Amazingly Fabulous Good News

OK after all my complaining I have to share some really unbelievable news. Discover card is going to pay my $750 deductible. Apparently this is a benefit to renting cars with a credit card. I myself can not even believe it and had to restrain myself from saying "SHUT UP" to the lady at the discover card claims center. This news has certainly improved my outlook on life. And one of my friends gave me garage door opener that she had. So that problem in my life is solved. I knew things couldn't keep going downhill forever.

Good News, Bad News

The past six weeks have been fraught with what I guess one calls life's little challenges. I have been given many opportunities to grin and bear a series of many unfortunate events. Here is just a sampling of some things that have happened in the recent past.

Bad news: I sat on Marion's everyday pair of glasses and broke both arms off of them. Good news: I didn't break the lenses. I think this is the second time in our married life that I have done this to him. Bad news: He has managed to bubble-gum them back together using super glue and white athletic tape. Good news: He is not a slave to fashion and doesn't mind it when people (including his own son) think he looks a bit odd with white tape on his glasses. Bad news: They don't carry the same frame he had and he is unwilling to update his glasses to a newer frame. Good News: This is the cheaper option for now, and now that school is started I will have more time to devote to solving this dilemma.

Next Bad news: It would rain from the ceiling in our dining room when someone showered in my bathroom. Good news: We have a home warranty that will cover this kind of repair. Bad news: When the repairman arrived, Jared was in the shower. He was in the process of his best impression of a really annoying big brother. He was singing as loudly as he could and periodically he would bang on the wall that separates the shower from Diana's bedroom. Diana in the meantime was giving an academy award winning performance of the tortured little sister that manifested itself in loud ear piercing screams that probably sent all the dogs in our neighborhood running away. In hind sight, I can see that what I should have done was say to the repairman "Could you please wait for just a minute outside the front door before entering the house?" This would have given me time to threaten each child into silence. But I did not think fast enough for that more prudent course of action. Instead I ushured the man into the freak show that was going on. I took him to see the shower in my room and excused myself to go and speak/warn/threaten/kill my children. Good news: My children calmed down and the repair was quickly diagnosed and fixed. Bad News: The home warranty policy does not cover repairing the hole in the ceiling that had to be cut in order to diagnose the problem. Good news: After having a gaping hole in my dining room, Marion has now replaced the drywall. Bad news: He informed me that repairing the popcorn covering is my part of the job.

Bad news: Someone stole Diana's bike and several scooters from the side of our house. I can't think of any good news for this one.

Bad news: Trent complained of having problems with his eyes and went to the eye doctor last week. Good news: His eyes are not yet bad enough to need glasses.

Bad news: My garage door opener was damaged in the car accident. Good news: Marion was able to figure out what was wrong with it and fix it, so I could have it in my rental car. Bad news: I managed to drop it in the car and it broke into more pieces and one crucial piece is now lost forever. Good news: Marion once again repaired it. Bad news: Now you have to use a screwdriver to touch two metal parts together to get it to work. It is rather inconvenient, but it does still work. A friend of mine was telling me that I can get a new one for not very much money, I just haven't had a chance to go and get one.

Bad news: A rather large piece of my filing on my back tooth cracked and fell out. Good news: It is not painful and is only a bother in that I have a cavernous hole in the back of my mouth. I am slightly afraid to go to the dentist because he has repaired this certain tooth 2 other times in the past year. I think he is going to make me get a crown.

Really bad news: Yesterday I got in a car accident with my rental car. It was my fault. There had been a lot of rain the night before, and when I tried to brake for the car that stopped suddenly in front of me, my car just slid on the road. Good news: My rental car is covered by my regular insurance. Bad news: I will have to pay another $750 deductible. Good news: I was able to take advantage of the learning curve of accident protocol. You know like talking with police officers, filling out police reports, experiencing nausea and anxiety, exchanging insurance information, all things that I am becoming a pro at. More good news: I will get to attend traffic school and so maybe Trent and I can go together. This is actually the first accident I have caused in my whole life of driving. More good news: no one was hurt, although I am a bit sore. I did hit fast enough to cause my glasses to fly off my head. Sheesh, it is enough to make me think that I should just not get a new car and sit at home every day instead.

So if I had any doubts before, I am now convinced that I am completely crazy. It might be nice to live in an imaginary world. I have had my fill of reality. Maybe I could just become schizophrenic so that half of the time I could be somewhere else? If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then I am insane for sure. Each day I get out of bed expecting things to go well. Well good news: things are bound to start getting better because it is hard to imagine how it might get worse. Of course now that I have said that out loud my house will burn to the ground tomorrow or something like that. I wonder if they make straight-jackets in different colors?

CATastrophic turn of events!

Under the category of "Oh No, here we go again", there is a mother cat and three kittens who have decided that my front yard would be the perfect place to call home. I don't know what kind of invisible sign there must be on my house that says to all cats, "live here, there is a crazy cat lady here who will take you in no matter what." And the mom and babies are all black. What kind of bad luck is that, to have 4 black cats cross your path every time you leave your house? I am determined not to go down the river of cat insanity again. Been there, done that. Of course last time it wasn't just a river of cats, it was something akin to Niagara Falls. Surely I have had enough of the experiences that cat ownership has to offer to last me a lifetime. You know like birthing breech kittens, having live things brought into the house ( ie lizards, birds, and even a rat once), listening to male cats prowl the house like sharks, cleaning up cat poop or food, administering first aid to battle wounds including amoxicilian left over from my children or soaking puss filled wounds in warm water. Once I even had a dehydrated cat that I gave water to a teaspoon at a time every few hours. The fond memories go on and on, and so you might imagine why having once discovered four kittens in my garage and taking them in and keeping them, even bringing them from California to Las Vegas, well I am reticent to repeat that mistake again. And that was a mistake in the fact that those kittens multiplied until one time I had the absurd total of 10 cats living at my house. Yes I am a sucker for punishment. We might all see why I am avoiding the slippery slope of cat mania like the plague. Of course the fact that we are holding them and taking pictures with them might make you think differently, but we are not feeding them or naming them and this is big for me. Sadly I think that the only way to get rid of them is to catch them and take them to the pound. This is also one of my least favorite thing about cats. But if I could be strong enough to do it with cats I loved like children, then I guess I can gird up my loins and do it to a bunch of stray cats.

Accidents Happen

As I said before, our trip to California would have to be the highlight of that week. But you know what the law of physics says "what goes up must come down". And so Friday August 17th was the low of the week. This happened about 12:30 that day when I received a call from Trent. He told me that he had been in a car accident and I needed to come to where it had happened. I was helping at the choir camp that Diana was participating in and so I was about 25 minutes away. I quickly left the choir camp and drove over to the accident. He told me that everyone was OK, which I was glad to hear, but still it was a very long, anxiety filled trip for me. When I got to the accident I was horrified to see that front of my car was pretty much smashed to smithereens. I was glad to see Trent standing pretty much unhurt on the sidewalk. Apparently he was making a left hand turn and failed to see an oncoming truck. The truck hit him on the front passenger side of the car. Both of the front airbags deployed. Trent had a small abrasion on his head that I think was from the airbag. So sadly it was his fault and he received the ticket. The police at the scene said to look at it as a good learning experience. And to feel lucky that Trent could get such a good lesson without anyone having to be seriously hurt. I wish that he could have learned this lesson in a less costly way, but oh well that is life.

So now my car is totaled. I have had a rental car for the past week and am looking for a new car. I hate buying new cars. I would rate the experience right up there with root canal and moving. But I guess that there are some things in life that are unavoidable. The good news is that I am going to receive a fair amount of money to help purchase a new car. The bad news is that my car insurance is going to go up. I don't know how much yet, but it can not be good.

Wicked Awesome!

Well this has been quite a crazy week with some highs and some lows. First I need to report about going to LA to see the musical Wicked. It was better than fabulous. We absolutely loved it and would go again in a heartbeat. Anyone remotely thinking about going to this play it is a must see. We left Las Vegas on Tuesday August 14th, about noon. After we dropped Diana off at a friend's house to spend the night, we stopped at the Library and checked out a great Amelia Peabody book on tape. Then we hit the freeway and were on our way to Hollywood. The trip went well and we did not hit any traffic until we were about a half an hour from our hotel. Even with the traffic, we checked into our room by about 4:00. This was a bit humorous. I found this hotel online, and let me just say that pictures can be deceiving. Or in other words any place can be pictured in a good way. Our hotel room itself was ok, but lets just say the surrounding neighborhood was a bit scary looking. It was however within walking distance of the theatre. Anyway the funny part was that we checked in and the guy gave us a key to room 214. It was a bit hard to be sure because he had a very heavy accent, I think he was from India. So we carried our stuff upstairs to the second floor. The cleaning people noticed that we were about to go into room 214 and informed us that someone was still in there. At least that is what they tried to tell us, this time in Spanish. So we went back to the office and got a different key this time to room 103. We went into this room only to find an extra blanket on the bed and what looked like someones personal towel folded on the table. The cleaning guy came in and told us that this room was also taken. So we went back to the office, yet a third time. Apparently a friend of the owner was staying in room 103 and so it did not show in the computer. Anyway finally we were given a key to room 215. The cleaning lady was just finishing up with this room. It was ok, although it was warm because the AC unit had not been on. We put all our stuff down and walked down the street to look for something to eat. After walking a bit and finding the theatre, we decided that we didn't want anything there and we went back and got into the car. We drove around and found a Denny's. This is kind of a traditional place for us to eat on our anniversary. It was really yummy and then we went back to the hotel and rested up for the play.


Marion fell asleep, but I have to admit that I was too excited and nervous to sleep. I felt like a little kid on Christmas eve. I have been dreaming and hoping to go and see this play since I heard that it was playing in LA last January. It was hard to believe that it was really happening. I kept checking the clock every ten minutes or so and finally the hour and half had passed by and it was time to get ready to go. Marion woke up and we changed to be ready for the show. We were somewhat concerned about losing our parking place at the hotel, because the parking lot at the hotel only had ten spaces for the 15 rooms. Even though we were just 3 blocks from the play, I was nervous about walking home that late at night and so we planned to drive over to the play. Anyway I called the front desk and the guy told me that people could park against the wall and not to worry, so we left and found a parking place close to the theatre.


Next was where I had to pinch myself to be sure that I was not dreaming, because we actually walked into the theatre and we were not late and we did not forget our tickets or any such bad thing. We checked out the lobby and saw a lot of cool Wicked paraphernalia. We then made our way upstairs to our seats. It was very crowded, which proves how popular this play is. Finally we made it into our seats, which were not bad seats. This was very exciting, because once again how do you really know what you are getting when you buy things online. Next I decided to take a picture of the neato ceiling and the empty stage below. This resulted in my being yelled at by a employee. Apparently the rule that no photography is allowed is a very strict rule and not just a guideline. I did manage to take 2 pictures though and so I will post this contraband on here when I can get them developed. We were a bit early and so I got to enjoy the sense of anticipation even longer. It felt like it would never start, but of course finally the lights went down and the music began.


I will not disclose the many twists and turns and secrets involved in this play. I don't want to spoil it for any of you who may go in the future. Let me just say that it was better than I even imagined. I laughed, I cried, it moved me Bob. There is nothing as wonderful as a Broadway production. I feel so lucky to have been able to have this dream come true.


When the play was over we returned to the hotel and wouldn't you know it if the parking lot was not just jammed packed. We had to back the van in and double park in front of several other cars. It seemed a bit insane, but it worked out and nobody needed to leave before we did the next morning.

We woke up and left the hotel by about 8:30. Marion decided it would be fun to stop by his old school, Citrus that is in Glendora. We didn't know if anyone would be around, but it turned out that there were a few people who still remember him. It is hard to believe that it has been 9 years since we left California. Marion had a great time renewing old friendships. It is interesting because his old school is in an older part of town and they are actually going down in enrollment. I think he is much better off in Las Vegas where he teaches at one of the largest community colleges in the country.

Well that is all the fun news from our trip. We were very glad we went and glad that everyone survived without us while we were gone. I wonder what the next musical will be that I get to see?

It's Great to be Eight!

Last Saturday on August 4th, was a day many have been waiting for years to be here. And no, I don't mean the release of the last Harry Potter book. Diana got baptized! She has been anxiously awaiting this event for months. It seems that she has been counting the days since Christmas. This past week the anticipation seemed to reach a new high as the countdown was under 10 days. As I wrote before, I had to work a lot last week and hence was unable to get much cleaning and food preparations ready for the weekend. Thank goodness the Calvary arrived on Thursday evening in the form of my Mom and Dad from Seattle. They brought Jared home with them as well. It was good to see him after a week and a half. (Look forward to an upcoming post about his shaving his head completely bald while we were in Utah.) Well we had fun visiting a bit Thursday evening and then we hit the hay.

Friday we woke up and attacked my house with every mop, cleaning product, and rag possible. The guys also did an amazing job on the back yard. When we were tired of cleaning, we took a break and did some shopping. Marion was preparing a list for the grocery store so he could get the things he needed to make homemade ice cream. He asked me if we had vanilla. I replied that I had no idea owing to the fact that I have not cooked anything in my kitchen since May. Marion went with my Dad to home depot and the grocery store. Then my dad went with me and Diana to Sam's club. We were successful in getting lots of yummy things for people to eat all weekend long. This was especially important as to the fact that I have not really been to the grocery store all summer long either. In the afternoon, Diana insisted that I cut her hair. We have been talking about cutting it all summer long and have not had time. I was a bit nervous to do it. I think she had heard stories of people having their long hair come up when they were baptized. Anyway as you can see from the picture below, I cut about 5 inches off. I think it looks really cute and it will be so much easier to take care of, but it is still a big change.

Finally it was about 8 o'clock on Friday night. The one thing that was not done, that I really wanted to do was to get Diana a white dress. So the two of us took off to the mall. Talk about leaving things to the last minute. Sheesh! On the way I called a friend and asked if she had purchased her daughters dress at Penny's. She told me that she did, but that it was a catalog return and not something they normally carry all the time. Yikes, maybe my plan was not going to work after all. We went to Penny's, of course the children's department has to be up the escalator and all the way in the back. We wondered around for a few minutes during which time Diana found about 20 outfits she wished she could get, none of them being a white dress. Finally I asked a sales associate and was told that no they did not carry any white dresses. I had to practically drag Diana away as we raced out of Penny's in search of somewhere else that could help us. By now it was 8:30 and the mall was closing in 30 minutes. I said a silent prayer in my heart. I know that it is possible to get baptized without a white dress to wear, but this was my only girl and I really wanted the fun on finding something special so she could look her best on her special day. We raced frantically down the mall. The next big store was Dillards. I asked where the kids department was, and guess what it wasn't even upstairs but was just a few yards away. I asked about a white dress and was shown a rack of beautiful dress much to my joy. Then I looked at the price tag, much to my dismay it was $120, and my happiness bubble was burst. Then I realized that those dresses were too big and we went over to the smaller ones. Imagine my happiness to find the smaller white dresses were only $60. Of course if I had seen the smaller ones first I would not have been so relieved to pay $60, but since it was our only choice I clapped my hands for joy. Next we took a few dresses in and tried them on. The one that fit the best was a bit itchy. We went back out and looked for some alternative. There was none. Diana did find a cute shirt on the clearance rack which she tried on also. In the end we got the itchy dress and the shirt. One problem with the dress was that it was sleeveless. I figured that I could so something to make sleeves and so we headed home, triumphant. We stopped at a friends house to borrow a long table, and I was telling her about the dress. She said she had the perfect little short sweater to go over such a dress. They let us borrow it and yeah problem solved much easier than me staying up half the night altering a dress. Sometime life doesn't have to be hard, especially with a little help from your friends.

Friday night Marion's mom, brother, sister-in-law, and two nephews arrived about 11:30. We helped them get settled and visited for awhile. It made for bit of a late night and I was glad when I finally got to fall into bed.

Saturday morning we got up and got everyone breakfast. Marion needed a haircut and so I gave him one. Finally it was time to go and we headed to the church about 9:30. We took all the pictures we needed. Diana was so excited, I thought she might explode. She also felt rather nervous about not letting her feet come up so she would have to get baptized a second time. Another of Marion's brothers and his wife and son got there just in time. A friend in our ward gave a wonderful talk on baptism and then there was a talk on the Holy Ghost. Then we all went into the relief society room. There were two other boys baptized first, and then it was Diana's turn. There really are not words to describe the joy one feels when your children choose to make covenants with the Lord. There was a very special spirit there. After the baptism, I went and helped Diana get dressed. She was very relieved and happy that she and Dad got it right and only had to be baptized one time. After she was dressed, we went back to the chapel for the confirmations. Diana was last again. Marion gave her a wonderful blessing. And just like when she was blessed as a baby, he talked about how special she is and how she has a gift for loving others. I have seen this many times throughout her life. Everyone seems to love her as I do. It is a special gift and it will be interesting to see how the Lord will choose to use her as an instrument to bless other's lives. After the confirmation we took some more pictures and headed home.

Next we had a fun filled afternoon visiting with friends and family. We had Hoagie sandwiches, past salad, green salad, veggie tray and chips. After lunch there was homemade ice cream for dessert. We made both vanilla and rocky road. Here is a picture of what the food looked like.













Here is a cute picture of Diana in her new dress.

Here are the proud Grandparents.

Here is everyone.








Here is the whole family.












Later Saturday afternoon, another of Marion's brothers arrived with his wife and 4 children. We had a fun filled afternoon. The kids swam, jumped on the trampoline, and played. The adults visited. I got out my many scrapbooks and we had fun looking back at some of the memories from the past. It was truly a wonderful day not to be soon forgotten. I had made some sloppy joes the night before, so we got that out for dinner along with all the left overs from lunch. It was happy to have such an easy meal at the end of a long day. So we ended up with 13 extra people sleeping here Saturday night. I was surprised at how easily everyone fit. I thought my house might be too small for so much company.
Sunday we got up and surprisingly manage to all get to nine o'clock church on time. No breakfast preparations because of fast Sunday. We had a wonderful time at church. And came home and fed everyone haystacks. The Arizona people all packed up and headed home at about 2:00 o'clock. Later that afternoon, I took my Mom and Dad down to see where I work. The kids came too and now they will have some idea of where I am when I am gone working.
I took my parents to the airport at 7 this morning. I came home and went back to bed. I got up and hosted swim day for my ward. Only 2 people came so it was nice and small. After everyone left at noon, I actually took another nap. I don't know if I will ever feel rested again. When I woke up Diana and I went to Sam's club and got my pictures developed. The rest of week looks pretty easy, yeah.
A big thanks to everyone who made the effort to come and helped while they were here.

She works hard for the money!

Well I am happy to report that my temporary employment has come to an end for a few months. I worked 44 hours from Monday to Thursday and I am exhausted. I have done pretty much nothing else besides go to work. Now my parents and Jared have come from Seattle tonight. Diana will be baptized on Saturday. I hope I will have the energy to enjoy the event and company. Next week it will be good to get back to just trying to be a mom and keep up my house. I am trying to declutter things around here, but I have only managed to go through Diana's room and the family room. My job did have some interesting things about it that I will try and write about another time when I am not so tired.

I'm off to see the wizard, for real!

Yeah, the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time, happened last night. Its name is called I got tickets to see the musical "Wicked". I can hardly believe it. I have been dying to go and see it ever since it opened last February. It is playing down in LA, which is just a short four hour drive away. Marion and I are going to celebrate our anniversary. Our actual anniversary is on August 8th, it will be 23 years. It works best in our schedule and we got the best seats, by going on August 14th. I know it is kind of crazy that I would be excited to drive anywhere again, but it will be worth it. So yeah for a fun celebration to come!

Family Reunion in Flagstaff

Family reunions are great, cause guess what, it is where you get to visit and catch up with family members that you don't often see. About two weeks ago we went to a fun reunion with all of my uncles and aunts from my dad's side of the family. It was at a ranch in Flagstaff Arizona. I mentioned the traveling part of the reunion, but now I have my pictures back so I can put those up.
Here is Diana riding a horse all by herself, for the first time. It was pretty cool, because my cousing arranged for a horse trainer to come and give the kids private lessons. After waiting for what seemed like forever to her, it was finally Diana's turn to mount a horse. She really got the hang of it and by the next day she was guiding the horse around like a pro.

Here is Trent ready to ride. Trent wasn't sure he wanted to come to this reunion, but he ended up having a blast riding this ATV and a dune buggy thing that one of my cousins had. He told me about all the jumps he was able to go off on. We could not get him off this machine, even to eat. He was covered from head to toe in dirt. What a fun thing.

This is me with two of my aunts. They are great friends to me and I have lots of great memories with both of them. I am lucky to have them as part of my life.

This is a picture of me with two of my cousins. They are the closest to me in age on that side of the family. We have great memories of time spent at my grandpa's farm in Idaho. One time when Adele and I were sleeping out in the front yard, Glen and my cousin Eric (not in the picture) put a frog in Adele's sleeping bag. We screamed and screamed. It was pretty funny looking back on it. I don't see these cousins very much and it was fun to remeber all the fun times we had growing up.

Here are my children, with the same faces they always give me for pictures. (see last year's christmas card). This was right before we left to go home. We had a lot of fun, but I have to admit that I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked to take. The whole first day I left my camera in the car. Hopefully others will take pity on me and share their pictures with me. A big THANK YOU to all those who helped make this reunion a big success.

Hairspray!

Diana and I just got home from seeing the new movie Hairspray. And guess what? I loved it. If you do not enjoy movies with lots of singing and dancing, then this is not the movie for you. But if you enjoy a great toe tapping story then this is a must see. I don't think I was very familiar with the music in this musical, which is rare for me. I want to get the sound track now and learn the words to the songs. There are some great characters in the movie as well. If anyone else has seen it, let me know what you thought.

There's no place like home!

As I drove home from Utah on Monday, a song playing on my radio had the words "There was never anything as beautiful, as a long journey's end". Amen to that. After traveling like a billion miles in the past six weeks, I am so relieved and happy to be home for good. Yeah me! I figure that since I left for girls camp, June 12th, I have only slept in my own bed about 15 nights, and I have been sleeping in other people's homes for about 25 nights. Diana and I flew from Houston to Phoenix on Friday July 6th, then we drove back to Vegas Sunday July 8th.
We were home for three days and then we drove back to flagstaff, Thursday July 12th and back home to Vegas Saturday July 14th. This was a fun two days with my uncles and aunts. It was fun to see people I don't get to see very much. We had lots of fun, but the trip home was marred by the fact that one of us in the car got food poisoning and threw up about 10 times. Thank goddness I had some zip lock bags to catch the mess and dispose of it.
Then we were home for three days before Jared, Diana, and I drove to Spanish Fork on Wednesday July 18th. Once again we had lots of fun visiting, but I feel pretty tired by all the activities that we had planned. The best part for me was that I got to see the musical Suzzical, put on by the community. I have the soundtrack of the broadway production and love the musical. It was most difficult not to sing along with the actors as I know the words to all the songs. Jared has gone to Seattle to visit my parents, and Diana and I drove home to Vegas Monday July 23rd. Sheesh!
I can't even believe that I went all those places and I was there so I should know. I am so tired of packing and unpacking, I can' even see straight. I feel completely detached from my normal life and friends. Diana keeps asking my what she can eat and I have no idea what kind of food we have because I haven't been to the grocery store for about 2 months. Hopefully now I can try to get back into my life again.
Perhaps it has been difficult coming home, because I have worked for the past two days, and when I wasn't working I was reading Harry Potter. Yeah I finished it tonight. I am so happy that I don't have to work tomorrow, so I can try to get my house put back together. Maybe I will even get to sleep in a little bit. I am glad that I got to go and visit all the people in all the different places. No one forced me to travel so much, it was just unfortunate that it all worked out to be so close together like it did. I am still not quite sure what is so exhausting about traveling. Even if I wasn't driving, but just sitting in the car I felt pretty worn out when we got wherever we were going. Let me just say that I have gained a new appreciation for my home and even Las Vegas. I just feel like I need a vacation from all the vacations I have taken. Diana gets baptized in two weeks and we have some family coming for that. Once that is over, then my summer vacation of nothingness can begin.

Toddler Follies

An elephant may never forget, but boy thank heavens mothers do. Living with two small children for the past two weeks had brought back a memory or two that I could have done without. If Mothers remembered for long some of the things their children put them trough, I am sure we would all have one child at the most. Let me just say that my two nieces are adorable, like most small children. This does not however mean that they do not engage in normal behavior for toddlers. My niece Allie who is almost two has more energy than me at this stage in my life. In the past week she has done a few things that my sister and I could have done without. But we do want to experience both the good and the bad that children have to offer, don't we? Here are just a few of the things she did this week that gave us pause to worry. On Sunday she ran away from us into the street, once coming too close for comfort to a moving car. She also did not get her normal nap due to church time being changed. This made for a child who had a very hard time going to sleep Sunday night. Monday we went to the mall because it was raining and they have a small play area there. My sister and cousin went to bath and body works to check out their sale. I watched Diana and Allie in the play area. Allie kept losing interest in the play stuff and kept darting out of the enclosed area. I would then have to chase her down. Finally we decided to try to find my sister. On our way there Diana found a store that she wanted to look in. This was not a wise choice because it was full of purses, hello kitty stuff, Dora stuff, and princess stuff. At one time Allie emptied a rack of the Dora purse things and was carrying them around the store. By the time we got out of there a necklace from the clearance rack had been pulled apart. I am not sure if Allie did it, or if it was already broken. The store did not make us pay for it because it was on the clearance rack. That night I took Diana and Allie up to take a bedtime bath. We opened the bathroom door and Allie ran right over and stuck both of her hands in the toilet. It was crazy how fast she manged to do that. I got her hands washed off and started the water for the bath. Diana helped by taking off her diaper, but I did not realize that it was a dirty diaper. Then I had to hold onto her hands while we tried to find some wipes. It seemed fairly crazy. Tuesday night Diana woke me up at 3:30 because her leg was hurting her. I had her lay next to me in bed while I tried to massage the cramps away. After about 20 mins she went back downstairs to the couch. Then she came back in at 4:30 saying that she couldn't sleep and needed help with the tv. I helped her. Then my sister woke me up at 6:30 or so to get Allie's milk from downstairs. I needed to do it so that Allie did not wake her up. Diana has been woken up early before and is quite cranky. So I got the milk. My sister and Allie stayed up stairs for an hour or so and then they went down to get breakfast. One of us had not closed the cabinet under the kitchen sink all the way so that the child latch fastened all the way. Allie beat my sister downstairs and went right over and sprayed Lysol in her mouth. So then my sister got to call poison control. Come to find out Lysol is one of the best poisons that your child can ingest. So be sure to keep that one in the front of the poisonous cleaning supply cupboard. After that was over Allie proceeded to come upstairs and get the door to my sister's room open. The door has a childproof guard on it, but it doesn't work if the door is not pulled closed really tight. Of course she went in and woke the baby up. Now it is 7:30 and I hear all of this commotion going on and so I decide I better get up and help. Next we decided it really couldn't be that bad to take all of us to Wal Mart, and so once every one was buckled in we headed out. This actually went better than I might have thought. The baby slept during all the shopping. The only bad incident was when we handed Allie a bottle of bubble bath to put in the cart. She proceeds to open it and dump half of the bottle on the ground. I waited for someone to say "Clean up on aisle 10, Herb" but there was a worker close by who just took care of it. What kind of crazy place does not have a foil seal on top of the bottle anyway? Today Allie was trying to follow Diana into her room when Diana was going to change. Diana closes the door and Allie's fingers got smashed. I suppose it is a bit of a wonder that this only happened once during the two week episode. All in all I can honestly say that I do not miss the days when all you think about is whether all the doors and cupboards in your house are closed tightly. I have had my turn and well I will leave that fun to people who have more energy than me. They really are darling girls and some day Allie will grow up to be a very sweet young lady.

Yesterday we had a very low key, relaxed Fourth of July. Here is a picture of all the little girls. We had our cousin over and she made marvelous dutch oven potatoes and dutch oven pineapple cobbler. We also had ribs. Later that evening we were entertained by the $5 worth of fire works that I had bought. It was just perfect for it to last for about 15 mins.



Here are all the girls. With Victor gone much of the time it was quite an estrogen party.

Time in Texas

Life in Houston is definitely interesting. I have not really experienced humidity before, other than the two weeks we spent in DC four years ago. I guess I can now better appreciate what people are talking about when they say that Vegas has dry heat. My sister says that the humidity is great for your skin, and I would have to say I have not needed much lotion or even chapstick since I have been here. That is a bit odd, not needing chapstick. I wonder if my body was lacking in moisture and has been taking in as much of it as possible. The temperature here is not as hot as Vegas and that is nice, but the humidity is not really fun either.
It has been so fun to hold and play with my sister's baby. The baby is seven weeks old. Diana is quite good at babysitting and has changed her first diaper. She still thinks changing diapers is fun and offers to help if she is anywhere around when the changing happens. Diana is also quite good at holding the baby and putting the pacifier back in. She has been loving the chance to be around such a tiny baby.
Diana has also been a big help with my other neice who is 2. Diana loves chasing her around and spinning her around by her arms. She is also a pro at putting her cousin into her car seat and buckling her up. My sister will miss that extra help when we are gone. But maybe my neice will enjoy it when life is a bit calmer.
We haven't done any thing too exciting. Life with two small children is a bit hectic. Yesterday got a bit crazy. We invited a girl over that Diana met at activity days. My cousin is moving to Texas and she arrived in town yesterday also. Our cousin is moving in just 5 mins away from my sister and so my sister was helping her yesterday afternoon. Just as this little girl came over to play, my sister was trying to call people to help our cousin unload. Fianally my sister left to go over to my cousin's new apartment for just a little while. This left me with 4 little girls. At one point Diana spotted a tiny poodle walking by the front door. Before I knew what had happened, the door was open and all the girls besides the baby that I was holding, were outside petting the dog. The lady walking the dog looked at all these girls and asked if they were all mine. She seemed to be saying "Oh my, don't you have your hands full." I smiled and replied that "No, just one of them was mine and that I was babysitting the rest of them." It seemed like the phone kept ringing at the same time as all the rest of the things were happening. It was very crazy trying to keep the older ones entertained, keep the two year old out of trouble, and keep the baby pacified until her mother/dinner returned. In fact it almost seemed like something out of the movie Mister Mom where everything in the house goes wrong at the same time. My sister's husband returned from a two day trip in the middle of all of this. I think he was a bit surprised at the pandamonium. Oh well we survived and I can say that I am glad that I do not have 4 girls, 9 and under.
We are not sure how long we will be staying. We may stay for a whole nother week and they fly right to Pheonix for my husband's family get together. The whole month of July is going to be completely crazy with a trip to somewhere different planned for each weekend. I hope I am ready for all the running around.

Leaving on a Jet Plane.

Well, Diana and I have come to Houston to help my sister out with her two young children. Her husband is a pilot and so we got to experience the joys of flying standby for the first time last Saturday. Things went pretty well. Trent was able to drive us to the airport on account of Marion and Jared were still at scout camp. We got to the airport about 7:30 for our 9:25am flight. I don't know what the deal is and why there have to be so many dang people at the Las Vegas Airport all the time. I am constantly amazed that no matter what time or day my flight is there are always about a billion other people trying to fly home. I guess I can't blame them for wanting to leave Las Vegas, but that is a post for another time. Anyway, we stand in a ridiculously long line and finally make it out to our gate. We did come plenty early and so we had time to enjoy a lovely breakfast that we had to pay an arm and a leg for. It did taste good and was large enough that we could split it and so that was good. We then finally made it over to our gate to wait and see if we would make it on the plane. Once again I was astounded by the large crowd. Doesn't anyone want to sleep in anymore? Diana was very disapointed that we did not join the others as they stood in line to board the plane. Turns out that this plane was very full and we learned a new airline term "weight restricted". This term means that there may be too much weight on the plane and they have to wait until the last minute to determine if any of the stand by people can go. Apparently this is done by some kind of averages because the airlines think people might take offense to actually being asked to step on a scale before boarding the plane. Although with everything else you go through, why not add another thing to the process. Bottom line when it was all said and done, they reached their weight limit and so we did not get on even if there were some empty seats. I realize that we are not paying customers and so we should not complain, it was just disapointing for Diana who was overly excited to get going.
The next flight was at 11:10. This was just an hour and a half away. We decided to walk around and do some window shopping to kill the time. I was surprised at how fast the time did go and Diana was excited to purchase a little artist kit at one of the nearby shops. I was excited that it was only $10. We went back to the gate and took turns sketching each other. Finally they started boarding the next flight. This time we hit the stand by lottery and we were given seats. It is almost as exciting as if Bob Barker said "Pat and Diana Hammond, come on down, your the next constestants on You've Got a Seat." We happily boarded the plane and were even able to trade seats with someone on the plane so that we could sit together. Finally we were in the air and I was reminded of how much I hate to fly. I am a member of the Mr. T. school of flying where I prefer to be sedated when flying on a plane. Just because I prefer this, does not make it so, but if I could choose I would not choose to be awake when I am off the ground. There was a lot of turbulance when we left until we got high enough up that things settled down. Did I mention that I don't like to fly? Yikes. The flight went well and we got to see the movie "Bridge to Teribithia", which neither Diana or I had seen. Finally we were getting close to Houston. I guess the weather was a bit bad and we hit some air pocket or something. It felt like the plane went over something like Splash Mountain. The guy sitting next to me said we must have fell 50 feet. I have never felt anything like it before and many of the passengers screamed all at once. I have to admit to being to scared to scream, which must be a first for me. Needless to say, I was very happy when we were back on the ground.
We are having a nice visit with my sister, although two children under two do require some attention. It is nice to be out of the heat as it is only in the 80's here. The humidity is quite interesting, but I am getting used to it.

I survived!

Well I survived girls camp. I suppose all together it was a success. No one broke their leg, like last year. We took 18 girls and brought the same 18 girls home. No one froze to death, in fact no one even got sick. The camp across the road from us had girls throwing up, so we counted our blessings that didn't happen to us. The girls all got along extremely well and that was wonderful. The tent assignments that I had spent about 40 hours worrying about all worked out well in the end. Gosh, why do we obsess about things that really are not that important in the end? I felt lucky that we were in the campsite closest to the stake. It really was nice to be so close to opening and closing flag. Last year we were in the campsite furthest away and at the top of a fairly steep hill.

Here's a picture of me singing at flag, did I mention it was rather cold the first day? I have earned the name of hypothermiac, because I am always cold and wore many layers to try and compensate. Those hand warmer things are my best friend. The first night I went to sleep with one of those warmers griped tightly in my hand and I woke up several times during the night with it still in my hand. My favorite part of camp is singing the songs. Whether it be the silly ones like Fried Ham, Noah, or Princess Pat, or singing church songs around the fire there is nothing better than music and nature. It is also really wonderful to get away from normal life of cell phones and busy schedules. Camp was nice this year because we had more free time where we could be together as a ward. We had about a million different crafting supplies, and the girls had a great time making all sorts of crafts.

The first afternoon we were there, our leaders were in charge of teaching certification to 30 third year girls. One of the requirements said to have the girls spend time observing nature and then share their thoughts through drawings, poetry or interpretive dance. I hoped for lots of interpretive dancing but no one choose that option. We made all the girls walk up a fairly large hill from our camp #6 to camp #13. We brought craft supplies with us like pipe cleaners and modeling clay. This activity went better than I had thought it would, most of the girls really got into it and made some pretty interesting things. We did however have about 4 girls who thought it would be fun to climb 20 feet up a tree to do their observing. For a while it looked imminent that we would have another injury just hours into camp. We did however manage to get everyone back to the ground safely. It was fun to see what the girls had made, although several of their creations involved worms being eaten by birds. Here is a picture of me with another leader and our beautiful pipe-cleaner creations. We were glad when our certification rotation was over and on the first day. That night at opening flag we had the assignment to present the theme of "Be Strong". We asked some of our crazy 4th years to do this. We had the idea to do a take off of "Hans and Frans" from Saturday Night Live. The girls had not ever seen this, but thanks to U-Tube they got the idea of it. They wrote a very funny skit that revolved around the idea that they were here to "pump you up, spiritually". It was very funny and went over very well, although the rest of the week the other wards all just read a scripture so I hope we were not being to irreverent.

Here is a picture of all our leaders. It was great to have so much help. Especially the two sisters who were in charge of the food. I can not even begin to say how nice it was to not worry about what we were eating and who was in charge of getting the girls to make it. And not digging through the coolers to find things was also nice. Our ward had these fun shirts just for the leaders. We all really liked the camo theme. I found hats like the pink one in this picture for just $2.50 and so we got them for all the girls. Each level had a different color.

Here's a picture of all 18 girls. We loved all of them and were pleasantly pleased with how well they all got along. Aren't their shirts cute? We were slightly sad that our picture was on the second day of camp, but I think we all still look presentable.

This is me relaxing while the girls are doing latrine duty. This is also a good shot of my fanny pack. This pack was lovingly named "My Mary Poppins bag". This of course due to the fact that almost any conceivable need could be met by my wonderful pack. But onto latrine duty...Our ward has a tradition of having sort of valet service during our latrine duty time. When you come to the latrine you are welcomed by 10 - 15 girls. Someone offers to hold your jacket or personal items, someone else opens the door to the latrine and sprays it down with air freshener, before you enter someone has folded the T-P into a nice triangle, after you come out someone turns on the water for you and gets it to just the right temperature, someone offers you sweet smelling soap, after you wash your hands someone offers you a real towel to dry your hands, after that someone offers you lotion, and finally someone offers you a mint. If by chance there is a line, someone will give you a back massage with a little massage tool. The girls really get into this and it is a lot of fun. Of course there was no question-we won the golden plunger award. See next picture.

Last year we tied with another ward and we won a crown as the Latrine Queens which is really just as good. Because really it is not about winning the award, rather about the fun we all have together serving the others in our camp.
Here is a picture of a group of our girls. Notice their cute Rainbow bags. Someone donated these great tote bags, but they had a rather obnoxious drug logo on the front and back. I decided to try to cover it up and found this great fabric. I thought about going with camo, but it seemed like the Rainbow ward girls needed something rainbowish. A friend helped me to apply this fabric with wonder under. We finished all 18 of them in about 2 hours. I was thrilled with how they turned out. The girls loved them and personalized them with sharpies and ribbon. The bags were great for the girls to haul their camp manual, scriptures, and even water around all week. Yeah, I love it when a plan comes together.

This is me as my life is flashing in front of my eyes. For those of you who don't know, I am extremely afraid of heights. I don't know how they got me to do this. The girls begged me to is one reason. I can only attribute it to a lack of sleep that impaired my judgement. Another factor would have to be one of my best friends running the zip line. She can talk anyone into anything. As I stood on the top of the platform, I admit to questioning my sanity. I was pretty scared, but I did it anyway. Yeah me. I did scream for most of it and kept my eyes closed. I did open them so I could watch my landing and not hit the platform. Unfortunately when I opened my eyes all I could see was a platform that seemed forever away. The bummer part was that because of my timid departure, I had stopped quite a distance from the other platform. This meant that I had to pull myself the rest of the way. The other reason I said I would do it, was because I was assured that it required no physical ability whatsoever. This would have been true if I had made it all the way. Unfortunately my lack of upper body strength was evident to all, most of all myself. Finally after what seemed like forever the priesthood reached out and pulled me back to the safety of the ground. I have to admit that it was pretty fun and so I tried it again. This time I made it further but still had to pull myself a bit.

This is a picture of the lovely makeover I receive at Friday's morning flag ceremony. Don't I look beautiful? I did however win the loudest applause from the audience when they were asked to vote on whose makeover was the best. And the makeup did not come out of my shirt when I washed it, Oh well.

This is me bagged up and ready to go home on Friday night. We had these darn green plastic bags for our trash. They had been stored for a year out in the scout closet and they were fused together. It took something akin to superhuman powers just to get them opened. After wrestling with the darn thing for a while I managed to get it open a little and so I stuck my leg into it to help open it the rest of the way. And once I had one leg in, well I just had to see if all of me could fit. Chalk it up to lots of sleep deprivation.

All in all, it was a great week with lots of fun and little sleep. I am still trying to recover and I have slept for about 10 hours every night. Jared is gone to scout camp this week and so things are a little bit quieter. Maybe I will be able to get my house put back together. Everyone here survived pretty well. Diana lucked out because a friend picked her up at noon last Tuesday and she did not come home until 2:00 pm on Saturday. Marion was pretty busy and she was having so much fun over there, she asked to stay again each night. With Trent at work each day, that just left Jared here to fend for himself.

Pat's Ponderings

As I had written before, Diana needs glasses. Yesterday at church, she was having a hard time reading the hymn numbers up on the wall. I let her look through my glasses, and she was amazed to actually be able to read the numbers. Through out the rest of the meeting, she asked to borrow my glasses several times. Once you have a taste of clear vision, it is hard to go back to things being blurry. She can't wait for her own pair of glasses to be done.
I wondered if this could be compared to our job of helping others gain a testimony. Perhaps as parents we can let our children use our testimony to see things more clearly. Of course eventually they will need to gain a testimony of their own, but can they catch the vision of the clarity the gospel can bring to life by looking through our testimony glasses. And once they have had a taste of clear vision, won't their desire to gain a testimony of their own be increased. And perhaps this can be used with others besides our children. Truly isn't anyone who has not received a testimony of the gospel struggling around in the dark, so to speak. And once they have seen how clear and sharp things can look, they will want a testimony of their own. I am grateful for my testimony and the way it can help me navigate my way through this dark and sometimes dreary world.

Seeing Things with Different Eyes!

Well yesterday Diana went for her first eye appointment and she needs glasses. I can't believe it. A few weeks ago was the first time she even complained to me about not being able to see things on the board. The eye doc said that she would not pass the eye exam at the DMV if she needed to take one. So her first pair of glasses is on order. She chose a cute pair from the Disney princess collection. They will not be ready until next week. I did not really believe that she needed them, thinking that she was just wanting as much attention as Jared has been getting for his glasses. I am excited for her to get her first glasses and experience the wonder of seeing that the trees actually have leaves. It is quite an amazing experience to see the world through clearer eye sight. I still remember the day I got my first pair of glasses when I was about 16 years old. Boy I may have to get a job to help pay for the eye care needs of our family. Lucky Trent is the only one of us without glasses.



Speaking of glasses, Jared got hit in the head last Saturday and his glasses broke AGAIN! AAARG!! The temple part on the right side went flying in the air, and we never even found the piece ever. Just to update those of you blissfully in the dark, Jared chose these new frames last December. He had worn his old frames for 2 years waiting for our insurance to cover new frames. So finally he was eligible to pick out new frames. After much deliberating he chose a rather nice looking pair. The optometrist informed me that this was a great choice as it was suppose to be next to indestructible. Apparently he had even had a client accidentally run over a similar pair and they were not completely destroyed. At the same time we decided to pay an extra $80 for a sun glass clip that would attach to the front of the frame magnetically. So the new glasses were obtained and we went home unaware of the trial these glasses would turn out to be. With in a few weeks, Trent knocked them askew one day. This made it too hard to Jared to see out of them and so he wore his old pair, with the old prescription. A few days later I managed to take him to get them adjusted. Of course they were bent on the weekend when the optometrist office was closed. Then a month after that Marion accidentally bumped them with the same result. So we went in for an adjustment for the the second time in as many months. Then one day at soccer practice, they were bumped out of alignment for the third time. We tried to bend them back and Jared wore them that night to Diana's choir concert at a high school. They were bothering him and he took them off several times. At one time he wanted me to hold them, but Marion told him he needed to hold them himself. The next morning he told me that he could not find his glasses anywhere. I ran Trent to school and came home and started looking. I tore my house apart. Not only could I not find his new glasses, I couldn't even find his old ones either. Nothing makes me crazier than looking for things and not finding them. I searched everywhere I could think off and finally he went to school without his glasses. I finally became convinced that he had lost them at the concert the night before. I drove over to the high school and proceeded to tell my sad story to anyone who would listen. Finally after repeating the story several times, I ended up at the custodian's office. He was kind enough to walk over to the theater and unlock it. He then watched as I crawled around on my hands and knees looking in the section where we had been sitting. Still nothing. After feeling that I had exhausted every possibility at the school, I returned to my house and continued searching for a few more hours. I felt that I had lost my mind and how could it be so hard to find something that we had the night before. Eventually I gave up. Jared came home from school that day and proceeded to find the glasses under his bed about 10 minutes after he got home. I could swear that I had looked there. I was very relieved that we did not have to go out and buy a new pair and of course it was a Friday so that would have made it difficult. After this the drama/trauma with the glasses took a break for about a month or two. It was probably about 3 weeks ago, that they again turned up missing one morning. This time they were miraculously found before school. And then it was just 2 weeks ago that we went and had them adjusted again. And that brings us to last week when they broke for what seemed like the last time. Once again Jared is wearing his old pair with the wrong prescription in it. I myself thought that maybe it was for the best, and that we could get new lenses in the old frames. These glasses have seemed to be possessed with some evil spirit designed to make my life miserable. Actually it would give me great pleasure to know that we didn't need those dang glasses and then I would love to run over them several times with my car and I don't mean accidentally. Sadly my optometrist tells me that the fact that we wanted to have the sunglass clip made the front of the frame be less flexible and could possibly be part of the problem. The temple that came off and was lost can be reordered and replaced. I am not sure how much it is going to cost, but it will definitely be less than a whole new pair of glasses. Darn, I didn't get to reek revenge on those glasses after all. Hey maybe I shouldn't let an inanimate object be the cause of so much grief in my life. So sorry to rant on and on about these glasses, but hopefully it will all be better soon. Also we plan to get contacts. I think we will get the disposable kind that you throw away day. That sounds like it could be ideal.

Latest News

Well I just thought I would update everyone on the state of our van. Saturday night we took the seats out and just as I had planned I took a hose to all of it. It didn't seem so bad to hose off the seat, but I have to admit it was a little bit surreal standing in the van just spraying it all down with water. Then I wondered what to do to squeeze the water out. I remembered that our house came with a giant squeegie thing, that I think I am suppose to use on my deck when it rains. I ran up and got it. Sure enough it did a great job ringing out the carpet. I pushed as much of the water out as I could, but it was still very wet. Next I sprayed fabreeze on the carpet, to try and keep any bad mildew smell from developing. We left the doors and windows open all night long, hoping it would dry. This would be one time I was glad about the fact that I live in Vegas where conditions mimic that of a dryer. The next morning, it still was not quite dry and there was a slight smell developing, that was less than lemon fresh. I next sprayed the whole carpet down with some kind of foam stuff. I had this carpet spray left over from last summer when I drove kids to do temple baptisms and one of the kids threw up in the van on the way home. This is spray that you leave on and it gets rid of any bacteria causing a bad odor. That seems to have done the trick, and Monday morning we put the seats back in the van just in time for my turn for the car pool this week.

So now I can turn my attentions from car washer to camp director. Yes just one week from today I will be sleeping/freezing up on MT Charleston. In fact on Saturday, we take everything up the mountain to set up. At this point I am looking forward to it all being over. I went shopping today with the 2 camp cooks and we bought 2 carts heaping full of food. It is going to take a fair amount of food to feed 30 people for 3 days. We don't have to do much on Tuesday because we are making the girls bring sack lunches and the stake is feeding us dinner. This should be so much better than last year. Last year we had planned to have taco salad for lunch, but the taco meat was frozen like a brick and our camp stove had problems. I had to go across to another camp and beg to borrow a stove. Of course while I was doing this, one of our first years climbed the rock wall unsupervised or harnessed and fell and broke her ankle. We figure things can't go any worse than that this year. Hopefully the rest of the preparations will go well. I don't have a lot left to do - prepare a devotional and my certification assignment. And a few other minor details. This morning as many ladies from camp as could went to the 6:00 am temple session. We were also all fasting for a good week at camp. I can't imagine a better way to start camp. At least we have finalized our number at 18 girls. Well like I said, it will all be over in a week.

Pat's Ponderings

I am hoping that this will be a regular, reoccurring feature on my blog in which I write about some of things that I have been thinking about recently.

Today's topic will be Forgiving those who have offended us. I have always thought that the ability to forgive is like a muscle and that we either use it or loose it. And so I have tried to tell myself that it is fortunate when I am offended as it gives me the opportunity to see how big my forgiveness muscle is. However, I do not feel happy while I am in the middle of the chance to forgive others. It is so easy to be bogged down with the feelings of injustice and the pain that comes with conflict with others.

Recently at Women's conference my sister and I walked from the dorms up to the Marriot center in the rain. Neither of us had an umbrella, but we did have coats on. My sister's coat was a waterproof raincoat, while mine was just a denim sort of thing lined with flannel. I noticed that the rain just rolled off her coat, while mine just soaked it up. The result of this was that my coat became quite heavy and wet for the rest of the day. Even though I stayed inside for the remainder of the day, my coat never did completely dry. Quite honestly it was a pain to lug around and made me cold if I ever touched it. My sister's coat on the other hand seemed no worse the wear and did not bother her at all. I wondered if this was a good parable for not being easily offended. We both walked in the same rain, but it was the way the coat dealt with the rain that made the difference. Could it be that two people could be exposed to the same offense, yet one take it in and absorb it while the other let it roll off her shoulders?

In studying my family history, I have read stories of ancestors who let offense be the reason that they left the church and all the blessings that it has to offer. This not only affected their life, but the lives of their children and grandchildren. I wonder if they could go back would they make a different choice? Recently, I felt very offended. I was extremely upset and it disrupted my sleeping, eating, and feelings for several weeks. I finally realized that I needed to forgive this person no matter what. I felt as though my ancestors were sitting next to me telling me not to follow in their footsteps. And so I was able through prayer and time to experience the miracle of forgiveness again. Not the miracle of my being forgiven, but the miracle of me forgiving another I felt had wronged me. And truly it is a miracle when we can forgive and forget.

It is a very simple plan that the Lord has given to us. We must forgive everyone, regardless of the circumstances. I don't need a forgiveness lawyer or accountant to help me figure out all the exclusions and exceptions. It is a very simple law to understand, just not as simple to follow. I know that I still have a long way to go in developing my forgiveness muscles, but hopefully I am on the right path.

Traveling Flood

I have heard the saying "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade", but what do you do when 4 gallons of lemonade spill in the back seat of your van? Unfortunately I found about this tonight. We had made the lemonade and put it into a 5 gallon jug to take to Jared's soccer party. Marion put it on the back bench of the car. As I got in, I half though to myself about the stability of said jug. And sure enough when we turned the second corner I heard it tip over sideways on the back seat. I was sitting right in front of it and tried to turn around to life it upright. But as if in horrifying slow motion, I turned around just in time to see the lid pop off and gallons of yellow liquid flooding the car. This was not just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible with raisins in it. We turned the van around and went home. Marion emptied all of the wet and sticky tools from the back of his van. I ran in the house and got every towel we own and tried to sop up as much of the mess as possible. I think tomorrow we will take the seats out of the van and hose them down. Then we will park on a hill and wash down the inside as well. I don't imagine it will ever all come out or be the same again. The good news is that we decided not the make the homemade root beer, which is twice as sticky. We stopped at the store and bought supplies to replace the drink and we were only 30 mins late to the party. It all seemed to go well and we are glad that it is over. Jared does have 2 games tomorrow as well as Diana having one. One more week after tomorrow, YEAH! Boy it is too hot to want to be outside as we have finally gone over the century mark in the temperature department.