Merry Christmas to our Friends and Family!

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By Way of Announcement...

New Baby Gerber (BOY) due to come around March 30th! Here's the pics! We love you, thanks for your love!

To my Honey :)

Thanks for an AMAZING first 5 yrs Troy! I love you with all my heart and am so proud to have you as my husband and the father of our children. Here's to you!

We LOVE YOU and SUPPORT You PRESIDENT PACKER

Recently there has been much controversy regarding the talk that President Boyd K. Packer gave during the LDS Conference Oct 3, 2010. Here is where the talk can be found:

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1298-23,00.html

I suggest you read it with an open mind to the struggles of this day and then read my comments (below):

The views of God will never change. He is sad for the choices that his people make, but He still loves them with all of His heart and hopes that they see why He wants them to follow the guidelines and laws he sets forward. President Packer is a messenger of God boldly proclaiming things that we should be less afraid to talk about. There is no gray line on this matter. It is not up to us to decide. We love the people with all of our hearts. We want to be their friends, to socialize with them and help them through any problems they may have just like we would any people on earth. But we choose to follow the laws that God has set forward because we have faith that He knows best. It is not for man to decide or to change their views to make something acceptable that wasn't before because "the times are changing now." If God still says that marriage between a husband and wife is the only way, then we respect the views that others take, want to be their friends, and love them, but we do not choose that path because we know that is not what God intends, and we hope they will see the truth eventually. He loves us and knows what's best for us.

We can know if it is true by praying about it. We are not blinded. We know with our hearts when we pray to find out for ourselves. I pray for everyone effected by this topic. I pray that those who choose to be offended will know that we mean no harm to them as a person, but love them and cherish them. I pray that there will be greater love and understanding throughout the world on this topic and that the youth, and those struggling with this hard battle will know that they can count on us for strength and love and friendship. I pray that we will all be understanding of each other, as well as tolerant and respectful of the beliefs of others.

God wants us to be friends, and to bear each others burdens that they may be light. The gay/lesbian struggle is not easy. I feel sorrow for all that those people, my friends, are going through. I love them, and appreciate their contributions to society and all they come in contact with. I am grateful that God made all of us different, however, I know that God's laws are just. I see this as a very great struggle those people are going through. They wear their struggles on the outward. Many of us struggle with temptations and sins which do easily beset us but are able to be hidden more easily.

This world is a hard and confusing place, but it is our responsibility to show love to those around us and try as hard as we can to be good people and make this world a better place once person at a time, with the laws that God set forward...man cannot, and should not want to change these laws. I love you all. Thank you for being my friend and understanding the faults that I have as a person. I hope that I can help others to feel loved through this veil of tears-where joy can be found by helping others-and struggling together. Respect for every person. Love for every person. THANK YOU PRESIDENT PACKER FOR BEING A GREAT EXAMPLE OF STRENGTH WHEN WE ARE STRUGGLING TO STAY STRONG. :)

The Sept Fire

This was WAYY Crazy. On Sunday recently, our home teachers came over and we opened the door and saw lots of smoke in the air and a weird orange light outside. Then they said something about a fire over the mountain. We thought, "oh, that's strange" let them in and continued our day afterwards. Later on, the fire came up and over the mountain making the hugest problem for the people below. Eventually 1500 homes had to be evacuated, and they expected by the morning that anywhere from 25-100 homes would be burned down, and the fire would continue to be out of the control of firefighters...That night I watched (somehow everyone else could sleep :)) while it came down the mountain and right up to the houses. The scariest time was 1am. By 3am, the winds finally subsided a little (they had been 50-60 miles per hour which caused most of the problem), and it looked like they'd finally be able to contain the fire. We heard that only 3 homes had been destroyed by the fire, and one severely damaged. That was such a MIRACLE compared to what we had feared. There were many homes where the fire came right up to the back door of the homes and the firefighters were able to get it to turn. In many cases the fire went past homes with green grass, and a majoy help was a gentleman who worked at the dump with NO firefighting training, who thought he could help by bringing his bulldozer to the scene where they were only able to get firefighters up to because it was beyond the roads, and he attached a hose to his truck and fought right along side the firefighters, making trenches along the way that the fire couldn't get through as well. WHAT A BRAVE CITIZEN! Here are some VERY amateur pics that don't even begin to describe what happened.

Trisha's Wedding

We had so much fun during the "festival" of Trisha's Wedding week. Sophy loved seeing Trisha get married to her "prince" and even danced with and tried to kiss her dad JUST like Trisha and Jared were. My sister was an AMAZING help and drove down from ID just to watch Sophy and cuz Malakai while we were all in the temple, then she stayed around a little bit and drove back to school because she had a class the next morning. She managed to talk to many cute old ladies while she was here and they all asked where she was when she didn't show up for the luncheon or reception. They had a Luau theme for the reception, complete with Tongan dances and Fire-breathers! Sophy will NOT forget this for long! We love you Trisha and are happy for you and Jared!

Deck Pics

Well, one thing I asked for my bday that was just finished was a deck. Mostly only so we could go out our back door to the park with kids instead of having to walk all the way around..but it doesn't hurt that it turned out GREAT! Troy designed it himself, got all the pieces from Lowes and Home Depot, worked on it with a few nieghbors, his dad, and brother...THANKS TO ALL! There's a piece we put in where we want to have a slide, but don't have money for it/haven't figured out which one to get yet, so instead of leaving it open for kids to be drawn to (as I'm sure they would), he came up with this slot-railing idea where it looks exactly like the rest of the deck's railing, but it can be pulled up and out at anytime, and then we can even have it in when we do have a slide incase there's a baby crawling around. For now, Sophy loves to use it like a dog. In the morning she says she needs to go out on the deck (we put a baby gate up by the stairs so she can't get out), wants her food out there, and I shut the door, she eats, runs around and "barks" or knocks on the door when she wants to come in. It's great and her cousin Malakai loves it too.