November 6, 2009

Happy birthday to me. What more could I want on my day. An awesome husband who got me flowers the night before b/c he leaves too early for work... and a night ahead full of friends at dinner. Thank you for all the birthday wishes!!

This Weekend

We went to Snowflake this weekend. The weather was perfect. My cousin Drew is getting married this coming Saturday and his cutest soon to be wife, Chloe went through the temple there. It was awesome. We then got to visit Justin's grandma Marzell who lives in Snowflake. It was great to be able to just be with her and listen to sooo many great stories. It's amazing to me how you start to realize things when you grow up. You learn that your parents, your grandparents, and everyone else all goes through the same things. Not exactly all in the same way or at the same time...but everyone goes through life. We go through childhood and deal with the struggles that go along with friends and fitting in. We pass through junior high and high school, just trying to survive the peer pressure and again, "fitting in." We all seem to strive to be somewhat normal and live a "normal and happy" life. Most have great and fond memories...we also go through sad times, depression, and feeling let down. We learn and grow. Our testimonies change everyday. Everyone knows what its like to be newly married. You know what its like to struggle on various levels. You also know what it's like to be so happy and in love. Justin's grandma said, "You are struggling together, and that is all that matters. You get to be doing it together." She had so many stories of her testimony, love, family, and all of the things that truly matter. I am grateful to have been able to visit her and feel of her love. It is always good to hear and record the stories of our parents and grandparents...it's their life's story. Someday I know our kids will love to hear some of them.

That's my little thought for the night.

Dad's Birthday

Yesterday my dad turned........a year older :) Happy Birthday to him! I love him more than anything.Justin took some pictures of my brothers and sisters that we printed out for my dad. I think they turned out cute. Its weird that all of them are the same size or taller than me now. You would think my mom would be a little crazy after 6 kids in 8 years!

Pumpkin Party

We had our second annual pumpkin carving party w/ our friends last night. I havent been too good at blogging in the sense of writing lately. Just take too many pictures. They tell the stories I suppose :) We had a lot of fun! The Rohners.The Stenquists.The Goodmans.The Sorensens.The Nyes.The Crandells.Cute cute Babies!And the mess begins! I was surprised at how empty my pumpkin was...there was hardly anything in it. Mostly just the gunky stringy things - not too many seeds.Some of the Finished Pumpkins!

Aww - cute. The little love pumkins haha!

It was a fun pumpkin carving night!

Birthday Babes

Last night we celebrated our little niece's FiRsT BiRtHdAy! Too many pictures to choose from..but Kennedy is too cute! :) With Aunt Jenny!She loves her grandma!And unlce Justin!"Why do I have a bow on my head and why is everyone singing to me with fire?? I love the presents and cake though!!"My favorite picture of her!Of course, among her guests was little cousin Sadie.We also celebrated RYDEN'S second Birthday!! We went to Chuckee Cheese.

Happy Birthday Babes! We love ya!

Our Awesome Trip!

Two Years

We are going on vacation for our two year anniversary (the cruise) ... I cant believe its been two years already! Maybe, just maybe the next two we will have a baby to add to the mix.

Dear Justin,

Thank you for marrying me.

Thank you for being nice to me.

Thank you for the example you are.

Thank you for working so hard.

Thank you for everything you are and for everything you will become.

There is no other place for me...only by your side.

I love you more everyday.

Happy two years babe.

Bon Iver

Their concert last night was RefReShiNgLy AmaZiNg. I thoroughly enjoyed it, comprable to Coldplay - i think so. We went with our friends Shane & Ashley and had so much fun. Just glad Diana & I decided not to run at 5:30 this am b/c i would have died. Enjoy the pictures and video (sorry its not too great..a new camera is on my list!)

If you havent heard them, do it.

The New Temple.

The Progress on The Temple is coming along! I think these pictures are amazing. It feels neat to be able to watch the process and see this wonderful temple be built!
Its so gorgeous, i love it!

A Little Bit of Everything

First things first...we are LOVING our little niece Sadie. She is getting so big already!! I took her and Amy to the doctors office and she weighed 9.9 on 9/9/09 - funny! We love her :)

A few weekends ago, Justin & I had our very first SUSHI experience. HA! I am usually a baby about trying stuff...but I tried almost everything our friend Brandon made. (Brandons an awesome Sushi chef at a restaraunt in Scottsdale.) Nope. Not a big fan of the ginger or the wasabi..yucky.Can't remember what this was called..but it was surprisingly good.I debated on whether to even put this picture up..I gagged and gagged...probably should have thrown up. It was disgusting!! Just the texture made me sick! I can still taste it!! gooJustin was lovin' it. I did NOT try these.This was an awesome dessert! It was kind of the Sushi version of fried ice cream. YUMM!On Saturday, we went rowing. Yes I know...you didnt know I was a "rower" :) Well my dad, brother Taylor, Justin, and I went rowing with a rowing club on Tempe Town Lake and it was really fun. What made it even cooler was that Fall Frenzie is going on so we could listen to all the music on the other side of the lake. Theres a lot more to rowing than you would think and it was fun to learn!My little sister Alli plays volleyball for Stapley and its been fun watching her :)Other than all of our fun "firsts", we just been lovin life and chillin with good friends! Counting down the days til our cruise in just a few weeks!

THe end.

Who knew..

WHO KNEW...

That so much happiness

Could come from such a small blowdryer? :)

We had to get our nails dry somehow..

Coming Up

I made a list.

And my list goes something like this.

Things we ARE doing in the next 6 months. Possibly by the end of this blessed 2009!

(no particular order, but they WILL be getting checked off and more i'm sure will be added.)

Fossil Springs

Suns Game

Camping on Mt Graham
The Brand New Concert

Pumpkin Carving Night

Snowboarding at Brighton

Bowling

Disneyland (justin has never been!)

Christmas Tree Finding Excursion

Cruise to Mexico (coming in 36 days! wahhhhoo)

Ice Skating, the real kind.

ect. ect.
I'm dreamin' big. Time to start planning!

The NeW PlaCe

Welcome to our New Place...

I made a real long slideshow with WAY too many pictures,

but I don't know how to put it on the blog.

Try it out...if it doesn't work then don't worry.

I put MORE than you would ever care to see on this post.

Enjoy!

We are glad to be all settled in! (minus the office, whoopsie)

http://picasaweb.google.com/aubrysorensen/OurNewPlaceKitchen.

Its kind of a hole in the wall..but I love it none the less.The

Living

Room.Bathroom Number One.

Its teal-ish and off the hallway.Bathroom Dos.

In our room. The green one :)Our Bedroom

The End. Come Visit!

Oh New Mexico

Figure it out. I was almost taken out by a huge rock falling off a mountain in New Mexico due to the loudest/scariest thunderstorm ever. Was a few inches from me head. Long story...a very well drawn picture tells it best. (Justin was there, but he ran ahead to put my backpack in the car b/c both our cameras were in it.)
On our way to New Mexico - nice day..right.

What it looks like there...DRENCHED and sad that we didnt get to do the whole hike..but def happy to be alive. :)
Never been more scared.

She is here!

Miss Sadie Sorensen has finally arrived! Her birthday is August 5, 2009 and she weighed 9lbs 2oz - go AMY! As you can see...we are kind of in love with our child that isnt really ours. But kind of :) She is so adorable!

On the flip side...WE ARE ALL MOVED IN! We love our house and pictures are to come very soon..i know this isnt like me - Im a very behind blogger these days. For those of you who are like me and sometimes live for seeing friends blogs, here's a sneak peek picture just to hold you over :)

All in a weekends work.

This weekend started off with an awesome pedicure with my friend Amy Crandell - we found the best place in Chandler, it was amazing. Then I headed down to Thatcher with Amy Sorensen for her baby shower/24th of July! Here we are at the shower...she got SOO much stuff! And everything was SOO Cute!! Jenny & Kennedy.We then went to the parade in Pima, then fireworks.
We are back now..and its off to packing!!! Our place is a disaster, but its coming along. I will post again when we are all moved in!

What I'm Lovin'

I'm lovin a lotta things in life right now. I love watching Justin and his brother/friends at the driving range. I usually hit a few and just chill on the grass. Its really relaxing actually.I love Jenny! And she had a birthday so shout out to her - it was on the 1st! HA! I stole this picture from my sister in law Amy's blog...but I cant get over it. Justin was wearing Amys board shorts and my yellow glasses...sometimes he can be funny like that. We have been swimming pretty much every night for the past few weeks at their new place. I love love the water temperature at night, its so perfect! We went w/ Julian & Mary to the Mesa Art Gallery. It was pretty cool...but sooo HOT outside! We are moving officially in 2 1/2 weeks. I am so excited! We arent going to be too far from where we are now which is good. Change is good. We get to paint the whole inside before we move in which is awesome b/c the owner is letting me pick the colors. Pictures will come after we're all moved I'm sure. We have been working on a lot of projects to get ready for the move. Mostly throwing away crap. Yes CRAP. I know everyone says this...but we have too much junk! I usually have a hard time giving stuff away, but not this move. Justin is very proud of me. I have been throwing stuff away left and right. We are probably getting new couches and Justin is working on finishing this coffee table for us. Last but not least. I love Sundays. I love sleeping in and being with Justin all day. Today, we went to church w/ Nate and Amy. It will be so fun when they have a baby, we cant wait!

Just a picture to remind myself of how hotttttt it was! The hot wind was no fun. But what can ya do, its Arizona and come winter we'll be loving it again. Its a love hate relationship.

Seven Four.

For the Fourth, we had a YuMmY cook out! Julian & Mary (with Ryden&Kezia) and Ted came over for dinner and then swam for a while.

Then later on, we went to my parents house and watched the fireworks from their driveway - you could see them pretty good. Ryden wasnt scared of them at all...he just got scared when justin kept throwing the popper things in the road. The end - hope everyone else had a good 4th of July!

Weird Night!

Sooo last night was one of the weirdest nights of my life. To start off, let me just say that I always have the craziest dreams about anything and everything. Well last night I woke up with my heart beating super fast. (not quite sure what time it was, maybe like 2-3am?) I can't remember what I was dreaming of, but I looked up for some reason and was looking at our beds headboard. It is pretty tall. All the sudden I saw a spider swing on his little piece of web from the middle of the headboard over to the post on Justins side.

I had to be dreaming.

It looked like a huge spider and I was freaking out. I tried to fall back asleep but I couldnt. My heart kept pounding. I felt almost like crying, weird I know. So I finally got up and switched on the light. I was looking around our room trying to ease my mind - I kept telling myself that it was just a dream. I then had this prompting to lift Justin's head off his pillow...and

what in the world!?!?

There was a black spider RIGHT by his head!!! This whole time I was only half awake. I told Justin that there was a spider and he looked and me like, "go to sleep...you always have weird dreams." He was half awake himself. Then he lifted his finger and was going to flick it off his pillow - NOOO! I told him then it would still be in the room and probably alive! I ran into the bathroom (slipped a little on the rug) and grabbed a wad of toilet paper. Justin smushed it up and I threw the tissue away.

Needless to say, the rest of the night I felt like I had bugs crawling on me and I couldnt fall asleep for a while. This morning I woke up and still thought it was all in my head. I had to look in the trash can to make sure there really was a spider. Yep, it was for sure there. So I have no idea where I am going with this - it was just the weirdest night of my life. Was that spider the one that I saw swinging on our headboard? or was it just in my mind? The one in my mind seemed HUGE and the one that was on the pillow was just small and black! I dont know.

I think I am just gifted (or psychic) and know when my husband is in trouble. He pretty much owes me, I think I saved his life. What if it bit him and he got real sick? Hopefully tonight will be much better dreams - like maybe I can dream that a bunch of shoes and cute purses fall into our room and then it will come true-ha! Wish me luck!
The end. Sickkk. I hate spiders. What a weird night.

The Men in My Life.

On fathers day, I was searching for various articles about dads. This one is my favorite. I dont expect anyone to read the entire thing because its long...but it was a very good talk by Pres. Hunter. (Howard W. Hunter, “Being a Righteous Husband and Father,” Ensign, Nov 1994, 49) I am grateful that both my dad and husband are worthy priesthood holders and love and protect their families.
Some of my favorite quotes :
"A man who holds the priesthood shows perfect moral fidelity to his wife and gives her no reason to doubt his faithfulness. A husband is to love his wife with all his heart and cleave unto her and none else."

"Be faithful in your marriage covenants in thought, word, and deed. Pornography, flirtations, and unwholesome fantasies erode one’s character and strike at the foundation of a happy marriage. Unity and trust within a marriage are thereby destroyed. One who does not control his thoughts and thus commits adultery in his heart, if he does not repent, shall not have the Spirit, but shall deny the faith and shall fear."

"A man who holds the priesthood regards the family as ordained of God. Your leadership of the family is your most important and sacred responsibility. The family is the most important unit in time and in eternity and, as such, transcends every other interest in life."

"Earn the respect and confidence of your children through your loving relationship with them. A righteous father protects his children with his time and presence in their social, educational, and spiritual activities and responsibilities. Tender expressions of love and affection toward children are as much the responsibility of the father as the mother. Tell your children you love them."

"Take seriously your responsibility to teach the gospel to your family through regular family home evening, family prayer, devotional and scripture-reading time, and other teaching moments. Give special emphasis to preparation for missionary service and temple marriage. As patriarch in the home, exercise your priesthood through performing the appropriate ordinances for your family and by giving blessings to your wife and children. Next to your own salvation, brethren, there is nothing so important to you as the salvation of your wife and children."

This is my dad. He is the coolest person you will ever know. He has worked hard his whole life to make the lives of everyone in my family better. He never thinks of himself. He is always a good example, without trying. He is a convert to the church. He didnt get married until he was 26, and didnt have me until he was 28. His eyes are blue and his hair is brown (before he shaved his head, it was...) He loves his family and his friends. He is humble and giving. He is the greatest example of what every father should be.
I can't wait for Justin to be of the same greatness to our kids. My dad has already trained him in the biking department. :) Happy Fathers Day to all the truly great dads and dads to be who deserve to be honored.