The Double Line

In case you're not friends with me on Facebook and missed the memo, here's a quick update from my life.

Nathan and Laurel sittin' in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love,
Then comes marriage
Then comes……
You guessed it, the baby in the baby carriage! We are expanding our family this September. But wait, let's not forget the rest of the song.
Get out the diapers,
Get out the pins,
Laurel and Nate are having TWINS!

As a side note, while it may seem rather teenage pregnancy-ish to buy a pregnancy test from the dollar store, they really work. So next time, rather than paying $7.00 for a stick to pee on, just head to the Dollar Tree or Dollar General for a $1.00 test!

We are super excited and feel incredibly blessed for these two little miracles from God! We should find out the genders in 4 weeks, so stay tuned......

Not that you can actually see anything in this picture, but here's our ultrasound at 10 weeks.

Our Vacation to Costa Rica!

Sometimes the journeys filled with mishaps, lead to the best destinations. This was most definitely the case with our latest journey to Costa Rica. It all started with our flights. I have to say, I was not satisfied with the customer service from American Airlines. Why on earth would they let you pick your seats ahead of time online, if they didn’t plan to honor those seat? On our confirmation emails, our assigned seats were next to each other on all three flights. But alas, when our boarding passes were printed, we weren’t even close to one another! I know, big deal. Just saying it was annoying. Then on the flight, I had a question for the flight attendant. I pushed the call button and patiently waited more than 10 minutes for a response. Finally, the flight attendant shows up, turns the button off and keeps walking without a word to me! Seriously? Did that just happen?

We arrived in Costa Rica without any further incident. We were planning to meet my parents and Emily once we got there, but their 5-hour layover in Denver had turned into an 8-hour layover due to a delayed flight. It was after midnight, before they got in. Luckily, we had planned to stay in a hotel near the airport that night before driving down to the beach. It was a long day of travel for all of us and we were looking forward to a relaxing day at our beach house the next day. We decided to take a little detour on the way to see one of the volcanoes.  This is what we were supposed to see

I’d say the picture was a bit misleading as this is what we actually saw:

We really just paid 10 bucks to look at the fog

 Anyway, still cool to say we’ve been to a volcano I guess.  From the volcano, it was supposed to be between 1.5 – 2 hours to drive to our finally destination of Esterillos Este. We had rented a car and gotten a GPS, and I was confident we would be able to find our way easily. Once you got on the main freeway, you just stayed on it. We found our way to the freeway entrance, only to find it was closed. There was a construction man sitting there so we asked where we should go. Of course, he didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Spanish so that was not an enlightening conversation. We drove around for a long time looking for another entrance, and every one we found was blocked off. We finally found a lady who spoke English who told us the road was only open for one-way traffic today. Apparently, everyone’s break was ending and they were all going back to school that day, so they opened both sides of the freeway for one direction. Who does that? She gave us some directions and we were able to follow some windy, mountain, back roads and find our way to our destination 5 hours later! Whew! Another long day of travel behind us. Luckily, we were greeted that night by a nest of sea turtles hatching right in the front yard! Some of them got a little confused and ended up in the pool rather than the ocean. It was pretty neat to see them! We found a whole group of them the next day as well and were able to watch them crawl to the sea. 

The next day, we did not venture away from our beach house at all. Can you blame us when this was our view?

This house was perfect! It was away from the tourists and we literally had the beach to ourselves.

 

We spent the day surfing and body boarding, lounging at the pool, and getting sunburned. The only mishap of the day was my dad breaking his nose on a surf board. 

 
We spent the rest of the week doing fun things like snorkeling, hiking, and exploring the area in general. 

We saw monkeys in the trees, crocodiles in the river, and raccoons stealing ladies’ purses! 

We also had the opportunity to go to the temple and do a session in Spanish (with the little headphones to translate, of course.) That was really interesting and gave me a different perspective.

Other than the fiascos in the beginning, we had a really relaxing time just having lazy days at the beach. We absolutely loved our trip and would recommend Costa Rica to anyone for a vacation. 

A Dose of Humility

I consider myself a confident, talented person most of the time. But every so often it's good for me to suck at something to keep me humble. My latest dose of humility came over Christmas break when we went downhill skiing. I've water skied and cross country skied, but despite living in Utah for 4 years, I had never hit the slopes. Number one, I was a poor college student and too cheap to spend the cash and number two, I was probably too prideful to do something I'd never done before that was sure to involve a lot of falling down. Nate convinced me to swallow my pride and go skiing with him, my dad, and my cousin. We had a lot of fun, but I will say I did have to do quite a bit of swallowing! I was so afraid of falling down and people laughing at me. Well, I quickly broke the ice on that one and fell off the chair lift at the top of the bunny hill. I learned to get over my fear and embarrassment pretty quickly after that. My dad and Nate did a good job teaching me the basics and more importantly picking me up when I fell, literally! (I was certainly glad my dad was nearby when I tumbled off a catwalk and landed upside down in 3 feet of snow!) I was surprised at how fast I picked it up and improved. My last run of the day, I made it all the way down the hill without falling. We had a blast and I'm sure we'll go again the next time we're in Utah during the winter. 

 This was the first year we were home for Christmas since we've been married. I was excited to introduce all my family traditions to Nate. Although, due to various circumstances we nearly threw our Christmas Eve traditions out the window and ate at Chuck-a-Rama. Fortunately, they were closed and we had to fall back on tradition. In addition to spending time with my immediate family, we were able to see many extended family members from both sides. It was super cold and snowy (especially coming from Arkansas!) but we embraced that by skiing and snowmobiling and avoided it by going to Les Miserable and The Hobbit and sipping cocoa in a warm house! We had a wonderful Christmas break and hope all of you enjoyed your holidays as well.

Christmas Greetings from the Shepherds

Wow! Hard to believe another year has flown by. I'm happy to report it was another year of marital bliss in the Shepherd household. Everyday is of course just another day in paradise around here, but these are some of the highlights from the year:
~We managed to survive serving in the nursery. What was meant to be a "3-6 month calling" became an 16 month venture. Word on the street is our ward is splitting in January and we'll be released from the nursery. Surprisingly, I think we'll both miss it.
~Nathan got his second promotion at work! He is still enjoying his job with Wal-Mart and we are grateful that his job brought us out to Bentonville. Laurel on the other hand, works at a place where there is no such thing as a raise or a promotion (no bitterness here) but still finds her work as a health coach to be challenging and fulfilling.
~We took a fabulous trip to New York City with Nate's parents. We saw all the sights, went to Newsies on Broadway, and checked one more place off our bucket list.
~We drove the long trek to Utah in July to visit the Feuz side of the family. We entertained ourselves by listening to the Hunger Games and making frequent stops to walk Ollie. Half way across Nebraska our AC temporarily went out and I was afraid the flame of our love would too, but we survived, albeit a little grumpily for a few hours :) We ran our 15k in Logan, did some camping, and spent a lot of time hanging out with the fam.
~We had several visits over the year from both sides of the family. We are so very blessed to have family who will take the time to fly out to Arkansas and come stay at the Ozark Inn.
~Speaking of the Ozark Inn, we made several updates to the Inn this year. Next thing you know, we'll be a 5 star hotel! We've upgraded from an air mattress to a real bed in one of our guest suites! We've also finally finished painting (almost). My favorite improvement was granite counter tops and new back splash in our kitchen!

~Our niece, Chloe was born. She is such a fun baby and we are so happy Bryson and Alyssa live in Bentonville, so we get to see this sweet girl often! We are also excited to have another new niece and nephew on the Feuz side of the family in early 2013!

 

~The biggest highlight from our year was probably the addition of Ollie to our family. I never really thought of myself as a "dog person" let alone an "indoor dog person."  Nonetheless, I've seen the light and Ollie has converted me. He certainly keeps us entertained and we feel lucky to have him.

All in all, its been a busy but wonderful year. Just like anyone else, we've had our trials and struggles along the way, but we know our Father in Heaven loves us and His plan is infinitely better than anything we could come up with. We are so grateful for all we have and for this time of year to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. May you feel the love of Christ in your homes this Christmas season as well as the whole year long. Merry Christmas!

Halloween Happenings

Do you remember as a kid going trick or treating and hating when someone gave you a box of raisins instead of candy? You tried to smile and say thank you, but really you were wishing for one more piece of rich, delicious confectionery that would lead to canker sours, cavities, and obesity. Now that I am older and wiser (and work in the healthcare field), I quite like the idea of handing out raisins instead of candy. But alas, my thoughts of healthier options for the trick or treaters was one-upped by Nate this year. I had to work Halloween night, so I left Nate to his own devices. When I arrived home, I discovered Nate had un-wired the doorbell, placed a sign on the door inviting the trick or treaters to partake of the goodies in the basket on the door step, and filled that basket with bell peppers and jalapenos from our garden! What lucky children of our neighborhood!


Even though I missed Halloween night, we didn't let the month go by without celebrating the holiday. Our friends hosted a Werewolf party a couple weeks before Halloween. I haven't played that game in a long time, so that was definitely a fun night. It was also fun to be able to dress up in costumes. Nate and I have actually never dressed up for Halloween or done much to celebrate in years past, so it was about time. We went as a flapper girl and 1920s gentleman.

We also spent a night waiting 2 hours in line in the cold for zombie hunting. Definitely worth it. Shooting at unarmed zombies? Now that's my kind of paintballing. No bruises or welts for me. Although, I do hope they paid those poor zombies more than minimum wage!

The gang before the hunt

Not Every Idea Is A Good Idea

Last weekend we went camping with our friends Cat and Shaun down at Devil's Den State Park. Camping is always a good idea…except when it's not.

Good idea: Plan your camping trip to a campground that has flushable toilets.

Bad idea: Book a campsite in the ONLY area of the campground that does not have indoor plumbing. A nasty, insect-infested latrine? I think not. I chose to dehydrate myself all weekend instead.

Good idea: Go to a campground that has warm showers available.

Bad idea: See bad idea number 1…also forget to bring your towel. All four of us actually forgot our towels so we couldn't even have a communal towel. (Eww) So in the spirit of becoming one with nature, guess who went all weekend long without a shower?

Good Idea: Bring lots of water with you

Bad idea: Don't bring lots of water with you when you go hiking. When some fellow hikers found us pathetically squeezing the last drop of water from the pack, they took pity and offered us some of theirs.

Good Idea: Cook some delicious food while camping including my dad's famous Dutch oven potatoes

Bad Idea: Forget ketchup! Dutch oven potatoes without ketchup is a crime.  

Roasting Woofums! Yum!

Good Idea: Religiously watch the weather forecast all week to make sure it's not going to rain on your camping trip

Bad Idea: Trust the weatherman

Good Idea: Bring your fishing poles and buy a fishing license.

Bad Idea: Think you're going to actually catch anything while casting in a puddle. The only "fish" we saw were smaller than the bait!

Doesn't everyone look excited to be fishing?

While we had some bad ideas along the way, we really did have a great time camping with our friends. It was a beautiful weekend (except when it rained), and we always love being able to unplug from life and just relax and enjoy all of God's creations. Thanks Cat and Shaun for the awesome weekend!

While on the subject of camping, I just realized I never blogged about our trip to Nauvoo. We went with Bryson, Alyssa, and Chloe over Labor Day weekend for some "glamping." AKA we got to camp in cabins! It ended up raining quite a bit that weekend so we were grateful to not be tent camping. It was neat to see all the historical sights and take some time to understand and appreciate the lives of the early Saints. I've been to Nauvoo years ago, but I honestly felt like everything was new and different this time. Maybe I'm more mature now and can really value the experience. We enjoyed touring the bakery, blacksmith, brickyard, gunsmith, and many more. It was also really special to go to Carthage Jail and see the site and hear the story of Joseph Smith's martyrdom. He was asked to go through so much in his short lifetime and he faced those trials with courage and an unceasing faith. Learning of his life as well as the hardships the early members of the Church went through, certainly puts things in perspective. We are so immensely blessed and I am glad we were able to have such a wonderful experience to remind us of this.

All five of us in front of the beautiful Nauvoo Temple

Loving the Cheese in Branson

Branson is a strange little town. For those of you who have never been there, I'm not really sure how to describe it. I always thought of Branson  as cheesy, over-the-top, and out-dated. I pictured it full of busloads of retirees on vacation eager to see performers from the golden days still onstage. And while I've discovered that all of those things are true, Branson is still somehow fabulously awesome. We've gone a few different times and always had a good time. In fact, our most recent jaunt to The Live Music Show Capital of the World proved to be no disappointment.


We didn't get a chance to really celebrate our anniversary this year, so this was somewhat of a belated anniversary trip. We stayed in a hotel that was older than dirt, but you get what you pay for and it was dirt cheap. Did you know they still have hotels that give you an actual key to your room rather than one of those little key cards? Weird. It was old but well kept and Nate certainly enjoyed the complimentary dessert bar of cobbler, cookies, and ice cream. Although, Nate freaked out when he saw the sign that said the ice cream was the lactose free. What do they make it with? Soy? And refused to eat anymore. The desk clerk was a young, friendly fellow and asked what we were going to be doing on our visit. I told him we had bought a deal on Groupon for the zipline and I was shocked when he asked me, "What is that?" "What is a zipline?"  "No, what is Groupon?" Really? Do you live under a rock? If you don't know what that is, let me just turn your world upside down and tell you to go get online and prepare to find some deals!

The zipline ended up being a lot of fun.While we had a blast actually on the zip, the highlight involved a 12 year old boy. He was very afraid of heights and talked about how he wimped out when his family was in Guatemala. After his little sister went, he stepped up and exclaimed, "God is good!" before leaping off the plank. We got a chuckle out of that, and it certainly appears that God granted him some courage.

We also went to the fish hatchery and Table Rock Damn. I know, what's more romantic than learning about spawning fish on your anniversary trip? We just can't resist FREE things! Afterwards, we went for a hike in the State Park. Once again, FREE! We finished up the night at a dinner show. My personal favorite scene was the dramatic dance/aerial ribbon routine between the two lovers performed to the theme from Titanic. There was also some cool fire twirling, singing, unicycling, and bubble blowing. It was quite the variety of entertainment. Cheesy? Yes. Enjoyable? You bet!