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Sunday, April 29, 2012

The importance of supporting your spouse

Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. ~Simone Signoret
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Recently I read two short stories that illustrated how important it is to support your spouse and how strong of an influence you can have. I will paraphrase the stories.


The first story is about a wife's influence on her husband:
A president and his wife were out walking one day. The president saw one of his wife's old boyfriends in a less than prestigious occupation. He turned to his wife and said, "If you hadn't married me you could have ended up with him." To which his wife responded, " If I had married him, he would be president."


The second story is about a husband's influence on his wife:
A man was young, strong and highly sought after in his tribe. In his tribe it was customary to give a dowry of 2-3 cows depending on the desirability of the wife. This young man chose a woman who was homely, and shy and offered her father 8 cows as a dowry. This was unheard of, and later in life no one would have known this woman was once homely and shy, because all her met her were struck by her confidence and the spark in her eye. When asked why he gave 8 cows for a wife, the man responded by saying that he wanted an 8 cow wife.


I don't want to say much, but I wanted to share because these stories illustrate to me how much we can influence others by how we treat them.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

There is a good reason they call these ceremonies "commencement exercises."  Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning.  ~Orrin Hatch
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Life keeps on moving on, and more and more changes keep coming; exciting changes.

Stephen received and accepted a job offer for USAA in San Antonio, Texas.  He will start work there May 14.  We have been so blessed, and are so grateful for the many prayers said in our behalf. It's exciting, and makes me nervous.  I kinda just wanna go now so that I can stop thinking about it, but it will come soon enough. :)

And since then life has become increasingly busy.  My mom came to visit and threw me a baby shower at my grandmama's house.  So many people came, and I felt so loved.  Baby Etienne got very spoiled. It's so much fun to look at how little all the stuff is.  The only thing that is depressing, is that he will grow up too fast :-P (We just watched Toy Story 3 today.  One of many things that makes me worry about how fast my little baby is going to grow up.)  

And yes, we are planning on naming this little boy Etienne (pronounced Eht-ee-ehn or Eht-ee-yen).  It is French for Stephen, which I love.  We'll call him Eti (pronounced Eddy) for short.  I always thought I would name my first born son Stephen, but when I married a Stephen, it seemed like having a Steven, Stephen, and Stepheni in one family as enough.  That's when Zak mentioned Etienne.  Stephen immediately loved it as well.

Anyways, I digress.  So after the shower my mama came to stay with us for a week.  It was so much fun to have her around.  We ate, and shopped, and planned Stephen's graduation/birthday festivities.  It was my Spring break, and I loved being busy with my mama around.  :)  I'm lucky to have the family I have.

Then Stephen's family came for his graduation, and we had lots of fun; mostly eating.  Stephen graduated, and we celebrated his graduation, birthday, and Easter all in one.  My mama helped me organize the meal, and everyone helped to make it tons of fun. It's always awesome to have some time with family.  Julie even came from Missouri.  It meant so much to Stephen to have so much of his family there.

Since then we have been soooo BUSY!  Moving across the country takes a fair amount of planning, but we are checking things off the list.  Stephen has been a lifesaver by organizing so many things for the move.  Come next month we will officially say goodbye to Idaho.  It'soverwhelming, especially with a new baby on the way, but it's also very exciting.  We're starting a new and very eventful chapter in our lives.

In baby news, Etienne is moving so much now!  I can feel his kicks, and sometimes even just feel him moving around.  Stephen can feel him moving a lot more as well.  Etienne kicks at him if he encroaches on his space too much.  I can see my stomach move when he does as well.  My wardrobe is shrinking as I am growing, and it's hard to imagine how I much bigger I could get in the next 10 or so weeks.

Basically, life is awesome, and busy, but exciting!  I am so blessed to have the family and friends that I have, and I am especially grateful for all hardwork Stephen has put in to help us withthis amazing opportunity.  I'm excited to blog from Texas soon!