a good day

Yesterday our church was held at the Hammerstein Ballroom for a special stake conference for Jeffrey R. Holland and I was truly touched by his words. I was excited for a little change of venue, and only in New York can you attend church in a grand ballroom, but it wasn't the venue that made it such a good day.

I have always loved Elder Hollands talks and he is Jason's favorite speaker at conference, but yesterday he seemed to know just what I have been struggling with and he said just what I needed to hear. He touched on the tough times we are experiencing with the financial crisis here in NY and how so many in our stake have been effected, as well as the recent protests against our church. His words were bold and straight forward as he told us all that we need to be stronger in these tough times but the part I loved the most was when he asked us all if he could give us a special blessing, expressing how much he would love to bless us all individually but couldn't. It was amazing to listen as he blessed the men, woman and children of the Manhattan stake along with the others who weren't in attendance. This was something I have never seen before and I truly felt the spirit in that beautiful hall. I am so grateful for good days.

grandma's lil' helper

As you can see, they start them out young in my family. Shae has been helping at the store so my mom decided to make an apron just her size and put her to work. She put pockets on her apron and Shae quickly learned that they are perfect for hiding little treats.

sytycd

Last night I ventured over to New Jersey with three of my friends for the So You Think You Can Dance concert. This was my second time seeing the show with these ladies and we had a great evening seeing our favorite dances. While Newark was no Atlantic City we still had a wonderful time but we are keeping our fingers crossed that maybe next year they will bring it back to the city.



Once again we were amongst several hundred teenage girls but we had two very enthusiastic moms behind us that kept us entertained. The dances were amazing and the crowd went wild when they announced the Bleeding Love dance with Chelsea and Mark (especially Laurel). We were a little disappointed that we didn't get to see the Bride and Groom dance with Chelsea and Mark and a few other routines, and thought they could have left out some of the cheesiness, but I was happy to see that Utah was well represented with 3 of the dancers from my home state (what can I say, we know how to move). I had another great night with the girls, thank you for arranging it all, Kyndra. It was 4-real!!

decision 08

Because I use this blog as a journal I wanted to post last night's historical event. I will admit I don't really get into politics as much as I probably should, but for the first time I tried to really listen to both sides and express my opinions. As I listened I was sometimes disappointed in both sides for decisions they had made and things that were said and I was often confussed as to who I would vote for. Last night America made it's decision and it was a very special moment for our country to elect the first African American as our 44th president. I was touched by both Obama and McCain's speeches and after all the debating and arguing I was once again, proud to be an American. I hope this change will bring our country closer together in these hard times and it will be interesting to see what President Obama will do to make those changes.


"If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where anything is possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states. We have been and always will be the United States of America.
It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."


"Let there be no reason now for Americans to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth. I pledge to him to do all in my power to help him lead us. We fought as hard as we could, the failure is mine--not yours ... I'm so deeply grateful to you ... Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much, and tonight, I remain her servant."

live from new york it's ....

Yes, that's right, Jason and I were at Saturday Night Live this weekend and got to see the McCain/Fey duo in action.

I have to say, this experience was by far the coolest thing I have ever done in New York. In order to get tickets to SNL you have to send an email to NBC during the month of August and your name is picked from a lottery. This was the third time I had sent in my info and I guess it was a charm. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. I was a little disappointed that Amy Poehler had her baby last week but seeing Tina Fey as Sarah Palin more then made up for it. We figured one of the presidential candidates would be making an appearance and a couple of weeks ago there were rumors that Obama would be on the show but it wasn't until Friday morning that we found out that John McCain (The Maverick) would be on.

We arrived early and stood in line for 2 hours before the show even began but going early paid off when we got seats right in the middle. Because John McCain was there we had to go through very tight security and the studio was crawling with the secret service. When we sat down we could already guess some of the skits we would be seeing. Directly in front of us was the set for The View and over on the side was the Target set, which Jason was very excited to see, Kristin Wig is his favorite and especially when she does her Target skits.

The host for the night was Ben Affleck and the special musical guest was David Cook. I have to say, Ben did a great job. I loved his Alec Baldwin impersonation but thought Keith Olbermann was a little overbearing (which is exactly how he really is). As soon as Ben would finish a skit there was a woman immediately by his side dragging him away to prepare for the next skit. It was very interesting to attend SNL and see what goes on behind the scenes. As we were watching a skit on one side of the stage the crew was busy putting together a set on the other side. But what I thought was most interesting was how they test their material on the audience during the dress rehearsal and if it doesn't go well they cut it from the live show. There were several things we saw that didn't make it. In fact, during the Weekend Update one of the stories Seth Meyers told wasn't that funny and he remarked that he could read the audience like a book and that one would be for dress rehersal only. We noticed little things like Ben's hat from the Target scene was missing to a whole skit was cut out. At first I was a little disappointed that I didn't get tickets for the live show but I am really glad we got to go to the dress rehearsal, we were able to see more skits and then watch the live show and see how they changed it.
My favorite's of the evening were the McCain/Palin skit, The View with Alec Baldwin, The Weekend Update (especially the voting machine malfunction song) and the Target skit.


We laughed the entire night and we even think we personally got a wave from John and Cindy after the show.

For Halloween we attended the Greenwich Village parade for a third year in a row and while there were some pretty crazy costumes, this year I felt like people just weren't as creative as they have been in the past. Everything was pretty much a repeat from last year, there were way to many jokers and every female with long brown hair was Sarah Palin (not original at all). There were a few that Jason and I felt like we needed to close our eyes but I was able to get some pictures of a couple of good ones.
We thought this Joker looked cool sitting on top of the phone booth


Yes, that's a man





Us at the parade


** Now that it's November, Sheena's Christmas Playlist is officially back on the blog. Enjoy!