil Town
Tamara Lowe
Rudy Gulliani
Collin Powell
James Smith
Terry Bradshaw
Laura Bush

What were we anyhow?! Halloween 2009

So we weren't planning to really do anything for Halloween, but then decided last minute to go to the party that the Perucina family threw for a TON of people. We went last year and it was fun. We did not plan, so we did not have costumes. We decided to be scarecrows. Well it ended up turning out to be its own thing - we might be more like rodeo clowns, I am not really sure.
We bought a hay barrel and did not realize that it would be such small peices. Boy did we have to be creative making our own bunches with Omar's zip ties and then zip tying them to our outfit on our arms and feet. It was quite the task. As you can tell...Omar went a little crazy with his face paint. I don't think he had really experienced face paint before.

When we were walking out the door of our house we actually had our first trick-or-treater. Of course, totally unprepared we were and did not have any candy. Man did that kid (just one kid and he was early teens) luck out beucase we gave him $5 cash. I want to trick-or-treat at our own house if we give away stuff like that! We should have just told him, "sorry it is trick tonight" and walked out the front door.
Abriel hand made his costume and he uses it for camo for paint ball.
Eating food near the Mauermans
Wicked Witch and Snow White. That Snow White dress was hand made too! Omar and I both voted her as best costume
There was a tie for best couple - this couple won it
I am not quite sure what Laura's costume was, but she won the best female costume
Elvis's costume was homemade and he even performed for us
Finally this couple (the devils) also won for best couple costumes. The devil won best male this is his 3rd win in a row!

It was a fun party with music, food, games and lots of people. Our team of course won most all of the games. We didn't win the coveted best couple prize - but maybe we should have. We came in 2nd or 3rd place depending on how you look at it. It was funny having people not even recognize us. Who knew face paint and a hat could do that to you.

Otra Vez! the calling that keeps calling

So we were called this morning by the 1st counselor in our ward to go and speak with him before church started. Of course that meant church callings. We were shocked it came so quickly. We have only been in the ward for about 3 weeks and 1 of them we were at the Jags game. They told us when thy met us that it would take them a while to find places for us to serve in the church...little did we know that the 3 weeks is a "while." Man we should have hid longer.

They called Omar mid-week last week and he went and helped the youth at the Temple for their youth temple trip. I guess that just set it in stone. Omar was called to serve as the Priest's Advisor. I was called as the YW camp director. I cried. I was hoping to stay away from YW for a little while, I guess that the Lord has other things in mind. It is just ironic because that was what I was first called to in the Spanish Branch. They promised us it would not be really high stress callings because they have lots of people serving and are well established. I hope so. I don't think that I will be able to go to camp with the girls though, because it appears to be the same time as our Family Reunion next year. I went to YW's class today and the girls seem really nice.

Omar was sad because he really wanted to be in Primary - this is afterall his 4th Young Men's calling in 4 different wards. I guess we are meant to be with the youth. It was quite funny because we were in Sunday School today and they asked if anyone could go and help someone with subbing in the 5 year olds for Primary. Omar rose his hand faster to volunteer for that, that I would have thought he was volunteering to eat something. After church he told me that he changed his mind about wanting to serve in Primary. Hilarious!

November Wordle

So I wanted to see what my wordle would look like for the month of November.