Thanksgiving in Arizona

November 25, 2005

"I flew to Phoenix for Thanksgiving and quickly realized how wonderfully WARM the weather was. Can it really be November? John and I met up with the Speirs at his old high school to watch the Hamilton Huskies play football. It was fun. The next day he had some homework to do, so I brought my scriptures and caught up on my reading challenge from President Hinckley so I can finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. When it was lunch time I made us some Macaroni and Cheese (the first meal I ever cooked for John... and it's Mac and Cheese... very impressive). Then we went and watched Ashleigh play soccer before we headed off to a barbecue at his Singles Ward." 

 "We talked to a few of his friends from work, and John told them that he just got promoted to Manager! He starts a new team on Monday. I know he'll do an awesome job. I'm really excited for him."

"On Sunday we went to church with the Speirs Family and then hung out at their house. Jenn and Jason came over for dinner and I got to hear some funny stories about Birdie shopping with John at CostCo... climbing in freezers and throwing bags of sugar down the aisles. :)"

"I kept myself busy with laundry and studying on Monday while John was at work until 7:00. He told me all about his first day as a manager, and it sounds like things went really well. I'm really proud of him. John's old Young Men's President, Brother Ethington, came over and played games with us that night and asked me all sorts of questions. He's a funny guy!"

"On Tuesday night after work John took me to a Phoenix Suns basketball game and we had a blast! It was the first NBA game I've ever been to. I loved it, and The Suns won! The Speirs Family left for St. George on Wednesday, so I went to John's institute class with him that night before heading over to stay with Jana's family for the rest of the week. We had a good talk on the way to her house about what we learned in his marriage prep class at the institute. One thing we realized about our communication is that we haven't learned to read each other's facial expressions... something you don't really get to practice when you do most of your talking on the PHONE!"

"I got an early start on Thursday morning because John took me out to Maricopa to see OUR house! As soon as we pulled up, I didn't know what to think..."

"Ha ha. Okay, okay, It was just an old abandoned home that John tried to trick me with."

"I want to see our REAL house!"

"There it is! They had the frames and plumbing done, so we walked through and took pictures and had fun planning where all the furniture would go. I'm excited to see what it will look like when it's finished!"

"My fiance is such a STUD."

"We had Thanksgiving dinner at Jana's house and the food was really good. We watched the "Polar Express" and fell asleep for a little while. It was a pretty lazy day. On Friday morning we went to John's house and listened to a few discs of 'First Comes Love' so we could talk about them together. We talked a lot about communication and what our habits were and things we expected in our marriage. John is really good at communicating, and I know I could probably learn a lot from him. When we agreed that I would be in charge of keeping a record of our finances, I was a bit surprised because my mom usually lets my dad take care of all the money. We also talked about goals we wanted to set as parents and what we'd do in certain situations, like disciplining our children in a way that they'd understand what they did wrong and why, instead of just yelling at them and sending them to their rooms. I'm sure there will be times when we'll take on the habits of our own parents, but we both want to set goals and do things differently than what we grew up with. I love having conversations like that with John, because I get a small glimpse of what he'll be like as a husband and a father."

"Later that night we went to see his mom sing in the Arizona Mormon Choir at the Mesa Temple and got to walk around and look at all the lights they had set up for Christmas. John was being so cute and funny during the choir performance I couldn't help but laugh. How did I ever get so lucky?"

"We watched a movie at Jana's that night, and I sat there wishing I didn't have to leave the next day. I've had such a great time this week. Even though we didn't get to spend as much time together as we would have liked, the time we did have together was absolutely wonderful."