As the Seasons Turn.....

Wow it has been a long time since I blogged. Life as always is crazy busy. I have a new job at Cybersource with Maxine she is on the online fraud team and I am on the payment gateway side. We commute to American Fork which aside from the horrid stench of dead chickens boiled in horse pee that seems to linger in the air its not to bad! The job and company are great. Hannah is still at Dilworth Elementary for a couple more days/weeks. We are thinking of moving her to Draper Elementary because it is on the way to work for us and she has friends at that school as well as Papa and Grandma Karen where she would ride the school bus to after school. More to come on that though......

As for the rest of life....I had another cousin commit suicide on 2 September 2009. This is my second cousin to do this in just over a year on the same side of the family. In talking and crying with the few cousins that are left my cousin Travis pointed out some VERY FRIGHTENING (not often talked about) statistics:
*Over 33,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year.

*Suicide is fourth leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 18 and 65 years in the United States.

*Currently, suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States.

*A person dies by suicide about every 16 minutes in the United States. An attempt is estimated to be made once every minute.

*There are four male suicides for every female suicide, but three times as many females as males attempt suicide.

*Every day, approximately 90 Americans take their own life, and 2,300 more attempt to do so.

These really caused he and I some major thought process, internal review as well as external review...We both have kids and don't want to see their lives completely messed up because of (not just the suicides) but the amount of death they have been effected by in the last 4 years beginning with my brothers motorcycle accident, then both great-grandparents, then 2 cousins. We have always been a close family so each loss has been a major blow. As a family we did the Out of the Darkness suicide awareness walk for the second year. It is a very healing event but this was the second year we have done it and it was very sad to see how much bigger the walk had gotten and how many more families have and are affected by suicide. REMEMBER FRIENDS, FAMILY and BLOG STALKERS.....Someone will ALWAYS be there to share a light when yours is out!!!

The walk and the reason.....

On to some happier musings.....I turned 40...(NOT sure that is really happier - pretending to throw-up) Actually it wasn't too horrific I did survive and Maxine put together a fun party with most of our crazy friends showing up to celebrate! We also took my dad to dinner at The Melting Pot because his birthday is the day before mine.

Hannah spent a FANTASTIC weekend in St. George with her best buddy Logan and his family over the UEA weekend. They went shopping in Vegas, hiking in Zion's, then I joined then Saturday night and we went to Tuachan Theater and saw Aida. Hannah my little musical princess was in complete rapture for 2 1/2 hours, she cried at the end and said "Mommy, that was so beautiful!" and we have been listening to the sound track non-stop ever since. I am so glad she has such a love and understanding of music and that it stirs such emotion that she recognizes. She has ALWAYS loved music and finds a song in everything. When she and Logan were little (4-ish) Hannah did not stop singing and Logan would look at her and say "MOM, Why does she do that?" (She still does it we are all just used to it now -lol) It was so fun to spend the weekend with the VanHorn's and to see my cute friend Karen truly happy...she deserves it and it has been a long time coming!!

The Motley Crew

Lindsey and Maria are CRAZY!!

This weekend we get to move furniture and clean house.....So excited to start putting together my craft/sewing room and finally have a dinning room table to eat on...lol!!!