rushley & crew

In the LDS church, babies are given a blessing, usually by their fathers, sometime in the first few months of their life. These blessings differ from a christening or baptism. They have a few purposes: 1. To give the baby a name by which they will be known on the records of the church; 2. To give the child a blessing as directed by the Spirit.  On January 8, 2017, Ada was given a name and a blessing by her dad. While the voice for the blessing is only one person (Russ in Ada's case), you can invite worthy priesthood holders to join the circle. Russ and I chose to only invite immediate family members (our dads, brothers, and brothers-in-law), one cousin (Luis, who couldn't make it), and one friend (Rob Holt). We wanted to keep it small, and we wanted to invite people who are really important in our lives and in Ada's. The most unfortunate event surrounding Ada's blessing was that her Papa T (Russ's dad) wasn't able to take part because he didn't make ...

I've mentioned my involvement in the cultural celebration a few times on the blog, but now that it's all over, I wanted to take some time to write about all the things I thought about and felt throughout the experience. It's difficult to write about, because so much of it is just feelings, and the feelings feel personal. Guess that's the trouble with a public blog that also serves as a personal journal haha :) +     Youth are so cool. They are fun and pure and wonderful. I had SO much fun working with them every week. I loved seeing them work hard and improve. I loved seeing their bright smiles that could light up their whole face. I also loved the healthy amount of teasing that went back and forth between us all. It felt like a little family sometimes :) After every Tuesday rehearsal, we'd all dance to the Electric Slide together, and it was so fun! These kids just all have such great personalities and it was fun to get to know them through this experience. +...

I meant to blog after my first week at my new job, but that obviously didn't happen since I'm now finishing up my third! Life is cuh-razy now, in case you were wondering. {new job} I now work Monday through Friday from about 8-5. My job is pretty cool and has lots of perks. A few of them are monthly birthday parties (a paid 45-minute event where we get a treat and get to hear about people who had birthday or work anniversaries), daily team-building breaks (paid 30-minute breaks where we play fun games like Snake Oil or the Skittles game), food truck Friday (a different food truck chills outside our building every Friday for a few hours during lunchtime), and 10am & 4pm stretching (just my team, just at our desks, but we usually all migrate together to chat for 5-10 minutes). There are also random optional things going on, like a monthly book club and yoga 2x/week during lunch, as well as currently a Bachelor bracket challenge, an Oscars nominee challenge, and a lip sync c...

Last year, too late to actually use it, I finished making this super cute advent calendar. Each of the squares is actually a little pocket so you can put a card saying what fun Christmasy thing we should do that day. But it turns out that's just kind of hard! You never know what's going to come up, and sometimes things will have to get pushed around, so I'm really not sure it's the best way to do a Christmas advent. So truthfully, we haven't even used this this year! BUT we have been doing Christmasy things, and here's a few: Dec. 1 - We watched The Holiday and I tried putting some ribbon in our tree. I didn't like it though haha Dec. 3 - We went to a holiday symphony concert. The whole reason we wanted to go is because the symphony's feature piece was the score of The Snowman . The Snowman  is Russ's favorite childhood Christmas movie, and it is a half-hour movie which, aside from the brief introduction, has no speaking, just music. (...

Exercise and I, we've never been friends. I'm just not one of those people who loves to work out. This is why I have to find things that are fun for other reasons. Throughout high school, it was dance because I love to perform and I love hanging out with friends. In college, I did zumba as often as I could find a good class because it basically gave me the same perks as dance. After marrying Russ, I adopted running (because he likes running), but had to make it better by having a running buddy or listening to good music. But lately, I hadn't been doing much of anything. So then I decided I was going to start hiking the Y every day. It's a kinda steep hike, so if you only do it every once in a while, it's pretty hard. In past times of hiking it, I'd have to pause at a lot of the switchbacks to catch my breath. But I started doing that, and have been doing it mostly every day for about 2.5 weeks. The hike has gotten a lot easier, and I can now do the whol...

Easter isn't about bunnies, baskets, or big blocks of chocolate. It is about the resurrection of the Redeemer of the world, Jesus Christ.  Because of Him, our lives can have meaning. Because of Him, we can be with our families forever. Because of Him, we can live again.  How has your life been blessed as a result of the life and mission of our Savior, Jesus Christ? **ashleynicole