Adventure--Found among the archives

 I found this post I wrote a few months back lost amongst the drafts of my blogger today. I don't know why I didn't post it, maybe I just wrote it for my own release of emotions and didn't feel the need to post it. But looking back on it is interesting. Some of those scary, unsure things have become less scary, and known. Others are still up in the air. But the last paragraph still, and always will, stand (coincidence the last two posts have had chayote in them. We really don't eat it that much ;)

"Sometimes I put on my happy face and think "this is all part of the ADVENTURE!!! (!!!) Caps and extra exclamation definitely needed.

But sometimes not knowing what will happen in the future is a tad scary. Right now I don't know how long we will stay in our beloved Boston, I don't know if my Jobito will be able to stay in the U.S. with me (sounds dramatic maybe but true. We are going through a green card renewal and anything could happen), I don't know when babies might come into our little family, I don't know what's for dinner tonight.

But I do know the gospel is true. I know my Heavenly Father loves me, and is with Job and I every step of the way on our ADVENTURE! ;) I know I love that man named Job immensely, and forever. I know I have a chayote in the fridge I should use for dinner. Those are all good things to know. Those things (even the last, it is nice to know we can eat :) give me so much peace through the major uncertainty I sometimes feel."

Be my guest

Hey! I got the great opportunity to guest post over here recently.
This is a very important topic for me and I loved being able to write about it :)
Check it out!

For Unto Us a Child is Born, Unto us a Son is Given

Our ward (church group) is doing an advent candle this year. Each day starting Dec. 1 we burn down a part of the candle while we read from the scriptures about the life of our Savior. This has been such a beautiful and special time for Job and I to reflect on Jesus Christ who's birth and life we celebrate this time of year. Reading these passages each night has really helped me focus more on Christ and less on fluffy, commercial things. I still love other Holiday traditions, don't get me wrong, but keeping the focus on Jesus brings a lot of peace. I thought I would include the references here in case anyone else wants to join in. It really brings the spirit into our home and lives. Enjoy!

          Day/Event                                  Reference          Jesus Christ...
Day 1-Raising the daughter of Jarius, Luke 8:41-56, was compassionate
Day 2-Forgiving a sinful woman         Luke 7:36-50, was forgiving
Day 3-Healing a nobleman's son         John 4:46-53, had power to heal
Day 4-Cleansing the temple                 John 2:13-17,was reverent and opposed evil
Day 5-Calming the storm                    Mark 4:35-41, had power over the elements
Day 6-Blessing the children                Mark 10: 13-16, loved children
Day 7-Dining with Mary and Martha, Luke 10:38-42, made people happy
Day 8-Suffering in the garden,            Luke 22:41-45,was submissive and sacrificed for others
Day 9-Washing the feet of the apostles, John 13:3-17, was humble
Day 10-Choosing his apostles,             Luke 6:12-13, was prayerful
Day 11-Advanced in learning,              Luke 2:51-52, obeyed his parents
Day 12-Was baptized,                           Matt. 3:13-17, was obedient to God's law
Day 13-Sermon on the Mount,             Matt. 5:2-16, gave counsel
Day 14-Christ in the temple,                 Luke 2:42-49, taught when he was twelve
Day 15-The Lord's Prayer,                    Matt. 6:9-13, taught how to pray
Day 16-The sower,                                Luke 8:5-16, taught with stories
Day 17-The lost sheep,                          Luke 15:4-7, helped sinners
Day 18-The Good Samaritan,               Luke 10:29-36, was kind
Day 19-The Comforter,                         John 14:26-27, promised the Holy Ghost
Day 20-Fishes and Loaves,                   Matt. 14:15-21, performed miracles
Day 21-Lazarus,                                    John 11:40-44, raised the dead
Day 22-Mary's visitation,                      Luke 1:26-33, is the Son of the Highest
Day 23-His birth,                                  Luke 2:1-11, fulfilled prophecy
Day 24-Shepherds visited and wise men brought gifts, Matt. 2:9-12, Luke 2:12-16, was worshiped.

Time for Rachael's Roundup

Weekend round-up that is. Guys, I live for weekends. Especially ones that go like this:

Friday: I didn't have to work so I lounged about part most of the day. Sweet.
Evening came and I wisked on downtown to pick up Job and meet some friends for dinner at 5 Napkin Burger. After dinner we went to the play/musical "Curtains". It was fabulous! I love seeing plays on stage, there is such a great energy and excitement! It kept us laughing and guessing the whole time.

Saturday: Welcome sleep! It was nice to have a day to sleep in. Those don't come all that often.
Later we hit a Food Truck Festival near our house that was hosted by Suffolk Downs racetrack so we got to try out a bunch of yummy food from local trucks while watching the horse races. Super fun for people like us who love food and local fun :) No betting for us though, we'd rather spend our money on food ;)
That night we rented a scary movie and got our cuddle on.

Sunday: dawned bright and early! I got my visiting teaching (visiting women in our church as friends and to talk about the gospel) done in the morning before church and then Job and I went to see a little bit of the Head of the Charles Regatta, a big crew competition here in Boston. I had packed a little picnic earlier that morning so we parked it on our little blanket along a quiet part of the river and munched while we watched the boats speed on by.
Church was uplifting, edifying, and just what we needed to start our week with. We talked about having humility, and living up to our potential and privileges. After church I did some more visiting teaching, and then we headed out to a Viola concert at Job's school (Helen Callus-lovely concert). After that Job did his Home Teaching and then finally we headed home. I got to skype my sister who I haven't talked to in ages, "meet" her current boyfriend, grill him a little, and see my mum's 2 kittens she just got.
I was definitely ready for bed that night, and ready to wake up this morning for work (after hitting snooze twice that is ;).

Bam. How's that for an update? I know, kind of long. But that's good from a journal perspective right? :D yeeaaah.

Easter Recap

Easter is such a beautiful holiday! With Spring in full force the weather was just perfect for the reason for the holiday-Christ and his Atonement and Resurrection for each of us. Job and I really tried to focus on Him this year and as such we had a wonderful Easter weekend. We did sneak some worldly fun in there as well ;) I wanted to start a few traditions with our little family of two.

Good Friday we went to see the BSO and Tanglewood choir perform Bach's Saint John Passion which is a piece about the crucifixion of Christ. It is traditionally performed on Good Friday so it was the perfect day to go. It was a beautiful concert! It made me so grateful for what Christ did for me, and excited to celebrate his resurrection on Sunday.

Saturday I went to the temple while Job did some school duties. After that we met up to take a friend out to the Natick mall and surrounding stores. We definitely stopped to eat Five Guys before shopping. Couldn't resist ;) Of course it was several dollars more expensive than it is in UT/ID, and no free fries, but I think I am getting used to the whole everything-is-more-expensive-here thing. It's life. And this place is so great that other things make up for it ;)

 When we got home I went into Easter bunny mode. I would have liked to do our secular celebrations (eggs, bunnies, chocolate etc.) on Saturday so as to not take away from Sunday's celebrations, but I was not organized enough to get things ready on Friday. So I dyed eggs and made our Easter baskets Saturday night. We hid each others so we could both have some fun in the morning.

Sunday morning we turned on Music and the Spoken Word (mormon tabernacle choir performance) and some Mormon Messages to help bring the spirit. We also searched for and found our little easter baskets, and I took my eggs out of their onion skin dye (yum! ;).

Church was excellent. I always feel so refreshed after attending church! Which is quite amazing considering it is usually a 4-5 hours block for us with meetings, choir practice, church classes etc. But I really do come home feeling so good each week. Job played his violin along with a mens quartet and a cello. They performed "This is the Christ" and it turned out really well.

Job made fish tacos and spinach soup for dinner, and then I made some strawberry shortcake for desert. Que rico!! (Dear posterity, What we ate for dinner is very important information to us. Just in case you couldn't already tell)

I now interrupt this normal programming to bombard you with a mass of pictures:

At the Symphony. Hello random head.

My onion skin dye. Appetizing, I know.

I made some little treats for a few friends. Little rice crispy treat "nests" with M&M "eggs". I also included a quote and scripture about Easter. Pretty cute if I do say so ;)

I like how these turned out. Soft and natural. I want to try more natural dyes next year.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

I love this weekend!

I love settling in to watch General Conference each April and October. I love the spirit I feel, the inspiration I get, the testimonies I hear which strengthen my own, and the words that I know are coming from my Heavenly Father to guide and help me in my life. General Conference is this weekend and Job and I greatly enjoyed today's two sessions. Looking forward to two more tomorrow :)

Humility being thrust in my way. Stories of a Sunday

I gave a talk yesterday in church. Enough said?

Well, I'll elaborate a little. I guess it started at 10:30 Saturday when I finally finished my talk ;)

Then Job was gone all day on Sunday because he had to play in a concert at Sanders Theater on the Harvard Campus (beautiful concert hall!) He dropped me off about 45 minutes early to my Relief Society Presidency Meeting which gave me time to read through my talk. Then I had a meeting which ended up just being me and the RS president because for different reason the others couldn't come. Anyways, it was a wonderful meeting, and then I asked the president where the best place to catch the subway was outside her place. I was just going to the T to church, but she was way too sweet and said I could just stay there a little longer and she would take me to church. She already does so much and I wrestled with taking over her morning, but I finally decided to accept her offer and forgo waiting in the cold for the subway to come, sitting on the dirty subway for 45 minutes, and then walking in the cold for 10 more. I know, doesn't seem like a hard choice but I really don't like to bug people. But sometimes I have to be humble and accept help.  So I got to enjoy lunch with two great friends, her and her husband.

By the time we found parking and got to church we were a tad late and so I had to walk up to the font for my talk. I tried to do this sneakily, but there really is no way to do so. It was obvious, and the look of relief on our bishop's face to see the other half of the program walk in was pretty obvious too ;)

So then I calmed my nerves and listened to the other talk. Great talk. At least the first few minutes were. I quickly realized I desperately had to use the little ladies room and standing up in a state of extreme nervousness with a full bladder was just not going to work out well. But I really couldn't leave right in the middle. That would once again be too obvious. So I waited some more. And I just had to go more.  ooh boy. I just bit the bullet and did it. Walked right down there, and got a knowing smile from my friend who knew exactly where I was going since I mentioned my plight right before church started.

After I *ahem* relieved myself, I just waited out in the foyer until the intermediate hymn. A friend came to check on my to make sure I was ok. I didn't consider the fact that me walking out in the middle right before I was to speak looked like I had flown the coop, too nervous to even continue. Great. So half the people were snickering because they knew I had to pee, and the other half were feeling sorry for me because they thought I just couldn't handle the pressure.

I "snuck" back in obviously as the hymn was being sung. Then I stood up to give my talk, just to face the 1nd counselor announcing my talk. Oh, not quite my turn yet. I nonchalantly sat next to the 2nd counselor to ask him when I had to speak. Smooth, nobody noticed that one. I hope. ;)

All-in-all, when it came down the the actual talk, it went pretty well. I was certainly blessed that I got through it, could think quickly and finished exactly on time. I didn't just stare at the paper and read my talk, but really tried to speak from the heart. Though it wasn't perfect, it went better than I expected and my confidence grew. I heard speaking in public gets easier with experience. Let's hope ;)

After once again standing in front of a group to conduct the meeting in relief society I was finally on my way home with some friends. As suspected, they had a hunch my little leaving-in-the-middle stunt was the call of nature. Queen obvious here.

Phew, long day. But good for me.

Oh yeah, my talk was on Humility :) Ironic?.....

Weekends are for lovers. Warning-it's a long one, I got into journal mode.

Job and I had a great weekend :) Of course we were having such a wonderful weekend that I forgot to take pictures :( I have been trying to get better at documenting our lives (sometimes a little too much, sorry Job ;) because I think pictures are so fun to look back on and they help capture fun moments. Anyhoooo,

We started off our weekend with a wonderful trip to the Boston temple. We finally found a good route to get there and so it is not far at all. We brought a family name to do and we are excited to gather more and do those too. Thanks to both of our mums for helping with that!

After the temple Job took me out to a surprise lunch at a delicious little Thai place by his school. So, so yummy! He got this awesome mango rice and I got pad thai (not original but we had to decide really quickly and it is a great standard ;)

Next Job got tickets to the BSO symphony so we rushed over to symphony hall for our concert. The snow makes it really hard to find city street parking so we decided to splurge and do valet parking. Super nice and convenient on the way in, you just drive up and go. But on the way back we waited 45 minutes for them to bring us our car. Granted a whole group of people also just went to the symphony and were just coming back too, but really it makes so much more sense to just park and get your own car after :) But I digress...

The concert was amazing! They played three pieces, my favorite being Night on Bald Mountain. You know the one, in Fantasia were the creepy winged guy comes out and all the little devils and ghosts come up from graves and hell and wherever else. Yeah, it creeped me out big time when I was little :) But the music is so cool and it was amazing to hear live from such an amazing orchestra.

After the concert we stopped by blockbuster and picked up some movies for the evening, and then went to a produce market to stock up on our fruits and veg. When we got home Job made the most scrumptious salad for dinner! It had pretty much a bit of every vegetable in our fridge, walnuts, chicken, a little bacon, apples, and more veggies :) Topped off with some greek dressing-heavenly :)
Hey look, I found a picture of the salad built for two! (go figure the only picture I took this weekend was of food ;)

Will you just LOOK at that face?! Stinkin' adorable!!

The movie we watched was good. It was called extraordinary measures and was about finding a cure for a form of childhood muscular dystrophy. Ok so I am not going to be a movie synopsis writer anytime soon because that didn't make it sound that exciting but it was a cute show and had a good story. Oh, and JOB picked that out :) So proud of him ;) Oh yeah, they forgot to take out the yellow security strip. So we couldn't open the movie at first. So we called and they just said to rip it out. Easier said then done but finally Job and his buff biceps got the job done ;)

Saturday we slept in some, had a yummy breakfast together, and then Job had to go practice and then work. That man keeps this family running and I sure love him :) Well then I had to find a way to entertain myself. I looked for some jobs, did some relief society work, and then my sister texted and asked if I could skype. I always have time for skyping my fam, it is one of my faves :) So then we ended up talking for several hours. It is funny how wide and varied the conversation can run, from girly fluffy things, to deep and thought provoking topics. That is what makes it fun :)

Finally Job got home late. And I was happy :) And I can't remember but I am pretty certain we watched a Monk. Because we do that a lot :) It is our "go to" show to laugh and relax :) We stayed up too late like we always do on Saturdays, but I got my chocolate covered strawberries done (for the next day) so that's what's important ;)

Sunday was super uplifting and refreshing. I had a relief society presidency meeting in the morning that I went to, and then came home to finish getting ready, make some cards for women in our ward, and ooh and ahh over Job's singing time lesson. That's right, he did singing time yesterday! :) We wanted all the women to be in RS that day because of a special lesson, so the men took over callings in primary and nursery so those women could attend. Job got asked to lead the music and he was so excited. He taught them the song "I will follow God's plan for me"and had pictures to help them, a group idea set up, and the idea to teach them to tap out the rhythm. He did so well in planning it all and he said it went really well! The kids learned the song that day in 20 min. and all his plans worked out well. He said that is a calling he would love someday haha :)

All of church was just really uplifting and wonderful. I said the opening prayer for sacrament meeting, it was fast Sunday so we got to hear wonderful testimonies, Sunday School was a great lesson, and our relief society lesson went really well! I am getting to know the wonderful women in our ward better and am so excited to continue to learn and grow from them.

After church we went home, changed, picked up our little chocolate strawberries and headed to our friend's apartment in East Boston for dinner. They are a sweet couple and we really enjoy spending time with them. The husband goes to school with Job so they know each other well. They were so kind to have us over, and then we tried to hook up my hard drive to his computer. Something went all funny (his computer or my drive) so we didn't have time to wait for it to fix itself because we had a viola recital to go to. Job and I ended up just dropping them off and heading home instead of going. I felt kind of bad, and like a bum, but we were both super tired and Job's alarm had to ring at 5am this morning. So I'm glad we just headed home. And maybe watched a Monk ;)

Weekends are so refreshing :) And even though the alarm did go off at 5 this morning, and Job will be gone all day long until around 10:30 pm, I have a wonderful weekend to get me through. At least through Monday ;)

My favorite Sunday of the year :)

That's right, the primary program :) When all the adorable little kids put on a program for one of our church meetings. They each have a little part to say and sing lots of songs (only sometimes in key ;)
Our primary is mixed with a Spanish branch so the program was half in Spanish and half in English. It was really fun to have the mix of both. Job loved that it was bi-lingual. He understood all of it the lucky dog ;)

This is why I love primary programs:

Primary teacher: We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the gospel are....

Kid 1 (a leetle too loudly into the mic): "FIRST, FAITH IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!" *heavy breathing into microphone*

Kid 2: "Uh, um....Second, repentance for the emission of sins..." *chirp*...*chirp*... (gently escorted off the stand by teacher)

Kid 3 (part down pat, said with perfect inflection. That was me as a kid. HA! not.): "Third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins."

Kid 4: No show. Primary teacher takes over-"Fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost."


Sure, the kids didn't say their parts perfectly, but they really brought the spirit with their enthusiasm, cute faces, and love for the gospel :)


I think they should do this more often.