I can't stand it...she's just too cute. Her first naked, bath picture. I'm sure there will be more.
Brad likes to make me laugh. He has some crazy antics like carrying the dog around the house like a baby. I don't know what's funnier, Brad holding the dog like a baby, or the dog wrapping his arms and legs around Brad LIKE he is a baby.
We considered this for our Christmas card. She's just discovering soooo much right now.
And...this is the ring. See way below for story if you don't know what this is all about.
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS. I AM IN UTAH FOR A LONG WHILE AND WON'T HAVE OUR COMPUTER. WE love, Love, LOVE you all!!

When there is an icestorm, seems like everyone says "you just don't believe what an icestorm looks like until you experience an icestorm." It's just incredible. You hear this eerie creaky sounds because the living trees are encased in hard ice and as a result they start cracking and eventually break. There might be snow on the ground and when the rain lands on the snow there is a hard covering of thick ice over the snow. Starsky had a tough time going to the bathroom. We just laughed as he slid along the grass. The following pics are from our camera and the icestorm. I'd say it was probably a mild icestorm, thank goodness.
This picture shows our driveway. Luckily, Brad chose a place that has covered parking. Still, the trees hung so low that we couldn't actually back out without driving on the front lawn. Later, Brad chopped these hanging trees down.
These are our chairs on the front porch.
Brad took this pictures as he walked to school.
We heard a crash in the night and found this tree in the morning.
Brad's friend left his bike at school. Oops.

Ice Storm

We had an ice storm last night and school is cancelled today.(I borrowed that pic from someone online) I am excited to have Brad here. He made me his yummy scrambled eggs and toast. I am happy. Simple pleasures.

I served a mission in Missouri and we were there during one of the biggest icestorms they ever had. Power was out for days. Trees were down all over the streets. It was crazy beautiful. I took lots of photos of the event. I even sent one of the photos to a guy I knew named Brad Chambers. I didn't want him to see me in the photo so I carefully cut myself out. He thought it was strange that this girl would send him a photo of the icestorm and cut herself out. (he kept the picture, though. Ahhhh!) And now...we're married. Nice of him to stick around!!

This is our cute tree. I really couldn't imagine Christmas without a tree, plus Brad needs something to keep him company til he joins us in Utah. We also hung lights around the windows. It is oh so Christmasy in the Chambers home. And this is our little Rock Star.
A funny story. I have this ring that I wear occassionally. I have been wearing it recently so I was reminded of this story. How should I explain this ring? Well, I wear it when I want to feel "dressed up", even if I am not going to church. I wear this ring on my pointer finger because I like how it makes me feel flashy, like when you paint your nails (you know what I'm talking about girls). Well, I have had this ring for quite sometime. I think I took it from my mom's jewelry drawer. Inside the ring there is a name etched into the precious metal. All I see is SARAH. I have been wearing this ring for years and telling people, who ask about the ring, that I got it from my mom who recieved it from her ancient relative named SARAH. Secretly, I feel like this ring is some heirloom that I have stumbled across and I am truly wearing a priceless piece of family history. Oh, to be so fortunate. Anyway, one time I was wearing it and my mom asked me about it. I tossed my hair back and said, "oh mom, don't you remember this ring. It is from great grandma". She asked me how I knew that and I took off the ring in a oh-so-i-have-to-remind-you-dear-sweet-mother-of-the-priceless-history-of-this-ring type manner. I showed her the SARAH engraved inside the ring. She just laughed. She laughed and laughed as she told me that the ring was a cheap piece of costume jewelry called SARAH COVENTRY jewelry and that she got it when she was little kid and she just kept it ever since. I still wear the ring with pride and have a little laugh inside as people continue to admire it.

A Thanksgiving to be thanksful for.

We had a terrific Thanksgiving. It was a 10 plus. I think Brad and I have looked forward to the Thanksgiving break since, oh, about August. Crazy how it came, we spent the break, and now we are back in the swing of things. It was a good, long break full of swimming, relaxing, napping, playing, and eating. We spent from Sunday night to Saturday afternoon at Lake of the Ozarks. It is about 3 hours south of where we live. Brad's parents joined us from Monday evening to Friday morning. We had a "delux" condo, which was more than spacious and gave us the perfect place to relax and night and spend our Thanksgiving day. Here are some pictures from our fun trip:

ABOVE: They had a state park called Ha Ha Tonka state park. I kept referring to it as Honkey Tonk state park (and I giggled inside everytime) Anyway, this is a picture of us on a glorious 70 degree day, hiking in a beautiful wooded area. Brad is the man with the backpack. I never, ever have to even offer to carry it. It is Brad and Chloe time!! BELOW: This was a picture of a higher point at the state park. You can see the pretty lake below. This was off season so we didn't see any boats on the water. We hear during the summer time it gets pretty crazy. One girl referred to is as a "cruising/social lake". Not much waterskiing going on.

We spent Thanksgiving in the condo. The best part about this picture is all the dishes are empty. We came. We ate. We conquered. Nancy made the yummy pie and yams. Good thing she got up and made the pie early because we found that out oven didn't work. Isn't that the luck. I remember one year our oven broke and my mom cooked the entire, huge turky in the microwave. It was very moist. Anyway, the repair people came quick and fixed it, but also gave us the use of an unoccupied condo's oven. We were well taken care of. I made the potatoes and homemade gravy and mom's homemade rolls. Our turkey was mini and we also had ham. Chloe started this waving thing right when she saw her grandma and grandpa. She doesn't do it anymore. It was her special surprise gift for Grandma Nancy. I bet she'll be giving lots of surprise waves over Christmas.

We have much to be Thankful for.

I was tagged to tell you 7 things about ME.

My friend Kalleen tagged me...Basically, I have to tell 7 things about me within 7 days in order to avoid 7 curses. Um...I didn't complete this task within 7 days, so I hope no curses befall me. These 7 things are totally random and I wrote them as quickly as they came into my mind. Enjoy.

YEP...THAT IS ME SPEAKING SPANISH.

-I really want to learn Spanish. Brad speaks fluent Spanish so I want to speak fluent Spanish. I used to commute from Ogden to Logan and I actually checked out a "learn-Spanish-in-1-month" tape and told myself I could actually learn spanish this way. I think I learned a about 20 words, 2 of which actually stuck. The word for left and right. I'm pretty good with immitating what a hear, so until I am around more Spanish people, then my goal will have to wait a bit. Chloe just recieved a little Spanish book from her grandma and maybe I can learn some more words this way!!

ANYONE UP FOR A GAME??

I love to play games. Whenever a group of people come over I would totally prefer to play a game. Often, I love to invite people over so that we can have an excuse to play games. I have such happy memories of growing up playing Nertz with the family in SunValley and helping pass out money while I watched games of Aquire being played. Brad and I have tournaments of Yahtzee, Mancala, Sequence, and phace 10 dice. We actually manipulated a phase 10 dice game to see what you would have to roll to achieve the highest score possible. It was pretty awesome.

TRUE STORY

When I was in about 4th grade, we were at my cabin snow mobiling. We were leaving and had to haul a bunch of the stuff we used at the cabin to the cars. So, in order to do this, we would attach two tubes behind the snowmobiles from rope. Two people would ride on the snowmobiles, and two people would ride in the tubes to the bottom. I loved to be one of the tube riders. The bags and supplies used at the cabin would be placed on top of the rider on the tube. Now you have the scene. Just as we approached the final bridge, disaster happened. Somehow, our tubes were slingshot off of this pole that marked the edge of the bridge. We were shot off the bridge right into the frozen river below about 20 or so feet. My brother ended up in the middle of the icy water and I was closer to the bank. The bags slowly drifted down the river. I struggled my way up the bank with heavy, water soaked boots, snowpants, and coat. When I got to the top, my mom was saying something about the bags and such. I just stood there soaked and crying. I turned to see my brother stumbling up the bank with wet hair and goggles hanging off his head. Still, my mom was telling us to go get the bags. She had just been to Japan and put all her priceless photos in a scrapbook and the scrapbook was floating down the icy waters. We had a japanese girl living with us and all of a sudden she just jumped right off the bridge into the water. She got the bag and trudged back up to the 3 of us standing there. None of the pictures were even touched by water, and you can be sure everything else was soaked. Isn't that an amazing story. We dried and now laugh at the story and I'm glad those pictures survived.

I LOVE CREATIVITY

-I love pretty much anything art related. When I was in France we went to the most amazing museum right on the water and it was absolutly breath taking. I bought a modern art poster there and hauled it all over Europe with me. I love the memory everytime I look at the framed print in my room. In college I came across the art of Andy Goldsworthy and was totally inspired. Nature is art, I've always thought so. I love to paint with bright colors and sketch portraits with simple black and white. I like to look at creative things in magazines and try and recreate what I see, or atleast tell myself "I could do that". Most of the things I have hanging in our house has some memory attached to it. Either I made it, painted it, drew it, or discovered it on some wall of some unique store or museum. Someday our walls could be covered, but it wouldn't matter to me because they would just be walls covered with happiness.

I MARRIED THE GUY IN THE MILITARY WITH A DIMPLE IN HIS CHIN.

-I met cute Brad right before I went on my mission and he left for basic training. He kind of wrote me back and forth, but I was sort of "wierded" out by the whole idea of this guy I barely knew writing me. So, in short, the time I could've spent getting to know Brad via letters on my mission was spent not getting to know Brad via letters on my mission. It all worked out okay because I came home and we fell right in love and got married. But...in one of the letters he wrote me he did send a picture of himself in his military uniform. I kept the picture and would look at it and show my various companions. Today, the picture resides somewhere in Mongolia (I gave it to my Mongolian companion) Anyway, before I left my mission the sisters made a sort of prediction/ goodbye tape for me and someone predicted that I would marry the guy in the military with a dimple in his chin and what do you know...it came true!! And I can definitly say I agree with the phrase: I AM ALREADY LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

MARATHON TIME

My sister and I ran a marathon a couple of years ago. Training for the marathon was just long and long and full of prayers for good health and strong bones and a resiliant body. It was a long 4 months hoping my body could withstand the pressure being put on it. When we did our 20 miler we all did fine, but when I went out to do my short run a couple of days later, that's when the pain set in. I had this excruciating pain in my knee. Turns out I had bursitis and I was told to ice it and such. Well, i wasn't about to not run the marathon, so I iced it and iced it and just hoped that the ice would somehow "cure" my knee in a week. So, time came for us to do another long run and I think this time we ran 21 or something. My knee felt okay, but hurt. So, I iced it right when I got home. I think I thought that if you applied ice directly to the skin it would somehow work better. I lost track of time (which is wierd because I had a freezing piece of ice on my skin) because when I took the cloth and the ice off, what I saw on my skin was frightening. A two inch band above my knee bone was bright bright white and hard. It wouldn't go away. I showered and still the white remained. I tried to rub it but the hard lump remained. I started to freak out and called Brad but he was in some crazy mcat prep course or physics class so I couldn't get ahold of him. So...I went to insta care. I seriously thought I was going to have my leg amputated. Sound dramatic?? Probably. But, I had never seen anything like that before. To end this long story, now. You can imagine what the doctor said when he looked at me. I think he had to control his laughter as he said, "you have a small case of frostbite and it will go away within the day. And miss, don't put ice directly on your skin again." Needless to say, we never saw a charge for that instacare visit. Pretty sure he felt sorry for me in more ways than one.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I love to cook! I love to read recipe books and create meals in my head. I am a sucker for recipes with red onion, feta cheese, blue cheese, strawberries, and sauteed mushrooms or onion.

Mom and Amy visit

Last Monday, Mom and Amy visited from Salt Lake. They were here till Friday morning and it was just wonderful. We had great weather to go see some of the sites nearby. Everything to do is about 1 to 2 hours drive away from Kirksville. We went to Nauvoo on one of the coldest days since I've lived here. We had a great time on the very cold wagon ride, touring the pioneer pastimes place, and seeing the temple. Brad showed Amy and Mom the cadavar (sp?) lab. He has quite the working knowledge of all the ligaments and tendons and muscles and such. I consented to go in after they did because they could watch Chloe. It's pretty cool to see what he is doing all day in school. He is definitly smart...probably the smartest in class!! (I'm fond of him can ya tell?) The last day we journeyed up to an Amish town and bought some way cheap spices and such. It was just great to be with them and have them love Chloe and play games with us and take us out to eat and just enjoy each other's company. THANKS MOM AND AMY!
This was a rare experience where Brad took the afternoon off and we went for a "hike" at the local state park with a pretty lake. We had fun letting Starsky off his leash and taking in the fall colors and crisp temps. I love that picture of Chloe because that is just how she is; so easy going and carefree.
Happy trails.