Angel's and Demon's Did NOT Deliver

I had such high hopes when I picked the movie at the red box. I had read Angel's and Demon's just a short while back and I was so excited to see the movie. I must say I was rather annoying to watch the movie with, just ask my husband. I was so disappointed that they left out MAJOR characters and plot lines. I kept pausing the movie to tell Matt what had happened in the book so that the movie would make more sense. I watched the special features to see if there was any explanation as to why they would change such a brilliant piece of literature. I was extremely disappointed to find out that Dan Brown was a producer of the film and allowed his book to be changed so completely. He was even the brain behind some of the changes. I know he is a brilliant writer but I must say a lost a little respect when he deviated from the original work so completely. If you have not seen this movie I would suggest reading the book first. If you must, watch the movie but know that you are missing out on an incredible book. Usually something like this would not make me so sad but the book was perfect from beginning to end. I also have a passionate connection to this and his later work The Divinci Code because the majority of my college education has been in Art and Art History. I am fascinated by the research that he has done on Divinci and Galileo. Also I have always been an avid reader and lover of good literature. I would love to have it in me to write something as brilliant as these pieces of work. Through reading these and other works and then seeing the movies, I have realized Hollywood's true limitations when pitted against a brilliant imagination.

Christmas begins at the Garff's

We put up our tree today in the 80 degree heat. It was a lot of fun because Matt was actually able to participate. He is usally gone. Of course he complained the whole time. I made him do the lights and let me tell you he did an awesome job, all the while saying "I hate this, I really hate this." He is a great sport. The kids and I made homemade ornaments this year because Ivan and Nora discovered just how well glass ornaments break against tile last year. I am excited for Christmas this year. Matt's family is coming down again and we can't wait to see them. It was a great and relaxing day with my husband and kids. I can't believe I am posting this pictures of me looking incredibly fat but it is what it is. I have to lose some pounds after this baby is born!

Thanksgiving with the Norman's and the Garff's

I have to admit I was not looking forward to this holiday at all. Yesterday I was in the worst mood and kept bursting into tears. I am still having a hard time being away from family at the holidays but today exceeded my expectations. We had a great day! This morning we slept in, well Matt and I slept in while Claire got cereal for the three kids. She's getting so big! After we got our lazy selves out of bed I began cooking for today's dinner. I went a little overboard. I think I was trying to keep my mind off of things and it worked! Half way through the day, Matt was telling me how excited he was to eat pumpkin pie. He is on an all protein diet and gets very few cheat days. I got the pie's out of the freezer and because I hadn't purchased them I didn't realize there wasn't a pumpkin pie in there. So I went to work and made my first homemade pumpkin pie's. I was so proud when they turned out! What's more, Matt loved them. We spent the day with some good friends that live two doors down and thank goodness for that. They have become like family to us and let me tell you when you live far from family, good friends are so important. We ate and the kids played and we watched a movie. By 7pm we were all ready for bed. It was a good and relaxing day. I must say a huge thank you to the visiting teachers who knew we needed help this time of year and provided the majority of the food for our families. We would not have been able to afford Thanksgiving dinner without them. I am so grateful to be a part of the Gospel and to have people who around me that are in-tune with the spirit and know when there is a need, even when we don't tell them.

Kicked from the Inside

Two days ago we were able to see our baby girl on ultrasound again. Honestly I was a little worried because with the last ultrasound they could not see all the chambers of her heart but they are there and they are working! She has gotten so much bigger. She is just over a pound now and her profile is just beautiful. In 5 weeks we get to see her in 3D, something I have never been able to do and I am so excited. She moves so much now and I just pray everyday that she won't move enough to get caught in that cord. I am more paranoid with this baby than I have been with any of the others. She is the one good thing that has happened to us in a string of very hard things. Matt was commenting to me this morning about how he wished he could say that we had been through worst things than what we are going through but this is it. So far this is the rock bottom for us. We have so many decisions to make in the next little while and probably a whole lot of changes but we have made it this far and all that matters is that we stay together. The holidays are going to be hard this year. We are very blessed to have neighbors to share Thanksgiving with because we were just planning on having Thanksgiving alone at our house without any of your traditional Thanksgiving food. We had no money for a turkey or anything else. Yesterday some sisters from our ward came by with two big boxes full of Thanksgiving food for us and the neighbors to use. They said they felt there was a need. Matt and I had not told anyone about our situation because we have gotten a lot of help from the church lately with food and we felt that there were probably others that needed the food more than we did. I just started to cry. I am so thankful that our Heavenly Father makes our needs known even when we don't. I am so thankful for people who are in-tune with the spirit enough to know our needs when we don't even know them ourselves. This year has been one huge humbling experience for us. You could even say a humiliating experience because we made it a year and now things are starting to fall apart. We are mindful however that Heavenly Father is helping us and blessing us. I am reminded everytime I am kicked from the inside.

In a perfect world

Lazy days are great except for the feeling of total lack of accomplishment. Today I took Claire to school and came home and slept on the couch while Ivan and Nora watched TV. We picked Claire up from school, had lunch and then Ivan, Nora and I had a nap. We did make it out to the park but I did not make it out of my sweat pants. Here we are almost 5pm and the day is draggggging on. I really need to find some motivation somewhere, perhaps it's in the couch cushions with all of my other crap. I have decided, in a perfect world my kitchen would clean itself and dinner would always magically appear on the table at 6pm without me lifting a finger. In a perfect world, I would have the energy to do everything I see the women around my doing and have some to spair. In a perfect world homework would always get done before it's due the next day and clothes would wash themselves. In a perfect world I would be lazy as heck!

Feeling Fresh Air

Today has been a beautiful and slightly rainy day in Arizona. Oh how I have missed the rain. Today we have had every window in the house open and I LOVE IT! It has been at least 6 months since all the windows have been open and all the air let in to our house. It is such a freeing feeling. I love hearing all the sounds of the neighborhood and most of all the sound of my kids playing OUTSIDE! The weather here is incredible during the winter and today reminded my exactly why we endured the summer here.
Despite the nice weather and the fresh air I am a little lonely tonight. Every once in a while this lonliness creeps over me in the afternoon and there is no explanation for it. I think a lot of it is that Matt works in a place that is far away and he comes home late. I have several friends here but it's not like it was in Tooele where we spent so much time together. I guess maybe it's just a side effect of getting older but friends aren't the biggest part of my life anymore and that is hard. In Tooele there was always someone coming or going from our house. There was always someone who needed something and as hard as that was, I miss having all of those people around. I must say life here is much more solitary than it was in Tooele.
I miss the often and random visits from Miss Mandy. I miss playing with the Cooley's because our kids got along very well. Here it seems that my kids have more of a problem getting along with others and now that there are 3 almost 4 of them it's getting harder to go to friends houses without fits and fights.
It's crazy how fast life changes, most of the time I am simply not ready for it. I must say I am not ready for the 30th year of my life that is sneaking up on me and I am not ready for the solitary life style that comes along with getting older. I have always been a very social and busy person and this year has been hard for me without the constant go, go, go.

Red is Better

I couldn't get my hair as blonde as I wanted so I went back to my favorite color...red! I love it!
I am 22 weeks pregnant today and our little one has been kicking like crazy since last night. She is definately getting bigger! I tried to push a cart full of groceries and kids around walmart yesterday and it kept hitting it with my stomach. That is a good feeling. I am so grateful that this is sticking and I pray everyday that our little girl will make it to term without incident and join our family.

New Hair...again...

So I decided to go blonde and I love it! I am going to lighten it a little more in a couple of days. Major getting used to!

Slowly...

Today I feel like I am living life in slow motion. I wore myself out yesterday but my car is the cleanest it has been since we bought it! I am contemplating living in the car because now my house is such a mess! I am now 21 weeks and 4 days pregnant and having the weirdest dreams. Today I dreampt that Naomi was here and I can't wait. We have waited a long time for her and it has been a trial to get her here. I will be so glad to see her and hold her and kiss her.

Sunday Blues

I dont' know what it is about Sunday's but I always wake up sad and it's the hardest day for me. I don't mind going to church, in fact I love being with the sunbeams but there is something about the day in general that is so hard for me. It could be that our church is so late in the day but I honestly think it is because the next day is Monday and life starts again. I love the weekends where we can just be together as a family. Yesterday was a change from the usual, Matt was in a very good mood and we played cards together and just really enjoyed our time together. I think that is why I am especially sad that this weekend is coming to a close. We haven't had good times like that in a while.

Science vs. Religion

Today I have been reading like crazy, trying to finish "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown before it is due back at the library. I must say that in the beginning I was struggling with this book but I reached a point today where I could not put it down. When I came to page 380 I read one of the most moving speeches I have ever read in a piece of fiction. I quote the text here stating that it is solely the work of the author Dan Brown and hope that you will enjoy it as I did.

“The ancient war between science and religion is over,...You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFO's engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests-all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but there are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.”

“Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so , the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have breed nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species...moving down a path of destruction.”


“Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or bad idea.”

“ To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.”

“And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God!”

“You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God's hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?”

“Whether or not you believe in God...you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith...all faiths...are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable...With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do...looking beyond the ritual of these walls...they would see a modern miracle...a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.”

Halloween Garff Style

Halloween was fun this year but I have decided it is one of the hardest holidays! After celebrating for three days in a row, My fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue got the best of me and I was down for about 2 days. Today things are looking up, I can walk but still with some pain. Next year we will have to slow it down a notch.
On a funnier note, Naomi must have liked the Halloween candy because she has been kicking a ton more the last few days! I can definately tell she is getting better by the strength of her kicks and the weight she is putting on my bladder!