day 15

I am grateful for....

1) the Rapellas.  When Wes and I were first married, we moved straightaway to Nevada so he could go to pharmacy school.  I felt so lonely and scared.  I wanted to be with Wes, but I did NOT want to leave my family and friends and Utah.  All in all, it's one of the sweeter times in our lives...going off and being newlyweds together.  And we had a family down in Nevada: the Rapellas.  I had the privilege of being the nanny to their two amazing, beautiful, sweet little girls.  Very shortly, Ruth became my mom away from home.  The Rapellas are some of our dearest friends.  They are the kindest, most loving, generous people I know.  Imagine how thrilled we were when they decided to move up to Utah!  We did all we could to help and we so happy to see them settle in to their beautiful new home.  We love them so much and hope that we will be seeing more of them now that they are in the same state.  :)

2) family time.  Thanks to our friends, the Rapellas, we are spending some amazing family time together in Deer Valley at a beautiful, comfortable hotel that they gifted us a night at for Christmas.  It's beautiful up here and I feel sooo lucky to be here thanks to a generous gift and with some of my very favorite people.  I can never get enough of my family!

3) our car.  I love that it has room for all of my overpacking.  I love how comfortable and pampered I feel in it.  I love how reliable it is.  I am so grateful for our car!

4) forgiveness and reconnecting.  I got to have lunch today with my cousin, Tim.  We've had some ups and downs in our lives, largely in part of some mistakes and unkind words.  I'm so grateful that we got the chance to reconnect and that we were able to forgive (and hopefully forget) the past.  It's been one of the great learning experiences in my life.  I hope I don't forget the biggest lesson I learned: to love people, no matter what.  And how good it feels to do that.

5) cooking.  I really have come to enjoy cooking, and I'm thankful that I've gotten the hang of it over the years.  It brings me so much joy to cook and share the food I've made with others.  I enjoy it as well.  And I love that Wes likes to cook as well because I really, really enjoy cooking together.