HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We carved pumpkins for a neighborhood pumpkin carving contest. It was pretty fun! I never liked carving pumpkins when I was little, because I hated the feeling of the pumpkin under my nails, but it was so fun! We went to Collin's and dropped Halloween bags off to the boys. I didn't have my camera to take pictures, but I have a picture of Ford that I took at his birthday in his penguin costume. Then I went over to Apple Village to see how Grandma did with the trick or treaters there. She was so cute! Here are some pictures!

This is Mom's pumpkin. She won "The Battiest" award!

Mine won "The Goofiest"

Isn't he the cutest little penguin, you've ever seen?

Here's Grandma with her princess hat on passing out candy!

Falls, Flats and an Emeregency Room...

So, since coming home, it's been kind of an adventure. Wednesday night I was taking Grandma's laundry to her and instead of carrying the laundry basket in front of me to go down our stairs, I was holding it on my hip. Duh! It's a big basket, and we had a wreath hanging on the railing, so with all of those widths added up, I bumped the basket into one of those things, and ended up falling down four stairs, hitting my back pretty hard on the wood railing. I thought I cracked a rib, but I think it just ended up being bruised.

The weekend was pretty wonderful. Mom was called as Stake Young Womens President. It was an enjoyable, spiritual experience.

Then, yesterday, I was driving around looking for different design sources up in this area, talking to ALee on my phone, and I heard this weird noise. I couldn't feel anything, but it sounded weird, so I pulled off the side of the road. I had a flat tire. After contemplating what to do, Mom was in school, Collin was in Florida, I called Amy. Thank heavens she wasn't too busy. Then I got out all of the equipment to change my flat, and couldn't get the lug nuts to even move. I was jumping up and down on the thing, and it wasn't budging. So, I sat on the curb, thinking of another plan, when a truck pulled over. It was so sad, my first thought was please don't kill me. It was this cute old man, that was so nice. We tried pumping it back up, with two different pumps, and then Amy got there. The pumps weren't doing a thing. So, Amy and the guy changed my tire, and somehow I was the one with grease on my forehead, face, and ear. Don't ask me how that happened. So, I ended up having to get two new tires.

Then last night, I was working out at the gym, and I was working on a weight machine for abs, and I started to get this horrible pain in my back and chest. I thought back to what might have happened and figured I really had broken a rib when I fell, and that's what all of the pain was. So, we went home when we were done, and the pain got worse and worse. I tried to sleep, but laying down made it worse and sitting wasn't helping, and standing up wasn't helping, so after about three hours of pain, I finally decided I'd better get to the ER. Everyone knows I'm sick a lot, but this was my first time ever to the ER, and usually I don't go to the doctor. Anyways, we got there and my blood pressure was really high for me, maybe for anybody, I know the bottom number was causing concern at 159/113. They did a whole bunch of blood work, an EKG, and x-rays. Everything turned out to be just fine. He gave me some heavy duty acid reflux medicine, and told me I might have an ulcer, but nothing life threatening. I was so scared it was a heart attack, and Dad had his first at 29, so I'm almost there. The doctor said your enzymes should be under eight, to be considered healthy. Mine were zero! My blood pressure, also, got way better 107/60. Back where it should be.

So, all in all, I've had a very expensive couple of days!

More of D.C.

We got back to D.C. on Saturday. We met Jilly at our hotel, and got to meet her cute husband, Tom.

It had been about seven years since we'd seen each other, and in the meantime, she got married without me there. We only had one afternoon/evening with them, but it was so much fun. Well, we first started at the Holocaust museum, so that wasn't so fun, but it was interesting and heartbreaking. We got there pretty late in the day, and ended up getting kicked out, because they were closing, and we weren't even a quarter of the way through. I can tell you that I really didn't like the feeling there, and I tend to depend on my feelings a lot, so going off of that, I decided I didn't want to go finish up the next day. I'd seen enough.

We then went and met up with Tom at the Washington Memorial. (He didn't get to go into the museum, because he had a pocket knife.) Anyways, we walked over to the Korean monument.

Isn't it beautiful? We had a good time hanging out and laughing a ton! We went to a yummy seafood place in Georgetown. I was the only one who got seafood, it was delicious!

Sunday, we went to a ward in Arlington, VA. We called up a ward in the morning, and found out what time the next Sacrament meeting was. It was a beautiful chapel, done in kind of a Georgian/Federal style mix, which was really fun to see. There were about ten oriental people with headphones on to translate the meeting. All of these people had kids with them, so it was a large group of people. We later found out that the sister missionaries who had brought all of these people were from Mongolia. What a neat experience to be called on a mission to Washington, D.C. and end up converting about two dozen Mongolians! Jackie Leavitt, the former first lady of Utah, sang the musical number. The spirit there was so strong! I'm so glad we picked that ward.

After church we went to the Arlington Cemetery. It was a great way to spend the Sabbath! We then went and saw the White House. Isn't it amazing that we have all of our freedoms, and those freedoms make it possible for someone to sit outside of the White House and protest? Yet the protesters want to take others freedoms away. We, also, went to the Vietnam Memorial, and found a relative on the Nicholes' side on it. It was neat to come home and find how he was related to us.

I have to tell you, I absolutely loved DC and NYC! I had my fears after hearing stories about how dirty and unsafe these two cities were. I was amazed at how friendly all of the people were that we came in contact with! People were so helpful! I loved that everywhere we were in DC, people were out running and playing in the parks and on the side of the streets! It was so fun!!!

New York City

On Friday, we rode a Greyhound bus to New York City. Getting to the bus station was quite a challenge. We had metro transfers, our metro tickets wouldn't even work at first, and it wasn't until Mom said, "We're dumb, we're from Utah," that the metro station guy was even nice to us, but then he did give us passes to get us from point A to point B.

I took tons of pictures on the way up, and hardly slept at all, which I was surprised at. The time change was weird and we were on the bus by 8:00 a.m., so I'd been up since 5:30 (3:30 our time).

This is Baltimore, MD

We got to New York City and met up with one of my best friends, Amy Nicholas, and her sister Kari. They came down from Boston. The first thing we did was eat at Chevy's. It was pretty good. After that we just walked around wanting to see the sights before our appointment to do a session at the Manhattan Temple at 8:30. Our first stop was Ground Zero. What a humbling, but beautiful experience! The devastation was horrific, but seeing the way the people were honored (Ladder 10 Fire department) and the way the development is coming along, to see that the New Yorkers, the Americans could overcome something like that was beautiful!

We went to see Rockefeller Center. We wanted to get to the ice skating rink, so we had to go through the building to get there. As we were walking through, we just happened to run into Amy's and Kari's cousin-in-law, Gil. He works there, but really what is the chance in a city of 9,000,000 people we would run into him. He was so funny, and so excited to see them. He took us up to the "Top of the Rock." It was amazing! I got some pretty cool pictures.

Central Park. Next time I go, I'm going to spend time here.

The four of us with the Empire State building behind us. Kari and I should've been in front, since we were shortest.

The City
Then we went to Times Square. It was so funny to be there in the place we see on tv and to really be there, was so fun. I couldn't live there, but it was a really fun place to visit. We went to a cute little cafe for dinner, and then headed to the temple, we missed our appointment, but still spent time there.

I borrowed this from the Church website, because when we got there it was way too dark for good pictures.

Then we spent $60+ on a taxi to our hotel, which cost us only $2.50 on the way back on a bus. Oh well, we didn't know what we were doing. It was so much fun! I absolutely loved it! The people were not like how they portray them on tv, yes they were walking swiftly from place to place, but everyone we talked to was so nice and helpful! It wouldn't have been the same had we not run into Gil. He and his wife were so welcoming!

Washington D.C.

Mom and I went to DC over UEA weekend, plus some. We arrived in DC on Wednesday, the 15th, around 11:00 p.m. there, which was only 9:00 for us, and there were no restaurants near our hotel, well within walking distance, so we ordered room service. The most expensive quesadilla I've ever had!

Our first real day we spent at the Natural History Museum.

We spent all day, nearly just in this one museum, and could have devoted probably another full day there, but there was so much to see. All the museums close around 5:30, which is so sad. While we were in the gem part, some Mongolian guy stopped me to ask if American's like a certain shape of stone. He's a jewelry maker, and has only been in the States for about 6 months. He then started talking to Mom and wouldn't let her end the conversation for over 15 minutes. It's so funny! People find her wherever we are and tell her their life story!

After we left the Natural History Museum, we walked around the Smithsonian over to the monuments.

It was beautiful! The Korean monument was my favorite, I'll post pictures on another post.

Sanford Ross Nicholes, Jr.

Today is my dad's 53rd birthday. It strange to think of him at that age, but I'm pretty sure I know what he would look like. To celebrate, we as a family always go to Sunday Brunch at Little America, the Sunday of General Conference (Good thing we can see the replay online, when we get home). He and Mom would go to Sunday brunch the weekend of our Snowbird week, but this is easier, so we don't have to miss out on our Sunday assignments.

I never enjoy working on Oct. 10 or Oct. 17, due to Dad days. However, I had to this year, at least today, but it wasn't that bad. I was sad that I didn't get to go to the temple with Mom, but from now on, I'll go with her.

I'm so grateful for my dad. I didn't have him here on this earth for very long, but I know he's watching out for me. I just have to ask Heavenly Father for him to be able to help me, and I can feel Dad with me. I'm so grateful that we have an eternal family. One day, we're going to spend eternity catching up and getting to know each other better.

TAGGED

So, Aunt Juli tagged me, so here goes...

1. I'm so afraid of birds. 2. My favorite place on earth is American Fork Canyon. 3. I want to learn how to play the violin. 4. When faced with stress, I want to escape, north towards Logan, for who knows what reason, or south to St. George. 5. I just opened my own business, called "Designs by Pyper." 6. If I had all the money I needed, and no responsiblities, I would want to travel the world, by boat, plane, and train. 7. I'm about to embark on my dream job! Yay!!!

The seven people I tag are:

Krystal Nicholes http://www.little-wooden-nickels.blogspot.com/

Jenelle Nicholes http://www.dannonnicholes.blogspot.com/

Jefferson Boswell http://www.boswellbunch.blogspot.com/

Jen Nicholes www.bjnicholes.blogspot.com

Amy Nicholas www.nicholasfamily-amy.blogspot.com

Brittany Adams www.angequidanse.blogspot.com

Trevor Taylor www.trevorandemily.blogspot.com

Just another thought...

I found this while I was preparing my primary lesson on talents, today.

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased." -Heber J. Grant

When I decided I was going to be an interior designer, I could only draw stick figures. I'm not even kidding, I couldn't draw a thing. I went into my first perspective and rendering class, and about died. Having had no artistic ability, I thought I was making a huge mistake, but I knew I had an eye for design and for color, so I persevered through that class and by about five weeks into the semester I absolutely loved it.

I can testify that we've been given many talents. We may need to search to find it, but once we do, if we work and shape ourselves in that area, we can do anything we have before us.

Just a thought...

I found this today, as I was going through old notebooks at work:

"It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It all works out in the end. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith & confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers." -President Gordon B. Hinckley

I love this quote! I often remind myself of this. I sometimes am scared to move forward with faith. I try to figure it all out on my own, but I can't figure it all out. As soon as I turn it over to the Lord, I feel confident and peace.

I put my two weeks in today...!!!