HELP KARLI BEAT MIKE!

My supper awesome cousin needs help beating her sneaky husband in a blogging contest and would appreciate all the help she can get. Click on the web site to your right and leave a comment, thus putting your name in some drawings for some cute stuff! We wish Karli the best of luck and may the best woman win!

Dead Mermaids?

Let me explain this title. We were getting ready to eat dinner and, as always, Shannon wanted to say the prayer. We relented, AGAIN, and she wanted to say it by herself which can turn out very odd! ANYHOO, Shannon is doing well and out of the blue says "and please bless us that we can see a dead mermaid"! WHAT THE HECK? Derek and I had the oddest faces on when she finished. We asked the girls what this was all about and Erin claims that one of her friends said she saw a dead mermaid. For starters, we had to explain that mermaids are mythical creatures...not real! Erin actually wanted to argue this point with us! We also had to talk about keeping our prayers reverent and it's not appropiate to ask for a dead mermaid let alone a live one! I tell you, I wonder where we went wrong sometimes! I didn't think we'd ever have to censure the girls' prayers!

Draper Temple

I'm sorry I don't have a picture of my family in front of the temple,but if you've been there yet you know the set up isn't really condusive to taking pictures of the temple. I think they are so worried about anyone having to be out in the elements you don't really have a place to stop and just look at the outside. It is beautiful though! Our girls were so excited to go and see the inside of the temple and get a little taste of what their parents see and do when we go to do temple work. You could tell the girls were feeling something while we walked through and saw all the beautiful work that had been done. They were very reverant for the most part. Shannon tried to give herself her own tour, but was redirected by some of the volunteers. It's a good thing they have someone at every turn! The girls favorite rooms were the bride's room and the sealing rooms, because "that's where families are sealed forever". I think they found a real interest in the baptismal room because they would get to do baptisms first. Erin in only 4 years! I can't believe how the time has flown! We made sure each of the girls got a pamphlet to put in their journals to remind them of the day. They really want to go to the next temple open house now, and I don't know how you can say no! And on the way to the temple I spotted a KENNINGTON COURT. I wanted to go back and get a picture of the street sign to put on my blog, but Derek took another route home. I may have to go another time.

Shannon was hungry and tired by the time we took this photo. It's in front of the church building where we parked our car and watched the video. Then a bus took us up to the temple.

My ever growing testimony

I don't know why it continues to astound me everytime it happens, but I guess I just need reminding that I am a child of a Heavenly Father who is very patient with me. I'm scheduled to teach the first sunday lesson next month and I'm one that stresses over it for weeks before. Teaching is not one of my talents, to say the least. So I had decided to teach on receiving personal revelation. I have wanted to teach on this for a while, but it was never the right time. Since this might be my last chance to teach the first sunday lesson, since we are moving, I decided now or never. I struggled to put my lesson together; I couldn't recall quotes, scripture, anything to help me in preparation for my lesson. Nothing flowed well. I was reading through me Ensign and had only read one or two articles, when out of the blue, I had the feeling to do my lesson on self reliance. This was a completely different direction than I wanted to take my lesson! I put the magazine away for the day. I went over my original lesson with Derek that night and it still didn't feel right. Today, I sat down with the Ensign again (Lauren was asleep and the other girls were with Derek running errands). I was flipping through it again, skimming over articles and ran right into Elder Ballard's article on....SELF RELIANCE! I sat down and put my talk together within the hour. My mind was opened and I was able to recall quotes and scripture that I had read that related to this very topic. I had made up my mind to follow the Spirit's promptings and was ,I hate to admit, amazed at how easily it came to me. Just like my own girls need CONSTANT reminding and encouraging to do what's right and listen to what I say, I, in turn, need my constant reminder that all will be done on the Lord's time table and only through Him will it come together so as to be effective for those we teach. I am indeed grateful for this calling and have learned so much in regards to listening to the spirit and studying the words of the prophets and apostles. I may just be rambling, but was told in my P. blessing that if I shared my testimony every day, if only with myself, it would grow to be very important to me and a great blessing. So I am sharing it with anyone who reads this and maybe that will cover me for a couple more days

The four letter word

Shannon has now picked her expression of choice when life gets hard. It's the "f" word....FOOF! She was eating lunch today in the kitchen and dripped some food on her lap and out came "Oh, foof!" She will also run out to the car to leave and get to the car door "Foof!" to replace phew. I think I'm going to take her example and use it in my vocabulary. It's much like Laura's "piffle". But I think it sounds cuter coming out of her mouth.

Looking on the brighter side

In my quest to try looking on the brighter side and find the positive in life right now, my mother in law sent me an email. I had to add my own pictures because I couldn't upload the email pics. Enjoy!

NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES!

All personnel will now be required to look happy while working. Company-approved supplies will be provided to each employee at little or no cost.
• Workloads getting to you?
• Feeling stressed?
• Too many priorities and assignments?

Here is the new low-cost, company-approved solution to cope with multiple priorities and assignments!

Each employee will be supplied 2 paper clips and rubber bands. (See Fig 1.)


Assemble items as shown in Fig 2.


Apply as shown in Fig 3.


Enjoy your day. This new office equipment will help you to reach the end of a productive work day with a smile on your face!

The Management

This may work really well on Shannon, if I could ever get it on her!