With the Cousins

One of the great blessings of being married is that you become part of a whole new family; and one of the nice things for us living in Utah is that lots of Gerrit's extended family is close by. It's especially fun to be with and celebrate for the cousins, many of whom are close to our age. This past weekend was a Winkel weekend: on Saturday afternoon I got to go with my sister-in-law to a bridal shower for the fiancee of one of the cousins (thrown by the aunts), and on Sunday we all attended the missionary homecoming of a different cousin who has just returned from serving an LDS mission in Guatemala. We also had a great surprise when we found out Saturday afternoon that Gerrit's little brother Mark was in town from BYU-I, and we got to have him stay with us for the weekend. It's so fun to have all these family events and be close to family, especially since my family is all so far away! We're looking forward to seeing lots of the Winkel family this month with a baptism, birthday party, and wedding all in the next three weeks!


 

With Rachelle and Mark

All the cousins (in attendance) who have served missions so far. There are also two currently serving.

There were tons of people at the homecoming, but all the older cousins congregated here to eat and chat!

Valentine's Day

Gerrit has been getting up really early lately because his schedule is so crazy that he needs to access as many hours on campus as possible. So when he left on Valentine's Day at 5:25am it wasn't really unusual. He kissed me goodbye (I of course, was still in sleepy haze in bed), and when I heard him shut the front door I fell back asleep. I woke up again a few minutes before my alarm went off at 6:00am after hearing some sounds in my kitchen. I quickly turned off my alarm and stayed totally still listening; I knew somebody was in my kitchen. Terrified I grabbed my phone off the nightstand, slipped under my covers, and called Gerrit to have him come home immediately. As it turns out, he was already home, making me breakfast. He had left and come back with roses, Simply Orange juice, and some other yummy breakfast items, and was setting everything up. It was very sweet, once my heart stopped racing. :) We had a quick breakfast and I ran off to a 6:30 meeting. We didn't get to see each other again until about 7:30 that evening when I got home from an afternoon at the state capitol doing some advocacy work. Gerrit had set up dinner with our china and crystal and heated our yummy leftovers from Sunday's tikki masala dinner. While we didn't have a normal Valentine's Day, I am so grateful for a good husband who works with both of our crazy schedules to make things special for me. I love him!

Knowing Valentine's Day would probably be crazy, we celebrated over the weekend by doing sealings at the temple and going out to dinner. We also had lots of fun with the Tanner's and some other friends at a little party. We've really had a great few days!

Gerrit getting breakfast ready. I thought the orange slices were a very pretty addition.

The table I came home to after a very long day

Our very yummy dinner (this picture is from Sunday). Thanks to Lauren for sharing this recipe with me!

 Ready to eat!

 

Outside the Provo temple after doing sealings

At the Tanner's; we're so glad they're living here now!

The Next Two Years...

I'm so excited for Marc who just opened his mission call and found out he is going to be serving for two years in the Chile, Concepcion mission! He reports on June 20 and Gerrit and I couldn't be more excited for him! He got to come over and open his call with us while we Skyped with mom, dad and Jonathon, and had Lauren and Russel on speaker phone. After he opened his call we sat down for chicken parmesan--Marc's favorite home-cooked meal. We're grateful to be here in Provo while Marc is a BYU freshman so that we can see him so often and get to share in these exciting occasions. With mom and dad in Lima, Marc will stay with us until he leaves in June and we will drop him off at the MTC. I feel so blessed to be part of such a wonderful family and to have a good, kind, worthy little brother who is answering the prophet's call to serve the Lord!

Adventure I Could've Done Without

Lately I've been telling Gerrit that we need to do some new things and have some adventures so that I can blog about them. I got some adventure last night that I wish I could have avoided, but I'll blog about it anyway. :)

I really love to cook and I like to think I've become pretty adept in the kitchen. But last night while I was not paying attention I got a second-degree burn on my hand. The result wasn't very pretty, so I won't include a picture, but I ended up with blisters on the tips of my three middle fingers, the joints of my index and middle fingers, and the skin between my thumb and index finger. My whole hand was bright red and so swollen that I couldn't even pull off my wedding rings (which, by the way, has never happened before). My sweet husband took me to get some burn cream, gave me advil to reduce the pain and swelling, and then finished doing all the dishes. He let me know that he still loves me, despite my being currently maimed. :)

How did I manage to maim myself? I had made a yummy Mexican dish for dinner and had used two of my big skillets to cook it all on the stove. About an hour after finishing dinner I was doing dishes and the empty skillets were still sitting on the stove. I picked them both up, put them in the sink, changed my mind and picked up the Calphalon skillet by putting my hand underneath it and lifting. It was burning hot. Apparently I had turned off the front stove where my all-clad skillet was, but not the back stove that the Calphalon was on. I had assumed both were off and cool since they had been resting there for while, but the Calphalon skillet had just been sitting empty on a medium-high stove for an hour, and my left hand got the full brunt of its heat. Of course I know little about what to do for burns so went to the Mayo Clinic website and looked at their section about burns; I found that blistering and swelling, along with "severe pain" are signs that the burn is second-degree. All of those conditions fit for my poor hand.

While last night I was sure that I would never be able to use my hand again, it has been feeling much better today so I'm optimistic about recovery :) Still, I think I'll refrain from wishing for more adventure anytime soon!