All Aboard

This weekend I was involved in my 5th Stake Activity Days.  This year we had a train theme:

The girls checked in at the ticket booth to pick up their future temple recommend. 

We divided the girls up into 4 groups.
One group went to a room and learned about Family History and Preparing for the temple.

 We had made a temple passport book to give them in this class.  The book contained information about all the temples in the world and it had pictures of all the temples in Utah.

 In another group they played a game which contained info about the Article of Faith, The family Proclamation, The Faith in God requirements and Baptism.

They each got a train rice crispy treat after that class.

The 3rd class was making temples with a little note that said, "I'll go inside someday."

 In the 4th group they made little charm necklaces with a temple charm, mirror charm and train charm.

At the end I did a little wrap up and then the girls got some temple cookies and a luggage box with cute little items inside the box.

 This is Lori my secretary.  She is the creative one that really pulls this together.

 This is my presidency.  They have been so amazing to work with.

This was a huge project and a lot of work but we saw so many tender mercies as we planned and executed this activity.  

 Can you believe all a dollar had these cute mirrors?

We made some chocolate temple treats.

Im going to list few of the tender mercies we experienced:
1.The train charms were given to my secretary.  She is a teacher and a parent just walked up to her one day and said maybe you can figure out a way to use these.
2. The huge mural was lent to us from a woman in another stake that bought it for an activity.
3. One of the cute handouts we gave out in the luggage box was given to us from a woman that had made copies.  She wanted to order 100 copies and accedently ordered 1000.
4. The woman that made the temple cookies for us use to work down town at one of the church shops and made temple sugar cookies all the time.  She still has connections so she was able to bake all the cookies quickly and easily.
5.  The temple book was my main project for the activity.  Friday morning I needed to go make copies but I had miss placed the USB drive that contained all the information.  I looked everywhere for the USB without any luck.  I finally gave up and said a prayer.  Immediately a thought flashed in my mind.  I went to check and there was the USB.
6. At the copy center I was stressing because the price of copies was going to be so much.  I was there for a  couple of hours making copies and cutting pages.  When I went to check out I asked the lady to apply a coupon to the order.  She couldn't get it to work.  She fiddled with the register and accedently cut the price in half.  She tried to correct the mistake and couldn't get it to work so she just said, "you can just have it at this price."  I about fainted when she gave me the copies at half price.
7.  The little wooden temples were cut out by a gentleman in the stake.  He happily cut out all the temples and bases.  Then he felt he needed to bevel the edges of the bases and stain them for us.

Here comes the snow!

After 3 beautiful weeks and seeing the trees begin to bud, a snow storm blew in. 

I think Bountiful ended up with around 1 foot of snow.  The snow was perfect for a snow man so Ila and I made this awesome snowman.

It’s spring

January has been amazing. The weather is nearly perfect.  This has been a beautiful thing for us but and awful thing for skiers and ski resorts. 

Ila loves to dance. We actually got briggs to swing around with her. It is pretty cool to have a brother who is a ball room champion!

Poor Christal had to have surgery to take care of endometriosis.  I have never heard of anyone with such an extreme case of endometriosis.  It was a rough surgery and she stayed at a place near the hospital for a week. 

I was able to get up to Ogden a few times to see her but I wish I could have helped her more. It was so sad to see her suffering. 

Duke and Molly are actually really patient with the kids. Ila loves having the cats around.

Finishing up the Holidays

 During the holiday break we went to the Aquarium.

 There wasn't a lot of snow but just enough to do a little sleding

We doggie sat the Slocum dog for a week.  Since we don't have a fenced yard I took her on several walks a day.  I think I need her back so it forces me to keep walking.

 Ila and I rode tracks down to AF.  Ila loved this adventure.  We were actually going down there because Adam bought a new truck and we had to go drive the other car home.

 I put this picture of Buddy in because he is my Buddy.  He loves to go everywhere I go.  He sits and waits patiently in the car until I am done in a store.

 This is the year of 40!  This year all of my friends that I graduated with will be turning 40.  Deon is the oldest so she was the first.  Scott, her husband, planned a party for her.  It was so fun to be with a couple of my closest friends from high school.  We sat and laughed about some of our crazy adventures.  I hope my kids have friends in high school like my friends.