First up was... NATHAN'S BIRTHDAY! We have another official Teenager in the house! He really wanted the girls to make him another "checkered" cake so they happily obliged. Grandma and Grandpa Vogt also joined us for the celebrations.
A short 6 days after Nathan's birthday, we celebrated again - this time for DAD!! He's such a great dad and we were happy to shower him with love!
NEW SET OF WHEELS: With Ben fully licensed and driving, we were always
worried whenever he drove our vehicles (not to mention, then mom was
stranded at home if he took the van) and so we scoured the FB
Marketplace and found 2000 Nissan Xterra that we bought as a "kids car"
so that Ben could drive it to work and Seminary. It's been a great
little car so far and we're hoping it stays that way!
SHOOTING AT THE RANGE: Seth left back to school the beginning part of September and has been doing well. Shortly after he left, Christa Eschlimann came to stay with us for a week to visit and spend time with McKendra. We really enjoyed having her. We decided to take an evening and all go shooting (along with Ben's girlfriend, Natalie).
MUTINY: BOOK 2 OF THE REVOLT TRILOGY IS PUBLISHED: Another HUGE accomplishment: Ben's second book of the Revolt Trilogy: Mutiny was released! We are so very proud of Ben and his dedication to writing! Again, mom designed up the cover for him and they were both pleased with the result.
NEW HOUSE: The end of September brought exciting news: We closed on our NEW HOUSE!!! Heavenly Father's hand was so prevalent throughout the entire process that we have NO doubt this is where we are to be! I know I've written in past entries about being worried about the timeline and waiting for the VA disability decision but kept getting the answer to proceed forward and trust God... Looking back, we couldn't have written the ending to this story in any better way! With the VA disability in hand, the $12K+ funding fee was waived which significantly reduced our closing costs. This opened up the opportunity to buy down our interest rate to 3.1%! AMAZING, right!? Everything went smooth at the closing and we got the keys the following day and started moving in! Here's our amazingly awesome home that we all LOVE so much - green paint and all!
KITCHEN UPDATE: With the blessing of the VA, we were able to pay off the remainder of our very last student loan and really beef up our emergency fund. With the remaining, we budgeted to renovate the kitchen with new countertops and backsplash. I'd heard so many horror stories on remodeling jobs gone bad, but our experience was quite the opposite! Our timelines kept getting moved up, we were given significant discounts (for paying cash and being military) and within 2 weeks of selecting our granite slabs, the entire project was done! We love, love, LOVE it!! No longer do we have the teal Formica with fruit basket tiles, but now have beautiful counters and oversized subway tiled stone! Here are some before and afters
GENERAL CONFERENCE TRIP TO UTAH: Even though we had already moved, Dad and Ben had already planned to attend General Conference in SLC with all of the Priests from the Nampa Ward (and their dads)... So they set off on Thursday and all piled into the Bautista's 15 passenger van and headed off on their adventure! Here's what dad had to say about their trip: "Ben and I had a awesome experience in Utah. The majority of his Priests Quorum along with many of the fathers got to head down for a four day Conference Weekend trip. 13 of us squeezed into a 15pax van and had a blast. We went to both the Salt Lake and Mount Timpanogos temples, toured the MTC, climbed up Mount Timpanogos to go through the Timpanogos Caves, attended both Saturday sessions of conference, and watched Boise State lay the wood to UNLV at our AirBNB. It was a trip that I will remember forever. It was our last hurrah with all of the great friends we made with the Nampa 11th Ward. We’re grateful for many of the lifelong friendships we have made there!"
Additional thoughts from Dad -
"It was so awesome getting to attend two different sessions of conference and hear from our dear Prophet, the apostles, and other church leadership. We were present for historic announcements as both the Young Men and Young Women programs got a major overhaul. I loved being able to attend two Temples with Ben. One of my highlights was doing baptisms for the dead in the Timpanogos Temple and having Ben be the one who baptized me. It was a really special experience. When we attended the Salt Lake Temple, the church had just announced the policy change that sisters were now able to serve as witnesses for baptisms, both for the living and the dead, one day prior. An ordinance worker at the Temple told me that as soon as the policy was announced, sisters began rotating in and filling those assignments. As we entered the baptismal font area, it was amazing to see sisters, both young and old, serving as witnesses for proxy baptisms. As I rotated in, I was told that I was the first male witness they had seen all day. I am thankful for continuing revelation and a Heavenly Father who loves us and has given us a Prophet here on earth. Another highlight was being able to listen to the audio book, Insights - about the life of President Nelson. It was truly inspiring and made you want to serve all the more harder."
Of course it's been BOISE STATE FOOTBALL season and most every weekend has been spent tailgating or watching the Away games together with friends! We have 2 season tickets (with the ability to get extras when needed) and so each of the kids (as well as August and McKendra and Ben and Natalie) have all been able to go and cheer on the Bronco's at the Blue! We finished the season 11-2 (our only regular season loss being to BYU- how did that happen?!?) and played in the Las Vegas Bowl in December (that we hosted here at the house). Here are pics from the season! It was certainly a great one and dad has sure been getting LOTS of air time on TV with his full blue persona! He even made it onto an official BSU promotional video!
We are loving having August and McKendra not too far from us! They found a super cute apartment here in Meridian and moved in November 1st. It's a 2 bedroom and they have fixed it up so nice! It'll be a great place to bring their baby home to! Speaking of the baby... they found out what they're having and did a creative gender reveal involving a carved Jack-O-Lantern and colored smoke bombs. As you can see... we'll be grandparents of a BABY BOY!!
HALLOWEEN! The girls are still so very much into the dressing up and going Trick or Treating. I went out with them and Nathan while dad stayed home and handed out candy. I have to say that it was amazing trick or treating in our new neighborhood! It seemed like something straight out of a Hallmark Halloween movie (if they made such a thing! haha)... The temperature wasn't too cold, many of the houses were all decorated up, tons of kids and families running from house to house and crisp fall leaving crunching underneath our feet. I had such a happy feeling the whole time we were out! Nathan didn't care too much about what he was - he just wanted to throw something on to ensure he could get some free candy! However, the girls wanted to have a theme and ended up deciding to with The Wizard of Oz! Aren't they adorable!?
THANKSGIVING: We had a full house for Thanksgiving! Seth came home from BYUI for the holiday and so did Joseph, Shelby and Sarah (Joseph's fiance). We had a great time all together with movies, hanging out, shooting and gaming. Grandma and Grandpa Vogt and Natalie joined us for Thanksgiving dinner so our table was full (we managed to squeeze all 15 of us around the table!) as well as our hearts!
FAMILY CRUISE!! We have looked forward to this trip all year!! Dad and I knew that we wanted to do a cruise for our 25th Wedding Anniversary (Dec. 28th) and thought it'd be a blast to take the whole family! We had a Family Council at the beginning of the year and shared how we were going and if anyone wanted to join us, they could - but that would have to be their entire Birthday AND Christmas for this year. We watched some YouTube videos of families on cruises and tours of the Cruise Ships and that solidified it... everyone was on board to go as their gifts for the year! We originally thought of going in November... then January... then decided December would be best (more so for Seth, he thought that the first week of December would work best for his school schedule) so that's what we went with! It turned out to be perfect since it was the first sailing of the Christmas season and so the entire ship was decorated with boughs of holly, wreaths of gold and like a 30+ foot tree in the Atrium! We attended the tree lighting on the first night that we set sail, and that was really neat to be singing carols around the tree with other guests. Carnival Santa hats were thrown out in the crowd and Aubrie & Lexi were lucky enough to get the very last 2! We participated in other holiday festivities on the ship (Holiday crafting, Name that Tune Holiday Edition, Holiday Trivia, Ugly Sweater Competition and the girls were even front and center of the Holiday Show where they danced with other kids on the Cruise). We also went to see some Comedians, competed in a 90's Music Trivia (which dad rocked at and even won a free drink!), played mini golf, shuffleboard, swam, rode the water slides, dipped in the hot tub, explored the ship, turned around at random times throughout the day to see Nathan with another ice cream cone, nightly dinners in the Spirit Dining Room as a family gathered around for a fancy dinner, explored Catalina Island on Golf Carts, rented Taxi's in Ensenada to take us to the good shopping district and local taco's and honestly just a really nice 4 days together as a family!
HUNTING: Dad drew a late season hunting tag this year (Dec 15-31st). He and Lexi went out scouting on the 14th but saw nothing... so he called in the expert and went hunting on the 23rd with Uncle Danny. Again, they saw nothing :( But... he had a great time on both occasions.
WAHOOZ FUN: The girls have been stellar helps this year! Seriously - the move was so much easier because of their daily help of packing, cooking, cleaning and organizing! That same help persisted once we made the move into our new home with surprise Bamboozles every time I left the house (without them) and just great attitudes about helping and serving! To show our gratitude we took them and their friend, Lauren to Wahooz for the day! Since it's been an unseasonably warm winter, the Go-Karts were even up and running! They spent ELEVEN hours playing laser tag, bumper cars, riding all of the rides, doing the wall climb, rope course and of course driving the go-karts!
Of course there was CHRISTMAS - but.. since that is such a special time and event, I'm making a separate blog post with all of the festivities and gift opening. However during December we did do some celebrating: we were invited to an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" Party. We bought some random Christmas items and gave the girls a glue gun and told them to go at it! Dad did tell them that he wanted to just have the large "M" Metallica logo and mom told them to make it crazy! We loved how they turned out and the girls did a great job! We also found some good deals at the thrift store and Hobby Lobby and so put a few decorations out front! With us already having a red and green "Christmas house" it didn't take much to make it look more festive!! We also went to our Ward's Christmas Party. It was a BBQ Pork dinner with some singing and pics with Santa. Ben had to work, Nathan wasn't feeling the best so it was just Seth, the girls and mom and dad - but we did get some really cute pics with Santa!
25th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! What?! 25 years! Doesn't seem possible! Our Cruise was the big gift we gave each other to celebrate so on the actual day we relaxed at home with the family, went to the Temple and tried a new Korean BBQ place for dinner called CupBop. Dad made a Facebook post about the last 25 years in "numbers" and thought that would be fun to elaborate on:
4 sons, 2 daughters, 1 daughter in law, 1 grandson on the way, 3 cats, 5 dogs, 5 states, 2 foreign countries, 17 homes (and apartments), 2 Cruises, 2 vacations to the Oregon Coast, 4 career changes, 13 BSU football seasons as ticket holders, 9 years of homeschooling, 14 Temples visited, and 9,131 days of wedded bliss!
AUGUST'S BIRTHDAY! Just like every year, our little boy thinks he needs to get a year older on New Year's Eve! This year he turned 23! After working the morning shift at Marco's, he and McKendra came over for a delicious dinner made by Seth. It was seriously a labor of love as Seth's famous "Honey Sriracha Chicken and Fried Rice" takes several hours to make - all of which Seth did was a happy heart. He also made a Chess Cake to go along with the celebration. After dinner, we spent the evening watching movies, napping, playing games and eating lots of snacks while we waited to ring in the new year. Here's to another year!
And then just pictures of additional moments that filled in these last few months with memories!
SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING...
Well, here we are at the end of the year and dad and I feel super happy and proud of our efforts to attend the Temple 50 out of the 52 weeks! We rotated and participated in all of the different ordinances throughout the year. There may have been weeks when the days got away from us and we found ourselves on Saturday night rushing to make a session or weeks when we had so many other things competing for our time and maybe didn't go with the right attitude - BUT, there wasn't ever a time afterwards that we regretted putting the Lord first. Our Spirits were lightened, our Hearts were happy and we felt peace. We spent the majority of the year (Jan - September) primarily attending the Boise Temple because mom could just meet dad at his office at the end of the day and they could go over to the Temple. Once we moved and were only 10 minutes from the Meridian Temple, we started going to that one after dad got home from work. We love them both and feel so blessed to have TWO to choose from each week! Looking back this has truly been an miraculous year in so many ways and we honestly attribute that for our weekly Temple attendance. Things have gone our way and played out better than we could have ever imagined (or even better than if we hand wrote what we wanted to happen!) Heavenly Father is so good and knew exactly what we needed - even when we didn't! It has been such a great year that we have committed to continue doing our weekly visits and this time we're shooting for 52/52!
ps: we take a Selfie each week and here are just a few... (we've discussed taking it in the same spot each week so we can see the seasons change throughout the year! Wouldn't that be fun!)
********************************************
As always, the Lord's hand is prevalent in our everyday lives and we have spiritual experiences interwoven with the mundane and predictable. I'm not liking that it's been so many months since sitting down to record impressions, revelations, miracles and tender mercies. It really solidifies that when I blog each week (vs. each month or quarter!) it is so much easier to recall these times and I feel so grateful that we have several volumes of family history filled with these moments. I've written about a few of our more spiritual times throughout this post (ie: Ben and Dad going to Conference and the closing of our home) but wanted to include a few additional thoughts...
I had a really neat experience during one of my morning studies of Helaman 12. As a little side note, a few days before reading this I had been studying the scriptures with Aubrie and we came upon a verse about how when we keep the commandments we will prosper in the land. I told her that this was one of the main themes of the Book of Mormon and then asked if she knew what "Prosper" meant and she didn't so we discussed that a bit and then moved on... sooooo.. when I was studying Helaman 12, I realized that it was spelling out exactly what Heavenly Father means when he says that we'll "prosper in the land". In the first 2 verses is says "The Lord blesses and prospers those who put their trust in him" and then it goes on to state in specific ways. He will:
* Increase of their temporal possessions (flocks, fields, gold and silver)
* Spare their lives
* Deliver them out of the hands of their enemies (and that their enemies won't declare war upon them)
* Do ALL things for the welfare AND happiness for His people
That is what Prospering means according to the scriptures - and I love it!
Later on in that same chapter it reads "Man is less than the dust of the earth..." and I realized that I have heard that many times throughout my life and didn't quite know what it meant (I had my own theory which turned out to be completely wrong! haha) but in this chapter 12 of Helaman (verses 7-8) we are told what that means!! Backing up really quick before tell you.... after telling us what it means to be prosperous, it goes on to say that when life is good and easy and we're being blessed, it is man's tendency to forget the Lord and think that things are going great and we become lazy. This is when the Lord typically will give us a trial to help us to remember and turn to him, etc... so then it talks about Man being the dust of the earth and in vs 7-8 is tells us why! It's because even the dust of the earth LISTENS and OBEYS the word of God and our "Natural Man" doesn't! This was such an "aha" moment and knowledge was gained and I couldn't wait to share with the family what I had learned!
*************************************************
In November our Stake put on a Temple and Priesthood night for all of the kids turning 12 this next year. Obviously, that included our sweet little girlies! So mom and the girls went to this meeting not really expecting too much but it was really powerful and inspiring and the girls left super excited to be able to start going to the Temple. They were so excited that they set a goal for themselves that come January, they'll go to the Temple to do Baptisms every single month! We're so proud of their decision, desire and goal!
No comments:
Post a Comment