Grandma and other things

This is my grandmother Edith Billen. She passed away January 5, 2012. She lived 88 strong years and loved living life. Whenever I think of my grandma, I think of the spunk and wittiness she displayed to everyone around her. I remember her visiting us as much as she could when we were growing up and I remember us visiting her as much as we could as well-that's how much we loved being around her. She loved her family and friends very much and had a great passion and love to serve and help those around her. She was an amazing nurse and I believe worked all the way up until she was in her early 70's. I dearly miss my grandma and always will. I believe she lived a great life and is happy to return to her companion for eternity-my grandpa Robert Billen. A few days before she passed away, she had had a massive aneurysm in her brain and was left on life support for a day or two so that family could come in and say goodbye before they took her off. This happened right before my 28th birthday, I really hate telling my age over the internet, but I figure those that read this blog will know it anyway. A great 28 years with a very special grandma. I'm so grateful I had the chance to move down here to Texas, the first 6 months here for me were my grandma's last. I know this wasn't by chance, that it gave me a chance to spend a little bit more time with her before she left this earth. The funeral took place in Hayward, California, where she resided for most of the last years of her life before she moved to Texas to stay with my parents. Here are a few pics from the funeral.

Robert did a great job at playing "Begin the Beguine" -Grandma's favorite song. You can watch him play here

Look-there's me!

The casket was really beautiful

All of her kids gathered around her

These are her children-all grown up

Oh this is a random pic of "Ranch" Diner! It was too cool with a cow's head hanging out of the sign!

It's always sad that the few times you actually see all your family is at events like this but it was really good to see a my cousins, aunts, and uncle

This is my cute fam pic

We have done a lot of fun things the past couple of months..

On my b day, sweet Shy surprised me with balloons that don't worry-1 sang to you when you hit it and another that had fuzzy pink stuff on it! Quite incredible! She also brought cheesecake for everyone at my work. I just love that lady

Bday cheesecake! oh heaven! Well, my heaven will have cheesecake
We all went out for dinner with my aunt and uncle for my bday at Cheesecake, love their food
Jeff got me pinwheel sandwiches for my bday-best b day present evaaaa ;) Randall also got my a Coach purse that I just absolutely love-he's a good present picker
For Katie's b day in Feb, we all met at Cheddars and got some grub-I love Cheddars!

Me and hun bun at Katie's house afterward for game night

Me and my girls-cute little Eden!

My girls! I just love them

Meana Beana

A couple months back, Randall and I went to a Kings vs Mavs game, even though we were cheering for the Mavs, we pretty much cheered for Jimmer as well-how could we not?! Oh and we definitely weren't the only ones in the crowd cheering for him

This shirt was just too cute

Go Jimmer! Go Mavs!

We had a great time!

A couple weeks ago, we went to my cousin Caitlin's mish farewell-it was great to see her off-we even got to go to the new American Art Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas! It was pretty awesome if I do say-I mean look at that sculpture! It had the letters of the alphabet all wrapped around each other! It made me want some alphabet soup and alphabet cereal

On a date night a couple months back, it was a beautiful day (as it has been the past couple of months) so Randall took me to the driving range! Believe it or not, it was my first time golfing at a range like that, I pretty much only know miniature golf...so..ya know, BUT I had a great time and I even hit a few!

I think I got the form down..kinda..finally

OK, Portland blog post to come :)

December time!

SO I don't remember much about December considering it was like 3 months ago...oops, but that's ok because I have my handy dandy Christmas journal that I love to use in order to journal about every Christmas, everyone should have one! However, the month of December is always fun and it always goes by soo quickly because everyone is so excited for Christmas and the holiday break!

One very exciting thing actually did happen in December though and that was Brittany-my sister in law- had her baby boy Issac! He's soo cute and I LOVE holding him as much as I can. He was born about a month early so very tiny being only 6 pounds something but we love him to pieces and we're so happy he can be a new part of the family!

For Christmas this year, we didn't have to travel anywhere which was nice-we just headed over to our family's homes and spent most of the time there. We did a lot of relaxing, movie watching, eating, game playing, and just spending quality time with the fam-overall, it was amazing! Before we headed down to the rents house for the week, we did our own Christmas up here. It was great-we decorated our Christmas tree, and opened Christmas presents for each other. I got Randall the typical guy stuff, Mavs tickets, Mavs shirt, iphone case for running, a really nice pillow, and maybe a couple of other little things, oh a kindle for both of us, however, YOU would not believe what he got me! My wonderful husband got me presents in a certain order (ny and co top and gc, michaels gc, earings, travel pillow, a sweater, etc-you can see he did much better than I did) that led up to a puzzle we have of New York, stating that we'll be going on a weekend trip to NYC! It's only fitting I blog about this now since we're going there this weekend! SOO excited! Anyway, here are some pics from the Christmas break that I'm happy to FINALLY get around posting :) Oh and it's mainly of the Seversons and not the Terrys b/c my mom took tons of pics and I don't think my otha motha didn't have a lot of time to take pics with all the kiddos running around. If I get some, I'll be sure to post them.

This is cute baby Issac! :)

Look at that cute uncle holding his nephew, I didn't get a chance to hold him in the hospital because I had a cold

I just loved our tree!

He was sooo happy to get it all! :)

Oh! This was a puzzle we completed over the break! We love puzzles so it was TONS of fun :) Pretty too, huh?

These are all the cute things he got me-see how they're all labeled?? It was adore

Ahhhh they look so happy to be bros

I guess Randall's office had a thing where they would all grow goatees or something so here he is sporting his goatee, it was hard for him to grow it but I thought he sported it well ;)

Right after church :)

Even if you can't see the star on the top of the tree, at least you can see it in our bathroom (we actually didn't have a star or angel on top of the tree..maybe next year?)

We went to a pizza place over the break, the crust wasn't that great..tasted like a cracker, but the toppings and sauce were really good :)

Look at that cute little pup..they're wearing these robes with the explanation right below

My mom got the boys robes for x mas, but they called them sith robes because they look like sith lords from Star Wars when they have the robe on..I guess?

They spent a good deal playing Heroes Quest over the break, I think the game is like 20 years old but they didn't mind

Russell LOVES holding 3 dogs at one time, he's the puppy master

Opening our stockings-i love doing that

Games, games, and more games!

yay!

Chillaxin!

Trivia pursuit..obviously, we were surprised by the right answer..or something..

heather says "I'm done! I'm out!" jk..i'm not sure why she has her hand up..

I just realized a bunch of these pics were actually from Thanksgiving because Royce and Heath didn't come for Christmas...hmm..oh well, we did mainly the same things :0

For New Years, we...I think just played games..nothing too fancy, but it was fun :)

Sweet November 2011

OK, So obviously I haven't blogged in like almost 6 months, right? Yeah, that's kinda sad, but probably not as sad as my header above that hasn't been changed in over a year, one step at a time (good song). I don't even have a name to my blog so people that just randomly go to my blog have no idea what its about, but then again, who randomly looks at my blog? So, I will be breaking my next 4 or 5 blog posts down month by month so that I actually blog because lets be honest, blogging is SOO overwhelming sometimes...especially with how lame it is to upload pics on this thing, there really should be an easier way. Wow, debbie downer is what I sound like, eh? I'll try not to sound so pish posh attitude like and be more excited to blog. Blogging is like giving a sacrament talk..you think about what you're going to say, how you'll portray your words, your thoughts, it's nerve wrecking, but then once you do it=BAM you feel loads better and spiritually uplifted, ok, I don't know how blogging can spiritually uplift you, but maybe it just depends on what you're talking about? It's also a source of journaling so technically speaking, there's a side of spirituality to it...anyway here we go...

In November, I took two trips, I think..yeah, there were two. Two quick trips, but great ones at that :)

The first trip was to San Diego with my hub bub, he's cute. Oh and it was a fab time. We were actually going to meet up with Nat's fam but her kids got sick so it was just Natty solo. We went to Sea World on Friday-which was a blast-I hadn't been in like 5 years so it was so fun to see all the new updates and rides they had. Patty, Bunner, and I had a blast. Plus, they have this amazing rolling coaster that was like nothing I've ever been on-it's a water ride like the log flume and then it turns into a roller coaster-loved it! On Saturday went to the church history site there-the Mormon Battalion, and then to the temple in the afternoon. The Mormon Battalion was really interesting to learn more about and I've decided I really want to go to more church history sites--they're soo interesting. We couldn't do a lot because it rained all day Saturday but we still had a great time. OH and we ate yum barbecue that was actually on the Food Networks-Man Vs. Food, the pulled pork was amAZing and the onion rings were like nothing else I've ever tried. Sunday we went back home and overall, the trip was really neat and I'm glad I got to go.

We panned for gold there as well! it was soo neat-we got really rich

Bun and I are pioneers :)

Natty just had to have 20 pics of baluga whales because they're her fav..I decided to post just one :)

It looks like we're pointing at nothing but I promise there was a shark coming right at us, pretty scary

I loooove this pic because Natty looks seriously quite hilarious-I don't think I could imitate that face even if I tried

He is just too cool for school

This pic cracked me up because ever since the whole whale killing the human thing at Sea World last year, the trainers can't get in the water, so they just stand on the side and wave to the whales..

This bird lady was just too much..I totally wish I had her job

Or his job...

The next mini trip I took was to St. Louis to see the presh babes of Jamie and Lucas. They were toooooo cute--and I'm soo happy I got to meet and hold them. It's crazy that they're now like 6 months, when I met them they were so little and young! I really want to hold them right this instant. I've got cute pics to post of the nice relaxing weekend there. I always love seeing my St. Louis girls.

Jamie is showing us how the babies were born, Amy was the pretend nurse

This was the day the babes were supposed to be born so she was reenacting the birth, it was great

I'm swaddling Nora in the bobo wrap..or maybe its called something else? I can't remember, but it was cool how you just get them to stay in that wrap and everything! It was way tricky to tie though

Oh they are just tooooo presh, look how happy I am to hold them!

So what else happened in November? Thanksgiving was a blast-Royce and Heather, as well as Rob came into town for Thanksgiving so we spent time with them, and then we also got to spend time with the Terry fam. It was very relaxing and we had a great time.