Vegecation

Typically when returning home from a fun vacation with the family, you feel like you need a few more days to recuperate from all the sight seeing, entertainment and running around. A vacation after the vacation. This weekend my two sisters and I had a fun girls weekend, which we are calling our "vegecation". This means getting away for time to truly relax and take it easy. Vegging out with a purpose. Reconnecting. Coming home relaxed.

Our weekend consisted of driving four hours (each way) to stay in a condo in St. George where we watched chick flicks, sang along to favorite songs, played games, ate our favorite snacks and talked. We stayed up late and slept in. And we talked some more. We didn't stay cooped up in the condo the whole time though. We did venture out to Snow state park where we took a long walk and played in the beautiful red sand dunes.

And then there was the main reason for visiting St. George in the first place- the Abbamania concert. This is an Abba tribute band which sings all the most popular Abba songs and dresses in Abba costuming. They were actually very good. The women had beautiful voices. We were surprised by how many men were there. I'm sure some were dragged there in duress by their wives. Those were the men who didn't get out of their seats and sat there in agony. But the majority of the men seemed to be enjoying themselves, and that was entertaining itself. It was a fun concert. But who wouldn't have fun dancing and acting goofy with your sisters while singing along to Mamma Mia, Souper Trouper and Dancing Queen?

What didn't we do? We didn't get online, go shopping or gab on the phone. Hurray! And we didn't feel guilty about vegging out.

But we certainly did talk! And that was the best part of our three days together. Getting to know one another even better than we already did, re-living favorite memories and creating new memories together.

Birthday, Halloween, Birthday

This is the "How much junk food can we eat in a week?" time of year for our family. Within a 6 day period we get to have 2 birthdays and Halloween. It's always a fun, busy time for us.

On Halloween we went to the ward Trunk or Treat where families come and pass out candy from the trunks of their cars, eat hot dogs and socialize. Afterwards we went trick or treating around the neighborhood and finally came home and watched Halloween movies with our friends. A fun night for all.

We had small family birthday parties for Zach and Claire. Zach spent most of his birthday with his friends, except to come back for some cake and gifts. The joys of being 16. Let the dating and driving commence! Claire was happy to get a scooter and a few other fun gifts for her birthday and the birthday girl turned 6.

October Adventures

Here are a few photos of some of our October adventures. We went on a field trip to the Golden Spike National Park, Claire learned to ride a bike without training wheels, Mike's family came to visit (and we didn't get photos of their visit!), we went to the American West Heritage Center where the girls got to ride ponies, use a saw, pet the animals, go through a corn maze, and more. And our most important date in Oct. was when Zoe was baptized on Oct. 9th.

Seeking Peace

I've wanted to write over the past couple of weeks, but every time I sit down to do it, nothing postive comes of it. My heart has been troubled and sorrowful recently and those concerns have weighed me down and when I would try to think of what to write there was nothing there. I felt empty.

Today at church the choir sang, "Where can I turn for peace?" The calming reminder in this song is that our Savior is there to carry our burdens. It lifted me a lot today. I know that he does carry our burdens and he knows what we are going through. But it is easy to forget that. Today this song reminded me of this and for the first time in many days I felt an inkling of peace. I know the trials and heartache are not over, but the only thing I can do is pray. Pray for faith, guidance, love and peace, for myself and for those I love. And I know many others are doing the same and I am so grateful for that.

On the days that I feel down I will try to remind myself of these scriptures.
 John 14:27- Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
 Isaiah 41:10- Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

General Conference Highlights

I love to listen to general conference and learn from our prophet, apostles and other general authorities. Over at Diapers and Divinity a sharing activity was posted to answer the following questions about the most recent LDS general conference. I didn't see the questions until after conference was over, otherwise I would have taken notes. But I have answered the questions the best I can from memory (& by relistening to some talks). You can listen to or read the conference talks here.

General Conference Highlights, October 2010:

1.  Who were your three favorite speakers?  M. Russell Ballard, Dallin H. Oaks & Jeffery R. Holland

2.  Favorite talk? Thomas S. Monson (the General Relief Society meeting talk). Thoughts he gave on charity were moving and motivating. Some of his comments on charity include: “I have in mind the charity that impels us to be sympathetic, compassionate, and merciful, not only in times of sickness and affliction and distress but also in times of weakness or error on the part of others.  Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is accepting people as they truly are.”

3.  Favorite hymn sung during Conference? Lead Kindly Light. This has always been such a peaceful and calming song to me.

4.  Who wore the best tie? I didn’t pay attention to the ties. J

5.  Do you think conference had a “theme”? Not sure that it had a single theme, but there were a few main themes, namely- gratitude, following the prophet, adversity & pride. I found it interesting that two speakers based their talks on the exact same talk previously given by Ezra Taft Benson titled 14 Fundamentals in Following the Prophet.  

6.  Share a few of your favorite quotes.

Jeffery R. Holland- “I testify you are individually loved of God. You are central to the meaning of his work.”

7.  Something that made you smile during conference. President Uchtdorf began his talk with an analogy about trees. Then he says, “At this point some of you may be thinking, that’s all fine and good, but what does that have to do with flying an airplane.” Always love his pilot stories. J

8.  Any evidence that your children paid attention? Not so much the younger ones, but by Sunday evening Zachary was ready to share his favorite talks from the priesthood session with me and asking me to listen to them with him.

9.  If you had to give a talk in General Conference (don’t faint, this is hypothetical), what do you think you’d speak about? I don’t feel qualified to expound on any particular topic!

10.  What are some of your post-conference goals?

1-Read all of this sessions conference talks before the next general conference.

2- In recent years I’ve had callings where I haven’t had the opportunity to get to know a lot of the newer families in our ward. I want to get to know more people in my ward & neighborhood and be more friendly and helpful to them.

3- Become a better visiting teacher.

4- Have the kind of charity President Monson taught us about.

A Good Man

Recently I've been thinking about what a good father my husband is. There are so many positive things he brings to our family. I did not grow up with a close relationship with either my father or stepfather. Now that I have my own family I realize what it really means to have a father in a childs life. These are some of the things my husband does as a father that touch me and our children.

~He diligently takes the children to the library every week. They are learning to love to read and have that special outing with their dad.
~He gives them lots of hugs and kisses.
~On the weekends he fixes the big, special breakfasts that I never fix.
~He plays dominos with the girls. They love that.
~Mike and Zach share with one another the strange, interesting and unique subjects that they love to learn about.
~He teaches our family about the gospel.
~He takes the kids on visits to the D.I. and often gives in and buys them something special.
~He teaches them by example how to serve others.
~He attends their special activities and events.
~When Mike has the younger girls for the day he always does the fun stuff with them- trips to the park, special meals, and playing with them.
~He goes with Zach to priesthood meetings and they come home excited to discuss what they have learned.
~He supports us in our various activities, but especially with our busy dance schedule.
~He shares his favorite books, music, shows and other interests with the kids. And it has obviously rubbed off on them. :) Zach has developed a love for many of Mike's favorite '80s musicians and they all love to watch the old, classic TV shows.
~He prays for his children.

Obviously I have married a good man! I am so thankful to have him in my life and that our children have the blessing of a wonderful father.

Time to Purge

Lately I've been feeling like my house is being taken over by junk. It seems like over the summer everything we own multiplied. There are piles of stuff in most rooms, some much worse than others. Between homeschooling, dance and trying to motivate/nag Zach to stay caught up with his school work, house work is falling through the cracks. Our kids have also been playing musical bedrooms recently and have their stuff scattered through various rooms. I've never had a perfect house, but it usually has been presentable enough that I wasn't too embarrassed about the occasional drop in guest. Not so right now!

I am posting a picture of our awful hall closet as a motivator to do something about it again. (After taking this picture I nearly couldn’t post it, because it is so embarrassing). I truly do clean this closet out every couple of months, but the kids get in there to search for stuff, hide, or play and within days it is a scary place to be. When I open the closet door and the stuff in the closet starts falling out on top of me, I decide it's time to tackle it again. It's no fun having a vacuum or broom knock you in the head! The other worst room in the house is the food storage room. I want to store food in there. What a novel idea! Everyone else thinks it’s the catchall junk room. So it also becomes a difficult room to enter and is a constant source of frustration. It is time to purge our house again!

It's a good thing we have guests coming in a couple of weeks! Having guests is a great motivator to do tasks that tend to be ignored. So over the next two weeks our family is going to tackle our junk, room by room, closet by closet.

Birthdays & Peach Days

We just had a few busy, but fun days here. This past weekend was Peach Days, which is the local harvest festival that was first held in 1904. Isabelle and I kicked it off by going to watch the Peach Queen pageant. This was the first time we have attended the pageant and it was quite fun. I told Isabelle she should start preparing now to enter it, because it would be fun to have a more unique, upbeat talent like clogging in the talent competition. She just gave me one of her, "yeah right" expressions, but who knows what the future will bring.

Saturday featured visiting the booths with my sister, Toni, and taking the girls on the rides. We also ate yummy dutch oven dinners and peach cobbler. Mike had to work part of the day, but managed to squeeze in time to visit the car show, which is his favorite event. Zach spent time with his friends and Nathan and managed to show off his parkour talents for various gawking girls. I'm sure he loved every minute of it. Saturday evening Isabelle and I took in the hypnotist show. Overall a fun filled couple of days.

Mike's birthday is the 13th and Zoe's is the 14th. Because of our busy lives we decided to hold their birthday celebration on Sunday the 12th. It was a simple family affair with a yummy lemon cake that Zachary made from scratch (both cake & frosting).

Both Mike & Zoe received a few gifts, but the ones they were most excited about, they didn't receive on Sunday. Mike will be receiving a 3rd generation Kindle, which should be arriving any day now. He is anxiously awaiting its arrival. He's wanted one since they first came out a couple of years ago. Zoe wanted a new bike and today (her actual birthday) we went and picked one out. She knew right away which one she wanted and we were in and out of the store in a matter of minutes. The bike is a little tall for her so it took her a few times of starting on it to keep her balance well, but she had it figured out pretty quickly.

Zoe turned 8 this year. Being 8 is a big deal around here and Zoe keeps remembering cool things that happen when you are 8. She gets her own library card (going to get that this week). She can have her ears pierced (also trying to do that this week). She is no longer required (by law) to sit in a booster seat. She happily reminded me of that when we hopped in the van to go pick out her bike today. And most importantly, she will be baptized next month. Updates about these exciting events will be forthcoming.

Summer 2010

I always have grand ideas about the fun stuff I am going to do with my kids during the summer, and then life just keeps going forward and it is easy to put stuff on the back burner. This summer we managed to get in a few fun activities, thanks in large part to my friend Karie, who motivated me to get out and go. 

Among other things we went to Twin Falls, ID, Willow park zoo, Bear Lake, Minnetonka Cave, the Discovery Gateway children's museum, bird refuge and swimming. And then Karie braved taking her girls and mine to go fishing and to Antelope Island.

We also attended dance camp, clog camp, my niece's wedding, the Mormon Miracle pagent in Manti, went camping at Heber Valley girls camp, and had a family Independence Day party. Isabelle attended girls camp and Zach worked all summer at Camp Hunt boy scout camp. We also celebrated Isabelle and Justine's birthdays.

I attended a Carole King & James Taylor concert with my sisters and my sisters and I also had a few fun evenings together learning a dance for our family talent show at camp. I also managed to read a few books this summer. Woohoo!

Whew! We did more than I realized this summer. You don't realize all you've done until you start to list it out. Here's a slideshow of some of our summer adventures.

I'm a clogger?

As you may know, I run a dance studio. Which is ironic since I never took a single dance lesson in my life. Until now. I am officially enrolled in my first dance class. Clogging, to be exact. How did this happen? Every year after the dance recital (which all of my children participate in) my family always asks me why I'm not in the adult clogging class. "It looks so fun!" they say.

This past June my sisters said the same thing again after the recital. And I said, "If you will,  I will!" I thought I had called their bluff and that would be the end of it. But no, here we are two months later, with the 3 of us in a clogging class together.

Last night was my second class. And I have a new found appreciation for what my kids and all the dancers at our studio have been doing all these years. Doubles, singles, fancy doubles, double bounce, woodpeckers. These steps are all swirling around in my mind and I'm working to not mix them up or forget part of a step. And that is work for me! Now I will be able to say, "I am a clogger!" or maybe it's more like, "I'm a clogger?"

Why Blog?

I'm not exactly sure why I am giving blogging a try, but here I am. I don't know that I have all that much to share, but I like to read the blogs of other women, who just tell about their lives as mothers, wives, women. And I'm truly interested in what they have to say, even just about the mundane things of life.

So maybe a few family members or friends will want to check out my blog occasionally. If not, at least I'll finally have some sort of a journal for posterity. Hopefully I'll do better on updating it than I do my real journal, which hasn't been written in for years. And that poor journal consists of cramming a year of information onto a couple of pages. Surely I can do better than that here, since I am online nearly everyday anyway. So wish me good luck in my blogging journey.