Days Christmas Lettter 2014

Pop(corn ) Quiz

The Days 2014 Christmas Letter

Giving you a little pop quiz this year, just because it is fun. Can you guess the right answers to the questions about our life this year? See how well you know the Days. Ready, Set, GO!

1.  Which of our children had a pet pig                                                           named “Wilber” in their class this last year?

              2. What was one of our ginea pigs named?

 

3.       Who reenlisted in the Air Force this last year?

 

4.       Where will we be moving this next year?

 

5.       What month did we sell our house in?

 

6.       Where have we been living for the last 3 months?

 

7.       Who Ran their first 5k this year?

 

8.       Name one vacation we went on this last year?

 

9.       How many times did our kids get punished this year?

 

10.    What club did all 3 of the older children participate in this last year?

 

11.     What musical did our kids perform in the theater this last year?

 

12.     What nicknames does mom call each of the children?

 

13.    Name 2 shows/events did Dave and Natalie got to go see this last year?

 

14.    How did we get tickets to most of these shows?

 

15.    Who is taking care of our pets since they can’t go with us?

 

16.    What is Dave’s Favorite part of his job?

 

17.    Who is our best friend?

 

 

 

Answers on following page!!!

 

 

 

1.       Correct answer is…… Marissa and Melanie. Last year they were in the same class and had a stuffed pig named Wilber. They loved being in the same class, now they are in separate classes, but still love playing together and are each other’s best friends.

2.       We had 3 guinea pigs this last year. So if you got any of their names you get a point. First was Roxy, but sadly within a few weeks she passed away. Then we had Brownie, and buttercup. They were tons of fun to play with, but sadly with our move we had to rehome them.

3.       Clue, it is not Natalie….. Correct answer is DAVE. The beginning of this year they were downsizing the military and our enlistment was up in the summer, so we enlisted a little earlier to make sure they knew we wanted to stay. Luckily we had no issues with the downsize.

4.       JAPAN! Yep, we are headed to Japan the first weekend in Jan. We are excited for this new adventure and the things we will be able to experience. We have heard great things about the people and culture there. We are hoping to learn Japanese and get the opportunity to see much of their country. Any and all are welcome to come check out Japan. We are free room and board J

5.       October, we put our house up for sell in June to make sure we had time to sell it. We had an offer right away but alas, that fell through. We waited a few months and then got another offer. We sold it and moved out promptly in October. It is weird to be living close to our house and visiting our friends on the street and knowing it is not our home anymore.

6.       Well, when we moved out of our house we made a last min decision once our rental didn’t work out as planned. We moved our stuff into storage and moved into a 2 bedroom extended stay hotel. We were cramped but the kids did awesome and were very flexible with it. We have the best friends ever and one of them invited us to stay with her. She has been amazing and now the kids have had a place to play and go outside. Much more space.

7.       Landon did. He did amazingly well. We ran it on Thanksgiving Day in Draper Utah.  He even beat his mom and dad to the finish line. I guess he is a natural born runner like his daddy. Good Job Landon.

8.       We went on a few this last year. We went to Zion’s camping, San Diego and to sea world, we went to our family reunion at Snowbird, We camped up at Mount Charleston, We made a quick trip to Arizona, We traveled to Northern California and on the way stopped and enjoyed the Sequoias. What beautiful trees. A couple more quick trips to Utah to see family and that sums it up.

9.       Who knows….There were too many to count. Although I must say that they are some pretty amazing kids and talking with them about the struggles and helping them work through them is one of the most rewarding things we see as a parents. They are truly stronger than we were when we were young and they are so amazing.

10.    Sign language club. Natalie has been interpreting for a dear friend Jackie and the kids decided it would be fun to learn more. So all 3 of them decided they wanted to attend the signing club and learn.

11.    Wizard of Oz. I know what you are thinking…. They did that one last year, yep you are correct. They have done the show twice now. This one was a children’s theater that came to the base. They auditioned and put the whole thing together in a week’s time. It was amazingly fast and fun. Thanks for all who came to support them.

12.    Landon- Land-O, Buddy, dude  Marissa- Rissa-Roo, Princess, Rissa   Melanie- Mel, Mello-yellow, Angel   Courtney- Monkey, ABU

13.    We have been lucky and got to see many different shows, we saw blue man group, Penn and teller, KA, Jersey boys, and we will get to see Recycled percussion before we leave. We also have seen the air show, the CMA’s tribute to the troops (which we were on TV.) drag racing, and small airplane races.

14.    Most of the shows we received tickets through the base or by donating blood every few months we were able to get tickets to shows. It was amazing.

15.    We have our neighbor Jackie who wanted our little dog. It is fun to still see him some. We have one of my best friends from high school take our big dog. They have a dog and it gave her a buddy to play with. All I can say is “We have the best friends in the world”

16.    Dave loves his job but his favorite part is serving others. He love to help out people in need and his job makes it so that he can provide service for a great number of people.

17.    Our best friend is each other. And we try with all our heart to include the Savior, Jesus Christ in all our relationships. We try to emulate him in all that we do and hope we can share his spirit with all we meet.  We don’t always do the right thing and we have to be humble enough to recognize that, but we try hard to emulate Jesus Christ in all that we do. We try to serve one another and find those in need. We also try to forgive. We are not perfect in our families we make mistakes, but that is why there is forgiveness. We try hard to move past the bad and get back to the good. We hope and pray that your Christmas is one where you feel Gods love for you.

 

Merry Christmas, See you on the flip side! We are off to Japan!

 

Mataauhimade 

(Till we meet again)

 

The Days

        David, Natalie, Landon, Marissa, Melanie

                        And Courtney!

Having it all and Having Nothing

At times in our lives things seem to go pretty smoothly. We feel financially stable and blessed with many things. Other times we struggle and have heartache. Through the years, we have experienced both. Christmas times seems to either strengthen this feeling or make it worse. We have had times when Dave has been deployed and we have felt like we didn't want to celebrate because we were apart. Then there have been times where finances didn't seem to pan out the way we wanted and so we had to have a "Creative" Christmas. We have also had nice Christmas's where things all seem to fit and fall right into place.

Just like the times and seasons that change we have times and seasons in life that change and I want to share with you our time and season of this year.

Christ's birth is the reason why we celebrate Christmas. He was a king, a ruler, the creator of the world, but when he came into the world he wasn't born into a palace he wasn't laid  in the finest crafted cradle, but his birth was a glorious event. He had nothing, and yet he had it all. All that was needed to fulfill his mission. He was born in the lowliest of circumstances and yet Angels we there, Joy and love filled the air.

This year I feel such a bond with our Savior. Most of you know we sold our house and have been living without our things for a few months now. We have been living out of suitcases and living in hotels and friends homes. We have hardly any toys, we have limited amounts of clothing and bedding. We don't even have our own pillows. We are down to basic necessities right now.  We can compare our lives right now to that of the Saviors. We have nothing, we just have our needs being met. Yet, Somehow, in someway we have it all.

We have wonderful friends who have provided love and support for us. Who have graciously opened up there homes. To Katie, I will be forever grateful. Your kindness and generosity and sacrifice will be greatly rewarded. (I'll talk to the big man upstairs and try to send extra blessings :) I know we can be difficult to live with because we have our own set of weaknesses and it seems they are magnified when stress is around. Thank you, thank you for your wiliness to help us out at this time.

Thank you to the family that supports us. I feel so blessed to have a family who loves us and supports us in our decisions. I always know I can count on them for anything I need. No matter how bad of mistakes we make I know I can turn to them and they will lift me up. There is no judgment or animosity for past choices. That is how God intended the family to be. To be a support and a help and I am ever so grateful for mine. I will dearly miss them when we leave and that I think is one of the hardest parts of leaving.

This Christmas season we decided to dedicate it more to the Savior, since Santa and some of our traditions are not possible. It has been an amazing experience. I am not going to talk about all the things we have done because the point is not to earn credit, but to honestly help those in need. I will share the message that me and my family are taking away from it all.

Christ is real, he dedicated his life to those around him. He dedicated his life to helping those in need. He looked, he opened his eyes and when he saw needs, he assistant in anyway that he could. As we have gone through these last few weeks we have enjoyed doing some fun things as a family and really bonding. Some we have done just for fun, but the things that have brought me the most joy have been the service for those in need. Getting rid of the extra things in our life has made it easy, not to cross of a Christmas check list that we fill we must get done, but to really focus on what is needed and who is in need.  I feel like Heavenly Father has been helping me to know who needs what and when they need it. It feels good to be his handpeace. (yes, I meant HAND-PEACE)

I hope I can continue to bring joy to those in need. Life is sometimes hard, sometimes we have nothing but at those times it is easier to see that we have it all. Family, friends, joy, love, and  becoming what God wants us to become his Hand-PEACE! 

Here are a few pictures from our holiday season.  Love you all and Merry Merry Christmas. You are my everything.

Good bye party for Dave's work. Papa john hosted and spoiled him with balloons and decoration a beautiful sign that said good luck in Japanese. He also received a beautiful award saying thank you for all his hard work. It is a beautiful Eagle "because he is an Eagle not a Duck"

 (that is a direct quote from one of the chaplains)  And we love our friends here is Kladnicki photoboming our picture 

Courtney turned 6. She is just a joy to be around. we made her favorite meal, Mac and Cheese, we had a Frozen themed party with blue and white balloons, olaf noses, a frozen cake and frozen presents. She loved her olaf balloon. She was one happy spoiled girl. She is such a joy.



She gets so excited opening her presents, look at those excited eyes.

We had a great time going down to boulder city to enjoy the trains this holiday season. This was a seam engine that was built in the late 1800's, after its hard work it retired to the movies and was in some john wayne movies. Then it was caught in a fire caused by lightning. It was pretty much destroyed and so a many dedicated time and rebuilt it. It is now used for multiple train shows and people come from all over the world to see it. We were honored to be able to take a ride on it. It was amazing.

  Here is the big train we road on. We sat in the open cart for fun and the kids loved it.

Santa even stopped in for a visit. How nice! Kids were pretty happy and surprised.

We made delicious ginger bread houses when my brother Aaron was in town. It was wonderful to spend a few hours with him. We love him so much. Thanks for all the fun! And we added at least a ton of candy on for decorations.

We were able to go and enjoy the lights at the cactus garden at Ethel M chocolates. It was beautiful and an enjoyable evening together with the family.

 

 

Finding out about Japan

When we found out we were moving to Japan we felt many different emotions. We were excited, scared, nervous, and terrified. Dave seemed very calm and ready for a new adventure. Me on the other hand, I was nervous and anxious. I have never even traveled outside of the United states let alone live in a foreign country for 4 years.

Right away I knew that I needed to get a blessing to feel comfort. As I was receiving the blessing it was clear that God wanted us in Japan. It was clear that this was part of my mission on earth, and I felt peace. 

The spirit brings things to my mind on a regular basis and one of the things it told me during this time was I needed to read my patriarticle blessing.  Now, I don't plan on sharing that with you here today, but I will tell you that when I read it. It very clearly states that there are people all over the world who God needs me to come in contact with and help.  This was another confirmation and a great help to me, with giving me comfort in this move.

Now knowing that God wants my family to move 1/2 way across the world did not mean that it was easy. I still complained and was nervous, I kind of felt like Laman and Lemuel. Most of the times they did what they were told, but then they complained about it.  As I was reading this story recently to my children it was clear that I needed to not only do it, but have a good attitude about it.

So the next step in being excited to move to Japan was I faked a good attitude. FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT. RIght?! WRONG!!!!!  Who was I kidding. I knew we were going to go. I knew we needed to go, but ultimately that doesn't mean it would be easy.
"
I had a long chat with my sister-in-law and something that always stuck with me was this..... "This life is going to get worse. It is going to get harder and harder to stay righteous in it. We are to teach our children how to be strong and if we are always taking the easy road what is that teaching them? Our children need to see us do hard things. To stand up for what is right and fight back against the adversary."

My kids need to see me do hard things and do the things that the Lord wants me to do in my life. If I let my fear get in the way then what am I teaching them.  God has a plan and a mission for me on this earth. If I sit back and stay comfortable then I am not becoming who I am meant to be. I say this to myself but everyone else out there reading. God needs you. He has a plan for you and he needs you to fight for it. He needs you to push yourself and strengthen yourself. Not sit idly by waiting for life to pass. Take action, find out what God wants you to do, then do it.

As this journey has continued, there has been good days and bad. Days I am sad for leaving friends and family. Sad that I had to sell my house and lots of my belongings, but that in itself teaches us it is not about things and possessions, but about family and about relationships we have with people.

When we had to sell some of our belongings I thought a lot about the pioneers leaving family and there possessions. I thought about there faith and what carried them through. I also thought about how lucky I am to be living when I am so I can communicate with those people who I love and cherish.

Still after all these experiences I was still having a little bit of a hard time accepting it. When I moved to Vegas everything felt right. Everything was in order, and I defiantly felt peace.  Japan was different. I wrestled with the spirit. I wrestled sometimes daily with it. I wanted to feel at peace and the excitement for going.

Knowledge it Power. So I studied all about Japan. Read books, asked questions, started to learn very basic words in Japanese. Still I was nervous and anxious. A friend from Ohio recently was stationed in southern Japan and reading her blog and seeing her experiences made me more and more excited.

Even after all these things and knowing we were supposed to go I couldn't figure out why God would allow me to feel such anxiety.

We sold our home, our van, got good homes for our pets, lived in a hotel for a month. Lived in a friends house for another month and a half. This was not an easy transition and it felt like my stable life was in a whirlwind.

Then something amazing happened. My husband got me tickets for Time our For Women. The person who was supposed to come and join me ended up not being able to come. So I went by myself and it was perfect. I was able to focus on myself and really focus on my spirit and what God needed and wanted me to know.

2 Timothy 1:7
" For God hath NOT given us the spirit of FEAR, but of POWER and LOVE and of a sound mind."

I don't need to be afraid. I can go forth with his power and love and take that to Japan and find the people that I am supposed to help in my life. This life is for us to go forth with Power and bring people unto God.

D&C 84:88
"Mine angels round about you to bear you up"

Even through all of the trials and struggles we have we have been given angels from beyond the veil to help build us up and help us. I know this is true, but I also think we have been given angels here on earth to help us. We have friends and family who have countlessly blessed my life and built me up when I couldn't do it myself.

I am going to take this attitude and become an angel for the people in Japan. I have a mission. I never served a full time mission in my life, but I know that these next 4 years I can serve and work hard to build people up bear their burdens and help them get closer to God.

All of these things and experiences has gotten me to where I am today. I am ready to go. I am ready to serve and I hope that I can accomplish what God wants me to do.

Mataauhimade 
(Till we meet again)

Who are we

This post is going to introduce you to our family.

Dave and I met when we were young and have been married for 12 years. We have had some great adventures and some great struggles in our lives.

The first few years we attended college and worked. Dave just couldn't figure out what he wanted to do with his career. He always had a interest in Woodworking and so he looked at that route, but it wasn't going to support our family very well. So he started truck driving, since he had his CDL, but that didn't seem to fit either. So through prayer and faith we joined the military where Dave could become a Cop. We have been in the military ever since, 8 years and counting.

We had a hard time getting pregnant the first few years of our marriage. When we did get pregnant we ended up with a miscarriage. That experience was hard and scary. Then we were blessed with our first son, Landon. He is amazing and we are grateful he is our son. Then right after I had him I got pregnant again. Wow.... What a turn around. Fist we couldn't get pregnant then we ended up having 3 kids within 10 months of each other.  YEP, that is right we got pregnant right after having Landon with twins. They also came a month and a half early making my 3 oldest kids 10 months apart.  We then waited a few years and had our baby Courtney.

The military has brought many blessings like a stable income, great insurance, great friends. It has also brought some challenges like deployment, deployment, and another deployment. Yep in the 8 years we have been in he has deployed 3 times plus his training in tech school for a total of 2 years gone. After being in 5 years and being deployed a lot we decided that we wanted to see our dad more. So we changed careers in the military. My husband is now in the Chaplain corp. We joke that as a cop he used to save lives and now as a chaplain (assistant) he saves souls.

We have lived in many places in joining the military we have lived in even more our homes have been in Utah, Colorado, Ohio, Nevada and Now we are getting ready to move to Japan.  The best part about moving is our wonderful friends that we have gotten to meet that we can call family. We love so many people and God has blessed us with great friends that will stand the tests of time. They give us love and support through everything we do.

We are grateful for our families who have loved and supported us in many different ways throughout our lives.

 And that is our lives in a nutshell!

Start of the Journey!

Starting a New chapter in Life is not always easy, in fact, at times it can be quite difficult. We have had many different emotions. Through them all plus hard work and Faith we start our new journey. We can't wait for the great adventure that awaits us.  Here We come Japan.