The Good Life

Yesterday on our way to our final Albuquerque brunch with Javi's parents (more on their wonderful trip later) I wasn't feeling all that good and kind of feeling down for the day.  Not five blocks from our home I saw a rusty old bike on the side of the road sort-of parked at the curb.  I looked around the bike for the owner and that's when I saw him: a middle-aged man digging through the dumpster.  Thank you, Heavenly Father, for my life and that I don't need to dig through the dumpster and please bless that dear man who is just trying to find ways to make ends meet and make the necessities possible.

About five blocks after that we saw seven police cars at an intersection with their lights flashing.  As we got closer we saw the skateboard and the jacket and the tracing of where the young body had laid after being hit and killed on a morning ride.  When I think of the sad family and friends as they learned about the death of their love just 13 days before Christmas, I want to cry.  Bless those sweet people.

If you haven't watched the video below, I encourage you to do so.  It's so easy to forget how much just a little bit of giving can do.

Lets go do some good.

Change.

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

-Gandhi

Sometimes

Sometimes you speak too soon and get your hopes up and then the lady whose apartment you were going to rent decides to renew her lease for another year. Rock on.

Snow!

I couldn't believe that it was truly snowing in Albuquerque. How fun!!! Last night, the Mr. and I went to the Uptown outdoor mall to have a little dinner at CPK. Walking the streets filled with lit-up trees and Christmas music blaring and the most beautiful, big snowflakes falling from the sky was such a romantic little date for us! It really was wonderful and dreamy and the BBQ chicken salad I had at CPK was pretty wonderful too. Yum.

The view from the front window. That is Jane's house. We love her.

What a terrible picture of such a lovely Christmas tree! We love our Christmas tree. We spend lots of time during the holidays sitting on the couches just staring at the pretty lights and colors. Something about that just really relaxes me. I used to do the same thing in my parents home. Some things never change.

Mom and Dad came for a lovely visit. I got to participate in a Christmas concert this week with the Albuquerque LDS stake. I even got to sing a solo...so Dad naturally had to come down and play the piano for me. It was so much fun. I'm really sad the concert is over. We've been practicing for two months and it was so much fun to get ready for it. Our friend Tamara took a video of my song so maybe I'll post it someday soon.

Here are the two news anchors: Javi and Dad. Seriously, my dad is a natural. He could seriously do it.

These pictures are really overdue but I just had to share. Javi's job provides lots of random dates for us. This date included FREE TICKETS to the Monster Truck Rally! We laughed our heads off the whole time. It was fun to see so many people so passionate about Monster Trucks! It was surprisingly very fun.

One of the biiiiiiig trucks:

In other news, we are moving. We just found out that we have to be out of this place by January 8th. I'm feeling very grateful that we get to stay here through Christmas and then we will make a quick transition before I start my Masters degree the next week! We have found a really great apartment that is right in our price range and we are thrilled about it. We've been looking at homes and apartments for three months now, almost constantly since we moved here, and we haven't felt this good about any other place. It even has a big swimming pool, fitness room, laundry facilities on site (sorry, that means my laundromat stories are coming to an end) and the apartment is 1,126 square feet! It is so big that is feels like a home, not an apartment. We are feeling very excited and grateful that we found this place.