Fabulous Weekend

I am so excited for the Draper Temple Celebration that is at the conference center on May 29th. It is such an amazing opportunity for Colton and Kara to be a part of. We have practices each week and they are wonderful. We are singing some amazing songs that are beautifully arranged. I am just so glad that I volunteered to help with the driving. Colton's seminary teacher is the director who also happens to be in our stake. He is so fun to listen to. We have been blessed with so many amazing opportunities and one of them is this celebration. I just can't believe how much my cup runneth over with blessings! We truly are blessed.

Saturday night Kara and I went to the Young Women's Conference. It was wonderful. They had a delicious dinner before it that was scrumptious and also the best desserts. It was fun to go to our first young women's conference as it was Kara's first of course since she just turned 12. I LOVE having a daughter. I love young women's and the program they have. I love Personal Progress. My goal is to try and get my medallion again. When I was a leader in it last time I almost had it, but I got released before I was done. I just thing it would be fun to do it with her and I know it will help me too. She gave a talk today in church and did a great job and she is so fun to have around.

The one bummer this weekend is our fridge decided to break! And we had someone come and look at it and they told us what was wrong, but the part we needed has to be shipped. So we have bought a lot of dry ice so that we don't lose everything. It isn't the greatest thing to have a broken fridge with company, but it is kind of funny how ironic it is that it happened.

Today sometime very soon Melissa and Herb (Matt's sister and family) will be coming to Utah to stay this week. We are so excited to have them here and their children--it will be a real treat! My kids can hardly wait for them to get here and I hope that they don't overwhelm them too much with excitement and of course Matt and I are excited too. I do wish the weather would be better for them as it is snowing today.

24 years ago!

Today marks 24 years since my mom died. It is amazing to me that you can still miss someone so much that died that long ago. So many happy memories. And even though I know that I shouldn't do the what if game, I still sometimes imagine what it would be like to still have her alive and how my life would be different than it is now.

My mom has been the most powerful person in my life and taught me so much. She was such an example to me of being kind, caring, a missionary, always doing good, and brightening others days! She did the simple things each and every day that added up to great things over time. I loved her positive energy and cheerfulness that was so contagious. I feel it was such a blessing to have her the 16 years that I did in my life.

But one thing I do know for sure now is that she still influences my life and impacts it, in ways I feel have truly blessed me. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who still allows my mom to bless me, even from the other side of the veil. I love you Mom!

BYU Science Fair

Above is Kara at BYU in the science fair. It was a fun day and there were 800 science fair projects to look at, with my shrinking brain cells I really learned a lot.
Here we are on the bus heading to the Joseph Smith building (someplace big enough to fit everyone). Kara did very well and had a very fun day.

A little of this and a little of that!

Here are the tables that Natalie (our ward's Enrichment leader) decorated for our Relief Society Birthday Celebration. We had the privilege of hearing Mrs. Utah speak on Celebrating Womanhood. She did an amazing job. We also had soup, rolls and yummy desserts. We have some very good cooks in our ward.
Above is Kara at her school's award assemble. She had an average of 99.2% and is one great student.
Here is Kara and I after the award assemble; it will be her last one since she won't be at Edgemont anymore.

We have been involved in a lot of different things right now that are fun for everyone. The youth in our stake are going to be in the Draper Temple Celebration that will be May 29th. There will be a lot of practices (two a week) and I volunteered to be a Captain 10 which means that I will be at every practice and be over 10 youth and will make sure they get to each meeting and have a ride home. It is a lot of fun and looks very exciting. Kara is going to be in one of the dances and will be a passenger and Colton is in the choir. His seminary teacher Mr. Marshall McDonald is in charge of it.

This weekend is the Draper Temple dedication and we have tickets for Saturday as well as Sunday so it will be wonderful to be able to go. We are so blessed to have a brand new beautiful temple. I will be working two days a month in the temple and I am so excited to be able to do this. You can't work any more days than that until all your children are 18.

Kara is working hard to be able to go to BYU next week for the big science fair and is really excited for the opportunity.

We went and saw the musical "Wiz" at Eastmont middle school for family night and it was superb. We had several friends in it and they did a wonderful job.

The weather has been gorgeous and we have enjoyed every minute of it. It has been nice to walk to pick up Kara from school, but unfortunately it is supposed to snow on Sunday afternoon, but I do need the snow for snow shoeing so I can't complain too much and I know it will be warm again.

Today is the first day of Spring and I love it. Spring and Autumn are my favorite seasons of the year. Kara just started soccer again and is on the same team as she was in the Fall with my brother Matthew as the coach. He does such a good job with the girls. Kara has been practicing hard for her play, "Enchanted" that she is also in during the month of May. It is going to be really cute to go and watch.

It was Coby's birthday also and we miss not being with him, but he is enjoying his mission so much and doing such great things that it is very inspiring to us. Transfers were this week and he found out that he would be staying in Vienna for one more transfer so after this transfer he will be there a total of more than 8 months.

I have been doing a lot of scrap booking and am trying to get caught up. It is one thing that you really can't get that caught up as you keep taking more and more pictures.

Matt and I are starting our ball room dancing classes again. We had so much fun doing this and I highly recommend it.

We have been doing projects around the house that have been fun--but mainly because Matt is doing most of the work--he is so strong, and I have just been organizing them--the easy part. I mentioned to him yesterday that it would be cool if we moved our room around and when I got back from Kara's soccer practice the room was completely moved around. He amazes me constantly. And another amazing thing is that he took out his flat screen TV. I was thrilled (he really didn't watch it very much anymore) but it was still a hard move for him. I really just don't like TV too much unless I am scrap booking or exercising; there are so many things you could be doing that are a better use of time in my humble opinion, but I do like to watch movies.

Spencer has had spring break this whole week and it has been a great week for it with the wonderful weather. He has been doing a lot of outside projects around our home and does a good job. He is still looking for a job; it is hard in this economy.

Lately I feel like I am doing a lot of taxi driving, but it is all good. So that is a little of what is going on here.

Kara's friend birthday party

Kara had a later over for her birthday party and it was a lot of fun to watch silly giggling young ladies. (the one on the left is my cute niece)! They are too funny and have some fun tricks they have learned.

12th Birthday Events

We had a fun day on Kara's birthday. Colton made Kara french toast for breakfast that was absouletly delicious. After breakfast Kara, Spencer and I went and saw "Confessions of a Shopaholic" ( Colton didn't want to to see the movie at all and Matt had been gone in Wyoming on business and came home later on that day). Then we came home and Kara went to a swimming birthday party. She has a friend who has a birthday on the same day. She came home in time for what she chose for dinner.
Here are pictures of us right before dinner. Notice our screen saver is our missionary son on our computer. (I didn't notice it at the time put the computer area sure looks cluttered. I will have to do something about that)!
A picture of Kara and her dad! Boy does she love him! (And too many magnetics on the fridge too, another cluttered area)! The things you notice in pictures.
Kara in the midst of opening her presents. Doesn't she look like the person on the Taboo box here? Please say yes! Kara right before she blows out her candles. What a happy wonderful girl we have in our family. We are so grateful for her and the opportunity to have her as our daughter! Also notice her purple frosting. I don't know if I have ever made purple frosting on a cake before--there is a first for everything.

Much Ado about Nothing

The play "Much Ado about Nothing" ended up turning out so nicely. Everyone seemed to remember their part and they were so funny. Kara was supposed to wear make up for the play and really disliked it at first, but decided on the second day of the play it wasn't so bad after all.


Here above is just one scene from the play. The play was really funny and well acted. Mrs. Robison really taught the students well.

Pictures from after the play was over!