Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Not a day has gone by that I haven't reflected on the experience that I had living in Jerusalem for a semester.  I wish I could convey the depth of love and gratitude that I have for this holy land.  My time there seriously changed my life.  In a way that was totally unexpected, and yet somehow made perfect sense as I experienced the lessons I learned.  There is not a single aspect of my life that was not affected by my time in Israel.  

I intellectually learned so much about the life, culture, and history of the people that have lived in and fought for this country.  Although I only touched the surface of all of the knowledge one can learn, I for sure learned that there are always two sides to every story.  That not everything can be fixed simply.  That conviction and devotedness to a purpose is not to be taken lightly.  That really, most of us have no idea and cannot really relate, and therefore should not exercise judgement.  

This semester even impacted me physically. Although this may seem like the least important of the impacts that Israel had on me, it has truly made all of the difference.  Your physical being affects everything else.  I learned to love my body in Jerusalem.  My whole life I have struggled with being overweight, especially during my college years.  While in Jerusalem, I naturally became healthy.  We walked everywhere.  And I wasn't feeding myself fast food and junk food 24/7 (mainly because I didn't have access to it!).  But without even consciously trying, I lost 20 pounds in Jerusalem.  And that started me on an amazing journey to be a healthier, happier me.  When I returned home, I joined a gym and continued healthy eating habits.  And I lost another 30 pounds.  The freedom and joy that I have felt has been amazing.  And I once again, have Jerusalem to thank.  I had never realized the importance of treating my body like a temple until Jerusalem forced me to start.  

Going to Jerusalem had been a dream of mine for a long time, so of course when the chance arose, I jumped at the chance.  Although I was excited, going was going to be a large step out of my comfort zone.  And I haven't always been so good with that.  I would be going to a foreign country, not knowing a single person before hand, and I have always struggled with extreme shyness.  Not a good combination, right? Everything changed in Jerusalem though.  I socially became a better person.  The people I met and lived with there changed my life in a way that I can't describe.  I learned to just be myself and that people would like me for it.  And that I have something to contribute.  And that I can learn something significant from every single person I meet, even if they are different from what I would have expected.  My Jerusalem family will always have a special place in my heart.  No matter how much time passes.  

Although there are many aspects I wish to touch on, I will wrap it up to the most important one.  And it's the most important one because all of the other aspects of my life lead to my spirituality.  My relationship with God and my knowledge of the gospel.  I have never felt closer to the spirit than the moments that I spent in the holy land.  The Lord truly showed me who I am in Jerusalem.  Although it sounds cliche and cheesy, I truly found myself there.  I recognized the potential that God created in me.  And I took that confidence and spiritual knowledge home with me.  And that is what has made all of the difference.  And that is why Jerusalem changed my life.  I learned who Grace is.  And I learned that it's ok to have made mistakes.  And that when my will aligns with God's, amazing things happen.  

And so many amazing things have happened since Jerusalem.  Which is why I constantly reflect on my time there.  The confidence, knowledge, and spiritual strength that I gained there will be with me forever.  I'm so incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity to be there.  My eyes filled with tears as I watched the National Geographic movie on Jerusalem.  As I looked out on the city, that in a way, feels like my home.  And always will.  Not because it's the "holy land" or because Christ was there, or because it's just a cool thing to say, but because of the things I felt, experienced, and learned there that have forever changed me for the better.  

I will return some day.  If not multiple times.  I want to share this experience with those nearest and dearest to me.  I look forward to it.  

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem...I will never forget thee.    

5 months of wedded bliss and hey! It's Halloween!

5 months ago today, Ben and I were married! Time really does fly.  And life has been good to us.  Here are a few highlights since my last post:

We went to the Ram's game for the "mormon night." It was our first NFL game! The Rams were... how do I say it? Horrible. But hey- that's cool.  

Afterwards we got to go on the field! That was the real treat.  Even though I'm not the biggest football fan, being on the field was pretty cool.  

We also decided fully enjoy the changing of the seasons meant apple picking.   Wouldn't you agree?? Lots of golden delicious apples from Eckerts. 

And what should you do with hand picked apples? Make apple pie of course! Mama Fisher's famous recipe.  

This guy sure enjoyed it :)

I also chopped a good 10 inches off of my hair.

Oh and we still had a lot of apples leftover, so a caramel apple party was in order.  

Gotta go all out though- with gourmet caramel apples! Seriously. So. GOOD.  For those of you wondering- it's just caramel apples dipped in melted white chocolate and then rolled in your topping of choice.  The "apple pie" caramel apple is my personal favorite (and seems to be everyone else's).  It's just rolled in cinnamon and sugar.  The others are dipped in crushed oreos and butterfingers.  Also freaking good.  

We also went to see the national geographic Jerusalem movie at the omnimax.  I will be blogging separately about this later.  So good though.  So. So. Good.  

And of course we have been celebrating Halloween all month long!! Especially with "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas playing in our heads on repeat ever since we watched it at the beginning of the month.  Here are our costumes! Isn't it a crime that we didn't win the costume contest?!

And finally- the forced family fun that turned into real family fun! I brought back the annual Finlinson (and now Fisher!) dance of the pumpkins.  Or should I say Jack-o-lanterns.  

Every year we all carve a pumpkin.  (Ethan didn't participate...) Mine is the one on the far left, my Dad's is above mine, Ben's is in the center, my mom's is the one with the eyelashes, and I also carved the one in the right corner in honor of Parker.  The other 3 are glass ornaments.  This year we decided to stack them all in the fireplace, which looked really cool! So the tradition starts with lighting all of the pumpkins and then turning off ALL of the lights in the house.  We then listen to a CD by Enigma that is somewhat eerie, and yet danceable.  It's hard to explain.  But it really is the perfect Halloween CD, even with singing monks in the background and everything.  As children, we believed the pumpkins were singing and then we danced around the house.  Ben was able to take part in this tradition for the first time this year.  He got so into the dancing that he even elbowed me in the face, giving me a bloody nose! Haha.  I guess that's the risk you take when you turn off all of the lights and dance to spooky music.  So do at your own risk!

Oh and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

End of Summer, beginning of Fall

Well it's that time of year- for school to start! I remember last fall being the first time that I didn't go back to school.  And it was awesome! Ben does not have that luxury, however.  So here he is on his first day of his second year of medical school :) 

We also had a wonderful visit from my in-laws.  It was a quick weekend trip that was far too short, but we still had such a good time! Here we are at the botanical gardens

Ben and I also celebrated our 3 month-a-versary of being married! Guess we are still newly weds, huh? We celebrated with half price shakes at sonic.  My personal favorite is banana hot fudge.  Highly recommended.  

I also took Ben on a surprise adventure for Labor day.  I instagrammed this photo and the never put where I took him- haha! Sorry about that.  I took him to breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  Not a HUGE ordeal, but still just fun!

 We had a stay in date night the other night where we made chinese food and watched "Meet me in St. Louis" since Ben had never seen it.  And I really wanted to watch it.  I made fried rice, which was freaking good if I do say so myself, and Ben made crab rangoon- my favorite!

Last night we went to Forest Park for the annual Balloon Glow.  I had never been, even though I grew up here and they do it ever year.  And it was very fun!

Then this morning Ben signed us up to run a 5k (against my will).  I can't say that I will never do it again because Ben has a way of convincing me to do stuff that I don't like to do, but I can say that I still hate running.  Everyone reassured me that we wouldn't be last, that it's just for fun, etc.  Let's just say that we were the last people in our age group.  Oh well.  At least I finished, right? 

On another note (more to save myself from complete embarrassment about my 5k running time) we joined a gym! It's called The Lab and we really like it so far.  We have been getting up at 5:30 to do classes.  Mainly spinning because that's what I really love when it comes to exercise.  I love it for multiple reasons.  The main reason is just because I can do it and I really enjoy it.  But the other reason is because I am better at it than Ben is- which makes me feel like a true athlete since he is in really good shape :) I guess he's the runner and I'm the spinner.  So it's a trade off if we do it with each other.  And then we did a pump class the other day and my muscles are still aching! But hey it's good.  I'm really enjoying the gym (and the spinning mainly).  It gives me energy throughout the week, even though getting up at 5:30 is really hard.  Especially since I vowed to myself that I would never get up this early after I graduated from seminary.  haha.  I guess never say never, right? 

Summer as Mr. and Mrs. Fisher

Well it's been a busy summer and I can't believe that it's already practically over! :( Time really does fly when you are having fun, doesn't it?  Well to start off my post, I posted one of my favorite wedding pictures, as promised in my last post.  

In July, we moved into our new apartment! And I absolutely LOVE it.  It's so quaint with all original wood floors, lots of character, high ceilings and open space.  It is perfect for us.  It's right next to SLU, where Ben is going to med school and right next to a gorgeous park that I actually grew up next to! So I have come full circle. And I'm loving it.  We are loving having friends and family over and having the space to do so! I'm realizing that I haven't taken any pictures of our new house.  So I suppose I should get on that, huh?  That will have to be my next project.  

We spent the 4th of July with my family down at the arch watching fireworks.  No one does the 4th of July quite like St. Louis! And Ben had never been, so of course I had to take him!  Here we are with my little bro, Ethan, wearing our red white and blue! :)

No one looks as good in glow stick glasses as I do...

We've had our share of lazy Saturday mornings full of sleeping in, snuggling and eating waffles (Ben's specialty!) He even made me a heart shaped one.  So impressive!

We spent a long weekend out on Bear Lake for the Fisher family reunion in July as well.  We spent two days on the lake with jet skis, a paddle boat, kayak and other fun water toys and played all day long to our hearts' content.  Jet skiing had to be my favorite part.  As well as playing with my new adorable niece, Alice!  I have always wanted nieces and nephews, but being the oldest, I haven't had any.  But now that I'm married to Ben, I have 16 nieces and nephews! So it's a party.  Yes, overwhelming as well, but I'm getting used to this new larger than life family! :) 

While at Bear Lake, we had to get raspberry shakes of course! I say of course, when really, I had no idea that Bear Lake was famous for it's raspberries.  But hey, I LOVE raspberries, and the shakes didn't disappoint! Probably one of the best I've ever had.  SOOOO good.  

Uncle Ben with our niece Charly :)

Ben and I have also given the whole "eat meat sparingly" thing a try this summer.  No, we are not vegetarians.  But we've been doing "meatless mondays." At least we have been trying to... not going to lie and say we've been 100%, but hey we are trying! It's hard not to eat meat apparently.  So I've been making some new recipes, which has been a lot of fun.  Example shown below: Stuffed Zucchini! They were pretty good! I got the idea from pinterest but then really just made up my own recipe.  They are filled with brown rice, sauteed onions, peppers, and tomatoes, goat cheese and basil.  

On August 3rd I went to an EPIC concert with my friend Elizabeth- BACKSTREET BOYS.  It was fantastic.  Elizabeth and I grew up listening to them on repeat, so it only felt right to go to the concert together to relive our glory days as 12 year old girls! And they were everything I wanted them to be.  Loved. every. minute.

My brother Parker also came in town at the beginning of August and it was awesome having him in town.  My uncle Shann and aunt Deena also came in town with their family.  So it was a family filled week.  We had a Fin bro sleep over at the Fishers and of course got delicious Ted Drewes.  A St. Louis summer MUST.

We also took the opportunity to take some family pics while Parker was in town.  Since we have a new member of the family, we needed a new family pic of course.  We photographed them at Laumeire Sculpture park.  One of the sculptures is this giant eye, as you can see.  So we had a little fun as well.  

So a little background behind this next picture.  Over Christmas break last year I went to Utah to meet Ben's family for the first time.  When you first walk into his parent's house, his mom has 6 different pictures up on the wall representing each child with their family.  Ben is the youngest and all of his other siblings are married.  So all of their pictures have their spouse and children in it, and then Ben's picture was this cute little grinny pic by a tree.  And it just tickled my funny bone and I have been laughing about it ever since.  So I figured we needed to take a new pic to replace the old one.  :)

It was Ben's birthday last Sunday, so we had a whole weekend of celebrating!  We went over to Washington State Park about an hour Southwest of St. Louis to go camping!  And it was a lot of fun.  I made tin foil dinners for us to cook on the fire and of course we had smores.  And in the morning I used the propane stove that I got Ben for his birthday to make pancakes and bacon.  It was pretty cool!  And the weather was absolutely perfect.  We couldn't have had better weather actually.  After breakfast we went on a nice hike that was just gorgeous.  Overall a really peaceful weekend.  

On Sunday, his actual birthday, we celebrated at my family's house.  Ben had sent my dad this recipe link on facebook for redneck turtle burgers as a joke since my dad loves cooking.  Well I guess the joke is on Ben because my dad surprised him and actually made them for Ben's birthday dinner! It's a burger patty wrapped in woven bacon with hotdogs/polish sausages for a head, legs and a tail.  Guess we didn't succeed with eating meat sparingly... They were pretty good as far as taste goes, but they were just TOO much meat! haha.  Is that possible? And they were HUGE.  I couldn't even eat a whole one.  Ben did though! And we ended the night with a white chocolate cheesecake with blueberry compote.  Delicious.

            

 So yeah, nothing TOO crazy, but overall a really great summer.  Now it's back to the grind.  Ben is back in school.  And I am actually starting a new job! I got a promotion at work, so I'm moving up in the world! It's actually a lot of changes.  I moved locations, have all new clients and all new staff to manage.  But I'm the head honcho at my new location! Which is both exciting and a little intimidating, but I'm excited for a new challenge.  I really do love my line of work, which makes it fun to go to work every day, even though it does get stressful at times.  I started officially this week, so I've been soaking it all in and learning a lot.  I'm sure it will all settle down soon though and everything will be good!  I bought myself a new bike in celebration.  Which is perfect for the park that Ben and I live next to.  So here's to lots of bike rides this fall!

I think that's all for the current Fisher update! Hopefully there will be another one more sooner than later. :)