Abby's Birthday!

Abby turned 13 yesterday. I can't believe she is 13 and I can't believe that I helped create such an exceptional and beautiful young woman! I look at her in total awe and I'm so happy that I get to be part of her life.
At the last minute we decided to try another fun cake so we came up with a swimming theme since that's Abby's thing. Emily and Will helped me decorate it and we kept it a secret from Abby. It was pretty darn cute.



I was going to leave the Teddy Grahams naked but Emily insisted on doing a few swimming suits. She did so good considering she didn't use a decorating tip. That girl is quite creative! That's Abby on the diving board with her team suit and swimming cap on.

Abby's main present was Dylan's old cell phone which we gave to her a week ago. She knew she was getting it and it seemed silly to keep waiting until her birthday because almost on a daily basis I was wishing that she had one. We finally broke down and gave it to her and it was such a relief! It's just nice to be able to communicate with your children whenever you need to.

Well we now have 3 teenagers in our family but luckily the Lord has taken one over for us which gives us better odds at survival. I think we'll manage and of course I wouldn't have it any other way. I love this gang I managed to hook up with. I am very blessed!

When things that are dear to you are withdrawn

Things have been a whirlwind for the last few days but we accomplished getting Dylan out the door and ON HIS MISSION! I still cannot believe that I have a son on a mission. It is a very wonderful feeling and I feel such gratitude to my Heavenly Father for giving me this righteous son. I am so very proud of him.
His farewell was this past Sunday, July 31st. I knew he had been working on and struggling with his talk for weeks. To be completely honest I had no idea what to expect. Sometimes the inexperience really shows through with farewell talks, not that there's anything wrong with that, I just didn't know what to expect. My son blew me away. His preparation, physical and spiritual was evident. His growth was evident. I didn't try to take notes as I usually do because I knew I could get a copy later, all I did was sit there and soak it all up. I had the feeling that my son was ready! Not perfect of course, but ready to go now and be stretched to the next level.
It was such a wonderful day. There were so many people there and I was disappointed that I didn't get any pictures. I was flipping pancakes as fast as I could, then as soon as it slowed down people were already leaving and I realized that I forgot to get the camera out! Dang! It's ok though, I've tried to make a list to remember everyone that came. Many did not come over for food but were there for his talk and it was so great to see such love and support. He had one of his elementary school teachers come, his golf coach, his good baseball coach, his co-workers... so many dear friends and family. I had such feelings of joy and happiness that I really can't describe it. This is really what it's all about!
I will share the part of his talk that affected me the most. As he concluded he read a passage from a talk given by Elder F. Enzio Busche. He said that this was his favorite talk and that he reads it every morning as he has been preparing for his mission. I had no idea he did this! (It was actually a video that he watched.) He shared it with Glenn and I later in the day which was another special moment.
Here is the video. It is from a BYU Devotional on May 14 1986.

Watching this beautiful video has become my new daily routine. One particular passage has become very personal to me now that Dylan is gone. He says "When things that are dear to you are withdrawn from you know that this is your lesson to be learned right now but know also that as you are learning this lesson God wants to give you something better." Dylan may be withdrawn from us at this time but I know he will return as something better. I love my Heavenly Father for giving us all this marvelous experience.

How do you eat your Fruit Loops?

Here's how to eat them William style.
First craft several Fruit Loop boats.

Then eat all the cereal.

Then set the boats sailing in the left over milk!

Why have I never thought of that?
Just a friendly reminder to enjoy the journey!

William starts piano lessons!

My policy is not to start music lessons until around the age 9-10 but I had to go ahead and start William. The reason? He won't stop playing the piano. The girls taught him a few little songs like the standards "heart and soul" and the Indian song, and I just assumed he would lose interest. But no, he keeps learning more songs like "Castle on a Cloud" and "Called to Serve". Here is his latest which is pretty much why the lessons started. (Sorry it's sideways.)

2 1/2 Weeks in Pictures

May 24 2011
Concert featuring International Rock Stars.


May 25
Concert featuring my son wearing tights...?

May 28
Sweet 16


May 31
6th Grade "Celebration".



May 31 continued.
Mr. Mac'ed




June 2
Braces!

June 3
Last day of school shaving cream war.




June 6 to present.
Tonsillectomy



June 11
Temple Day!

U and I 2gether Again

Forgive me if this post is long and personal and maybe even a little weird but I'm going to attempt to explain my history and feelings about a little band called U2. Perhaps you've heard of them.
Let's just say U2 was my band in the 80's. I know my first exposure to them came from Red Rocks.


No I wasn't there but I've lived it vicariously more times than I can count. I'm talking about the Sunday Bloody Sunday video that was filmed at the Red Rocks concert in Colorado. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM4vblG6BVQ
Since Twin Falls radio stations really stunk, everything music in my life came from MTV. (I want my MTV...) This video at Red Rocks was definitely the coolest thing I had ever seen. The song of course was incredible but with Bono marching up and down, then hoisting the white flag and chanting with the audience "no more war", wow, it just stirred the emotions. It was very moving to an impressionable teenager. I can still watch it 27 years later and feel everything I felt then.
Like most teenagers I was into all kinds of music but I slowly started adding U2 to my collection. We copied cassette's a lot in those days. Don't judge me, music was pretty expensive and everyone had dual tape players so that's just what we did. I got copies of War, Boy, October, Wide Awake in America, Under a Blood Red Sky and The Unforgettable Fire.

The Unforgettable Fire became my favorite and basically got me hopelessly hooked on the boys from Dublin. In those days when you liked a band you got their album and listened to all of the songs over and over. This is where it might get a little weird but I would put the Unforgettable Fire on, lay in the middle of the floor of my room and just let the music seep into me. The songs on this album seemed to soak into my very soul.

OK shake that off and lets move on to the Joshua Tree. Released in 1987, I'm 17 now. This is when the rest of the world discovers my boys. I loved the album honestly and completely but I distinctly remember feelings of disappointment when the pop stations started playing U2. Hearing With or Without You played on Z103 or worse played at a stake dance just made it a bit less cool to me. I guess I was a U2 snob in that way but it's true. I still loved them and absorbed every word. I loved the lyrics and I loved that there was meaning behind their songs. Bono's political activism was becoming more apparent through these years with his involvement in Live Aid, Artists Against Apartheid and Amnesty International to name a few. I have to admit that it opened my eyes to things going on in the world that teenagers usually wouldn't know of or care about. This only added to my admiration.
Skipping ahead another year or two brings us to Rattle and Hum. For some reason I don't remember details about when Rattle and Hum came out and I don't remember if the album was released before the movie or after. The movie though I remember. I was a freshman in college when it rolled around to the dollar theater in Provo. Movies 8 with Front Row Joe but it might be Movies 12 or 13 by now. I saw Rattle and Hum the movie at least 4 times. Here is my journal where I saved my ticket stubs.

Every time I could scrounge up a dollar and a couple of hours I would run down to see it. It was great, just like seeing the red rocks video, seeing Bono perform was just amazing. What I also liked about it was the personal look at the band. I liked hearing the interviews and seeing them interact with each other. Little did I know then that Rattle and Hum was the beginning of the end for me and my band.
I found this out later but I guess that the movie drew criticism for being too self promoting and seemingly insincere. From a movie stand point yeah I guess I can see that it wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't really a movie to me. It was an inside look at my favorite band and that was priceless. Since I didn't know about the bad reviews I didn't worry about it. About this time in my life a certain missionary was returning home and my attention was diverted away from music and pop culture for a time. Had I been paying closer attention maybe I would have had a head's up about Achtung Baby but I just didn't see it coming. When it was released I bought it with my normal anticipation and expectations. Boy was I surprised! I didn't know that U2 had been "re-inventing" themselves since the negativity over Rattle and Hum. The album cover itself should have been a dead giveaway.

Everything about the album, the cover, the lyrics, the sound, was significantly different than everything I was used to and I didn't really like it. The ironic thing at least for my story is that the re-invention worked. Achtung Baby took off and U2 was on it's way to superstardom.
I know this is a really long story for it to just end but that's pretty much what happened for me. I just didn't like the new U2. I never bought another U2 album, I never cared for any of their new songs which I still heard on the radio and I never had any interest to go to a concert when they came around. Even the current 360 tour, no interest, didn't even know it was coming. And I certainly never anticipated what would happen to me once I saw the boys again. You see Tuesday I attended the U2 concert in Salt Lake. How it happened is nothing spectacular. Thanks to a good friend Glenn was offered tickets and he accepted. I know he expected me to be excited to hear that he had tickets but I was pretty ho hum about it. Not only are we not concert goers but U2 just wasn't my thing anymore. I knew their shows were flashy and showy and downright odd.
What I know now though is that my husband knows me better than I know myself. This is a guy who I once asked to stop singing along to Pride because he was interrupting something akin to a spiritual experience for me. He stopped and didn't even get mad or laugh. More recently he steered me quickly out of a wedding reception because a really bad band was doing a really bad cover of With or Without You. When I mentioned how bad the band sucked he said "yeah I knew the U2 song would bother you." He may not have understood my strange U2 feelings at least on the surface but it was those very things that gave him a deeper understanding. He knew I was connected to U2 no matter what. He is such a great guy. He knew I would love seeing U2 when I didn't even know it. Yes I LOVED seeing U2. Bono ever the showman was amazing. Everyone and everything was amazing and I am hooked on U2 again.

Their music has definitely changed but it is still brilliant. They still write songs with meaning and beautiful lyrics and I hadn't been listening. I now have about 20 years of U2 to absorb so if you need me I'll be on the floor of my room.
(Stay tuned for a full concert report.)

Savvy Me

Well I finally decided to give couponing a try. I have a couple of friends that do it and I went to an Enrichment class on it but I've never been quite convinced that it was for me. Glenn recently discovered the show called "Extreme Couponing" and he's been talking about it a lot lately. I still haven't been convinced until yesterday when I found the Savvy Shopper website. www.savvyshopperdeals.com I was on the Daily Herald's site because I wanted to find out what the newspaper subscription would cost so I could get the coupons, and right there was a tutorial from the Savvy Shopper lady. I knew she was a columnist in the paper but I didn't know how widespread her couponing empire was. I watched about 30 minutes of tutorial videos and was able to get a lot of my questions answered. What I liked the most is how organized this Savvy Shopper method is so I'm going to follow it every step of the way. The weekly e-mails they send out rate the sales at all stores and tell you exactly what coupons to be using to get the best deals. They have something called the shopping wizard that lets you make your shopping list right from their store lists and prints it all out for you. They also send out info about rebates, on-line coupons, unadvertised sales etc. If there is any kind of good deal going on anywhere these guys are on it and passing it along. That is exactly what I need, just someone to tell me what to do. So I've ordered my papers (5 Sunday papers to be exact) and signed up for the email lists. I'm kind of excited, we'll see how it goes from here.

Mission Call!

Well here it is.

This was such an exciting night and we are so happy to finally know where Dylan will be serving. Mexico has always been on my list of worrisome places where he could serve but Heavenly Father was quick to remove any worries. I have watched this clip probably 20 times and every time Dylan says Mexico, Mexico City North I've had a wonderful comforting feeling coupled with a love for the people he will serve. The gospel is amazing and I am ever grateful to my Heavenly Father for His presence in my life, for sending me this good son who is anxious to serve Him, for adding Mexico City to our family's experience and for every countless blessing He has given me. This is a cute side note. William had Barnaby Bear the night Dylan opened his call. Barnaby is a stuffed bear from his class that they bring home for a night, play with, write about what they did and then return to class the next day. Here is the journal entry that William wrote about his night with Barnaby. My favorite part is how he captured Dylan's "Euro-Fauxhawk-Mullet" in his drawing.

Let's talk about Emily

The last few weeks worth of pictures in my camera are all about Emily so this blog is dedicated to her.
Her Birthday!
Emily just turned 10 on April 2nd. A few weeks before her birthday she started taking piano lessons and unlike everyone else I know she loves to practice. She's been tinkering on the piano for a few months and begging for lessons so naturally I assumed that once she started lessons she would quit playing. Not so, in fact she will play the same thing over and over and over and never and I mean never get tired of it. Over the weeks as I fought the urge to yell "quit practicing that piano" it came to me to get her an electronic keyboard...with headphones. Even though my motives weren't entirely on the up and up I knew she would love it which she did, and does. Here are some pictures from her B-Day.



Miss Mendenhall
This has been an exciting school year because Emily's teacher Miss Mendenhall got engaged mid-year and was soon to become Mrs. Phillips. You can imagine how a 10 year old girl would eat that up. Miss Mendenhall sent invitations to all of the kids in her class and Emily just naturally planned on attending the reception. I wasn't so sure about going especially when I learned the reception was in Salt Lake and that Glenn would be out of town. (Not only is he my driver and navigator he's my security blanket.) So I asked Em if she was sure she wanted to go and she answered with a frank "Ya" accompanied by an expression in her eyes that questioned why I would even ask such a thing. I playfully asked how she was going to get up to Salt Lake and she said she'd take Garrett's segway if she had to. Well with that kind of determination I decided it would be a fun adventure for the two of us to go the much anticipated event. Mother nature added to the adventure by providing relentless rain followed by snow for the drive up. Thank goodness for the navigation system that guided us right in while I concentrated on staying on the road. On the surface it's a simple event, greeting the bride and groom, some food, a little socializing and then on your way but this was much more to a 10 year old girl, and being that this is my daughter I felt much gratitude to the unknowing example Miss Mendenhall was setting for her. I think of how the school year has played out, a young energetic new teacher who the kids just adore and who is a returned missionary to boot, enter boyfriend then fiance who they also came to know and love as he helped in the classroom, ending with a temple marriage and these kids got to experience it all. That's important to me. That's exactly what I want my daughter to see in life and by her enthusiam I know that she experienced the joy in it all. I just couldn't be happier for this 4th grade year for Em.
I snapped one picture that turned out blurry but hopefully you get the gist of it.

These photo booth pictures were used for the wedding book. They glued a copy right in the book and you could sign your name.

These will always be a reminder to me of not only a great night with my daughter but of the wonderful things she experienced beyond the picture.
Rad Kids
Rad Kids is a program that our school does in the 2nd and 4th grades. It has to do with empowering kids for any dangerous situations that they might encounter. I have mixed feelings about it because it is just a shame that a program like this needs to exist but I do appreciate the things that are taught. The program culminates with a "graduation" where they get to show a little of what they've been taught. They actually do a run through of 3 types of senarios that the kids have to get away from with the last being an actual abduction attempt. They are taught some basic self defense techniques and they demonstrate using them to get away from the officer playing the bad guy. He is fully padded and the kids are to go all out to get away. I have never been able to watch without tears the moment that they get out of his grasp and run away. I am always crying and cheering at the same time. I didn't get any pictures of Emily's demonstration, but the yellow blur is her as she got her certificate and you can see the padded guy whose butt she kicked!


I'll wrap this up by saying it's been a great month watching my beautiful daughter Emily learn and grow. I am so blessed to be her mother.