Seeking out new life and new civilizations

Yes, that was a Star Trek reference. We LOVE Star Trek!

The characters, the missions, the discussions, the romance, the action, the adventure, the moral dilemmas, so intriguing! I had only seen a few minutes of one TNG episode when I was ten. I thought Trek was only for nerds and geeks. But my honey grew up watching it. His dad and brothers like it too, but we like it the most. In fact, come to think of it, we are the biggest Star Trek fans I know. ha! I dream about it often, I dream I am in the Star Trek world, it feels so real.
We have watched every single episode in order except for the last season of The Original Series. To those of you that have only seen the newer Star Trek movies with Christopher Pine, you are missing out! The newer movies are set in an alternate universe, and the cinematography, the cast, the characters, the stories are not even close to being as deep and thought-provoking as most of the television show episodes. Most recently, we have been re-watching "Enterprise".

Which aired in 2001-2005, it's the most recent Star Trek tv show. We have even started showing some of the episodes to the kids, it's TV-PG.
Oh, yeah and we like to dress our kids up like Spock.

In April we have tickets to Salt Lake Comic-Con, which will have most of the Star Trek: The Next Genergation Cast! http://saltlakecomiccon.com/project_category/star-trek-the-next-generation/
 cool! Don't worry, tons of nerdy/geeky pics coming.
One last confession. Yes, we named one of our kids after a Star Trek character, Wesley Crusher.

Geneology, I am doing it

Yes, I actually am! It is soooooooo fun! I've always been interested in genealogy/family history but the past few months I have taken it to a whole new level. Seriously! It all started with some great young women activities where we all learned to login to familysearch.org and submit names to take to the temple. Then I went home and showed Justin how to do it. Now Michael is even doing it! It is so easy and fun. Justin & I have been to the temple several times doing tons of family names and it is so special each time. We have also been verifying that our family tree's are accurate. Which some are not. So, I have contacted my dad, my grandpa, my grandma, and several of Justin's grandparents about getting pictures and stories of ancestors.

My grandparents, David & Carolyn & their eight kids

It really took off from there. There was one time when I couldn't find pictures of one set of my grandma's grandparents, I asked several people who I thought would know and they had no idea. My grandpa said he thought he might have some pictures of them so I set a time to meet with him at his house to find the pictures. When I got there I told him the names of the people I was looking for and he took me into this back bedroom and lo and behold there were two gigantic 20 by 30 framed paintings of them!

After taking pictures of them my grandpa then told me everything he remembered about them and started crying, and I started crying, and it was a really special experience. For Christmas I made my brother, sister, & parents family tree's. It was a lot of work.

Lots of compiling, printing, cutting, and glittering

I also put labels on each picture

For my sister's family

For my brother's family

For my parent's ( I went back much further)

Here are Justin's grandparent, Carol & Dee over 50 years ago

Here are Carol & Dee now :)

A few weeks ago I attended Roots Tech in Salt Lake City. It is the biggest family history conference in the world. It was amazing! I'll have to post more on that later.

Mother Like Daughter

My mother, Julie Wilson LaRocco in 1966

Me in 1994

Yep, it's me and my mom at about age 9. We both liked red, fancy lace collars, blunt-cut bangs, short hair, and yes a similar face shape. I have been noticing more and more qualities in myself that I got from my mom. She is an amazing woman, and I'd be proud to be like her. I love you mom!

Twilight Love!

I love Twilight! A good romance puts me in a good mood. I don't care if it's not popular anymore. Team Edward!

Miss Francy Makes Friends

It's crazy how different my kids are. Francesca, who seems to have taken on the nickname of "Francy", loves making friends. It's in her nature. First of all, she has built-in friends who happen to be her brothers. When they are at school she loves chasing Conrad around. When Conrad is napping she begs and begs me to play with a friend. She loves playing house, dress-up, my little pony, barbies, & dolls.

I think she is used to being surrounded by people, so that's where she is most comfortable.

Her BFF is definitly her grandma, my mom. He and my mom are so similar it's uncanny. From their petite size, to their feminine nature to their love of rolls and of playing in water, they are two peas in a pod. 

She is a lot like a sparker. ;)

I wanted to add that she also adores Justin's mom as well. 

I love this girlie girl of mine.

She makes me laugh and cry and smile all at the same time.

Making the Trek Northward

Another huge life changing event I wanted to update the blog on was our move. Yes, we moved from Springville to Lehi. We actually moved from Springville to Farmington to Lehi, but more on that later. It all started in the spring of 2012. We had originally planned on staying in Springville for 5-10 years, but Justin's job's kept bringing him north. First with AtTask, they moved from Orem to Lehi. Then he got his current job with EMC, which is located even further north in Draper. The commute was terrible, especially because there was a huge construction project happening directly along his commute. He was not a fan. Not just becasue of the hassle of the drive, but because it took him away from the family for an extra 1.5-2.5 hours a day, depending on traffic and weather. He even tried carpooling, which helped. But eventually after praying about it and going to the temple about it we decided to start making plans to move further north. Another motivation for moving further north was being closer to our families. So, since I was pregnant at the time, we decided that we would improve our house the best that we could now, then right after having the baby we would put our house up for sale. Fixing up our house was fun. Here are some of the projects:

New floors.

Front porch and landscaping project.

large amounts of priming, painting, and more tearing out old carpet, and installing new flooring. (this is the old carpet)

Our house went on the market when Conrad was one month old. We had about 3-5 showing a week. Here is the house blog I made: http://housewithcharm.blogspot.com. this whole time, we started looking at houses, which was very exciting. 

I wanted to look in the Salt Lake Valley, but Justin wanted to stay in Utah Valley. After realizing that not only is SL about 10-15% more $, but the yards are typically smaller, especially in the neighborhood I wanted to be in, (Daybreak). We signed the papers to build the home we are now in in September of 2012. We sold our Springville house just in time, closing in November of 2012. 

Floral Designing & Balance

As most of you probably know, I attended the Utah School of Floral Design in 2010.

Here I am with some of my fellow classmates. Shorly afterward, I officially started Field of Gold Floral Design, my flower design business. I did several weddings, mother's days, one valentine's day, and several other small projects.

I love flowers, I really do. I enjoy working with them. Unfortunatly, I had a really hard time balancing the flower business with motherhood, and my housewife duties. Because of this, I came to the conclusion and realization that now is not the season in my life to be starting businesses, big or small. Being the best mother and wife I can be comes first priority in my life right now. I'm not going to lie, Yes, occasionally I dream of being a working mom, but because of this experience and my experience with being an Avon lady, I think when the time comes for me to pursue a money-making opportunity, I would want to work for someboody else, in an office, outside of the home. For now, that is at least a few years in the future. I have found a new purpose and appreciation for being a stay-at-home mom. I try harder to cherish every moment with my sweet kids. I count myself extremely lucky that I am married to the most wonderful hard-working man I know.