ADO

BUSY. BUSY. BUSY. Basketball season is ending in a few weeks, which means the reffing during the week will be slowing down soon. Club volleyball is just starting, which means the reffing on Saturdays (ALL. DAY. SATURDAY.) will be picking up soon (like, this week). Today (Monday) is my one day off, so I'm soaking. it. up. I seriously may be home for a total of 15 hours this week. Count 'em.

Last Saturday was the regional girl's camp training/workshop for pretty much every one in Provo and Orem who works with the Young Women. Like a thousand women. (Talk about a girl convention). Needless to say, I got SO overwhelmed. I've been without any counselors for about a month now (scratch that, I have one, but she had a baby mid-December and has been MIA since) and everything's just been piling on. Trek and Girl's Camp this summer. Both. Yes, I get to go to both. Yes, I'm excited. Yes, I'm so overwhelmed! At the training they just talked literally for hours about all the things we do at camp and everything everything everything. After each segment we'd break and everyone would turn to each other and share ideas with each other and I was just alone and had to process it all by myself.

Breathe. Next day after church I got a new counselor and a secretary. Finally. Thank you. Met with my camp director Heather, and afterwards felt SO much better. Most of the stuff they talked about planning, etc is the stake's job. Thank you. Mostly I'm just in charge of food and the spiritual stuff at camp. That's all I wanna do.

Now we just need some camp assistant leaders and we're golden!

Sundays like that make me feel so much better!

COUCH

Best reason to have church in the morning on Sundays:

SUNDAY AFTERNOON NAPS.

SO GOOD.

Nothing like curling up on the couch with a blanket and zoning out for a few hours.

It's nice not having kids sometimes.

Not gonna lie.

GOING, GOING, NOT GONE

We're all going places. We went to school, most of us finished school, some of us are STILL in school, some of us are still in Utah, most of us are OUT of Utah (and forgot to take me with you!!)...
We, however, are STILL in Utah.
Utah's okay. We have a lot of friends here and a LOT of family. Clean air, nice people, great ward.
But where are we GOING? Is this where we'll always be?
Our ward has about five homeowners. Total. Which makes for high turnover. People come, they graduate they leave. That's our lot in life. It's not a lot, but it's our life.
We, however, aren't leaving. For a while. Phil got a late start in school and still has a least a few more years.
Two sides to this coin.
Side one - We love our ward. We love the youth we get to work with. We love our home and our neighbors. I love my jobs.
Side two - Snow. No beach. SNOW. NO BEACH.
People have been asking us, "if you're planning on staying for a while, why not buy a house?"
Answer one - I'm NOT planning on staying "for a while".
Answer two - I don't want to have any REASON to plan to stay for a while.
I'm a California girl. I don't do this whole "weather" thing. It's cold. It's uncomfortable. It's restricting. It's foreign. This is my fifth year in Utah, and that's already longer than I planned.
Phil's a Utah boy. He's close with his friends and family and has a hard time dealing with the thought of leaving it all behind. He says he's always wanted to live in California, but I'm not sure he really has.
I see a lot of our friends and relatives moving on from this "BYU" stage and going on to the next stage of life. I feel like I'm so close to it, and at the same time I can't see the finish line. Graduation in April was great, and I love not having to go to school anymore, but I still feel like I'm in that phase. I still feel like we're still here, where we were two years ago, and where we'll still be two years from now.
That's the hardest part. Not knowing where we're going, and when we'll be going there.
If we go anywhere.

GAME SHOW

I just watched a new game show on Fox (online, cuz we don't have cable) called the Million Dollar Money Drop.

 They start with a million dollars in cash, wads of $20K. They're asked multiple choice questions, and place the money on the choice(s) they think is/are right. Wrong answers drop like a trapdoor, with any and all cash they put on that choice, and they keep the money they put on the right answers.

7 questions.

I just followed an episode, and seriously...

I would have won the million dollars.

EASY.

1 - Most popular restaurant food: Burgers and Fries (duh)

2 - Which patriotic song has the line "from sea to shining sea"?: America the Beautiful (who DOESN'T KNOW THAT??)

3 - Most recent Star Wars movie (of 4 listed): Attack of the Clones (I pay tribute to my ten-year old brother Adam on this one)

4 - How many US states start with the letter A: 4 (Fifty Nifty United States song, c'mon!)

5 - Shortest flight from LAX to Rome, Sydney, or Tokyo: Tokyo (I know my Geography haha)

6 - Most adults spend money on gambling, movies, or video games: GAMBLING (DUH)

7 - Which came first, Filet-O-Fish or Egg McMuffin: Filet (fast food breakfast came late)

Phil was getting so annoyed with me, I kept saying things like

"Oh my gosh, Phil, I should be on this show. I would still have the million dollars."

and late

"I would STILL have a MILLION dollars"

and later

"Holy crap. STILL. a MILLION. DOLLARS."

Poor guy. I can be annoying sometimes.

But seriously, I would have won a million dollars.

SLEEPOVER

Young Women.

Friday night.

HILARIOUS.

We started out with a crazy numbers/dice game, then we played telephone

Then OF COURSE we painted our nails...

I just love Calli's face.

And Tori looks like a baller in this one haha

S'mores. Of course.

and roasted Starbursts...goodness

Dancing. Yes, there's a video of this. No, you can't see it.

Girl Code. 

Crista busted out some clogging moves.

Facials.

Toothpaste and honey/oatmeal.

musica.

Then a girl movie. Duh.

Presh.

Yes, there are more pictures of these lovely ladies in the morning.

No, you can't see them.

Girl Code.

But trust me, the pancakes, sausage, hash browns, oj, and jamba juice creations were all UH-MAY-ZING.

Always takin' pictures.

I love these girls.

We're definitely doing this again.

2011 NON-RESOLUTIONS

So...Phil and I don't really like resolutions. It's kind of a corny thing to me. But I started to think about what kind of things we need to be working on as a family or that I would like to change, and started writing some things down, and I'll admit, it looks like a New Years Resolution List.
DON'T BE FOOLED.

* Pay off 3/4 of my student loans (reward: CRUISE)
* Make a new food/meal once a week
* Attend the temple every month

* Read a book every month
* Keep an annual calendar and FOLLOW it

The first three are the most important ones.
This is probably the most Resolution-sounding Non-Resolution list I've ever made.
But again, it's not.
I know, I know, a rose by any other name...

2010 LETTER

Friends and Family -

• All grown up and writing Christmas letters. Sigh…

• The first part of the year was spent studying non-stop for my Dental Hygiene boards, and I thankfully passed with help from my teacher Mrs. Knight, Uncle Mark, and of course Phil (patience, back-rubs, doing the dishes, you name it). I was also invited for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sing in April General Conference with the Orem Institute Choir, which was completely amazing. I graduated with Honors from UVU in Dental Hygiene and, after an exhaustingly long summer of job-hunting, finally found an office I love. I feel so lucky to have found a profession that is perfect for me!

• During the summer we played games constantly at the Packard Family Reunion, celebrated our one-year anniversary in Grand Junction, CO horseback riding and river rafting (Phil’s first time doing both), discovered a love for family history work (with the help of, yes, Facebook to connect with distant relatives in posession of pages and pages of names), and moved from our little apartment in Provo to a duplex within our ward boundaries (I have attachment issues). Phil was working in Salt Lake selling phone, internet, and tv services over-the-phone to get me through school, and is happy to be done and focusing on his lifelong passion: cars. He’s getting great grades so far, and even though he misses his work friends, he doesn’t mind being without the long commute. I officiated high school volleyball during the fall, and am just starting the basketball season to keep busy while Phil “studies.”

• Little did I know we would have plenty to keep our hands full. Just as we were getting settled into our new routine, we got called as Young Men and Young Women Presidents in our ward within a week of each other! We no longer call Sundays our “Day of Rest”, but we are having a blast learning to love the youth even more than we did before.

• As newlyweds, we’re constantly learning how to make each other happy. We never could have imagined the experiences we would be put through or the lessons we’d be asked to learn in our marriage. We’re constantly realizing how little we actually know, and are grateful for the reminders to rely on our Savior and seek His guidance and help as we prepare for our future family and the years that lie ahead. We love you all and are grateful for your examples to us, and wish you a Merry Christmas!

Phil and Emily Leué

2010