New Car, Lisa's Favorite Things, Easter

Letter from Lisa - April 10, 2000

The weather here in Maryland has been beautiful lately. The blossoms are out in front of our house so it’s always a gorgeous sight - except for yesterday morning when we looked out to SNOW. It melted before church and the rest of the day was beautiful (but a little chilly).

Now that the basketball season is over for Chris, he has a little bit more time to start focusing on studying for the ‘Boards’ on June 22. His new found joy is his TRGpro. (Palm Pilot - hand computer - whatever you want to call it). Chris and Jared organized for tons of the medical students in his class to purchase them together. He has pretty much everything on his TRG. Lots of medical books, dictionaries, games (he’s addicted to chess now), the ward list, all the scriptures, the hymns and of course he downloads the new sports statistics and scores daily. When he goes to school or church, everyone has their TRGs out and they are beaming each other the latest book, or information, or program. In Priesthood, there is a row of Chris and his buddies singing the hymns off their TRGs. It is really funny. If you put your TRGs facing each other, then you can play a game of chess or battleship with each other. The wives just roll our eyes, hoping it’s a phase. He does use it for school purposes and it will be ideal for rotations next year. They can look up symptoms and drugs, etc.

I’m keeping busy doing all my fun ‘around the house’ things. I’ve been scrapbooking a lot lately - probably inspired by my scrapbook page being published in a scrapbook magazine this month. Creaking Keepsakes April 2000. I went and bought it the other day and have had so much fun looking through it. It’s kind of fun to see yourself in print. I’ve also been busy working on PAF (Personal Ancestral File) that I downloaded from the Internet. It has been so fun - especially with a scanner. I have been scanning pictures and linking them to different names on the pedigree chart. It’s a neat function. Young Womens is going well. We just finished our “STAKE YOUTH ROADSHOW’ night and boy did we spent a lot of time preparing for that. It turned out really cute, though. We did a spin off of TOY STORY where Rocker Barbie was introduced into the nursery and was introducing Woody and the toys to all kinds of bad stuff - like ‘abusing’ rubbing alcohol and baby powder. The script was hilarious. Now that we have that finished, we are both busy planning for Girls Camp and Scount Camp in 2 weeks.

I’m 6 months along now and time is flying by. I can’t believe I will have a newborn in less than 3 months. I’m excited though because Ryan sure isn’t a newborn anymore. He is growing up so much and learning new things all the time. Now when Daddy comes home from school, Ryan looks at me, points at Daddy, and says “This is a Dada”. Then Ryan looks at Daddy, points at me, and says “This is a Momma”. It’s like he is reintroducing us every day. It is so funny. Then we say, “Wheres Ryan?” He points at himself and says “RYO!”. Some of his favorite things to do are

  1. Watch a “Moona” (movie)

  2. EEEEAT, EEEAT!!

  3. Do puzzles

  4. Play with Dada

When I came home from a meeting last night, every toy that Ryan owns was in the middle of the living room floor. It was a disaster. Balls, animal books, and toys everywhere. When I went upstairs, it was the same story. I gave Chris that look and he said, “Oops, I think that was my fault”. I think Daddies are a lot more fun than Mommies sometimes. As soon as I sat down to play, I started singing the ‘clean-up song’. I can’t help it!

Lisa


Girls Camp

Chris and I both had a great time at our respective Girls camp and Young Mens Camp. At the last minute, the girls opted for a cabin because the weather was so bad - especially for the leaders who had small babies with them. Luckily I didn’t have Ryan. Chris took care of him and then we had a friend babysit while Chris was at school one afternoon. The cabin was great. It made for a very relaxing time. I just sat on the comfy couches and chatted with the girls and other leaders (who are my best friends). And I didn’t have to worry about Ryan one bit. Wonderful!

Young Mens Camp

Chris had fun with his camp too. He has a great relationship with all of the boys and of course the leaders are all his best friends as well. They get chatting and forget the boys are even around. The priests said to them, “You guys don’t seem like your that old - just like old priests.” Ya, they tend to be boys themselves when they are camping and playing together.

New Car

Well, guess what we just bought!  A brand new ‘steel blue DODGE Intrepid.’  It is so nice.  It’s so much bigger than our neon.  We think it will easily fit three kids in the back seat.  We got KEYLESS REMOTE... and I LOVE it.  It’s so nice.  Every time I drive it I get so excited that it’s ours.  We looked at different cars for a while but when we heard about Dodge’s 0.9% financing we just couldn’t pass up the deal!

A Few of my Favorite Things

Chris  * Red licorice *  Organizing  * Blossoms *  Sweatshirts  * Church Bookstores  * Talking to my Sister *  Scrapbooking  * Ryan * Camping  * Candles *  Girl talk *  Peppermint patties * Going to the Park  * Chocolate Ice Cream  *  Chris  * My Family  * Oprah *  my Mom  * Straight leg Jeans * Cherries  * Suzy’s Zoo  * The Church *  Marshmallows  * Shopping  * my Dad  * Vacations *  Friends  * Cute plaids *  Ricks College * Chris  * Suntanning by a Pool  * Gene R. Cook Tapes * Taking Naps  * Honeydew Melons *  Family Outings  * Cookie Dough *  Sight seeing  * EFY  * Tulips *  Canada  * Finding great deals  * Rice  * Journals *  Frames *  Pictionary  * Traditions  * Mary Englebreit *  Navy blue  * BBQ’s  * Pebbles in my Pocket  * Chris  * Baby GAP *  Throwing Parties  * Spending time with Chris *  Fonts *  E-mail  * Brigham Young University *  Making lists  * Doodling  * Teaching  * the Disney Store *  Pasteling  * Making Chris laugh  * Celine Dion  * Girls Night Out *  Reminiscing *  Fresh strawberries * Old Navy  * my Computer  * Chris  * Family History * Sunkist Orange Pop * Mexican Food  * Work & the Glory Books * Fruit salads * Froot loops  * Playing Games  * Clip art * Crafts *

Easter

Well, we just had our Easter Bunny celebrations and it was so fun.  I had hidden plastic eggs all over the living room and then Daddy video taped while Ryan and I came down the stairs saying “Where’s the eggs?”  Ryan was so excited because he could see one by the bottom step.  He thought it was SO much fun.  After he found all the eggs we got down his Easter basket.   His face lit up!  There was a little candy, bubbles, a navy blue GAP swimming suit, a toothbrush, and a package of little army guys (from the dollar store).  He loved it all... but was mostly impressed with the eggs.  Even though Chris and I decided not to have Easter baskets ourselves, Chris went ahead and bought me (us) two new church CD’s... an AFTERGLOW one and a BEST OF EFY and wrote me a cute little letter:

Happy Easter    Lisa, I love you so much.  I think I love you even more as time goes by.  This weekend I thought about you so much and just found myself  constantly expressing gratitude in my heart for having you in my life.  Thank you for all that you do for me.  What would my life be like without you?  I cant even imagine that.  I love telling you all about my life, and I sure love hearing all about yours.  Happiness is sitting at the table eating one of my favorite meals that you made for me while listening to you recount everything I missed while I was away.  I don’t even mind that I then have to do the dishes while you eat your dinner.  Seriously, honey, you are the best.  We have such a perfect life, and such a glorious future together.  Life is beautiful. Love, your Easter Honey … Chris



Chris JohnsonComment