Young Women's: New Beginnings

In January I got a church calling to be the new Personal Progress Leader for the young women in my ward. It has been so fun! I love working with the youth! 

So one of the big events I get to plan as Personal Progress Leader is New Beginnings. (To know more about what personal progress and New Beginnings are click here.)

The theme we decided to go with (and I have to give credit to my little sister Malarie for the idea) was "Come Unto Christ... and Live Happily Ever After" 

We talked about how each of the girls are Princess's in Heavenly Fathers kingdom and that they have the possibility to have their own castle in His kingdom if they can continue on the straight and narrow path! Participating in Personal Progress and accepting and acting upon the Young Women values (Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue) will help them stay on that path and enter into one of the many castles (LDS Temples) on the earth and live "Happily Ever After". 

Here is how our night went! :)

The invites

"Once Upon A Time"

"Happily Ever After"

The handouts and gift bags for all the girls!

YW table. The Beehive, Mia Maid Rose, and Laurel Wreath. 

The dessert table! 

We had girls talk about each value and be a disney princess that coordinates with that value! So the girls got to get all dressed up and have hair and makeup all done! It was so fun!

Faith- Snow White (White)

Divine Nature- Elsa (Blue)

Individual Worth- Ariel (Red)

Knowledge- Anna (Green)

Choice and Accountability- Meg (Orange)

Good Works- Belle (Yellow)

Integrity- Rapunzel (Purple)

Virtue- Merida (Gold)

Our lovely Young Women, they all did such a great job with everything that night!

It was such a fun and successful night! I am SO grateful for all the girls and YW leaders! They all helped so much to make that night so fun! I could not have done it with out them! :)

A New Year: The Beginning of 2014

Whoa, the first couple months of 2014 have just flown by! I can't believe April is here already! I have lots of blogging to catch up on... so here it goes! 

2014! We brought in the new year driving home from Minnesota and then spent the first week recovering from the stomach flu and colds that we got soon after. We were very happy once we finally recovered! 

So the winter this year has been crazy! Super cold, and tons and tons of snow! It actually felt a lot like Idaho winters... with the freezing cold weather that wont go away! Apparently winters here in Michigan aren't normally like this... it has actually been their worst, coldest and snowiest winter they've had in like decades! So that's been a fun adventure... we are definitely ready for warmth and sunshine right about now tho! 

This is us out in one of the first major snow storms we got this year! Just the beginning of never ending snow!! Haha! (I really didn't mind all of the snow.. for the most part! It made everything really pretty being covered in snow!... but i'm ready for it to all be gone now that its been here for 4 months!)

This was just the beginning of all the snow... 

It's pretty tho!

So the last week of January we watched the kids of a family in our ward while their parents went on a trip for a week. It was a fun adventure and a great break from our apartment!! The parents had gotten us all tickets to a Plymouth Whalers game (major junior hockey league team) to take the kids to while we were watching them, and oh man, it was so fun! I LOVE going to hockey games, and man those kids can play hockey! Nathan really enjoyed it too! I've converted him to the awesome sport of hockey! Woohoo!!

During the same week of us watching those kids, I had a few job interviews and working interviews. (I'm finally getting back out in the dentistry world!) Then a couple days later I got offered a job! So I am officially a working girl again! I work for an endodontist (root canal specialist). It's a lot different than what I'm used to... I used to work on fun, crazy, cute little kids with little teeth.. now I work on grumpy, not-happy-to-be-there, old adults. :/ And it's been years since I did a root canal! So needless to say its a whole new experience for me! One thing I know for sure.... I miss my little kid patients! They were the best!  

So now I work MWF and just started teaching violin lessons on tuesdays and I teach piano lessons on Thursdays. Then Nathan and I got called to be Temple workers, so we go up and serve in the LDS Detroit Temple every saturday morning from 8-1. I also just recently got called to be the Personal Progress leader for the young women in my ward! I love working with the youth, it's been so fun, crazy busy, but fun! So between Nathan's calling in the ward as Ward Mission Leader, and my two callings.. plus the temple, and meetings and now work and teaching piano and violin lessons, I've gone from not having much to do, to having a little too much to do.. haha! Oh well.. it definitely makes the days go by faster! 

Date night with the hubby! 

Nathan and I's new favorite place to eat is Applebee's! We've discovered that if you combine the chicken from one entree with the noodles of another entree it makes one dang delicious meal! SO yummy! We've find ourselves there a lot more lately.. haha! oops! ;)

This is where you would have found me for the two weeks the Olympics were on... every night, to no fail....the TV was on and I was watching any and all the events that I could! Love, Love LOVE the Winter Olympics!

We actually ended up moving our TV into our bedroom so I could watch the late night Olympic broadcast every night while Nathan went to bed! Haha! 

A sad day came mid february when Nathan's little blue suby finally decided to call it quits. It had a good run! Thankfully no one was hurt when it locked up on Nathan when he was driving home. And conveniently it locked up just a couple blocks away from our apartment!

So we were down to one car again, and now that I work we need two vehicles, so Nathan took the next day off and we spent the day shopping for a new car! My only conditions were that the new car needed to be an automatic and quiet! And Nathan's condition was that it had to be a Subaru! Haha!

Well after a long day of searching....... we found one! 

Hello new Subaru.. we welcome you to the Brooksby clan! :)

In-between all the craziness of our lives, I somehow find some time to go and get a MUCH NEEDED  haircut and color! :)

Stayed tuned... more updates to come soon.. (hopefully!)

A Minnesota Wedding!

December 28th, 2013

We woke up to a surprisingly beautiful, sunny and fairly warm day for Minnesota! Perfect day for a wedding! 

The first event of the day was the luncheon. There was just a small group of us at this really nice restaurant. The food choices were awesome and it all looked delicious.. sadly I wasn't able to really eat anything yet.. but they had good bread! :) It was just really nice to sit down and relax and chat with everyone before the ceremony and everything. While everyone was finishing up at the luncheon, Jay, Nathan and I took the bride and groom (Aaron and Chelsea) over to the St. Paul LDS Temple to help get them ready. I was so honored to be able to accompany Chelsea in the Temple and be in the brides room with her and help her get into her wedding dress and just spend some quality sister-in-law bonding time before she got married! She is so sweet and fabulous. I am so glad I get to have her as a sister now! (I have gotten some great new sisters becoming a Brooksby! I love it!)

Aaron and Chelsea got married in the Temple and were sealed to each other for time and all eternity! What a beautiful blessing that is! Their ceremony was so touching and so beautiful!

Here they are coming out of the Temple as husband and wife!!

I'm so glad I got this picture of them looking at each other this way... 

They are SO in love and it was so fun to see them interact with each other throughout the day. You could tell when they looked at each other, time stood still for them. Even though lots of craziness was going on around them, they were in a different world, just loving each other and loving being together. It was quite precious to see! :) 

The hubby and I had fun taking lots of pics... hehe! 

Extended selfies.... ;)

So after the Temple ceremony we headed over to the event center where the rest of the festivities were at that night. After spending a couple of hours setting up.. which Chelsea's mom did a marvelous job! It all looked SO SO beautiful and elegant... We started the night off with a beautiful ring ceremony, then they had a "mix and mingle" portion where you could all mingle and give her congratulations to the bride and groom. They also had lots of treats and a crepe company catering. Those crepes were delicious! Then after that portion, they brought everyone back to the amphitheater where they had the ring ceremony and Ben (a Brooksby brother) gave a wonderful toast to the Bride and Groom! Then of course there was a dance! You can't have a Brooksby wedding without a dance! It was really fun to see all the Brooksby brothers get together and show off their moves!! 

http://youtu.be/CzV_JaylZ1c

Check out this video... you wont want to miss this! 

Here is the lovely couple when they were getting ready to leave! 

The weather turned on us throughout the night, so when they were leaving it was freezing cold and super windy... but no fear, Ben, Jay, Nathan and I were out there as their send off party waving and yelling goodbye and all sorts of craziness! :)

After the bride and groom left, we all pitched in and helped take down and clean everything up. Finally around midnight and super exhausted we made our way back to our hotel and slept! :)

Even though it was a long and exhausting day.. it was so worth it! What a fun and beautiful day it was!! We were so glad we got to go and be apart of Aaron and Chelsea's big day!! :)