Life lately

Just a few events to blog about lately that I thought I could round up into 1 blog entry and try to get caught up.  Still not ready to post about the big event, but still putting my mind to writing that one. 

Tuesday March 22, there were bombings in Brussels, which I am not going to lie kind of scare me a little.  Especially with my upcoming trip I have planned to NYC (but that isn’t going to stop me).  I digress, our City of Rexburg has hosted many dancers from Belgium and lots of other places around the world.  My office is right across the street from the Chamber of Commerce and I just happened to look outside the day after and they were flying the Flag from Belgium along with our flag which I thought was pretty amazing.  There were some American’s that died in the bombing and some Missionaries that were hurt, so it did hit pretty close to home.  I was just proud to belong to such a cute little community that also supports the world around us.

So, on Sundays I have the best calling in the whole church.  I get to spend 2 hours with my best church friend and all of the kids in that ward between the ages of 18 months and 3 years.  And boy do we have fun!!  Here is a pictures of cute Haven, she is one of the kids that get to hang out with us during those 2 hours.  Did I mention that we get treats every Sunday?  I am not sure how the other parents feel about me putting pictures of their kids on my blog so I just took one of her to put on here.  We have roughly 10 kids each week and I have been doing it for about a year now.  I love that Amanda is in there with me, I think I would struggle to just be alone with someone else for 2 hours, I don’t know what we would talk about for that long.  

My mom called me last week and wanted me to go to a concert with her, and my cousins Ann and Shelly, I had no idea what the concert was, but I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to spend time with my mom and cousins, that doesn’t happen very often.  The concert was at the Madison High school and it was a family singing group called The Duttons.  I guess they perform over in Branson and have a small theater in the winter in Mesa.  They were amazing and they only brought part of their family.  They also performed with the high school choir (which brought back memories) and the orchestra, it was so worth going, I loved it.
 

Poor Jerika is on her feet all day and somedays all evening too, as a result she has been getting ingrown toe nails.  So, we decided to take her to a specialist here in Rexburg.  He was hilarious and I was very impressed with him.  Especially because he told me she didn’t need surgery but also told her some of the things she needed to do to help her poor little feet.  I think she is most worried about having sore feet when we go on our trip, but I think helped reassure her that if she does what he told her all will be well.  But, of course I had to take a few pictures while we were in the office, feet really gross Ray out so my main goal was to just get a picture for him, he loved it.  NOT.
 

So, in my haste to hang out with my mom and cousins, I totally forgot that my visiting teachers were coming.  OOPS.  I love, love, love my visiting teachers and I was really sad when Ray told they had stopped and I had forgotten.  Well, the next day my cute visiting teacher Jocelyne (who was my laurel advisor when I was the Young Women’s president) stopped by my office to bring me a Jamba.  How sweet is that?  I was the slacker and she totally took time out of her schedule to make sure I knew she was thinking about me. So sweet.

 

 Oops out of order and I don't know how to fix it.

Breakfast of Champions

I had a rough week, life just really beats a person down sometimes and I just didn’t want to do much.  So, on Saturday this was my breakfast in bed and YES it was so good and I didn’t feel guilty at all!!  Maybe on one of the upcoming posts on my blog I will explain a little further but I am still working on putting those thoughts together in my head.  Let’s just say that my trip to NYC in July is going to be a nice break in my daily world.

Sisters

Sister missionaries are so much fun!!  We have loved having them in our home and have loved the chance to listen to them teach Kinlee’s friend Vanessa.  We have been so lucky that they are sisters and not elders.  It is such a struggle to have Ray home in time to have them over for anything, so if it was the elders, I don’t think we would be able to have them at all without him home.  Sometimes I watch these amazing young women and think how brave and smart they are, I even feel a little dumb about the gospel sometimes when they are teaching.  They were willing to leave the comfort of their homes and families to come and tell people about the most amazing Religion in the whole world.  I can’t imagine the sacrifice their families make to have them do this and to not see them for 18 long months.  Sister McIntosh is from Texas and I am pretty sure Sister Stein said she is from Michigan and neither of them had many other members in their schools at all.  We are just thankful they made this choice and we are able to make life long friends.

Cuteness

Jesse & Ashy

Ashy and Jessie HATE to have their pictures taken.  It is quite the struggle to even get them to look at the camera at all.  Well, this weekend just the two of them came up to eat at Chiz’s one last time.  Ashlin loved eating there growing up and she wanted to make sure Jesse at least tried it before it closed.  That meant we got to spend some time with them while they were here.  I did finally convince them to look at the camera so I could take their picture and aren’t they cute?  We are so glad they found each other!

Mrs. Fields

So, I know I have blogged before about my complete obsession for these cookies.  It is such a good thing I don’t live anywhere near any of these stores.  Sadly these cookies were the only good thing about my trip to Utah, other than spending time with my parents.  My cute cousin Valarie died in Utah and I went with mom and dad to her funeral.  She was only 42 and they are still unsure as to the cause of her very untimely death.  I actually used to babysit her when she was younger and I was living in Utah when she went on her first date with her husband so I got to grill him a little before they left.  Like I said it was nice to spend the day with my parents and it was only 1 day, we left that morning and came back after the luncheon.  We got to see some relatives we hadn’t seen in a long time, but I really hate having to go to funerals for that to happen.  I also got to see Shelby and I hadn’t seen him for a while either.  It was a very nice funeral, short and sweet, and I was able to sit by Val’s neighbor who was very informative about a lot of things.  Let’s just say it was interesting what strangers often tell me, I think I might have a sign that says “tell me your life story”.  I don’t usually mind at all but I missed some of the funeral because of it, but maybe he needed to talk.  As we headed home that afternoon the one thing I told my dad I wanted was cookies, since we weren’t staying to shop or eat at the Cheesecake Factory or anything else fun.  And as usual he was happy to oblige, he is usually a pretty good sport when it comes to my cookie obsession.

Final Chizs dinner

Region VII Lincoln Day Dinner

Tiff called me a few weeks ago and asked if Ray and I wanted to go to a political dinner with her and Greg.  I thought what the heck and Ray was off at 6 so I said yes.  Brooke and John went with us too and it was the Lincoln Dinner at the Shilo in Idaho Falls.  It was really interesting listening to people tell us why we should vote for their candidate.  But I was most impressed with Ted Cruz's father.  He didn't talk long but I thought he made sense.  This whole presidential election crap is so confusing this year and I am going to quote a very smart man, Clarence Gummow, today he said "who let the dogs out".  I couldn't agree more.  The bad thing about this dinner is that one of my old co-workers was in charge of the dinner.  He was an attorney I worked with in Idaho Falls and he was one of the most arrogant people I have met in my life.  I could have gone the rest of my life never seeing him again, but not that lucky I guess. All in all it was a pretty interesting evening and we got to spend it with friends, what more can you ask.

Jerika passed

Jerika started working at the assisted living in St.Anthony. She loves it. But she needed to pass off some things. This is her meds class and she got 88%. She was so excited and we are all so proud of her.

Day off with the kids

Since Ray and I never get a day off together I decided to take one. We went to lunch, visited the kids and I got my hair cut. Keegan was sick and she loved just being cuddled by grandpa. It was a really nice day.

Saturday with Preslee

Jerika's cute friend Destiny needed a babysitter on a Saturday for this cutie. So we were happy to help and what a fun day we had. She wanted to smell all of jerika's scentsy squares and she thought it was so funny.

Dinner out

Dinner with the Williams. And of course I had to share my effort of taking selfies. One of these days I will learn.