Drive to school

This is the road that I drive the kids to school on everyday. In every season, it is absolutely beautiful. But this time of year is my favorite. There are pros and cons about living in MA but the scenery is a definate bonus.

New call (again)

Mike and I can't seem to stay put in any calling for very long these days. We had another change in the Bishopric this past Sunday. Our Bishop is moving to China for work, he was a great Bishop and we will miss him. Mike was asked to take his place, and was sustained as the Bishop of our ward yesterday. WOW! It's a humbling calling to have, but I know he will give it everything he has, and will do a great job.

Father and son's campout

This past weekend the boys went on the father and sons campout up in New Hampshire, while mom stayed home ALL ALONE.

I'm still learning the details of the trip, but it sounds like they got to play in the dirt, play with the fire, hike including going up and down cliffs they probably shouldn't have, had pine cone wars, fish, explore, not take a shower, or brush their teeth, and eat lots of junk food. It sounds like they had a perfectly grand weekend! :-)

Art

Luke drew these two pictures while at church on Sunday. I think I will frame them and put them by his bed.

Cambridge chapel

On Sunday, the oldest church building in Boston caught fire due to faulty wiring. It was so sad to see. It's a beautiful building in a very pretty setting. My good friend Ellen has posted some amazing pictures on her blog so click here and here .

We did not attend church at this particular building but have some fond memories of conferences, singing choirs and an FHE with the singles. But I think my fondest memory is when we lived here before I was asked to be the young women basketball coach. That in and of itself is very funny. But the girls and I tye died some shirts for our jersey's, we even made one for Ben who was just 2 yrs old at the time, and made him our mascot, and had fun with it. Most of our games and practices were all held here. We had such a great time.

The church will be rebuilt. The inside of the church was gutted, but they are hoping to be able to keep the outside structure of the building. Some of the other faiths have offered their building to us while we rebuild. They have been very kind.

Virtue necklace

I've had several requests in the past day or so, to see a picture of the necklace that we will be using for our virtue activity (see below). So here it is. The picture below is a little fuzzy, but it gives you an idea of the length. It's a very pretty necklace and striking when being worn.

Virtue activity

This past week we had an activity focused on our new Young Women value Virtue. This value is to help the girls learn the importance of living a virtuous life. The project that goes along with the value is to read the Book of Mormon.

The purpose of this activity was to 1- kick off all of us reading the Book of Mormon together and 2- to help them understand the strength that can come from living a virtuous life.

We had 3 people come and give a short monologue. The first was from our past. She represented one of the daughter's of Ishmael in the Book of Mormon. She spoke about what life was like then and some of the challenges that the women faced back then when trying to live a virtuous life and how she was able to deal with it. The second person represented them in the present time. She talked about some of the challenges that she was going through, the pressure from their peers that she faced and how hard it was to do what she had been taught was right. She also talked about how she tried to help herself to be strong, through prayer and reading the scriptures, and the strength that came from that to help bring her so much peace. The 3 person was their daughter. Their daughter is now facing the same things that they were facing. She was thankful for the way her mom lived her life because it's helped her and taught her how to live her life. This ended up to be very special. After that was a beautiful musical number followed by our stake YW's president about the importance of virtue.

We then introduce the project of reading the Book of Mormon. We gave them a chart that has each of us reading about 2 1/2 pages a day and will have us finishing in December. A little side note - the scripture for the value virtue is in Proverbs 31:10 - A virtuous woman is more valuable then rubies - As a symbol to what we will have done, by finishing the Book of Mormon, we made a necklace with 15 rubies (not real ones) representing each book in the Book of Mormon (as they complete each book they will earn a ruby). When we gather in December just after we have finished the book, we will make our ruby necklaces. Which will represent our desire and commitment to living a virtuous life.

The spirit was very strong at this activity. A lot of what was there has really stuck with me and hopefully the girls as well. I am impressed with their desire to continuously strive to do what is right, and their commitment to read and commit to this project was no different. They are such an inspiration, I have so enjoyed working with these fabulous young women.

Girls Camp Fundraiser

Last weekend we had our girls camp fundraiser. We held a dessert auction. We had several people in the ward bring desserts that we could auction, and in between the auctions we had previously arranged comedic entertainment from people throughout the ward. The YW arranged the entertainment groups, so the YW presidency ended up being one of them (oh joy). We did a skit about different TV shows, we had a soap opera star, politician, commercial, camp leader, and a fighter (me). The best thing I can say about it, is IT'S OVER!

Along with the desserts, we also offered a table with inexpensive treats, such as jumbo sized cookies and rice krispee treats, bags of popcorn, chips and salsa, soda etc. We also have a good friend in the ward who knows how to make YUMMY mixed drinks (non alcoholic of course) so we brought him in as well. Before the fundraiser, we wrote a letter and had the girls distribute it to stores around the area, asking for donations of goods or monetary to help cover their costs of the fundraiser, so they could earn the money that they needed to go to camp. They were able to earn $100 doing this, which covered the costs of the chips and salsa, drinks, popcorn, paper goods and so on. Which also meant that everything we made was profit.
The night was a huge success. We were a little worried about how the night would go, because our ward has been really hard hit by the economy. But at the same time, we really needed help earning the funds, a big chunk of the girls can't afford to get to camp on their own. The generous people of our ward (and Paula too, Thank you!) dug deep into their pockets and we were earned $1800, which is enough to send every girl in our ward to girls camp. They far acceded our expectations. It was a humbling evening, the girls were SO EXCITED, and we are all so very thankful.

Just as we had everything cleaned up and was about ready to leave, the flood gates opened. It started to POOR. So of course, out went the kids for a little "dancin in the rain" They were drenched but had fun.

They didn't seem to think they could be drenched alone, so they ran around hugging all of the dry adults that were left, so we could share in the "wetness" what a fun! In all seriousness, I was so happy about how the night went, I didn't even care to be WET!

Sunday afternoon BBQ!

It seems like I haven't had 5 minutes to sit down and update since I have been back from Utah. But I'm determined to update something tonight.
Going to Utah was bitter sweet. Although it was sad to go out there for my Grandpa's funeral, it was a very edifying expereince. All of the family came from all over the country. I so enjoyed being able to rekindle so many of those relationships.

My dad cooks the best hamburgers!

Uncle Dave, Amelia and Uncle Sam

Sunday afternoon, all of us that were in town, gathered for a BBQ at Nate and Britt's house.

Marshall has never been able to keep his finger out of his nose and those in the picture always seemed to follow suit.
I have such a cute dad!

and a cute nephew too(I LOVE this picture)!

Brooke, Sam, Ginger, Brock and Cody, and Michael, me and Brandi

Brock, Cody, Ben and Brock and Jasno and Shaeli

It was GOOD FOOD AND GREAT FAMILY!

The viewing

Monday evening was the viewing. The viewing and funeral was held at the same place that my mom's viewing and funeral. It was a little to soon to go back and do all of that all over again, but it was good to see so many familiar faces and feel that love and support.

Marshall and Melissa, and cousins Brooke, Brandi and baby Cade.

Issac, Brittanie and Michael. Marshall, me and Rian (cousin)

Cousins Brock, Brock Ben, Cody and Cade -

Me and Brittany

Me, Brooke and Melissa

Brittany, Cade, Shaeli, Jason Charlene and Breanne

Nate, Charlene, Rian and Marshall

Siblings - Sam, Dave, Wayne (my Dad!)and Amelia

After the viewing we all went out for a very late dinner. We had a blast.