This weekend has been a blast. I started the weekend with a run, and spent the rest of it with Justin's parents and family. It was his niece's birthday so today we all went to Chuckie Cheese and had a party. Justin and I spent the bulk of the party racing each other in the Fast and the Furious game. We spent yesterday shopping and hanging out with his family. Justin even got me some birthday gifts about 10 days early! YEAH! I'll post about those another time since it's not my birthday yet.

We're finally just relaxing on this beautiful 70 degree Sunday evening, and I started thinking about my best friend Andrea who had her first baby this weekend. We had a short conversation earlier this week how important names are. Her baby was given a great name, and they are starting off on a wonderful journey raising that boy. We talked about how naming a baby is such an important task, and how important names are to people.

I sometimes wonder who I'd be if I had a different name. Originally I was supposed to be Jessica Lynn (my middle name after my grandfather), but somehow I ended up being Lana. I like my unique name. No one ever has the same name as me that I ever meet. I am not one of 20 Jessica's in someone's cell phone. I am distinct, and I am me--that one girl with the extremely short name which no one can ever pronounce correctly. Here are some fun facts about my name that I didn't know, because I'm sure you're all just dying to know as well!

Current Singer Lana Del Rey

Famous Actress Lana Turner from mid 1900's.

My name origin is Gaelic, Hebrew and German, but it is most commonly used in English and Russian speaking areas. English form is Alana, Russian form is Svetlana. It is ranked number 402 in 2007's top 1000 name list. (I'm surprised. I've never met another one in person, only once by phone when I called a hotel to book an event.) The last time it was in the top 1000 names was in 1940. Ha!

My name is also a derivative of the Greek name Helen which stands for "shining light." Gaelic meaning is "little rock". German meaning is "precious".  Its other meanings are "fair one", "to be gentle", "soft", "light", "awakening", and my personal favorite... "wooly". Lana actually means wool in Italian. It was fun to find shirts for sale that were "100% Lana" while shopping in Rome. I own a purse, scarf and coat from that trip that are all 100% Lana. They were calling my name, and when I saw my name on the tag, OBVIOUSLY I had to buy them.

Another fun fact is that my name in Hawaiian means "afloat" and "calm as still waters". And in Kurdish my name means "the house of the lion". (I had to google Kurds to find out where they come from, it's near Turkey in a country called Kurdistan, naturally.)

I think my true favorite definitions for my name are "little rock" and "house of the Lion". I like to think these suit me best. I am immovable when I choose what is right for me, and I want to someday live up to the second one and be the house of the lion. Lions are seen as the king of the jungle and incredibly strong, courageous animals. I want to have people see me as a symbol of strength.

Here is one song I found that uses my name in the title:


Here is song #2 with my name in it. I love these. They are AWESOME!


So, with all this being said, my name is awesome. Oh and backwards it spells ANAL. HAHAHA. Lovely.

Now that you know everything about my name... what does your name mean? What do you love about your name?

This morning I finished reading a book that somehow I made it out of high school without reading (my high school was in a really small town). On New Year's Day this year, Justin and I went to the place where we first met, the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Orem, Utah. We each bought ourselves a book to read, and the one I selected was The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank. I am a sucker for WWII stories. I think it's the humanity in them, they were treated as cattle and vermin, yet they were so very human. I will never understand hatred for an entire race of people, or class, or creed.

This book sucked me right in as they all do. She really impressed me with her writings, my journals at her age were all "Oh man, that boy is so cute, I've never liked anyone this much." (SO ANNOYING TO READ THROUGH). But hers have such eloquence, and such maturity of thought. I grew to love her and even though I knew how it ended, I kept desperately wanting and hoping it would end differently. She was such a beautiful person, who lived and breathed who she was. She was wise beyond her years, which I think  happened due to the nature of their situation. To hide out and remain indoors for years would be so difficult. I'm amazed more of her journal didn't dwell on how hard it was. She was still just a teenager during it all, feeling love for the boy whose family was hiding with them; trying to find out who she really was and where she fit in this world. There were several entries that reflected the magnitude of the situation they were in, and what it must've been liked. If she'd been allowed to survive, I think she would've made an even bigger imprint on the world than she has with her death. She was just one of those personalities.

After her journal entries end, and the Afterword starts, my heart just sank this morning. When it talks about the informer for the Gestapo giving up the Frank family, and what happened to them, I started to cry. I have grown to love her through reading her diary. She was so tough through all of it, and was so close to being free. She died in a prison camp less than 2 months before her freedom would've been given to her. At the time she thought all she had in life was gone because she was separated from her father. The rest of her family had already died. The only survivor was her father Otto.

I'm so angry that Nazi's ever existed. Not just because of this book, but because it happened. It boggles my mind, and makes my heart hurt every time I read a story from a survivor or victim of the Holocaust, or think of how it all happened.

How could someone cause so many people to hate and torture others? I know so many of them were scared to not follow Hitler because their fate would be Auschwitz, but I'd like to think that I'd have accepted my fate. At least I'd never have anyone's blood but my own on my hands. I don't think I could live with myself if I had been one of the people responsible for a family's death. I'd rather be in the camp dying with them.

I still can't stop thinking about her, Anne, because she was such a beautiful person, as I'm sure all of the people that lost their lives or were taken to the camps, or hiding, were. In the Afterword, it mentions that their "Secret Annexe" has been preserved so that people can visit and see where the Franks, and their friends stayed for those 2 years before the Gestapo took them. I am putting on my bucket list right now a trip to Amsterdam to see this place. Sure, it will probably be a humbling, hallowing moment in an otherwise fun vacation, but she deserves it. They all deserve to have people fly across the world and pay our respects to what they went through. I am going to make that happen. I need to.

Hatred is a powerful scary emotion. I once dated someone who said he respected Hitler for trying to cleanse the world. If anyone wants his address to punch him in the face, I'd be happy to give it to you. Just say the word. He used to tell me I was so naive to believe that all people are inherently good, and some just get trampled on by life and make awful choices. I am not the one that is naive. It takes courage to love people and to see the good in them, and I choose to follow that path. I promise right now that I will never teach my children to hate, they can learn that on their own if they so choose, but it will not be from me.

I know when I get to heaven, after this life, I'm going to look for Anne Frank. I want to tell her how much I admire her strength.

Have any of you read this book before? What did you think? What are your thoughts on what I wrote?

Hey guys, it's me again. You know what's fun? Well, lots of things, but one thing in particular is that my husband today called me "a hard 10". He told me I'm the whole package. I think I shall carry this sweet little compliment around with me for days, maybe even weeks! Who am I kidding, it's a phenomenal compliment! If he were in an olympic competition for complimenting people, I'd give him the world record!

I'm definitely a words of affirmation type of person, and compliments like this really hang with me. Isn't that awesome? I'd say I'm the luckiest girl on the planet.

What a babe. I'm a lucky girl.

Have you guys ever had sweet potatoes? I love them, and I also love yams... (I thought they were the same thing but I was corrected recently on that idea.) My sister in law made candied yams for Thanksgiving, and I couldn't stop eating them... it was probably one of my favorite things to eat this year.  So naturally I thought a soup mix I purchased called "Sweet potato soup" would be delicious. All the other soup mixes I bought from this brand are amazing.