Grateful to be in Kansas City

Kansas City is an awesome city to live in for many reasons, and I might go into that more in a different post. Today was awesome because many people had the day off from work and school to celebrate the Royal's World Series victory. Eric and I walked from our apartment, which usually is not a plausible idea but traffic was apparently the worst it has ever ever been in Kansas City. Stepping out from our parking lot and seeing different groups of people in blue walking towards downtown was maybe my favorite part of the day. It just seemed so surreal that so many people would be walking from sort of far away, all toward the same place. 

And when we got there, it was very very crowded. I have definitely never seen anything like it in my life. We stood for a while on the lawn in front of the WWI Museum, and then we decided to press forward to Union Station (because standing in the sun while I was super thirsty was making me feel a little sick... and this is November??)

When we got inside Union Station, we first went to all of the vending machines to try to get drinks. "Sold Out" or not working everywhere! So, we waited in line for concessions, and a weird marching band thing went through. Since we hadn't been able to get close enough to see the TV, that was sort of nice, because I enjoy seeing marching bands. The acoustics were very blurred though... That kind of huge room is probably great for choirs, maybe not so much for marching bands though, haha. 

The Royals went through a little walk-way in Union Station, but there were just enough people in front of me that I could only see them a little when Eric lifted me up. We went back outside for the "celebration" and "speech", and I wasn't really sure what the speech would be about. We decided it was time to start walking back home, and as we walked away I could hear "Kansas City is the best city in the world!" (Crowd cheers). "You're the best fans!" (Cheers) "We love you, Kansas City!" (Cheers). 

After a long but cool walk home, passing all of the cars parked in crazy places, we got some water, and then headed to Arthur Bryants for some awesome Barbecue. After that, we checked out Nebraska Furniture Mart where I freaked out because of of the cool new fall and Christmas decorations. 

Very awesome day! It's wonderful to live here :)

Gratitude :)

Today, I am thankful my little sister took a train to visit us this weekend. Even though I had homework, we still had a great visit. I am also thankful for the Royals being such a satisfying team to watch! I've never been into baseball before, but it has been a blast this year! My sister-in-law gave Eric and I tickets to a Royals game, and that really helped me get into it! This has been an awesome year, and November is as good of a time as any to get back into writing a bit :)

Back to School :)

It has been far longer than I intended since my last blog post! For a brief update, I have since started working at a law firm, and Eric and I have moved to a new apartment that I LOVE!! It is very close to my work and has a lot more space than our apartment in Utah. It also is pretty quiet, which is a pleasant first. Eric picked a good one! 

We had a wonderful experience with the members of the Kansas City 3rd Ward, and I hope that they are all doing well. Our new ward is a bilingual ward, and a vast majority of the adults are Spanish-speaking. Some of the talks and messages in sacrament meeting are in English, and some are in Spanish. A translator speaks into a microphone near the front of the room, and some of the members wear headphones to understand. Eric speaks Spanish, and so it is a very interesting experience! 

We had a good summer, though. We went to Nauvoo, walked around pretty areas of Kansas City, visited family, and went canoeing with my friend Jenni who is still visiting Missouri from Hawaii :)

Night classes started up again, and so with that and a full-time job, I'm feeling a little busy, but I am excited for all that I will learn. I think working at a law firm while I am taking these classes will definitely help me to retain what I'm learning a little better! I'm going to try my best to reserve Sunday's for rest and for thinking about the Savior and his teachings, and not to do homework. I've noticed that when I am busy, I almost need that day of rest and reflection more than I do in other times! It's easy for me to get sort of weighed down by sad news stories and just life in general, so it is nice to do what I can to add a calm and happy spirit to my home. Eric really contributed this evening by practicing and singing along with a couple hymns he likes :) 

I think I will end today by sharing a little poem that I liked:

Talk Happiness

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough

Without your woe. No path is wholly rough; 

Look for places that are smooth and clear, 

And speak of those, to rest the weary ear Of Earth, so hurt by one continuous strain

Of human discontent and grief and pain.

Talk faith. The world is better off without 

Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt.

If you have faith in God, or man, or self,

Say so. If not, push back upon the shelf

Of silence, all your thoughts till faith shall come;

No one will grieve because your lips are dumb.

Talk health. The dreary, never-ending tale 

Of mortal maladies is more than stale.

One cannot charm, or interest, or please

By harping on that minor chord, disease. 

Say you are well, or all is well with you,

And God shall hear your words and make them true.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Thanks for reading! Until next time!

- Sannah

Life in 2015

Well, as a news update, Eric and I have been happily happily happily married for a little over a year and a half. He's working at a great job and I'm getting ready to start a paralegal program! We're pretty excited for how our plans are going.

I've spent the last two years working as a Sushi waitress at three different restaurants, and that was a great blessing! I was able to work with some wonderful people and it was awesome to be able to earn money while Eric was finishing up school.

Right now, I'm looking for some jobs that will either work well with my school schedule, or would be able to provide me with experience with law offices, and I found some promising opportunities last week!

So lately, I've been talking to my friend Jenni (who lives in Hawaii right now with her husband and beautiful little son), and she kind of inspired me to read more books lately! I get so into reading stupid little news articles in my free time, and it had been a while since I had read actual books consistently... Eric is WAY better about it than me! He's read 24 books so far this year, some of them behemoths like "Crime and Punishment" and the like. So, last week I read a biographical book about Brigham Young. It was fascinating to hear about how much that man traveled. I learned some pretty cool and interesting things about early church history, too!

And now, I'm been in the process of reading G.K. Chesterton's "The Innocence and Wisdom of Father Brown", which is actually two books. Each chapter is a new mystery, and so far I've only guessed 2 out of 14 of the "solutions" by the chapter's end. His descriptions of the settings are intriguing.  Often the story takes place in the evening, and the sky takes on some crazy color, like "peacock green with ribbons of gold", for a typical example. I especially enjoyed chapter 3, a funny mystery about an exclusive club called "the twelve true fishermen." And chapter 4, "The Flying Stars" had a part about a "good-old fashioned Christmas eve 'pantomime'" that really stuck with me. It was magical, but a bit eerie.

In other news, Eric and I met with the bishop of our ward for the first time, and both of us were impressed with just how sweet of a man our bishop is! He truly loves the people in the ward, especially those who have less stability at home. He really prays for the Lord's inspiration in the decisions he makes to help the congregation. He extended callings to both Eric and I, Eric to be a counselor in the Young Men's program (which I think is very neat, because Eric has never experienced working with the Young Men since he joined the church while he was in college), and I was asked to be the first counselor in Relief Society. We were both very humbled. I really look forward to working with and getting to know the other women in our ward and trying to help as best as I can. It will be good for me as well to make it a priority to go to the activities! It will be a big learning opportunity for sure.

After meeting with the bishop today, we went for a nice walk. It was really muggy and summery out! 

Yesterday evening we checked by the Kansas City Symphony to see if they had any tickets available for their "Disney's Fantasia LIVE" performance, because if there is ANYONE who would enjoy that show, it would be us. We love Fantasia! Unfortunately, the very cheapest were like almost $90 combined, and we just can't do that at the moment. We knew it would be a long shot anyway and it was fun to check, because the Kauffman Center is beautiful. And it wasn't a total loss, because we were able to eat at a new barbecue place, Q39, which was delicious! I'll go into a more extensive "barbecue rating" post sometime of the places we've tried, but this experience was fun because there was this super friendly couple sitting next to us and we hit it off pretty well talking about barbecue in KC. Eric and I aren't the best at making new friends because we're both more reserved in public, and so I almost wish I had gotten some information to hang out (and maybe eat at more barbecue places with them in the future), but I didn't know if that'd be weird. After that we walked around the Plaza. We love walking around beautiful places, and in Kansas City there are a LOT of great places to enjoy. We want to take advantage of living so close to cool things! 

Anyway, today ended with Eric kindly agreeing to watch "Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-day Comedy" with me. Admittedly, it is a cheesy and sort of dated movie with moments of not-the-best-acting, but it is still a movie I really love. Is it because the main character Elizabeth reminds me of my friend Jenni? Is it because the part where the friends go from ice-cream eating shut-ins to exercising, river-floating success stories is somehow inspiring to me? Is it because the guy who plays Collins does waaaayy too good of a job playing his part??? Yes, yes, yes and more. (Mozart for Dogs, anyone?)

 It's thunderstorm weather, which means it is time to catch some glorious Zs. Good to be back! :)

--Sannah