Here We Are Now, In Containers...Avocados, In Containers

Well, I guess it's about time I dusted off this here old blog!  I can't believe my last post was on October 21st.  Almost 4 months ago!  Well, really, I can believe it.  Life has been one big ride on the crazy train around here since then.  I looked at that post from October 21st and took a deep breath and  sighed as I remembered the simpler times.  Since October 21st I have had some health issues and a pretty major church calling that have been taking up every spare minute of my time and then some.  Not to mention all the holiday fun that was mixed in.  But today I said ENOUGH!  MY blog is important to me and to my family (they have been asking if I'm ever going to blog again) as a way of recording our family history.  So I'm back.  I think.  We shall see....

So this morning, just a few minutes ago (it's before 11am so it's still considered morning, right?) my girls and I (2 of them are on a legal holiday from school, the other somehow cashed in on her sisters day off) were eating blueberry pancakes in the kitchen.  Emily had her iPod playing and I was singing along.  Then I realized what decade it was and what decade the song I was singing along to came out, and then I did the math in my head.  Which, if you have ever seen me do math, you know what a big task that is, in my head or otherwise.  And even though I've learned to doubt my math skills, I still knew something wasn't adding up. 

Hello, Hello, Hal-low, Haaal-low

I asked Emily why she was listening to that.  She asked me why I was singing along.  I asked her if she even knew the name of the band.  She did.  Nirvana.  What?  And what really surprised me was when Aubrey started singing along with her own words to the song...Here we are now, in containers, avocados, in containers...

So we ate our delicious blueberry pancakes.  After we finished eating, Emily started singing, "Carry on my wayward son, there'll be peace when you are done..."

What can I say?  They get their diverse musical taste from me.

Right Now, The Other Night, During The Car Ride Home

(Disclaimer: This is not a picture of my van!)

So on Wednesday, the first day of October (what?)  I had to go get the emissions and inspection done on my van so I could register it, since it was now expired.  One of these days I might learn that you are actually supposed to do that before it expires.  But probably not any time in the near future.  Hey, doing it on the first day of its expiration is actually a step up from previous years!  So it's basically like I was doing it early.  Anyhoo...

After I had it all taken care of and the new 2015 sticker was applied to the license plate, I went to put the registration papers in the glove compartment.  And...it totally wouldn't fit.  You know why?  Because I had all the registration papers in there from 2007 on.  Because I'm awesome like that!  

So I decided it was about time to clean it out and make so room.  As I was cleaning it out, I happened upon my old Carrie Underwood CD that was stuck betwixt the registration for 2009 and 2012- hey, do you really expect them to be in chronological order under those conditions?  I was so excited!  My girls and I used to listen to that CD all the time, especially when we were building our house and were making the 30 minute trek between homes on a regular basis.  It kept us well entertained during those drives.  I stuck it in the CD player, and on the way home from Aubrey's volleyball game that night I turned it on.  We listened to the first few songs and then we just had to do it.  We skipped to song #7.  And then we played it 4 times in a row while we sang along.  Just like old times. 

In the middle of the third playing of the song we picked Zac up from a friends house.  He had to listen to us sing the song 1 1/2 times, poor boy.  So after listening to it 4 times, when the girls asked me to skip it back and start it over, I didn't.  For one thing, I had a major headache after belting it out 4 times in a row.  And for another thing, I love my son and just couldn't subject him to that one more time.

I am so thankful Heavenly Father has given me 3 beautiful girls, and I'm thankful for the fun memories we have together.  I'm also thankful for my wonderful son and the fact that he sat through what I'm sure was pure torture for him without (too much) complaint.

PS: Carrie, I'm sorry I voted for Bo Bice instead of you on American Idol.

Last Weekend: Visitors From Texas, A Trip to Missouri, And More!

We had a lot going on last weekend.  Zac and Emily finished their school year on Thursday and spent the weekend at school's out parties and hanging out with friends.  I took Steve to the airport Friday morning for a quick trip to St. Louis.  One of his best friends he grew up with passed away and he was going to a memorial service.  Friday night we had some dear old friends from Dallas come to visit.  My brother Sam's best friend from his growing up years, Tommy, was just stationed at the air force base near our house.  He and his family just moved from Turkey.  Tommy's dad, Henry and his friend drove Tommy's truck from Texas to Utah for him.  The Perez family are good friends of our family from Dallas.  We had them all over for dinner Friday night.  My mom and Lauren came too.  We had such a nice visit with them and it was so good to see them after all these years.  After dinner we skyped with Sam and Teresa in Ohio.

 The next day, Saturday, I had to opportunity to go to the Brigham City Temple with Steve's cousin Jake who leaves next week for his mission to DC.  While I was at the temple, my kids went to help my mom in her yard.

A picture we sent to Steve Sunday morning to tell him we missed him.

Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day.  It was so perfect outside.  Warm sun shining and cool breeze blowing.  I had to send this to Steve and rub it in since he was dying from humidity in St. Louis.

 A leisurely Sunday afternoon drive.  I could not be more excited!  Alicia, the one driving, and I were just released from serving in the Relief Society in our church.  Just a few weeks later we were called to be assistant directors for our stake youth conference next summer.  We will be putting on the production Savior of the World.  Veronica, the lovely lady on the right, is the director.  I am seriously dying of excitement.  Not only for the chance to work with all the youth in our stake, but also to work so closely with these two ladies who are two of my dearest friends.  I'm also dying from laughter because I'm looking at this picture I took when I made Alicia drive through the "shortcut" to take us home.  She was so mad at me because she had just washed her vehicle the day before.  I told her that was OK because she was on the every other day program so it was due to be washed tomorrow.  She didn't think that was funny.  I'm pretty sure her vehicle along with herself have never been off a paved road. 

 Before Steve left for St. Louis, I told him to make sure to take pictures while he was there, since he would be getting together with old friends and also his family.  I felt pretty confident that that wasn't going to happen so Saturday morning I sent my Sister in Law, Lisa, a text asking her to take pictures for me.  She sent me back this picture of "Steve at 10:30 Saturday morning".

Later that day she sent me pictures from the memorial service.  This is my brother in law Mike, their old Sunday School teacher Dan Odom, and Steve.

Mike, Rick Daleen (an old friend and adopted brother of the friend who passed away), my father in law Roy, and Steve

On Sunday after church, I knew Steve was getting together with his family at his sister Heather's house.  We always have so much fun when everyone is together, so I wanted to know what I was missing out on.  I sent a group text to them all and requested pictures of what I was missing.  This is what my brother in law Ed sent.

I didn't realize Mike and Sheila had already left to go back home to Kentucky.  Sheila sent me this and said this is what I was missing.

My sister in law Heather sent me this picture, she was at work.

From Mike, my brother in law Steve is the master gardener.

From Lisa, they were watching Pirates of the Caribbean 

 From my niece, Sierra

 From Lisa

From Sheila, a picture she had taken earlier that weekend.  I wish my kids could have been there with their cousins.

It was a busy fun weekend!

19 Years and Counting

19 years ago yesterday, I made the best decision of my life when I married this man.  It wasn't long after we met (less than a week) that we knew without any doubt that we were supposed to be together for the rest of forever.  That knowledge has only been strengthened through time.  So much has happened in that last 19 years.  We have both changed so much.  I know without a doubt, it is because we have kept God first in our relationship, that our marriage is still holding strong today.  Stephen, I love you.  Thank you for loving me back!

Yesterday was our anniversary and we spent the entire day together.  It was fabulous.  We spent the first half of the day in the temple.  We decided that since we were celebrating our eternal marriage that day, we wanted to give another couple the same opportunity.  We found a husband and wife in Steve's family line and did all the ordinances in the temple for them yesterday- from baptism through sealing.  It was an awesome experience and we were able to be the witness couple to boot!  (I tried to tell Steve this was a bad angle to take a selfie from, but he wanted the temple spire in the background) (want to find out more about forever families, Mormon temples, and family history work- read to the bottom of this post)

We were dying of starvation by the time we left the temple so we went to Costa Vida for lunch.

Then we went to see a movie- Godzilla.  This is a picture I took of us in the movie.  If you could see it, what you would see is Steve having a hard time sitting through it, me sound asleep and apparently snoring, and both of us giving it a big 2 thumbs down.

After the movie we drove a little way up the canyon, found the perfect grassy shaded area, laid a blanket out and I read a book to Steve.  We read for over 3 hours.  It was absolutely lovely.  When the time came to leave, neither of us wanted to.  If it hadn't been for hunger, we would have stayed there a few hours more.  We both agreed we should have skipped the movie and spent the whole day on the blanket.

Dinner was at The Mandarin.  It was delicious.

After dinner it was time to come home to the real world.  Real World = a disastrous house, strawberry jam all over every surface of the kitchen, video gaming, a missing teenager, small children up past 10 on a school night, everything the kids ate yesterday on display on the kitchen island, and much much more!

I am so thankful for my husband.  I am so thankful that we have been sealed in the House of the Lord.  I am so thankful that our family can be together throughout the eternities.  I am so thankful we live close to a temple.  I am so thankful for the life Steve and I have built together with the help of our Heavenly Father. 

Want to know more about Mormon Temples?

We believe that family relationships continue after death.  We believe that the sealing power spoken of in Matthew  has been restored to the earth today.  Families can be together forever.  When a couple is married in the temple or a family goes to the temple together to be sealed, they are sealed together not just for this life, but for all eternity.

  “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19).

We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to be baptized and receive other sacred ordinances, such as being sealed to their family.  Even those who did not have that opportunity in this life.  In the temple we are able to perform those ordinances on behalf of our ancestors who have passed on.  We stand in as proxy, acting for them.  It is their choice to accept those ordinances or not in the spirit world.

 "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?"  (1 Corinthians 15:29)

We believe that the family is central to the plan of our Heavenly Father.  You can read "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" by clicking here.  Because the family is so important, because family relationships last beyond the grave, and because we have the opportunity to perform sacred ordinances for family members who have passed on, family history work is an important part of our church also.  Our church has an awesome website, available to anyone, that can help you trace your family lineage, find out more about your ancestors, and it also gives you a place to store photos and stories of your ancestors and family members.  I have been able to trace some of my family lines all the way back to Adam and Eve (for real!).  You can find that website by clicking here.

To find out more about Mormons and temples, click here.  I am also happy to answer any questions or to help you navigate your way through the Family Search website to help you build your family tree.

March Recap

These lovely ladies and I have started walking every day (kinda) together.  We haven't been the best at it the last week.  Anyway, one day we were out and about and we were walking by this huge field and April was in a hurry to get home so she talked Tricia and me into cutting across the field with her, with a promise that there was a trail through the field that led right to our neighborhood.  It was a "shortcut".

Only problem was, she couldn't find the trail.  So we went climbing and scampering all over these rocky  muddy mounds of earth trying to spy a trail of some sort.

Finally, after some time, April spotted the trail far off in the distance.

 Yes!  We made it to the trail that led us safely home!  I don't know that any time was saved using this "shortcut", but we did have a fun adventure. 

Addison started a business called Just Art.  She has employed her sisters (she gives them paid vacations and everything).  She has hung signs all over our house.  She now has a menu of items you can order for your picture she draws for you.  I don't have a picture of the menu, but it gives a sample of a design element and a price for each element.  Depending on how many elements you choose, your custom picture can get pretty costly really fast.  But don't worry!  She offers free credit cards!  She is quite the entrepreneur.   She has been rakin' in the dough too.  Mostly from me and my mother.  She has been begging me to post these pictures in order to drum up some more business.  So here they are:

I edited out my phone number, but if you are interested in ordering anything, you can send me a message.

Emily had a Sports Banquet at her school.  Steve and I went with her.  Here they are recognizing the Volleyball Team.

Last year Zac went to AFY for the first time (Adventure for Youth).  He wants to go back this summer and Emily is old enough to go now as well.  So I was looking at the daunting price of sending 2 children on this fun summer adventure.  I noticed a contest on their website, just a few days before the contest entry deadline.  AFY is located at a place called Badger Creek.  One of the contests showed this picture of a beaver and had contestants send in their best beaver imitation.  I just knew one of  my kids could win this!

Here is Zac's beaver impersonation.  They chose the best 3 entries and posted them on Facebook.  The two pictures with the most likes and shares won free registration.  So we started spreading the word and asked our friends and family to like and share his picture.  In just under 2 days he had 122 likes and  43 shares.  Those numbers were well above the other two entries.   So he won!  WOO HOO!!!!  Thanks Zac for the creativity you showed and thank you to all who helped by liking and sharing his picture.  You helped to cut our registration costs in half!

We had our Relief Society Birthday Party.  It was the most fun I have ever had at a Relief Society activity ever.  For real.  It was a blast.  These are the ladies I was fortunate enough to share the evening with.

I won't even tell you the kind of things that came out of this pinata.  It was hilarious though.

And after the party, we topped the evening off with a massive Bag It!  That is where we put a meal together (in a bag) with all shelf stable items. 

I put together a little video for the evening.  We went around the neighborhood taking funny pictures of the ladies in our ward for the video.  We wouldn't tell them what the pictures were for.  They were all (for the most part) so willing to bust out a funny pose for us on the spot.  I live in a fantastic ward!  Here is the video:

If you've been in my kitchen and seen my orange retro bar stools, you will be so happy to know that I finally purchased new stools!!!!  I'm so excited about it!  I have waited so long.  I could never find a stool I liked that went along with our decor that was anywhere near a reasonable price.  I finally found these at Sam's a few weeks ago!  (that price pictured is not the price of the stool!)(this was just a picture I took to send to Steve before I bought them.  I'm so excited about the new stools, but that normally wouldn't warrant a post about them, except that we saw the movie Divergent the other day and our stools are in the movie!  So if you go to see it, look for them!  They're famous!

March was full of fun around here.  You can see other March posts by clicking on these links:

Aubrey's Birthday

St. George Trip

 FHE Hike

Emily's Birthday

SPRING BREAK POST COMING SOON!

My 40th Birthday!

Last December I turned 40!  I blogged about the effects of being 40 here.  I had a lovely Birthday which was celebrated over the course of several days.  Somehow Steve managed to be out of town again (he was out of town on my Birthday last year too).  That is OK though, I still love him madly and he totally made it up to me!  The day before my Birthday the kids and I went to my mother's house.  She made a lovely dinner and we had cake and played games.

The next morning (my actual Birthday) I woke up at my usual time.  As I went upstairs to wake Zac up for school, I noticed a car sitting in front of my house but to the side so it wasn't easily seen.  I kept an eye on it as I went about making lunches.  It was getting time to leave to take Z to the bus stop so I went out to start my car (I believe it was like 2 degrees outside or something lovely like that).  As soon as I flipped on the garage lights the mysterious car sped away.  I had a feeling I was asking for trouble by leaving my van running so I tried to lock it with my spare set of keys but it wouldn't lock with keys in the ignition for some reason.  As Zac and I were getting ready to walk out the door I glanced outside and noticed that my van was no longer in my driveway.  Upon second glance I saw that it was stuck in the middle of the yard in the snow.  My dear friends Alicia and Jamie we furiously trying to unstick it.  Those crazy kids!  I yelled out the door to them and they started swearing and pushing even harder.  Zac (who was about to miss his bus) and I went out to help.  Between the four of us we were able to get it free.

This is what I came home to after taking Z to the bus.

And my most very favorite part of all, they left all the trash on the front porch.  They also left rolls of crepe paper and more banners.  I wasn't sure if they were coming back to finish or not.  So I left the stuff there until after I took the girls to school.  When it became apparent that they weren't coming back to finish I took a picture and cleaned it all up.  They later said they got frustrated because it was so dang cold the tape wouldn't stick and their finger we getting frost bite.  Oh, I love those ladies and they made my day with their early morning antics.  

That afternoon I went to lunch with these beautiful ladies.

 And that night I had tickets to the hottest show in town.  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas performance.  I went with my three eldest children and we had a very lovely time.  We stopped on our way home at In and Out and had ourselves a midnight snack.

The next Saturday the real celebration began.  I had been looking forward to this for months.  I put it on the calendar and told Steve to keep that day open to celebrate my Birthday.  I told him not to worry, I would make all the plans.  All he and the kids had to do was show up.  We had our Ward Christmas party that morning.  After the party I informed my family of our plans for the day.  We were going to celebrate my 40th Birthday by doing 40+ random acts of kindness.  Our first stop was the fire station and the post office to take treats to the people working there.  Then we went to both of our banking institutions to take muffins to the people working in the bank.  They still thank me to this day for bringing those in.  What a small act of kindness that touched them enough that almost 3 months later they still talk about it.  After that we headed downtown.  Our first stop downtown was to get lunch.  Would you believe this was my real for real actual fortune I got with my lunch?

This is what we did.  We had a couple dozen roses, a couple of bunches of flowers, a ton of treat bags we had put together with a nice message attached, and 40 $1 bills.  We also had several stuffed animals to give away as well.  My kids had so much fun picking people out to give things too.  They weren't scared or shy at all.  We gave out most of our roses, all our treat bags, most of the stuffed animals.  And we gave money to every person on the street asking for money.  We were able to help a lady and her daughter pay their train fair without even thinking twice about it or having to decide if they really actually being honest.  We had already decided ahead of time we were going to give money to everyone who asked.  There were even times when we were driving that we circled around the block to come back to people to give them money.

 I was able to sneak this picture of Emily giving a rose to a lady sitting by herself on Temple Square.

Next we headed to a nearby hospital.  We took flowers, some remaining roses and stuffed animals and gave them to some of the patients there.  When we first walked in there was a man sitting in a wheelchair in the lobby with a nurse.  From looking at him he didn't seem like someone I would have approached.  Given the appearance of his condition, I didn't even know if he would be able to see us or even know what was going on or even know we were there.  Addy really wanted to take him a rose.  Stupid me, I tried to discourage her.  But she was her persistent self.  She went up to him and handed him the rose.  He looked up at her and shook her hand and gave her a hug.  Later the nurse that was with him came over to us.  She said after Addy left he said, "She knows.  She knows."  The nurse asked him what he was talking about.  He said that he used to play Santa Claus every year for many years and that Addy somehow knew.  We had to stop at the store on the way home.  We only had a few roses left.  We took them in the store and handed them out.  A few we left on peoples shopping carts when they weren't looking.  It was a most fabulous day and one that we won't forget for a long time.  It is also a day we plan to repeat soon when the weather is nice.

 I want to share this part of the story.  I had big plans for this day.  I was supposed to start preparing for it weeks in advance.  I had grand things I was going to make and put together to hand out.  I was going to arrange with several places to go there and do service.  I was going to research other big things we could to for service.  Well, it was smack dab in the middle of the Holiday Rush and reality set in and I just didn't have time to make all my grand plans happen.  The night before I was so discouraged I was going to forget the whole thing and just have my family take me out to lunch and a movie and tell them that was my plan all along.  But around 7 PM the night before I was out dropping Aubrey off and a friends house and the thought came to me that I still needed to do this.  It didn't have to be hugely marvelously grand.  Just simple acts of kindness that would cheer people up and make their day.  So I mad a quick trip to Sam's and bought the stuff we needed.  It was a great lesson to me that service can be so simple yet so meaningful. 

The next week my Secret Society of Sisters took me out to celebrate my Birthday.  We had to stop at Costco to pick April up from work.  While we were waiting for her to get finished we were standing looking at books.  All of the sudden Tricia started hitting my arm.  I looked at her and asked, "What???"  She kept looking straight ahead hitting me.  So I looked up and right there in front of us was President Uchtdorf and his lovely wife.  I about died.  I made a totally fool of myself and went up to shake his hand and asked if I could take a picture with him.  He informed me that they didn't take pictures.  His wife leaned over and explained to me if he took at picture with me, everyone would want to take a picture with him and then they would be stuck in a photography session at Costco all night.  I was able to snap this great shot of him and his wife walking away.

 April finally got off work.  We told her all about how she missed President Uchtdorf.  Then we went out to dinner.  These awesome ladies made banners that had 40 things they love about me on them.

 They also made me cupcakes!

As you might have noticed, I made a Birthday video for each family member last year.  In all I made 48 Birthday videos last year!  My dear Sister-in-Law, Heather, made me my very own video.  You can see it by clicking here.   You can also see all 48 (49 now) Birthday videos by clicking here.  Well I had this great plan to have all my Birthday Videos finished before Christmas and put them on a DVD with  all the videos on it so that when people are bored on a Sunday afternoon they can pop in the DVD and relive all the memories.  That and I felt that after spending all that time making videos I could totally double dip on the gifts and re-gift everyone their video for Christmas.  Well, once again, my grand plans didn't happen.  I still had 6 videos to make after Christmas.  One of them being mine.  I felt a little weird making my own Birthday Video, but I did it anyway.  Here it is:

My 40th Birthday was my best yet!  Thank you so much to all my wonderful family and friends who made turning 40 one of the most wonderful occasions of my life!