Happy New Year

It's been a long time since I wrote. This holiday season has been filled with family time. In this picture, we're at temple square and had just gone to the Nutcracker...as a family.

Christmas was fine, New Years too. I'm hoping this year will be full of good things. I know it's cheesy but I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions and I have so many things I would like to work on. Getting to sleep earlier, watching less TV, work on my spirituality, cook delicious meals (I'm in a kitchen funk.), be balanced, have fun with my work, have fun as a mom, possibely mabe have number two...(so nervous about that one). Move out of Utah!(Sounds really negative but we just don't like the wintery months so we are seriously considering Atalanta Georgia.) And the list goes on...but I'm not discouraged by it, I'm actually excited for a new year, a fresh start. One thing at a time, a chance to be a little bit better.

One thing Emmanuel and I are definately going to do better for 2007 is balancing all of our ten bank accounts. Yep, ten! And for people that strongly dislike accounting and record keeping...we didn't do a good job for 2006 and now it's tax time and we have to give our books to the accountant...and let me tell you, we've been working into the wee hours trying to get everything entered, accounted for and balanced. A lot of sweat and tears. We have two accounts in France, one being my French business account. Then I have two in the US for my business and then Emmanuel has two....plus the business that owns our two businesses....A MESS! And so confusing for this little French major...who never studied accounting. But I'm proud to say that we've just about got everything in order and actually understand what I'm doing.

Isn't it interesting what you can learn through lifes experiences?!!

I LOVE (emphasize the love part) to ski!!!

Hello everybody. I went skiing yesterday with my sisters at Sundance(except Cindy who's on her way home from Boston for Christmas break.) It was so beautiful and so much fun. We had a blast...and since my sisters are single they were flirting it up, espcially Laura and so it was really funny and did I mention beautiful. Now I've got the bug. I want to go every weekend. Now, I just have to convince Emmanuel and get a babysitter.

All I want for Christmas is ...

a full length mirror and a scale.

Just kidding. The thing is...with the stress of my work and preparations for my seminars...I kind of packed on the pounds and I'm really really discouraged about it.

We don't have a full length mirror and since I don't put on weight on my upper body and face, I don't realize the extent of the Brigitte Jone's diet I've been on for the last five months. Ahhhh. Then when I go to church and the bathroom is full length and I realize that I look really round...reality kind of kicks in.

Now, I don't want to sound petty or materialistic, but when none of my skirts, pants nor shirts comfortabely fit me anymore and I feel like a bowl full of jelly and I can't even use post pregnancy as an excuse, I'm kind of disgusted.

So, Emmanuel and I agreed that we were going to eat better, plan our meals out before, and have one free day a week so I can resist chowing down on sweets during the week. And he suggested I go back to the gym, not everyday to be overwhelmed but three times a week.

We had a long talk about it because I told him how discouraged I was and I felt like it would take forever to get the weight off and he said if we follow our little plan for two months we should be back into shape.

At 28, soon to be 29, I just feel like it's so important to do something about the weight before I have another child and let time slip away.

I told my sisters to call my fatsy to help motivate me...it was a joke and we all had a good laugh but still...I really want to change but I feel kind of overwhelmed. I guess it's like any change, you've got to turn to the Lord for help and be committed.

Thanksgiving was so much fun. My sister Beth got a divorce so for the first time in 13 years, her negative husband wasn't there and it was like a huge breath of fresh air. So nice to just relax and be with the fam.

I'm trying to plan for next year for my business and exactly what we are going to do. I think I might do six or seven seminars in Euroupe and then maybe one in Canada.

Emmanuel's cousin Audrey who's 23 is coming for three months...I'm kind of luke-warm...about the whole thing. She doesn't have work, no school, just three months of hanging out at the house in American Fork. Did I mention she'll be sleeping on a matress on the floor in Julie's room?

Fun times, my friends, fun times.

Well, take care and I'll write more soon.

Hi you guys. I know the title might sound a bit harsh but I was just thinking how the design of this blog kind of sucks. But...I guess that's how it will be for awhile. I just spend a couple hours doing my business blog in French and it's much better than this but hey, I guess it's not so bad. Here's the link if you want to take a look...(Shannon, I still might need your help but I'll get back to you on that).

http://accrodescrap.typepad.com/

Anyway, I just got back from my second trip to France for my last two seminars in Lille and Nivelles, Belgium. It was a blast. Really, I had so much fun meeting these amazing women who are really talented in scrapbooking and it was a really relaxed atmosphere, more like hanging out with a 100 friends all day.

Plus, I went shopping again and got the cutest dress for Julie, some clothes for me and some chocolate. I was really proud of myself because I rented a car and managed to find my way from the airport to two different cities and back in five days without getting lost or in a wreck or stranded. Every last detail worked out to a tee. I could really feel Heavenly Father's help. And it's done...yeah!!! I'm taking a mental break. I've seriously been working my behind off for the last five months and I've decided to take this week of not doing anything besides the minimal must do's of life.

Plus Emmanuel did such a good job with Julie for five days. I'm so proud of him. Plus, he suprised me when I came home with a whole new Scrapbooking set up, a new desk, new organisational cupboards...I was so impressed. What a sweetheart. I've been thinking of what I can do for him...for Christmas or just for some random suprise. I was thinking of having my mom watch Julie for a night and going to a hotel some where close by for a romantic evening as a suprise. We'll have to see.

So, I've been thinking about Christmas and what I want and I always tell myself, oh...I'll just ask for one or two simple things but secretly in my mind once I get the ball rolling, there's no stopping and it's the same out of control list for Julie and Emmanuel. I try to be pratical and realistic but then I let my mind go and I have this like fantasy of what my dream Christmas list would be. I hope that doesn't sound materialistic but it's a weired quirky thing I have. Like I start thinking...oh I'll get Emmanuel a raquet for raquetball and oh wouldn't that be cool if I got him a new IPOD(this is the fantasizng part)...and then the list just gets out of control. For me, right now, I would really like some new perfume, some cute but pratical pajamas, new ski clothes, skies, a week-end get away, some new earrings, a new kitchen table, bath gel and you see....I just get out of control. That's why when it comes to Christmas, I have to force myself to think...I'll will just ask for one thing and that's it. I don't usually ever share this weired part of myself but I find it kind of funny.

So, I've been watching LOST season 3 and oh my gosh you guys, it's so good. But I wish they would give us more answers. I mean, last night, I dreamt the whole night about how LOST was actually taking place on a spaceship built to look like a planet to do expermints and to save the human race. I woke-up quite troubled thinking I've maybe got to cut back, knowing I never could, and desperately hoping that the episode I was going to watch during Julie's nap would reveal the myserty of the island...but alas...no...still as bizzarre and puzzling as ever. Do think we will ever understand LOST or will we be perpetually LOST for the whole show?!!

Oh well, it's not really important and anyway, no I have to wait till Febuary for the next one. Okay, enough jibber-jabber. Have a great week everyone.

Ahhh, la Brasserie George...

It's definately the best restaurant in the whole world. Seriously, you have no idea how good food can taste until you eat in this place. Our friends Sophie and Lionel invited us and it was amazing. I had duck's liver on toast for an appetizer (it's actually a tiny bit and it's really good...trust me...I normally don't like pate or stuff like that but this is really good.) And my main course was rabbit with pears in a wine sauce with vegetables and then for dessert...it's this amazing creation that we get everytime called l'omlette norvegienne with marangue and icecream...to die for.

Other trip highlights were...

My seminars...it was great...kind of stressfull but amazing. I met amazing women who are fanatical about scrapbooking and it kind of rekindled my passion so definately a total and complete success. I even got to share some of my beliefs with some people. That was the best part.

I also got to spend a week at my best friend Carine's place and it was fun to see our kids play together and we even went to a traditional turkish spa called hamam. You go into a steamy room full of seperate pools of water where you wash yourself. Then you go into another room where you laydown on a marble table and they scrub your entire body, taking off all the dead skin and then you take a hot shower, dry off for the relaxing room and then get rubbed with essentiel oils. Quite an experience and silky smooth skin. And only 27 Euros...like 32 dollars. It's what arabic women do before they get married...they do it usually once a month as well. Pretty cool. But I was glad to be with Carine and not alone.

We decided to leave Julie with Carine for my seminar in Paris so Emmanuel and I had a wonderful weekend where we were able to pretty much do anything we wanted, when we weren't working for the show. I had my seminar in a resort hotel at Eurodisney and so it was a really fun atmosphere.

I got my haircut. .I got bangs and dyed my hair a little darker than my natural colour. It's fun to change but I think I prefer longer hair without bangs but like I said...it's good to change.

Chocolate...can I say more?

I bought some fun clothes...some new shoes, a skirt, two shirts and a sweater.

Emmanuel's Aunt took Emmanuel shopping and he's got a whole new wardrobe...very nice.

And I got new shoes for Julie...so cute, purple suede ones and some cute new clothes.

While in France I got readdicted to the French version of American Idol...got two new addictions...LOST (oh my gosh, it's the most thrilling show ever. Emmanuel and I are in the process of renting all of season 1 and 2 to catch up). Then Desperate HouseWives.

It's really entertaining and Emmanuel loves it just as much as I do.

So right now we are preparing for a product launch on Friday. I'm selling a one hour on line class on how to make mini-albums from scratch. So I've been working like a mad woman, editing and formating the videos and Emmaneul is getting my website ready to go.

Plus I leave in two weeks to go to France again for five days and do two more shows so busy busy busy. I can't wait till it's over and I can maybe do nothing for a week.

Today though, I have to say, was quite interesting. Julie wakes up with hives all over her...so that was quite a panic and a rush to the doctor's. But it's just a virus so it's okay. Then while I'm shampooing the carpets she licks the cap of the carpet cleaning solution.

So I call 911 to get the number for poison control. But turns out, she just needed to drink some water. Phew. What a day. Tommorrow I'm hosting playgroup at my house and I'm excited.

I've been looking into preschools for Julie because I would like to enroll her when she's three for three days a week half-days. But my goodness it's expensive. It's 2000 dollars a year for ten months. I still need to look around though. There must be other options.

I also looked at skiing season passes because Emmanuel and I decided we wanted to be active and do the things we like. Well come to find out, I think that we may not get the season passes after all because to go half day during the week is only like 28 dollars and we honestly will probablly only go three or four times. I wanted one of us to get skis this year and one of us to get skis next year but that might be wishfull thinking. Well have to see.

Well, my friends, life is good. Very busy but good. Have a great day and I'll post some more pictures next time. Love Bernie

L'avenir means the future in French

My goals for the future:

1. Have an eternal family
2. buy a house
3. decorate this house with beautiful colors, art, and pottery
4. learn Italian and visit Italy
5. have a baby or two or three
6. to go skiing every year as a family.
7. go to an exotic island and go snorkling
8. be in shape
9. to see the world...(return to Mongolia to visit the ancient monastaries and show my children the simple ways of life, return to Scotland to go hiking in the Highlands- I was six months pregnant when I went) Go horseback riding in Ireland, visit Brazil, Japan and definately New Zeland. Show my kids the great wall of China and the amazing city of Beijing. I went there on my way to Mongolia)
10. I would really like to be active as a family-do bike riding, excercise, hiking, skiing, swimming, boating, travelling...horse back riding, dancing, and some moderate camping (I'm not a huge camper with kids.)
11. share the gospel in everything that we do, our travels, our lives, our services, our work...to help other people come unto Christ and have Faith in Him.

1. clean the carpets, clean the whole house...clean the car, wash Julie's car seat (call the blinds people and reschedule)
2. get my eye brows waxed or plucked but something, they need help
3. pack up all my scrap stuff for my show in Nov and store it nicely in the basement instead of in the living room (so tired of boxes)
4. make a hair apt the day of blast off
5. buy a small carry on suitcase for my scrap supplies to take on the plane with me because heaven forbid they loose my projects I'm teaching..(note to self: no siscors)
6. Finish my lessons and transfer my powerpoint presentations to Manu's computer.(make a copy) Make a copy of all handouts to be photocopied once on deck.
7. Get the small stroller from Grandma's.
8. Pay the bills and do the inssurance paper work
9. Buy Julie some jeans and some fall clothes (it's chilly in France)
10. Buy Jello for Carine and some spices for Brigitte and some snacks for the plane.
11. Buy a portable DVD player for Julie and Elmo. (maybe!)
12. Pack a toy bag for Julie for the plane.
13. Test out Benadryle to see if I should give it to her on the plane.
14. Do my 14th scrap lesson on my website and bid farewell to all my subscribers for a month
15. Send an email to all my Scrapbooking University participants about details of the day.
16. Answer all my emails and get it done...ahhh I have like a hundred people to respond to.
17. Relax...get a massage...it's all good. Heavenly Father's helping me so It's going to be so much fun.

Today was fantastic...I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my life where I just felt Heavenly Father's love so much and came to an understanding about myself. It was really a neat experience, almost too sacred to talk about in detail. But I just wanted to write a little about it here so I would remember this special day.

Just some events briefly:

1. Julie had an MRI-the cerebellum part of her brain is dammaged causing the balance problem.

2. I'm working so hard preparing my classes. This is one page I'm going to teach about free-style scrapbooking.

3. My best friend in France, Carine, lost her baby today. She was 7 months pregnant. They had to let the baby go because it's brain was filling with liquid and was a danger to Carine. She gave birth today and will burry her baby this week. I can't even imagine. I hope that I will be as strong as her during my trials. Heavenly Father has whispered to me that her baby is so special and sacred that it was ready to move on...and that Carine was such a strong and faithful daughter of God that she was chosen to be it's mother, even if just briefly.

4. Seeing my friends go through these various trails, some can't have kids, some children pass away, my own has a physical hanicap and I think of a quote in Sherri Dew's book on trials and if we could undrestand God's plan for us completely we would shout for joy for our trials.

5. I'm kind of getting baby crazy. I even bought a pregnacy test and of course I'm not pregnant and I laugh at myself because, duh, I don't want to be sick during my vacation ..but I'm starting to want to grow our family and bring my next daughter into this world. I want to call her Sophia Sue. But we'll see because then her intials will be SSS and that seems wiered.

I debated wether to put this picture in but I just think it's so cute and since I don't have a large crowd of people looking at my blog, mainly my girlfriends, I figured why not.

So ever since julie was little, for some reason she's obsessed with putting my underwear over her head and walking around with a purse or a bag. She just really really likes it. Longer story short, for my sister's birthday we went to the mall and she had a free pair of panties gift certificate from vicky's but they didn't have her size so, voila, I got a free pair.

And I just thought it was cute seeing Julie with the vicky's bag and the new undies around her neck. I definately need to scrapbook this one. She'll die one day over it but for now it makes me laugh.

I know earlier in the year that I complained that julie cried all the time and that she was a royal pain sometimes. But now that she's two, I think she's adorable. We have so much fun and I love playing with her, listening to her sing totally off tune with me, and hearing her new words. It's totally a blast. I guess I like the fact that she's no longer a baby but a little girl who is underestanding her world and communicating with me. It's a lot of fun. It will be good for her to be in France for a month right now to reinforce the French. I plan to only speak French to her while we are there. She needs it. Her English is much stronger than her French but that's normal...that's what she's surrounded by. So fun times with little Julie Marie...!

I got my hair-cut and I don't really like it. I'll post a picture soon but man, I really liked my layered long hair. It looked really good but it was dry and needed a cut but she cut it short and all one length-really classic looking. I look ten years older. (no, I'm probablly exaggerating but I'll have to get it re-cut becasue I can't stand it. I guess I have to look for a new place to go.

I saw a super movie last night (the world trade center). It really gave me so much respect for those policemen and firefighters, and the marines...basically everybody involved.

My sister cindy is leaving to Boston for grad school to get a masters in national security and political science. That one's going places, I'm telling you. She's one smart cookie. For the past year, after she graduated from BYU she's been working in the Public Affairs office for the National Reserve here in Utah...not her first choice but what can you do just out of school. Anyway, they were so impressed with her capablilities that they soon had her writing all the general's speeches (who is general over 7,000 soldiers and in six states) as well as editing a military magazine and being the official spokes woman for the reserve here in Utah. We attended an award ceremony were whe was given a citizens medal for excellence and they said an amazing speech about her brilliance. And it was sooo cool. I'm telling you, I'm not pro-war, I 'm not pro-bush administration, I'm not pro-Iraq and I'm pretty socialist but that day, being there with those men dressed in uniform gave me such a new-found feeling of respect and awe for those that dedicate their lives to protecting our country.

When it was Cindy's turn to give her speech, she said that she was honored that those men would die for her and now she was going to do her part and go and get her masters to work in internal security to keep them safe the best she could. All these big, strong military guys had tears in their eyes. It was really cool

I'm so proud of cindy. She's doing so much in her life, despite her handicap. How many students going into grad school have a medal from the army?

So I guess that's enough bragging about my little sister but I'm so proud. I'm excited to see what Cindy will do. I'm going to miss her and boy would I LOOOOVVVEEE to take a weekend trip to Boston to visit.

And for my business, I know have 5,000 subscribers on my website. We are leaving in two weeks to go to France for a month and I'm excited slash so busy getting ready for the trip. I need to not forget to get a super toy bag for Julie on the plane. She can't sit through sacrament so I wonder how we are going to do it.

Well, enough is enough. I better hit the sack.

(Julie's 2nd birthday-Browine Sundays-mom's favorite)

On August 4th, Julie went to Primary Children's Hospital for eye surgery to fix her cross eye. They tightened the muscles of her right eye on the outside and loosened them on the inside. It was a simple operation but that brought back so much anxiety and emotions from Julie's 4 month stay in ICU as a new born. Phew! Luckly my mom was with me that day.

They gave her a narcautic in the waiting room before putting her under because they were afraid she was going to scream and be traumatized by the seperation of them taking her back to the operating room. I am against heavy painkillers or medication like this unless absolutely necessasry. I just don't like have that out of control, totally waisted feeling and I didn't want my daughter under such strong meds but it was a good choice because she was getting so worked up that once they gave it to her, she just calmed down and didn't cry once the doctor came and picker her up and carried her away. I wanted to be strong and not to let it get to me. It was just eye surgery but there was so much association of past anxiety and heart-ache, just being in the hospital and around nurses and doctors. I mean I spent four months practically living in a hospital around this kind of environment so I was quite teary eyed during the whole thing.

While she was being operated on, my mom and I got a bight to eat then we went to a waiting room and talked about marrige and so that got my mind off of it. Finally when they came to get me because she was waking up, that's kind of when I fell apart. They took me into the room and Julie was sleeping in a nurses arms and when they put her in my arms, she went crazy, thrashing about, screaming bloody murder. She was hooked up to all those wires again: the heart beat, the blood pressure the IVs and it was like the exact same machines she was hooked up to for so long two years ago that I kind of just lost it. There was wires thrashing all about and I the nurses were shouting things at me but I couldn't hear them and then suddenly a nurse took her from me, positioned her differently and she just fell back to sleep on my lap. I was balling and I said through my sobs, why is she doing this. The nurse but her arms around me and said it was normal and that seemed to calm me down.

Then they transffered us to another room and that woke her up again and it started all over again except this time she was saying owie owie owie over and over again. My mom was with me in this room and there were lots of othe children waking up from anesthisia but Julie was the only one screaming like we were killing her. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and I started yelling at a nurse..."Do something, this ins't normal, none of the other kids are screaming bloody murder...do something." I shoved Julie in my mom's arms and ran to the bathroom crying. I came out two minutes later and deeply apologized to the nurse and said that I panicked.

Then another nurse took Julie and paced up and down the room to calm her and finally once she had calmed down, I took her in my arms until she woke up and was ready to come home. Wow! What an emotional day! All my stress and anxiety came back from two years ago. I have such a hard time seeing my child go through pain. I can't deal with it. It literally breaks my heart and I fall apart. So, I hope that this is the start of a new beginning of no more operations and hospital visits. Though Julie is having her MRI at the end of August so that we can detect why she has her Ataxia balance problems. So we'll have the lovely joys of coming out of anthesia again. Yipee.

I love my daughter so much. I know my situation is special. I know most moms haven't had to endure 3 operations before their child is two and MRI to see why their child has balance problems.

I want to have atleast three kids but I wonder sometimes if I have it in me. I know that having a special needs child can actually be easier with siblings becasue they entertain eachother and take care of eachother.

I want to have a baby next year. I think it is time and I think it will be good for our family. Julie is an awesome sleeper and has woken up maybe ten times during the night in 2 years. No joke! And this last week she woke up around 1 AM and both Emmanuel and I were like, Oh no, we can't have anymore kids...how are we going to get-up everynight? We both had the same reaction but then she setteled down and we went back to bed and it was okay in the morning.

I guess we're spoiled.

Here is one of my favourtie pictures of Julie with her "Krammer hair!" Gotta love it.

WEll, I've been reading about these cavity experiences and I've got to tell you, it makes me really nervous. I myself suffered from many cavities growing up and into my adult life. But a strange thing happened when I moved to France I no longer had any cavities. None for 4 years. I couldn't believe it. I would go and be like, "are you sure? Positive?" I would even double check at different dentists, going to the best ones. And no cavities. So I started asking the dentists about it and they told me the biggest difference perhaps is the consumption of sugary drinks and the consumption of water.

In France they don't drink juice at the table or give it to their kids in a bottle. They only drink juice at special occassions or at a party. It's like soda for them. However, to get the vitamins they eat fruit or apple sauce. They also don't drink milk at the table or give it all day to their kids in bottles. They give them cheese to munch on and yogurt. There is an extreme amount of sugar in juice and in milk. In France they just drink a lot of water and then they eat foods that would supplement the things you would need in milk or juice.

I thought that was so cool and if it meant that I didn't have cavitites than I was so happy.But this is just a hyposthesis and maybe they just had a high amount of flouride in the water and since that's all we drank most of the time...that's why.

So I rareyl buy juice here and I hardly ever give it to Julie. I also try to give her foods with calcium rather than a big cup of milk to sip on. The doctor here said that rots kids teeth more than anything.

But as I'm saying this, I"m siping a glass of orange juice and thinking about the last time I really did a good job brushing Julie's teeth....Hmmmmm?! Food for thought! But it all makes me very nervous.

Well, this week I have been up to midnight everynight, trying to get order forms filled out, contacting manufactures and buying a bucket load of scrapbooking materials.

I know have 4,340 subcribers. I get 20 new ones a day. My goal is to become the Martha Steward of France in scrapbooking, to have the number one website. I've done all this with out spending a dime, expect for my host server of course and my auto-responder. But I was thinking of maybe investing in a search optimizer, my good friend Derrick Davis works for a company that optimizes web sites and now that I have some money in the business, I thought about doing that. And also, getting some proffesional pictures taken to put on my site.

My cousin is doing a Scrapbooking University Graphic for me. She's a really good graphic designer who works for some top firm in Conneticut. So I'm really grateful to her. She did my logo as well.

Then my goals with my company are to:

1. MAKE SOME MONEY (duh!!!)

2. Put out a beginner DVD and maybe a beginner kit that goes with it.

3. Do kits, where I sell an on line e class plus the kit that goes along with it.

4. Eventually get my own product line going in French but that 's really a dream for right now.

So I'm busy busy busy but I like it. It's scrapbooking after all.

I'ts one in the morning and I'm like so busy you guys.

I feel like I've been a bad friend not responding to emails but I'm so busy getting ready for my classes in Sept and Nov.

It's exciting but nerve racking at the same time. I thought having three months would be plenty of time to get everything together. HA!

I only work during Julie's naps and at night...so you can imagine.

But we get to spend a month in France so yipee!

I'm going to buy some CLOTHES! Yeah! And maybe get a cool hair cut and color done. We'll see. I've kind of gotten chubby, all the stress leads me to eat sweets. When I say chubby, I mean like 5 pounds or so, not like a huge rolly polly. But I went to the pool in my bikini last night and I felt a little too pudgy to be wearing it. Hmmmm...

One of my life's battles! Oh well, I got a lot done tonight so I'm happy.

I just read over all the entries I've made this year. It's very good to keep a record to remember what you've experienced (Refrence to Shanon's Journal Blog entry.)

As I was reading, it kind of opened up to me that fact that this year has been really difficult with a lot of stresses and the fact that I'm a bit tired, discouraged and at the end of my rope could be completely normal.

To tell you the truth, I'm a bit tired. I'm a bit tired of everything, except Julie and Emmanuel of course. Julie is doing so well right now. She's just blosoming and I will always love Emmanuel.

But...something's missing. I don't want to have a baby anymore until next year. Until we have a more stable life.

I guess maybe that's what's misisng-stability. It's a such a vast topic, with so many layers and deep emotions in my heart that I couldn't even put it down in writting. It's seems like I couldn't do it justice and I don't want to point the blame or criticize in anyway my other half.

Plus, to be completely honest, I miss France. I miss my friends, I miss my apartment, I miss the food(I'm so sick of Walmart I could spit-it's always the same) I miss going shopping because we had money for me to go shopping, I miss the clothes, and looking cute and the mentality. I miss walking to the post office and the TV shows and being invited over to eat and inviting people over to eat. I miss the great restaurants and I miss the awesome babysitter we had. I miss the vacation time, I miss my vacum, I miss julie's pediatrician and I didn't think I would ever say this, but I miss our little demanding ward that was driving me crazy.

I feel like everthing is so fad here. I feel like it's like one big mush of people all wearing the exact same old Navy T-shirt and cut-off shorts and flip-flops with no diversity or color. And now I'm wearing the same and I have the weirdest sensation like a part of me I really liked is fading away. I remember when Emmanuel and I were dating and he lived in Paris so I would go to visit him on the weekends and I remember meeting him after work at a really busy metro stop and saw litteraly thousands of people swirl buy and feeling dizzy. I mean thousands of people and just feeling like one tiny grain of sand in a huge swirling sand storm. And I kind of have a similar sensation here but a litte different. I'm totally not trying to be rude and I think there are a lot of great people here and maybe this could be the same in a lot of other places in the US as well, but I feel like I'm floating down a cultural river of blahness. It's like, where's the color and the life of it all?

Hmmm...I think I'm just tired and I'm going to go to bed early.

Well, I have some good news and some news. I don't want to say bad news because I believe everything is for our best and highest good. But our little Julie, we believe has Cerebral Palsey, slight and totally physical in nature but we believe that's finally what it is.

She walks like she's drunk and she holds her hands up for balance. She falls over a lot and has no depth perception. She's completely mentally and emotionally with it but has a gosh darn dizzy spell. It's a type of CP that manifests itself between eighteen months and two years old, when they start becoming mobile.

Well, what can a mother say to that? I grew up in a family of special needs and so I know that having a physical handicap is not the end of the world, in fact you can lead a very normal life with a physical disability. So...

It's for her Best and Highest Good...to become the wonderful person she's meant to be, this is the challenge Father in Heaven has blessed her with.

We are going to try to push for therapy twice a week to help strengthen her muscles and just smooth her motions out.

I had a moment of blame and anger that came over me because these disabilities are caused by a lack of oxgyen to the brain. The second time Julie was operated on...they took the tubes out a little too early and Julie had a really hard time breathing until finally they had to put them back in. But that hardtime breathing was like six-8 hours long. I remember at the time feeling that that was'nt right and I even complained to the head of the service who called me back and deeply apologized. Hmmmm...

Well...since I wrote this, I met with the phsycial therapist and he personally doesn't think it's Cerrebral Palsey but that she's 9 months behind phsycially in her developement. He thinks she's at a level of a13 month old baby physically and she keeps her hands up for balance and to protect herself from falls.

But we should know for sure at the end of July when she has an appointment with a neurologist who will examin her brain and figure out what the heck is going on.

Okay, now for the good news. Emmanuel and I met with an accountant this week and opened two LLC businesses Accro De Scrapbooking LLC and Opportunity to Grow LLC. And our corporation is The Segui Group LLC INC. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's all for tax purposes and to keep Emmanuel and I's business seperate.

So to make a very long and complicated, tedidious story short, I have opened up three new bank accounts and am going through accounting bootcamp!

So now I am President Bernadine of Accro De Scrapbooking LLC. I like the sound of that. On the 26 of June I opened up a registration on the internet for my Scrapbooking University Kit and free ticket to the scrapbooking University seminar with Bernadine in Geneva Switzerland, Lyon, and Paris in Sept. and Bruxelles and Lille in Nov.

We did some simple but effective marketing skills to build anticipation for the registration and it was Monday morning at 6AM in Euroupe and in 12 hours we had had 150 people sign up and had generated 11,700 Euros. Buy the end of the week we have almost sold out all the places and have reached 20,000 Euros. Now this is of course not all profit because, I have to buy a lot of material, 4 plane tickets, rent confrence rooms and pay for the accountant and lawyer fees(defintely not cheap.)

But I am so proud of Emmanuel and I and I'm sure it's going to be so much fun. I'm so busy though it's crazy. But at least we get a family trip to France in September. Well, I wanted to include a picture but I'll have to do that another time. Love you all and have a wonderful week.

Emmanuel went to LA for five days for a business confrence so Julie and I have been spending quality girl time together. Though I miss Emmanuel, I have to admit that it makes eating time and scheduling things a lot easier with just Julie and I. We had mac and cheese for like three days. And I bought some yummy foods that Manu doesn't like. But I miss him and I'm excited when he'll come back on Tuesday.

I have to admit to something. With Emmanuel gone, I've been a scrapbookin' fool. Friday night I scrapped eight hours after Julie went to bed. Now I've cut it back to four hours every night. I just have so many fun projects and fun ideas. I made a mini album for Emmanuel's grandma who's sick to cheer her up. And then I'm doing a World's Best Dad frame and picture and I love it. I hope Emmanuel will like it. I'll try to post a picture of it when I'm done. Plus, I just finished my 11th on line class on the different ways to use acrylic paint on your layout. The page turned out awesome which is always a good thing when I'm going to be braodcasting it to over 3000 people.

I read a really good book this week called "Holes." I can't tell you the author but it was a Newberry Award winning novel.

And note to self-Although my daughter loves tomatoes and loves Mac&Cheese, don't mix them and then heat them in the microwave. It's absolutely the most disgusting combo you could imagine. Poor Julie!

I've been looking in the mirror this last week and oh my goodenss, those wrinkles under my eyes seem to be permenant.

I always wanted to be one of those people that grew old graciously. You know, accepted and embraced it when I got spider vains, droopy boobs (not quite to that point yet thank goodness) and wrinkles. But I'm thinking, I'm 28 and I have wrinkles...ahhh!

And do you ever put on make-up and you do yourself up but you feel like you look exactly the same? I saw that on sombebody elses blog. But I guess that wrinkles mean life experiences and growing. So I shall embrace them! I love my wrinkles! (wink)

Just playing with my new camera!

We had such a nice weekend. Just peaceful and relaxing. It started out with our friends watching Julie and we went on a date to Borders. Tacky I know but we got an ice cream cone and walked around afterwards.

Then Saturday morning I went to the temple and did a session for an ancestor and it was WONDERFUL. So peaceful.

Then we went to the pool and had a fun time splashing around though Julie prefers to walk around the outside of the pool carrying her ball.

Then Sunday morning we all slept in, went to the park up in Alpine and then went to church. Afterwards, we all collapsed and took naps and then went to my mom's for porch time, chatting for a couple hours about everything and anything with my parents, my sister Cindy, brother Nathan and Julie just playing in the dirt. So nice.

I wanted to bear my testimony today but I ended up chatting with some mom's in the changing room.

So I thought I would do it here. I just wanted to testify of God's love and on obedience. As an adult, I've struggled with knowing God loves me in my head but not in my heart. And I've really struggled with feeling like I deserve His love.

The logic in my head is that my self-worth depends on my goodness and obedience, thus being the imperfect being I am, never measuring up thus never fully deserving of God's love or blessings.

Twisted I know. I've had many a session with good therapists, believe me...who've told me... and worked with me on the fact that even if I was to be a complete vegetable or a wild sinful person, my intrinsic value and worth will always be the exact immense quantity. Nothing I can do will change that.

So, just recently I've felt so overwhelmed by the long check-list of things that I'm not very good at (things that seemed so natural before) like fasting, temple attendance, praying, reading scriptures, getting my visiting teaching done, being oh so happy and prepared every Sunday for my Primary class plus being a devoted mother to my special needs daughter (she has therapy that I need to do with her every day and I just have to be on top of things all the time with doctor appointments and such.)

Plus, I just started to ask myself, "What does that even mean that our goal is to return to Heavenly Father?" I mean what does that really mean??! I mean when I heard this at church or at the temple, I was like...that means absolutely nothing to me...like no feelings of, "yes, that's what I want." No tender yearnings, nada. But I have faith in God and I prayed to Him and asked for help to understand, for clarity and the spirit. And I was able to recall a time when I wasn't with my baby or husband and I was doing something I really liked but I was so depressed to not be with my family. And in fact, that's the way it would be if after this life, I couldn't be with Heavenly Father. And it all comes down really that I need to get to know Him even better so I can have an actual desire to return to a loving Father and not just some biblical stranger.

Plus, lately when I've been going to the temple, I was just finding it so weird and I never did before. Even the first time I went, I thought it was beautiful and wonderful and all of a sudden, I'm like what in the world does all this mean and do I even get it? Without going into too many details, I just doubted a lot of stuff that I was seeing because in my heart, I imagined things differently or things seemed contradictory.

So with all these spiritual challenges, I decided that I would put my faith in Heavenly Father so I mentally started to review my testimony-yes, I know the Book of Mormon is true and I know Joseph Smith was a true prophet and I know that God listens to my prayers. I just know it. So I decided that even though I found the temple to be weirder each time I went...that I would redouble my efforts to prepare for my primary lessons and do my visiting teaching and go to the temple. Because I know the church is true so I decided to do all those things that I was just having such a hard time doing, heck I even did a full fast this weekend and I went back to the temple...and I felt PEACE. I felt that it was okay and the fact that these things were hard for me was a test and I was forging ahead and becoming a better woman because of it.

I never thought that one of the tests of life would be that our testimony would be tested and brought into question. Well, I guess I did know that. I mean duh, right? But I figured it would be from an outside source not from inside.

But I will never abandon my efforts. I have the capacity to follow the gospel because otherwise Heavenly Father wouldn't ask it of me or any of us.

I know that there is joy that comes from living our covenants and this is my testimony!

PS...(I wouldn't have shared ALL of this over the pulpit, just the abbreviated version)

(And you thought I was kidding when I mentioned a therapist! It's just because I have such an immense heart that can hold so many intense emotions and sometimes I need a bit of help, sorting through it all. I'm a big fan of therapists! Everyone should go at least once!)

Do you ever get so frustrated because you have a million things you'd like to do but because your thinking about all the things you want to do, you don't get anything accomplished? I keep telling myself, the bathroom will be the way I want it when Julie's older or I will get to read maybe in two years. During those moments I think back to my mission and think, okay, I can do this.

Sigh!

Life is good my friends. Marriage is such an adventure. I've discovered this week I have a special needs daughter and husband. (smile)

Emmanuel is wonderful, the best guy ever. It's just sometime we have trouble communicating because his family never communicated if not to criticize and put down. And I came from a family, where if something was up, we talked about it with love and trust, knowing our parents loved us no matter what.

What a difference love and trust can make. So I've come to the realization that communicating for him is a negative thing, something to be defensive about and avoid at all costs. And I can't expect him to be perfect at it with a snap of my fingers.

Plus for goodness sakes, I'm not perfect at it. Sigh!

But the good thing is, we had a good, really good talk about it and I felt so much better.

Being a wife and a mother I'm learning PATIENCE, PATIENCE, Forgiveness and some more PATIENCE. What a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Here are some pictures I took for father's day...I want to make a special frame and put some quotes around it or a calendar or something for Emmanuel. I'm excited to plan a special day. I love special events and being sneaky with suprises.

I didn't realize jet lagg was possible when you haven't even left the county but oh it is. I am like massively dragging, just like after a 20 hour plane ride to France and back. Every morning when I wake up it's like that first night's sleep after travelling where you're body's aching, begging for more sleep. What happened to me?

CKU happened. Oh my gosh-two and half days of non-stop scrapbooking and I am like a zombie. It was really fun but absolutely those most exhausting thing I've done in a really long time.

And you know, not being at the house for three days has completely got me behind in everything-mountains of laundry, vacuming, grocery shopping, dusting, a mountain of new scrapbooking supplies to root through and organize and my finances to look at. And seeing as I'm kind of a neat freak, it's freaking me out.

So I am like totally jet lagg exhausted but I'm so glad I went here's some pictures.

And here I am with the biggest name in scrapboking, the editor of Creating Keepsakes magazine, Lisa B.

I have a slight problem...my computer hard drive is full to the BRIM! So I have to delete some stuff but the problem is, I don't want to delete anything. I have 20 videos I've made and I don't want to delete any of them. So what Emmanuel and I finally came up with, is that I'm going to burn the movies I did for the online scrap store in France on to a CD-Rom, just as a copy. And then I'm going to start editing the rest for a DVD I plan to sell on the top 20 things every beginner scrapbooker should know (in French by the way) so I have 8 of those done but I need more space to get the rest done, so gosh darnet, I'm going to have to buy an external hard drive for 100 bucks and store the rest on that and once it's all done and edited...I can erase the big AVI files, put them into MPG and burn it all on DVDs and have space again. It's so complicated but I'm glad we found a solution. Now all I need to do is find how I'm going to get the extra hundred bucks out of our budget. Hmmmm.

We finally decided that we're going to go to France in September as a family and I will do two scrapbooking seminars in Paris, two in Lyon and one in Geneva, and that should pay for the trip and some.

Now, I've got a ton of planning to do. I've been looking at becoming a wholesale buyer of scrap supplies so that when I do my seminars and I give away free stuff, I can buy it at a much cheaper price.

BUT...it's kind of complicated to become wholesaler because they don't want just anybody doing it, you have to be a real business, selling scrapbooking stuff. So, I've called a financial advisor who is going to help me open a business and explain to me the ins and outs of doing business in France. Plus, I think what I will do is I will sell supplies at my seminars if people want to buy them.

I steam cleaned my carpets today. It was strangely blissfully peaceful to see the dirty spots wash away and have beautifully clean carpet. If you ever want to make me happy, put me in a clean house and I'm in heaven.

Well, I think that 's enough. We were supposed to have FHE but Emmanuel's home teachee called and asked him for a favor so he left and here I am, with a list of a million things to do but I just needed to write and get everything off my chest.

Hello everybody...

Today was a great day. I bought roses for my mom and invited her and my dad to a traditional Marocan dinner at my house: Chicken CousCous...yum! I was quite happy with the results though the recipee called for a cup of wine and I totally spaced it but it tasted just fine without the liquour.

One of my favourite things to do, is to have people over to eat. It stresses me out to make the meal but when we sit down and enjoy the meal and company, it's heaven for me.

Then we had all my brothers and sisters plus all the kids over to our house for cheesecake and presents. It was quite pleasantly chaotic.

Then I gave Julie a bath and we played peek a boo for like a half hour and she just kept laughing and laughing. After a nice snuggle and a prayer, I put her to bed and I feel quite at peace. Some days make it all worth it.

I hearn on NPR radio about the origins of mother's day. Nope, it's not some commercial plot to make us buy choclates and cards. It actually originates from 1870 during the civil war, from a lady who was sick of the stink of blood on her sons and husband coming home from war.....who made a proclamation to women everywhere to put a stop to blood spilling. So for years it was a women's peace promotion day and then in the 1950's, if I remember correctly, they changed to honoring women...I read her original proclomation to my family and I think it's quite powerful.

remembering the meaning of Mother's Day as we read the Mother's Day Proclamation, penned in Boston by Julia Ward Howe in 1870:
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy
and patience.
We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the
summons of war.
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the
dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to
the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of
Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of
nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most
convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace.

I wish peace in your homes, peace in my home, peace for all children and mothers everywhere. The power of a woman is stronger than we often realize.

Do you ever just want to sit down and cry and have a big fat pity party because you can't take it anymore as a mother? Well, ladies, that's what I did at 4:30 PM today in the upstairs hall. Julie had slipped on the mopped kitchen floor and didn't hurt herself but was scared and let it rip full force. Now, if it had been the first time today or maybe even the fifth I would have handled it better. But seeing as it was her 25th time today where she just decided to scream and scream and scream at the top of her lungs, well, I did what any sane person would do and that was lay down on the floor and cry. It was my cleansing catharsis of all the stress and emotions built up. Heck, I bet she could throw ten more full on screaming fits today and I could take it.

Now I ask myself? How do we do it? How do we continue day aftter day doing this? Is it this hard for everyone? Maybe it's even harder for some...(I like to think that, it kind of gives me hope.) And then deep down I'm absolutely terrified to have more children. How in the world will I handle two of them screaming? How will I get ANYTHING done? I love my daughter more than anything but I think for my sanity, I'm going to have to ship her off to some boot camp preschool that knows how to deal with screaming two year olds. Plus I have all this pressure on me, because I just quit my job this Tuesday...uh-oh there she goes again...another one full force...gotta go!

Okay, I'm back. You can tell today has been a really hard day to top off a really hard week because I packed up the fam and we had dinner at McDonalds. We hate fastfood and only eat it like three times a year...so like my husband said, you know mom's depressed when I'm ordering a BigMac with a coke. He said Julie was going to become Obesse if we eat there again so anyways, I figure once every 4 months isn't a big deal.

I did quit my job. My boss was cool about it. It's this bitter-sweet experience because I hated talking on the phones for hours and the pressure to up-sell...ahhhh! And I love having my evenings back. But oh how the days are looonnnngggg! And oh how I'm so bored until Julie goes to bed. Thus, the sit down and cry saga!

But I quit because Emmanuel told me he felt that if I did, the Lord would help us have enough money and so we could restore some order and peace in our home. And guess what, we alreday have enough money for next month. And Emmanuel's earning enough for the following month after that. And all of that, since I quit my job. The Lord is blessing us.

I bought my dream Camera! Yeah! But believe it or not, I was in such a funk this week that when I tried taking my first few pictures and they came out horrible, fuzzy and distorted I was like depressed for three days. Then I took some more outside and they were a ton better. I talked to my sister and she said taking good pictures takes a lot practice and time and experience. I just figured if I had the camera, I would have awesome pics. Sigh!!!!!

Sometimes, I wonder if I'm in way over my head. Or if life is supposed to be this overwhelming or if it's just me creating a messy buzz in my head. I try to pray for help everytime I feel overwhelmed and it helps but sometimes I feel like it's more than I can handle. The reason why I'm saying this is because I'm trying to plan a trip to France where I'm going to do 4-5 scrapbooking confrences. So I'm trying to see if I can get some sponsors, rent confrence rooms, get my registration and payment methods all set up on my website, get a curriculum and get it going.

And it's like, can't I have a normal life sometimes???? That's my husband and I's joke! We'll never have a normal life, we're Segui's, we're dreamers, entrepeneurs...but there's a price to pay with all that and sometimes it's heavy for me. Rome wasn't built in a day I guess. By the way, this is kind of therapeutic for me to write all this so if it gets a little long, no offense taken if you just want to stop reading.

Like it's a Friday night and I'm working still and Emmanuel's working still. What do normal people do on a Friday night? I need to stop and do somehting fun but what? I did want to see Mission Impossible 3.

Well, on that note, before I quit my job, I did buy some Tahitian Noni Spa body stuff so maybe I'll exfoliate. Or maybe eat some icecream...Monday I start working out again...I'm starting to get chubs again. Sigh! Well, godnights ladies.

I'm doing a scrapbook about the 20 most memorable things in my life so far and this is my college page about BYU and the scan is really bad plus the cut and paste job but it's the best I could do. I'm copying an example I found in CKU magazine but I liked doing the layout because it helped me stretch in a different way artistically than I usually go.

At Grandma's!

1. Julie is finally covered by CHIP! Phew, what a relief!

2. Less temper tantrums, I'm trying to be more of a teacher to her. I bought flash cards, she's already learned several words. She's walking more but still wants to hold my hand a lot. So I give it to her because I think it builds her confidence and sense of saftey.

3. Reading a great book that I think I might use for a series of FHE lessons for Manu and I to master...it's called, Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline.

4. Hate my job, want to quit. Most jobs I've just sucked it up. This one, I need to do the same for a little while longer.

5.Coming up with a plan to quit- I'm seriously thinking about doing scrapbooking seminars in France, teach what I leanred at Creating Keepsakes University, bring a lot of great free stuff and charge 80 dollars a day per person. I have 2000 subscribers to my site and people love what I do so I figure, hey, make a buck and quit my job. Also, thinking of offering to do online videos for other scrapbooking companies for some extra income.

6.Becoming obsessed with Photography! As soon as I get my check for that job I did two weeks ago, I'm going to buy a sweet camera and start my journey towards photography bliss. Even thinking of taking a class at UVSC to hone my skills, or just aquire some would be nice.

7.Had a fight(cough) I mean discussion with Manu about frustration and stress in our home. Hate fighting, love making up and discussing how we can do better.

8. My sister is getting a divorce. Totally shocking yet kind of appropriate considering her husband's behavior. But wow, it's such a shame for him, he had so many chances to change.

9. I've got my finances in order, a budget planned out for the month of May, and a system set up to record and store all reciepts spent. Now, we just need to see if I'll do it.

10. Yesterday bought coucous and waiting for Carine to send me some coucous spices from France and some chocolate. I sent her a scrapbooking package and so she sending me a little French goodie package. yeah!

PS My parents are moving to Missouri next year so Emmanuel and I are thinking of where we want to go. Unfortunately, where they bought a plot of land is the most boring place in the whole earth, Springfield MI. We're more into places where things have a possibility of happening, so as much as I love my family, we've decided to perhaps move near Atlanta. I loved it when I spent a summer with Tamra. We both want warm and green. California's too expensive for us right now so we thought, heck(notice the appropriate expression) why not Georgia? There's parks, the beach isn't that far, Florida isn't that far, there's a temple, there's green, there are lakes, rivers and southern accents flying all around. So we'll see but it won't be for another year until we even really consider. We just don't want to stay in Utah our whole lives, though life isn't so bad.

Once I decide to have a baby,I always just assumeI'll get pregnant right away. Well, nope! Sigh! I have to admit, I was disappointed. But hey, there's always next month. For Julie it took four months so I guess I should just relax and not think about it too much.

This past week, Emmanuel won the prize for the most helpful and patient husband award. I was working full time at my new job plus every spare minute on those scrapbooking Videos I was hired to make by a company in France. And Emmanuel never complained, was so patient, so helpful...it was such a relief. So finally they are DONE! YES! I think I've had a scrapbook overdose and don't even want to think about it for a week or two.

Yesterday, I was so excited to be done and to have some time to be normal again that I got in a cleaning frenzie and I scrubbed, mopped, did a ton of laundry and ironing. I love a clean house and it was so nice to just clean.

Julie was a little better this week but definately entered the if I don't have my way, I will fall on the ground and scream stage. But now that I've realised that, I feel a lot more at peace and don't get so worried that my kid is having a mental breakdown every two seconds.

I've decided we definately need to make some meaningful Segui family Easter traditions. Easter is one of those holidays that can just come and go without real meaning. So, I've got a whole year to think about it.

Have a good week everybody! Love Bernie

I started a job last week and I wasn't so excited about it so I dind't write anything. I don't really want to go into too many details because I'm savouring me last minutes of the weekend but here's the jist:

I work at Thaitian Noni International in the sales and service department in the call center for French and English calls. It's a great company and they give us up to 400 dollars of quality health products each month for free so that's a real perk. And it's just temporary for a few months.

Moving on to more exciting things, we're trying to have the second baby. Crazy or what? It probablly will take a few months but it's exciting. Sometimes I'm like, Do I REALLY want to be so tired, sick and aching and be working at the same time? And then we talk about the baby and you know, it's a sacrifice I'm excited to make.

Julie is still crying or whining (it's kind of the same thing I think) a lot. Since I work in the evenings, I'm really trying to spend as much quality time as I can with her during the mornings. I'm trying to be more creative with her, to read more books, to think out of the box for time together.

I've been thinking about how I want to have a more Christ centered home. I went to Seagull bookstores and they had the most beautiful prints of Christ mounted in these incredible frames and I think that it's important to have a picture of Christ in our home so I'd like to buy one.

The home is such an important place to foster love, learning, faith in Christ, and self-esteem. I've been really pondering on how we can do this even more in our home because of our crazy lives. I think that a picture of the Saviour would be nice but I think it also comes back to having a meaningful Family Home Evening (note the meaningful becaue if you're like us, often times it's, lets sing a song and a prayer and then what do you want to do?) Also, to study the scriptures together, to have my own personal prayer and scripture study and to attend the temple.

I haven't been really good at this lately. I'm not discouraged because I know that we can't do EVERYTHING perfectly today but I want to do better to have the kind of home where my kids feel good and Emmanuel and I show love and appreciation for eachother. I think this is every mother's aspiratioin.

We've set the goal to do 10 endowments each this year in my extended family. And for our reward at the end of the year, if we accompish it, we're all going to go out to eat together. It's an exciting goal because I love going to the temple and this gives me incentive.

I miss France and our friends there. It's not so easy in Utah to make tight bonds with people at church. These people are so friendly and nice but it's not like in France where we all just clicked. I guess it will take time.

Teaching in primary, for some reason really stressed me out but now I'm down with it! I love to see the kids' eyes light up as I tell them stories and testify. They're are such beautiful kids.

And last but not least, my little Body For LIfe update: Well, I've been working for two weeks and during that time I didn't work out and I've plumped up like a pigeon. So, tommorrow first thing, going to the gym. If I don't, I'm doomed to be chubby! Ahhhhh!

Well, for those reading this, thanks for your patience. It's kind of my journal too so I tend to be a bit lengthy!

Have a Great Week and Don't forget how wonderful life is, that's what my therapist always used to say! LOL!

Julie has become very difficult recently. All she ever does is cry and whine and throw temper-tantrums. It's not very motivating to have the second baby. But I figure it's a stage of frustration. She can't talk to tell us what she wants. She can't walk yet and wants to. So I live for her naps and for seven when she goes to bed. This to shall pass! I hope!

I'm now officially a size 8. Yeah!!!!! I went shopping yesterday and I have proof now. Good for me. I went to the gym everyday this last week and I also was very careful about what I ate...you know, good balanced meals and no binge eating. For the moment, I'm so busy and thinking about other things that I don't have the time to eat junk food.

My internet business is really taking off. So much that this week I went over my band-width amount and had to up-grade! I also recieved fifty emails this weekend from subcribers congradulating me and or asking questions. Ahhhh!

I'm looking forward to confrence this coming weekend. I love to hear the prophets and apostles speak and I'm so grateful to be intown and not with an eight hour difference so I can just watch normally all the sessions.

One thing I really like about Emmanuel is that he's into personal development and so he shares things with me that he's read and so on. And this week he recieved a video on success and personal development so in the evenings we've been watching it together and it's so inspiring. It talks about learning new skills and visualizing your dreams and going for them. So Emmanuel and I like to sit and talk about the new skills we want to learn and what we want to achieve. I've decided that I would like to learn to be an excellent scrapbooker for my future professional plans and photographer. I also would like to learn to keep strict accounts of our money and to never spend more than 70 percent of our income. That's a skill I want to master. As for our dreams, I would like to have my dream home, not huge but cozy and comfortable, beautifully decorated so that my children can learn to appreciate art and refinedness. I've been thinking I would like a one story house, with three bedrooms, an office for Emmanuel and I, a nice big open kitchen dining room and living room area with lots of light. And a vegetable, flower garden in the back with chickens. I would like to have a home in France too so when we go to visit our family we don't have to bother anyone. And Emmanuel's decided that this dream home will be in California so we'll see where we will end up. It's so nice to think big and be positive about the future and to set financial goals that most people think impossible. So my challenge to anyone reading this is to ask yourself, what are two new skills you want to learn and just start thinking about it, imagining you had no limitations or roadblocks.

It's a fun excericise to do and in my opinion it makes life exciting. Well, take care and until nextweek.

Bernadine

This week was really good but tiring. I've been praying a lot for some divine help resolving our inssurance problem. Nobody wants to innsure Julie because she might need eye surgery and she was operated on at birth. It seemed hopeless. Then, out of the blue, a social worker called us about Julie because my mom had referred us to a govermental program called Children On the Move. This was a great blessing because Julie isn't walking yet and her vocabulary is behind. So I talked with the lady and she told me they would send someone to the house this next week to set up a program to help Julie. Then she told me about several programs that could help us with Julie's needs and instruced us about CHIP, an issurance program for children in the state of Utah. Everything just seemed to fall into place and I know it was an answer to our prayers and fasting. So I've signed Emmanuel and I up for inssurance and it's such a relief to have that done. Phew!

I've been reading Sheri Dews' book No Doubt About It and I've been thinking a lot about my life and what kind of woman I am and who I want to be. She talks about our "Big Finish" as we return to God and Jesus Christ and it's really gotten me thinking about my life and my level of spirituality. I'm afraid I tend to get very wrapped up in the world and wordly concerns and to be quick to frustration and forget about spiritual things. I think that's the modern day challenge for most Christian women. But I'm so grateful for this reflexion because it gives me a chance to reevaluate and change some things to be better. That's the best part of Christ's gospel is knowing that he's made an eternal investement on our souls and will continue through-out our lives to help us along.

For my Body for Life program, I have to admit that there are days I just want to eat a huge brownie sundae and Chinese take-out! And somedays I do! But I went to the gym everyday this week and I feel really good so a little pat on the back for me. In Bill Phillips book he talks about visualising how you want to look and even picking out a picture of someone to motivate you so I put one on my fridge today.

Emmanuel and I had a date night last night and it was WONDERFUL. We went to Provo, because believe it or not, that's the happening place around here. We went to Barnes and Nobles for some quality Barnes and Noble time. We both love books. Then we went to an Italian restaurant called Carrebas. It was so relaxing and we had such a good time. I absolutely love to eat out. Emmanuel and I talked about our past boyfriends and girlfriends and how are lives would be so different if we had married certain people. We both decided we were very very glad to be together.

For my website, things are going so well. I currently have 420 subscribers and everyday 50 new ones. It's exciting but I'm also getting tons of email and it's a bit time consuming responding to everybody. But I'd rather that than having no one interested at all. My cousin is a graphic designer and she just redid my company logo. Cool, huh?

You know, all in all, Emmanuel and I are really happy here in our new life. We're so grateful for everything we have and what the future holds is so exciting. Well, take care everyone and until next week.

Bernie

I got a great call this week from a leading Scrapbook company in France. They saw my videos on line and they want to hire me to make demo videos for certain scrapbooking techniques and tools to be put on their site. Cool huh? I was flipping out. They said how professional and charming my videos were and how well I communicated. A real professional, they said. Little do they know!!!! So I'm kind of freaking out but so happy at the same time.

Speaking of Scrapbooking, I'm signed up to go to CKU, a three day scrapbooking seminar in May and boy, I can't wait. To think that only a year ago I was making fun of scrapbooking.

I'm actually thinking of organizing the same kind of thing in France for next year. I'll call it, UDS, Universite de Scrapbooking and hire some skilled teachers and maybe try to get 100 people to attend in Paris. I've already got some scrap companies that would sponsor me and do the advertising on their sites. If that goes well, we'll do one in Paris, Geneva, Bruxelles and Lyon. I really think it could happen and that would mean payed trips to France every year. Yeah!!!

I was sick this week so I didn't really get to the gym to workout but I'm going back tomorrow and I can't wait.

I'm having trouble getting health insurance for Julie. She was denied because she was operated on at birth. Duh??!!!!!! She no longer has any health problems or issues at all and is in perfect health. I'm so at a loss. It seems so unfair. It's a constant worry for me. So none of us have health inssurance because I'm trying to get us all on the same plan. Plus we want to have another baby one of these days and hello, need health inssurance. Though I did pick up a phamphlet on giving birth at home and it does sound kind of neat but you know what, I did natural birth the last time and it was so extremely painful and traumatizing that I would like to try a good old needle in my back this time. I'm still a bit shaken and it's been a year and a half. I still can't imagine actually giving birth without tourturous screaming and thrashing about. Okay, my sister says I'm bitter to all those that got an epideral and that I need to get over it. She's probably right. Well, I just hope we find a solution soon.

Take care till next week.

Bernie

Hi everybody!

Today something really terrific happened! Julie was trotting around with her walker and turned around, waved to me and said Bye Bye mama! I was so excited that I couldn't help but clap and really praise her. For the rest of the afternoon I couldn't get her to stop saying bye bye and waving and then she would smile all proud-like. I can't wait for her to say more stuff. I've read that bilingual children take longer to talk and we probably aren't helping because we mix everything up, saying half French half English sentences all the time. But hey, she'll adapt. Heck, she said Bye today. She can do anything now.

This last week was really hard. Julie was sick and cried literally all the time. I had my nervous breakdown on Thursday, crying and blubbering to my dear husband, saying I couldn't take it anymore and that I wanted the Alien Ship who took my charming daughter to give her back. Manu, realizing my peril, watched Julie the rest of the day while I went to the mall with my sister and got a make-up consultation. It was really fun and I learned some new tricks. And was able to come back to the screaming baby and deal with it. She's better now, back to her lovable self. But man, thought I wasn't going to survive there for a minute.

I went back to yoga and it was better the second time. This time at the end of class she put lavender scented towels over our eyes as we did some relaxation and it was really great.

It's been two and a half weeks since I started my Body for Life program (see my obsessions list). I'm really proud of myself because I've been eating correctly and exercising and I can already fit back into my jeans, yeah! The reason I'm writing about this is because I think that positive peer pressure can be good for me. And if I mention that I am doing this publicly than I think I will be less inclined to quit. My goal is to fit into a size six, whereas most of my life I've been a size ten. I have 12 pounds of fat to loose and I'm so excited. My husband and I are doing it together.

I took a before picture and that's what really got me going. I was shocked by the way I looked in my bathing suit. Literally horrified. As it gets sunny and warm and I know soon I'll be wearing shorts and sandals and heaven forbid, the bathing suit...well, I feel good knowing I'll be ready. My eating kind of got out of control with the stress of the move and I didn't think I could go one day with out chocolate, I know, sounds so pathetic. But I realize how important my health is and how much more fun life is being in shape. So if I write about this sometimes, it's just to keep me accountable for my progress and goals.

I just wanted to finish by telling all my friends who live outside of Utah how lucky you are that your kids will attend decent schools. I'm shocked at how bad the schools are here. I think when Julie's ready for school we might just have to move to another state, like NY or I've always wanted to live in Connecticut. Emmanuel wants to live in New Port Beach, California. I told him we could keep dreaming but he seems to have his mind set so we'll see.

Well, once again, I wrote a ton. I'll try to post a recent picture this week of me and Manu. Take care everyone and feel free to send me comments. Love Bernie

Well, I just got back from a nice chat at my parents house with most of my brothers and sisters and let me just say, how nice it is being close to family. I'm just soaking it up.

Life seems crazy because I'm doing so many fun little projects. I'm launching my French scrapbooking website this week and I'm so excited but nervous. On my website, I'm giving 20 free multi-media scrapbooking classes. It's fun but a lot more work then I bargained for. My goal is to have the most frequented francophone scrapbooking website in the world. My next challenge is to actually make my website come up on a Google search. Any suggestions? Here's my site if you want to check it out.

www.accrodescrap.com

Yesterday, we had some good friends over for dinner and also my parents. They were missionaries in France while I was living there and they are so dear to us. It was so nice to catch up and spend time with the people I love the most.

Emmanuel and I ventured up to SLC yesterday for a change of scenery and we found a cool import store and bought some yummy French cheese, some delicious bread and some Gnocchi(an Italian potato pasta) and some Tiramisus(this Italian creamy yummy cake like dessert.) I was in seventh heaven cooking that evening. I miss French food terribly. But hey, it keeps me fantasizing about this summer's trip we're hoping to take back to France. We'll see!!!

And one last thing...I took a YOGA 101 class this week and oh my gosh, it's really hard! I thought, "Oh yeah, yoga, no big deal. Deep breathing and meditation on a rug, I can handle this." We would get in these positions and then have to hold it and it's way harder physically than running a mile. I was like shaking and sweating and about to pass out. But strange thing is, I kind of liked it and am going back on Tuesday. We have a membership to the American Fork rec center and there are a variety of classes to participate in so I chose yoga.

Well, it's funny because I didn't think I had much to say but like always I was able to go on for quite awhile. Till next week.

Okay, Shanon! You got me! I love your blog and I have to admit, I've been playing around with typepad for a couple months but by golly, I don't have the extra 50 bucks so I'm transforming one of my website's pages into a make shift blog. That works doesn't it?

Besides, it gives me practice into this whole website creation stuff that I've been so hardly studying. Since I lost my silly digital camera USB wire, I can't use my camera so I've decided to do some live action today. Hope you enjoy. Any comments can be emailed to me at bernadineotis@yahoo.com!