Our 2010 in Review

January: 

We found out we love eating and also that I love cooking :). 

February: 

Landon won his Basketball division. Landon's parents came out to visit 

March: 

I put together a new initiative at BYU called "Unsung Heroes." We had our first banquet. I am called as 2nd counselor in the RS Presidency. 

April

Locked our keys in the car after conference. Lacey is engaged and we are celebrating! BYUSA presidency has one last retreat together. 

May: 

Lacey & Cory are married!!!! 

June: 

We head back down to AZ for some baseball. 

July: 

A Cruise and the Edwards first official family reunion

August: 

Gary leaves for Medical School. We hiked timp with mom! We celebrate our first anniversary in San Fransisco. I get a full time job at LDS Philanthropies! Salary and all. 

September: 

Landon temporarily leaves the MTC so he can focus on his grades and MCAT. We go to BYU football games always. 

October: 

Landon's family comes into town. 

November: 

We love being married!!! Thanksgiving in Utah

December: 

Christmas in Arizona again!!! 

Thanks for Waiting

To My Perfect Husband:

I finished my last final tonight. It was my eighth test this week. Are you proud of me? I thought about you during the test. I don't remember which essay I was on, but I paused for a moment and thought about you. Thought about how you were taking a test too. I thought about how happy you make me and how lucky I am to have you. I then said a prayer that you would do well on your test. Did it help? I want you to know that I'm sorry the house is a disaster and that I haven't been able to make you a decent meal for two weeks. I promise I will start cooking again and I promise I will clean up. Can you help me? Thank you for quizzing me this week. Thank you for being patient with me this week. Thank you for staying up with me this week. Thank you for encouraging me. Thank you for calming me down after I broke down... literally. Thank you for believing in me. Did you know it helped? It always helps. You told me last night that you didn't deserve me, but you were wrong. I'm the one that doesn't deserve you.

Im waiting now. I finished my test at 6:59 pm, but I didn't want to celebrate til you were done with yours. It's 8:09 now. How much longer? I am sitting on the hardest floor I have ever sat on. Waiting. Right now it is the only way I know how to thank you for all you've done for me. You see, I know you are always waiting for me. Every time you pick me up, you wait. Every time we have to go somewhere, you wait. Every time I have a freak out, or get upset, or act immature, you wait. You are always waiting for me. Thank you for waiting. I'll catch up soon. But for tonight, I will wait. I will sit outside the testing center on this incredibly hard floor waiting for you to get out of your last final. Your sixth final. I don't mind waiting. I'd wait forever. I love you Landon Thomas Woolf. Thanks for waiting.

Your imperfect wife.

My Hobby Part Two

I'm back. I'm sorry. Don't hate me. I promise by the end of this post I will tell you what my hobby is. I didn't think my last post would cause so many questions, but every where I turned people asked... "Becca, whats your hobby?" I've received phone calls, text messages, emails, gchats, voicemails, visits for the sole purpose of figuring out what my hobby was. It has gotten so bad that I have to go out my back door to avoid the paparazzi, journalists, national television news crew. The fact that I don't have a back door made this really difficult. But when theres a will, theres a way--or at least that is what they say? I was really flattered by all the questions, but I started to feel like Brittany Spears in her hit song "Lucky."... AHEM. Ok so maybe i'm over exaggerating a tiny bit. Or a lot more than a tiny bit. Maybe I only had a few questions. Nonetheless, thanks for being interested. It made me feel good.

When Landon and I got married I wanted to be the perfect wife. You know the kind. Perfectly cleaned house--all the time. Perfectly behaved children--all the time. Perfectly shaped smile--all the time. Its almost like I had this vision in my head of what a perfect wife looked like. Well of course the vision lasted about 1 day because life got too busy for perfect. I did, however, start doing the wifee things. Cooking, cleaning, decorating, cleaning, fixing, cleaning, sewing... well not really sewing, but you get the point. I just wanted to make sure I was doing my fair share of things and making Landon happy in the meantime. I loved the first couple of months of our marriage. I was terrible at everything. I had never cooked in my life. I had never had my own home to clean everyday. I had never been married. I had never sewn. I still have never sewn. My husband said that for the first four months of our marriage everything tasted like cream of chicken soup. In my defense, I was working on building a food storage and you could get a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken for 49 cents. So of course I bought... ahem... 50 cans. ANYWAY. I was just learning lots of new things and loving every second of it and mostly grateful that I had an incredibly patient husband. Am I the only one that felt like this?

On the topic of cooking. I just have to share this quick story. For our 2 day honeymoon we went to this really unique spot. Park City. To save money we stayed in a hotel with a kitchen. The first morning I woke up early, went to the store, bought eggs, bacon, bread, syrup, milk, and some lovely Steven's Hot Chocolate. I got back to the hotel and quietly started making breakfast. It was this very morning where I learned I could be as loud as I wanted for I had just married a deep sleeper. Anyway, I started assembling breakfast. Eggs in bowl, bacon on pan, french toast ready to go. Last but not least the Hot Chocolate. I saw a kettle in front of me so--never using a kettle before--I did what any normal person would do. I put the right amount of water in the kettle, poured the hot choco powder it and let it heat up. Lets just say in a little while the kettle exploded. Hot Chocolate went E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. I learned two more things that morning. Kettles=Water only & Husband won't wake up if house falls down.

Sorry, I am getting side tracked. Onto my hobby. Landon and I went on a date every saturday night. It really didn't matter what we did as long as we had some good food. We loved going out and having something tastey. But, as many couples find out in the first couple of months... going out to eat=lots of money. We started realizing we had to limit our restaurant outings. We made a goal to only eat out once a month. This was really depressing for a while. Not only did it squash our best date nights, it also made it so we hade an everlasting taste of cream of chicken in our mouth. Early in January, I decided I was sick of feeding my husband gross food that he said he loved but I knew he didn't. I had seen the way he reacted when something tasted great. He had never reacted like that with my food. So this started my adventure. We couldn't afford to go out to eat, but that wasn't going to stop us from eating good food. I knew it would be work, I knew it would take time, I knew I would fail--a lot, but I knew I had to do it! (Like the drama addition to my lovely story?)

In January, I decided I would make a new meal every time I cooked. This required a lot research. I have to admit, it was hard at first. I would look at recipes and think, "What the heck is Worchershire sauce?" or "Why would you put a leaf anywhere but on a tree?" But I started to build up my pantry with a variety of things, I started planning out meals weeks in advance, I started going shopping every week, I started cooking and cooking and cooking and cooking. Four weeks ago as I was making a new Chicken Cordon Blu dish, I screamed! "LANDON!!!" As he came running from the office I said, "I finally have a hobby. I. LOVE. TO. COOK!" And that was that. I have truly and honestly, one hundred percently learned to love to cook. To be honest it is what I think about most of my day. I am just excited to go from work so I can make my new planned out recipe. It doesn't matter how busy I am, there is always time to cook. And every once in a while, when I put a plate in front of my perfectly hungry husband and he takes a bite and does his "I love this dish" reaction... I am the happiest person in the world.

If I were to start my college carrer over again, I would go to culinary school. I told Landon that if we still don't have children when we head to Med School I am enrolling in the famous Le Cordon Blu Culinary Arts Program. Don't worry Mama & Papa Woolf, there is one in Arizona... right next to the Medical School.

I hope that one day, people will say, "Oh MY! have you ever eaten Rebecca Woolf's food? It's amazing!" That day is about 50 years away. But don't worry, I only have one hobby. I can spend all my hobby time in the Kitchen and that is just fine. with. me.

My Hobby

Its official. I have finally declared my first hobby. Is declared the right word? Do you declare hobbies? Most people probably don't because they have had one since they were 6. Lets think back to when I was six. Oh yes, my hobby... nothing. I remember that my next door neighbor had a hobby when she was six. Reading. She loved to read. She was good at it too. I know that she finished the last Harry Potter 6 hours after it was out. 6 hours. Just for your information, i'm still on book three.

I always hated introductions. "Ok everyone, we are going to go around the circle. Please say you name, where you are from and your favorite thing to do." (aka your hobby) Aghh. I also hate those questionnaires you have to fill out about yourself. Whether it be at church, in school, a new job, etc. You can always bet there will be a question like this, "Tell us something you like to do," or "what are your hobbies." Even in my recent round of interviews I was asked this question at least 3 times, "Rebecca tell us something that you like to do." Yep. I had no problem answering questions like how do you handle intense situations? What do you believe teamwork means? Tells about a time where you disagreed with your boss and how your handled that. No problem at all. It was like they asked me what my full name was, but when they said, "Rebecca tell us something that you like to do" sweat dripped from my forehead.

You may think i'm exaggerating. But i'm not. I have never had something that I just love to do. Something that I get excited about on a regular basis. Something that I spend so much time on that I forget about my real responsibilities. I've always wanted something. I have even pushed to find something. I've tried scrapbooking, not crafty enough. I've tried writing, don't know enough words. I've tried reading, I can't sit still for very long. I've tried exercising, it seems like work to me. I've done journal writing my whole life, but I wouldn't say I love doing it or if I had some down time that would be the thing I would do. I've tried knitting, jewelry making, photography, dancing, singing, picking music, wakeboarding, skiing, decorating, etc. But they don't fit. I couldn't spend 5 hours doing any one of those things. I couldn't spend one hour doing any one of those things. Don't get me wrong, I think they are all fun, but they are not my hobby. I want a hobby.

My brother--who by the way is the best present giver in the whole world--said to me once, "Becca you are the hardest person to buy presents for because you don't have a hobby. Not even that, you don't care for a lot of things most girls care for. You don't care for clothes, make-up, jewelry, purses, shoes, etc." Its true. I don't care for those. It's not that I hate them, but I don't ever feel like I need them. I don't know why. I hate shopping. I never have a need to just go out and buy something new. I have clothes and they fit. Works for me!

Another time my brother said, "For your birthday I am just going to buy you a life size person. People are your hobby." Thats probably true too. I love people. For the past 5 years my mom has given me 25-50 thank you cards for both my birthday and for Christmas because I write so many. (P.S. mom I'm out and my birthday is in a few weeks :) ). But writing thank you cards, thats not a hobby. Blah. You may think this is all very dumb. But at times it has caused me some anxiety. I couldn't even think of one thing I like to do in my spare time. Not even one thing. Can you think of something?

Well Wednesday night, I officially declared my hobby. After almost 22 years, I can answer the questions about what my hobby is, what I like to do in my spare time, etc. I can finally be at peace because I have something in my life that I love other than people. Again, that may sound weird, but I mean it. I am so excited. I screamed when I realized it. This is saying something, for the first time in my life I actually asked for something for my birthday. I never ask for something. There was nothing that I needed. But, I finally had something I wanted. This, has never happened to me.

I am so excited.

Two Hundred Thirty Five Dollars

Well... Landon is officially registered for the MCAT.

May 26th 2011 here we come

Updates of our lives soon... ish... ?

:)

Mrs. Suit

Well life just flipped upside down for us. Maybe I should say upside up because it is a wonderful thing. We went from a great situation to a greater situation. We. Are. Stoked. Yep that’s right…

WE’RE PREGNANT!

Isn’t that so exciting? I guess the question should really be, wouldn’t that be so exciting if it were actually true? Ha! Well I know there will be a time for that, but right now we truly do have some good news.

After 4 rounds of interviews, I am the new Staff Assistant at LDS Philanthropies—BYU. Don’t ask how I’m going to finish school yet. I’m not 100% sure how that will work. All I know is it will happen. Also don’t ask how I got the job even though I’m not graduated because I’m not sure of that either. All I know is it did happen. Whether we deserved it or not, the Lord has given us one of the greatest blessings.

Landon is going to be able to quit work for the next 9 months and focus on schooling, shadowing, researching, volunteering, and mcating. P.E.R.F.E.C.T. I get have the opportunity to have a real job for the next couple of years. Something that I have always wanted, but never thought would happen. AHHHH!!! I’m so excited. Next Thursday I will officially be Mrs. Suit!

P.S. We're not really pregnant--just in case you didn't get that! :)

Optimism, Confidence... Happiness

My Friend showed me this video and im obsessed with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg

A very very long post is coming :)!

Engaged... Again?

One year ago.

One year ago Landon and I were sitting on top of Cascade Golf Course. We were about to leave and I said, "Landon do you think you could speed up your time table a little bit?" I then continued to tell him what I wanted the time table to be. Fast.

Landon did what any good, smart man would do. Ran! Haha, just kidding. He got on his knees and of course there happened to be the perfect ring in his pocket.

In honor of our one year anniversary of being engaged Landon and I went ring shopping. We are going on a cruse in a week, and I don't want to take my perfect ring. We went to Walmart, Claires, Icing, and Target. Every ring was at least 3 sizes to big. Apparently no one carries a size 3 for adults. I was getting very discouraged, but Landon said we could try one more Walmart in Lindon. There was nothing on the ring rack. I asked the lady at the counter if they had any little girl rings. She said, "We have baby ones, but they won't fit."

Well it fit. I found my second perfect ring. No seriously, I'm obsessed with it! Landon proposed to me again. He even had a speech. This time there was no shaking or tears, but a lot more love!

31556926 Seconds

Dear Elder Edwards,

I can't believe you've been gone 1 Year. 1 Year or 52 weeks. 52 Weeks or 365 Days. 365 Days or 8765 Hours. 8765 Hours or 31556926 Seconds. However you put it, its been a while.

Remember when we use to play choo-choo train?

Remember when we would go to the park?

Remember how we graduated Preschool together?

Remember how good we were at raking the leaves... and then jumping in them?

Remember how we played king of the banana boat and Remember how I always won?

Remember Prom?

Remember how I wanted my best friend ever in my senior pictures?

Remember our Arizona trip filled with movies, basketball, movies, food, movies and movies?

Remember Basketball?

Remember who your biggest fans were?

Remember how you are such a dork?

Remember the day you went through the temple?

Remember how I was the only one in the family that couldn't be there because I wasn't endowed yet?

Remember how I can be there now?

Remember how you couldn't be at the biggest/most wonderful day of my life?

Remember how I tried to include you?

Remember how life has changed so much in the last year?

Remember how we've both grown so much?

Remember how I'm so proud of you?

Remember how I love you?

Remember how I always will?

Remember how you're still my favorite little brother and best friend a girl could have?

Do you Remember?

I do. I remember it all!

Only 1 Year left. 1 Year or 52 weeks. 52 Weeks or 365 Days. 365 Days or 8765 Hours. 8765 Hours or 31556926 Seconds. However you put it, it will still be a while.

I love you Scotty!

How Does He Always Know!?

Can I be honest with you for a moment? It mean truly honest???

He drives me crazy!!!

How does he always know? I mean he always knows. It drives me crazy! He has an answer to everything. He has faith in everything. He knows everything. How?

I break my Jaw -- everything will be alright
I find out my computer crashes -- everything will be alright
I lose my phone -- everything will be alright
I need a job -- everything will be alright
I get mad -- everything will be alright
We have no place to live -- everything will be alright
I lose 2,000 dollars -- everything will be alright
I don't feel well -- everything will be alright
I forget to save my 20 page paper -- everything will be alright
I can't make it to work -- everything will be alright
I hurt a friend -- everything will be alright
I burn our dinner -- everything will be alright
I forgot about my meeting --everything will be alright
I run out of gas, not at the gas station -- everything will be alright
I can't keep on top of everything -- everything will be alright

After time...

My jaw healed -- and hey, I lost some weight :)
I didn't need a computer -- and I do more meaningful projects now
I found my phone -- and no one needed me
I got my job back -- and better pay
I calmed down -- and learned through the process
We found a home -- the best apartment ever
I found the 2,000 dollars -- and we put it in our savings
I feel better--and healthier
I recovered the 20 page paper for class--and turned it in on time
I missed work-- but they were fine
I mended the friendship--our friendship grew
I ordered pizza -- it was better anyway
I rescheduled --they forgot too
I got gas -- and met a friend
I got caught up--and did even more

He knows. Every time, he knows. Today it happened again. During my lunch break I made the comment, "We are not going to make it!" He then quickly replied with, "Bec, we are fine. Everything will be alright."

I found out... It was.

Oh how blessed I am to have him. I may not always know that everything will be alright, but I know he knows. Thats alright with me.

I love you Landon!

Curve Balls & a Homerun

I love baseball. It is my favorite sport. I probably went to over 1,000 baseball games when I was little. My brothers all played. Johnny was the amazing catcher. Gary was the trusted hitter. Nate was the speedy reliable outfielder. Scotty was... well scotty was everything--so he played basketball. :) Every single moment that I watched them play, I was proud to say, "Hey... thats my brother." I still am.

From my memory, it seems that the greatest victories always came when a curve ball was thrown.

Life is funny that way isn't it? One moment can be calm, blissful, surreal and then you blink and your world seems upside down. It is not. It just seems that way. All that has happened is your view changed. You took your eye off the ball.

See you have to remember how a curve ball works. It looks like it is coming in straight, but at the last second it curves. Most people swing and miss because they were looking at where they thought the curve ball should have been... instead of where the curve ball was planning to be all from the beginning. Even if it is hard sometimes you can't forget to keep your eye on the ball. In the end it is not how the ball comes over the plate, it is how you connect with it that matters.

I had a lot of curve balls thrown at me today. I swung at all of them... I never connected. About 10 minutes ago a good friend of mine called and said she was really sick and was flying home to see a doctor. All of a sudden I realized something, I had taken my eye off the ball.

Today I forgot that I have a beautiful home to keep us warm, a wonderful family who supports us and loves us, a great job that provides stability in our lives, enough food to always make us happy and full, the gospel which guides and directs us and an amazing husband. A husband who has fallen asleep on top of his flash cards because after 4 hours of class, 5 hours of work, 4 hours of volunteer, 2 hours of presidency meeting, 2 tests and an hour of study he can't keep his eyes open. I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Life is truly wonderful and I am grateful for all of the lessons I am learning.

Tonight I swung. Homerun.