Things that make me smile

2010 was a whole lot of eh.  You know what I mean.  It wasn't a horrid year or anything, but it wasn't super fantabulous, either.  It was a shoulder-shrugger, brush off sort of year.  I will not feel sad to see it slip away into the frozen night this weekend.

Still, I know that my family and I have really, truly been blessed, and I have been terribly negligent in my failing to acknowledge it.  For so many in our country, and even more around the world, 2010 was a painful, difficult, awful year.  I should treasure my apathy for the year; at least it wasn't sorrow, pain, fear, or hunger.

There are so many things in my life that make me smile. 

College football, for one:

(Was anyone out there wondering if Bug still looked like her daddy?)

Our autumn Saturdays were full of good food, good friends, and Cougar football.  (Except, of course, for that one glorious day in October when our house stood divided and my Aggies reigned triumphant!)  Since they got married several years ago, we have watched nearly every BYU game in the company of our good friends, the Ortons.  In fact, last year we watched a game at their home and then practically headed right to Labor and Delivery afterward to have our little ladyBug.  Three weeks later, Buggy made one her first trips out of the house to watch another game with our friends.  (She peed on their hardwood floors, and they still invited us the next week.)  We are so lucky to have good friends.  The hurt and struggles of my crazy twenty-six  plus the scheduling challenges of a very small but needy third wheel have naturally affected our social life over the last year.  Without the Ortons, we'd practically be hermits.  Also, I wouldn't have such nice hair.  (Thanks, Stace!)


Want to see a memory that makes me smile?  Over Labor Day, we took the baby and headed to Silver Lake to relax and take in the beautiful weather.

Now, prepare yourselves for this.  Waaaaay back in October 2002, we headed to the same lake shortly after Grandma Nancy passed away to relax and take in the beautiful weather.  Have we changed much?

Weird, huh?  And speaking of young love, Bug went on her very first dates in 2010-- first with an older man:

with Daddy at the aquarium

 and then with a younger man.  (She's a cougar.)

Bug and her ward boyfriend.  They flirt and exchange birthday presents and Christmas cards.
 Basically the only downside is that his parents are funnier and more clever than we are.

2011 is going to be a fantastic year.  I just know it.  I sense it.  I feel it in my heart.  I will cheer and clap and, perhaps most impressively, stay up all the way until midnight  to welcome it with open arms.