Life's Simple Treasures

Hi, my name is Anna and I am here to tell you about how simple things can bring you GREAT JOY! My first favorite thing:





#1 A ROCK. You can do a lot with rocks, you can stomp them, collect them, put them in your pockets, hold them in your hands for hours, put them in your mouth or simply throw them into any form of collected water you can find. (demonstrated below).

#2 YOUR HANDS. You can clap, sign, eat, pick up rocks, wave, blow kisses, point, play, but most importantly and what I discovered today... you can do finger tricks!

#3 A BUS. They are fascinating you can see them all over town, but they disappear fast making me ask my mom, "go?" Today we saw (okay I was asleep, but my mom did) a bus on fire and we had to drive through its smoke!

#4 PAINT. You can do a lot with paint. It makes beautiful pictures on paper and bellies and I think it would look good on rugs, but my mom stopped me from doing that! ):

#5 PUMPKINS. They are ever where this time of year. I like to sit on them, look at them, and drink out of my pumpkin sippy. Pumpkin is also fun to say!

#6 CHEESE. It is simply one of the best forms of food. You can have cheese chunks or melted on sandwiches, or shredded on top of pasta after it is already mixed with cheese. I had all of these today!

#7 TRACTORS. They can also be found everywhere. There are many forms and I am interested in EVERY one!

#8 BOOKS. There are SO many different types and you can read them anywhere! My favorite is on someone's lap, especially in rocking chairs, or what I call "rocka rocka"

#9 WALKING BACKWARDS. Why don't we do this more often? It isn't the most effective way of getting around, but it is SO FUNNY!

#10 JESUS. I love Jesus. I love pictures of him, costumes of him (yes I saw one tonight) and statues of him. Sometimes when I am having a hard night I like to sleep with my Jesus statue from my dresser, it helps me sleep better! He is amazing.

Wonderful visitors, rain, cider mill, detroit, and much more!

FRIDAY

We were so happy to have Dave's parents come visit for the weekend. We had so many things planned, and did as much as we could with the weather. It was a GREAT weekend! Thanks again for coming Papa and JoJo!!! We went on a rainy car tour around campus, walked through Kerrytown to lunch...

Lunch at Zingermans Deli, one of the famous places in A2 that we hadn't been to yet. It was delicious!



Anna loved having her Papa and JoJo here!


After lunch we went to Dexter's cider mill the oldest constantly running Cider Mill in Michigan. We had wrong directions to see the cider being made and we walked right into the room where the cider press was. Ha!
Anna kept wanting to go back into that room!A scene from behind the cider mill.





Despite the rain it was beautiful! We really wanted the Miners to see how awesome the fall leaves are, instead they saw how green it is here.



Anna is obsessed with rocks right now and even more obsessed with throwing them into water...


... or other things. (She kept making the funnies faces anticipating the loud clank it would make at the bottom of the can.)

After the cider mill we went to a pumpkin patch/ farm. We got to see this one week old calf and two one -month old pigs. Later on that night we had dinner at the Gandy Dancer a cool old train station turned into a fabulous restaurant. Probably the best Filet Mignon I have EVER tasted. Thanks to the Abernethys and the new Kid's Swap for letting us enjoy dinner as adults!

SATURDAY

We set out to see Detroit, daring I know. It was so sad to see all the destruction and loss of city life in once one of the most influential towns!

We first stopped by the Detroit Temple. It is beautiful and very small, compared to what we are used to in other cities, especially SLC.

Next stop...MOTOWN!! YEAH! Michael Jackson...need I say more?

The river walk... I cannot believe how close we live to Canada, that is Ontario across the water!(It was freezing if you cannot tell).




The next set of mostly blurry photos show the destruction. If you look closely at the buildings you won't see windows, but emptiness or boards. Some of these buildings are awesome, it is so sad to see that this is what has happened. I didn't take any photos of the good stuff like Comerica park, the DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts), many beautiful churches, etc. So this paints a real sad picture, but shows the truth.





Anna loved having JoJo sit next to her in the car.

Back to beautiful Ann Arbor. We took a nice long walk around Gallup Park and the Huron River. It was beautiful!

Cute couple!

SUNDAY

Sunday we relaxed and watched (or tried to) our church's General Conference (when our leaders speak to the church, it is amazing. Click here to find out more: http://www.lds.org/). Then, that night we had Dave's cousins, Richard and Sarah, over for dinner and birthday cake. I wanted to bake Dave a cake (honestly I want to be on one of the food network shows, but that takes training... which I wouldn't mind having), but I also wanted to make a yummy raspberry pie for my in- laws so... I did both (with lots of help from JoAnn). We were stuffed! But it was worth every calorie! Dave opened presents wrapped in Baby gift bags, no I am not pregnant, but that is all we had to wrap with! He got a bunch of clothes, nothing too exciting this year, unfortunately.

DAVE'S actual Birthday...


We bid farewell to Papa and JoJo, worked, Dave attended 8+ hours of school, we dropped Anna off at the Tophams (thanks again you guys) and went out for a fun dinner just "us." We had delicious Italian food at Palios and Dave's meal was FREE! as well as a FREE dessert...Dave chose to try a canolli for the first time, delicious!



Here are the two buddies before Anna went to bed.

I am in love with Anna's "cheese" these days, she does it sometimes just to make me smile. I also am in love with this 28 year old! (:

It's a new season so you know what that means...

The dog woman strikes again!!!




To see what I am talking about see previous post from Monday September 14th.

A wonderful Sabbath!

I am just sitting here thinking over my day and I have to write how truly blessed I feel. Cheesy? Perhaps, but nevertheless it is how I feel. Some days come and go and I feel this way, but don't take the time to note it. So I will today. It was one of those days that I woke up with so much on my mind - many things to do (Sharing time and teaching the cute CTR 6 and 7 to name a couple). I was able to get most things done, be to church on time and enjoy the speakers. They spoke on being slow to anger. The spirit was very abundant and though I don't recall a ton of specifics, I loved the overall feeling I had. All my Primary tasks seemed to go well and then I headed home. I drove around for 20+ minutes trying to get Anna to go to sleep, and I just enjoyed the first signs of fall. I tried to find some of the best streets to take my in-laws on when they come in a few days, and found every corner I turned was just as beautiful as the last.

Anna wouldn't sleep, instead she advocated for Mia to get out on a walk and I obliged enjoying every moment of the gorgeous fall Ann Arbor weather. We stopped at the playground near our house and Anna explored while I talked to a best friend of mine. It is always nice to talk with old friends, even when it isn't as often as you would like. It seems that true friends will always be there, and each conversation seems so comfortable and fun the you don't want to hang up the phone! I feel so lucky to have the friends I do, whether they are longstanding friendships or new ones!

Afterwards we enjoyed a fabulous "southern dinner" at our friends the Abernethys. They lived in Louisiana for the summer for an internship and just accepted a job there for next year! They introduced us the some delicious "Po' boy" sandwiches, Jambalaya, and beignets (scones that I saw on the food network channel and have been wanting to try! They were amazing.). It was a great to be all together as SPH friends. We have been lucky to make these friendships over the past year and will live it up for one more year... until we are all spread across the U.S. (At least we'll have fun places to visit -right?)

Then I was able to act on an impression and know the feeling that the Holy Ghost really does guide us and if we are willing to act we will be blessed. I am thankful for the General Relief Society broadcast that was last night, it helped me prepare for the needs that needed to be met tonight. I am grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ, I am thankful for my testimony, for the power of the spirit, and the way that my knowledge of God and my Savior help me to be a better person.

Life is Great amidst the stress it can bring. Or rather the stress we put on ourselves from all that life has to offer!

Anna's words

I have been amazed at the rate that Anna has picked up words. I am writing this post more for her knowledge and my memory, because this is one(yes I have a few) the best journal I have right now... sad yes I know. Here are Anna's words and such to date...

Words: Hi, Bye bye, help, up, down, out, off, please, thank you (dayn do), toes, head, eyes, knees, nose, teeth, belly, eye brow, go, 1-2-3, shoes, socks, off, on, rain, walk, ball, tree, bus, swing, splash, swim, kids, t.v., rock, and rock a rocka, animals, no no no, that, ball, walk, ah-oh, wow, sit wet, water, bubble, baby, rock, flower, tractor, cheese, ham, cracker, truck, hat, butterfly, poo poo, stomp, pizza, jump, hot dog, bath, banana, me, star, tree, fish, duck, horse, apple, bee, stroller, sit, red, bow, hugs, hot, cold, wash, dirt, pretty, turtle, flower, circle, orange, open, banana, pizza, jump, and one of the most important... STINKY! (yes, many times I have gone to get her out of bed and she has warned me as I walk in the room!)

Signs: cracker, bear, eat, where, day, water, bird, more, all done, milk, juice, banana, star, fish, spider, sleep, please, and plane.

Favorite songs: Spider, Twinkle twinkle, If you're happy and you know it (stomp stomp), no more monkeys jumping on the bed, popcorn popping, I have a tiny turtle,

Phrases: I love you, night night, "there it is," all done, bye bye daddy, I'm cute, AH-OH, "up above...." (from twinkle twinkle), and the MOST important of all . . . GO UTES!!!

Animal sounds: Baa Baa, Niegh niegh, moaooow, duck duck, meeeow, bac bac, phhhh (elephant), chomp chomp (zebra), giraffe, snorts like a pig, buzz buzz, roar, dog dog (she ussed to say woof woof and since she learned the name this is what she says instead), bunny (just closes her eyes trying to make her nose wiggle), and the lizard (move tongue in and out).

Names: Anna, Mama, Daddy, Mina (Mia), Grandma, Grandpa, Papa, JoJo, Kjersti, Nannie (Natalie), Hola (Holly), Chris, Nini (Lily), Cait, Jackson, Sarah, Grace, Aubrey, Audrie, Jack, Logan, Chelsea, Fiona, Aylee (Eilidh- which is Gaelic), Sloane, and Rich, Travis, Mini (Mindy), These are the ones she is really good at, though if I say a name she really tries to say it!

Anna is 18 months... about 2 months ago

I waited until we got these photos from my fabulous friend, Melanie. You can check out her photos here: http://www.melaniewaltonphotography.blogspot.com . After we got them I got busy. So here is our little toddler at 18.5 months!

Ann Arbor Sighting...

I have found the "DOG WOMAN!" You know how there is always the "old cat lady" in each neighborhood? Well we live in a pretty good complex of town homes and I just found one of my favorite places to walk by. Let me give you a little history first.

For holidays you typically see there is a random very overzealous neighbor who has a flag for each holiday (or some sort of odd decoration) that they proudly display as soon as the season hits. Well the Dog Woman has taken this to a new level. I first noticed a random flag at Valentines with hearts surrounding the photo in the middle, but didn't realize it was a trend... until now.

I'll let you know when the next season starts with a new flag and the same dog! (: