Aahhh Life! :)

I know, I should be doing homework . . . but my mom gave me a copy of the Ensign today and told me it had articles in it for me ... "Having the confidence to marry"
When I first got divorced there was nothing in the world that I wanted more than to get married and have kids. In my mind I imagined some sweet returned missionary with glasses, and quite frankly a nerd. I had my "stepford husband" all planned out. You know, the sunday school answers for the perfect husband. I would have done anything to get that, so I went to a single's ward (even the name makes me feel squemish) and I felt completely awkward! Only my friends knew that I was divorced, other than that I did not advertise that information. As I watched all of the guys (boys) in the ward I realized that there had to be more out there ... how could I settle for a guy who still lived with his mom? Yes, I know that I moved back in with my parents, but that isn't the point that I am trying to make.
These boys were just that, and they seemed to have no life experiences, to put it lightly they were dull. Anytime someone talked in church it seemed to be a contest to see how many times they could bring up their mission in class. That was all they knew how to talk about.
After reading the articles in the Ensign today I realized that I no longer have that strong desire to get married. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be married again and eventually have little tow-headed kids running around. I can't wait to be driving a carpool in my SUV and other soccer mom-ish accesories, but I always thought that having the perfect husband would make my life complete. I know now that it is just the beginning, I cannot rely on someone else to make me happy!! I need to work on becoming the person that I want to be, the person that I am destined to be, not waiting for that special someone to come and sweep me off my feet and make me happy.
I have learned time and time again, things don't work on my timeline, I have to trust that things are happening at certain times for certain reasons. Come what may and love it!! And I'm trying to do just that, my life is far from what I thought it would be, but I wouldn't change it for a second. I wouldn't be where I'm at today without everything that I have gone through and I know I complain way more than I should, and I know that I let people drive me crazy with even the tiniest things, but I really am blessed in my life and can't imagine ever having taken a different path.

Black Friday

So we all went out at 4:00am yesterday and went shopping. It was so much fun. I only have presents bought for 3 people though. I love the adrenaline of it all! I actually shoved a woman this year!!! But, it was an innocent shove that I didn't notice I had done until afterwards. :) Here is a pic of us and all the fun we were having, minus Russ cause he was sleeping in the car when we got this taken. Not sure if we could have fit one more person in the booth though.

Grandpa Larry

Larry 'Butch' Hansen 1941-2009

Some of my earliest memories of Grandpa were getting to go out to his house in California and stay awhile. One time we were driving out there and it was very dark and it was very cold, and we hit something. Grandpa got out to see what it was and it was a dog, then he got back in and started driving, after a few minutes he said that it was so cold outside that the dog's guts were steaming. I begged and pleaded for him to turn around so I could see this poor dead dog. I couldn't have even been 5yrs old yet and he was willing to satisfy a pretty morbid curiosity for his grand-daughter.

Also, on these trips he used to let me lick the windows in the Red Bronco, but only the red one, because the red one was the company Bronco and who really wants to explain that the slobber marks on you car windows are not from your dog, but in fact came from your grand-daughter? :) I must have learned the licking from him because he has been doing it as long as anyone could remember. His sister, my aunt Marie told me that when he was a boy he used to lick his mom's legs and it drove her crazy so one day she put vinegar all over them and when he licked them he was grossed out and asked her what was wrong. She told him she had peed on them. :) He never licked her legs again, but his love for licking people did not end there. When he was moving to Africa we went to the airport to say good-bye and just before he boarded that plane he gave everyone a big lick on the cheek. That is just what he did. :)

Grandpa was always willing to do anything for me. Once he took me to Skipper's and I hate sea food, so he let me fill up a cup of ketchup and let me drink it through a straw.

He also taught us to improvise. In his old house we put in a new set of stairs going to the basement because they were so bad-unfortunately the new set of stairs were a little bigger than the old ones and when we needed to move things out of the basement, like a broken refrigerator it just would not fit, but instead of giving up and thinking that it just had to stay Grandpa pulled out his sawzall and cut the fridge in half. I remember thinking how there was no way I could get past him and the fridge and up the stairs if the sparks caught the free-on on fire.

These stories are just some of my silly memories of Grandpa, he was always doing something goofy. But he was also a great example to all of us. He spent lots of time doing genealogy and was able to take almost 100 names to the temple from our family. He had a testimony of the temple and knew what wonderful blessings it brings and he wanted to give that blessing to as many people as he could. I have a quote that I like - When you were born everyone around you was smiling and you were crying, live your life so when you go everyone is crying and you are smiling. Grandpa definitely lived his life that way.