Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 118)

We picked up two cute 15 year old boys from Brazil on Sunday, Arthur and Henrique. We were there with our sign waiting to greet them, and the did not come. Another lady from the group said, “Those boys must have gotten lost. They were with us, and then they went to the bathroom, and I don’t know where they are.” That was nice of her to tell us, but we couldn’t go looking for them, and neither could she, so we just waited. The group of host families and students was grouped over by the luggage thing, and it looked like many of them were missing their luggage. When our 2 boys arrived, their luggage was also missing. No luggage for you. They assured us that it would probably come tonight and someone from American Airlines would bring it to our house. Ok.

So, we brought the boys home and let them get settled while we went to meetings. (Seriously? Why so many meetings? Both Jenna and I had interviews, we had to go to a different ward’s sacrament meeting because we would miss ours to pick up the boys, I had to present at “it’s great to be 8) and then there was a court of honor AND a fireside for 11 year old. We missed the fireside.) After dinner, I took the two boys to Wal Mart to buy some clothes. There I was, in the men’s underwear isle with two Brazillian boys. Not something I would ever imagine doing. I had a little trouble understanding that they needed pajamas, but eventually they made me understand. I had to show them how to use their debit cards, swipe, sign the pad, etc. Kind of fun.

Monday I had to rush out the door to be to the school by 7, so I didn’t see them. Ryan took them to the frontrunner station in Lehi, where they were to board the 7:45 train, then in Sandy they were supposed to switch to trax, which takes them to their school. I was a little worried about them finding their way, but since there were about 6 kids all doing the same trip, and some of them have already been here a week, we hoped they could follow them. And we had a map and directions printed out for them. They left the directions home. Ryan gave them his cell number. At around 8:30 he started getting the phone calls from a Brazilian number (someone’s mom is not going to be too happy about that). They had gotten on the wrong train and where should they go? He directed them, but got another call later. They had finally gotten to the stop they needed, but couldn’t find the school. They were at AutoZone. Ryan told them which way to walk and I think he called the school to tell them that our boys were lost. I didn’t know any of this was going on, as I hadn’t checked my phone until after 9. I called the school at 10 and they were indeed there. Cold and probably miserable, but there.

One of the coordinators called me later and said it’s good for them to get lost at first, then they won’t do it again. He also said that the boys were very cold. Yes, it’s cold in the basement. We had warmed it up a bit, but I guess it needs to be warmer. Instead of telling us or the coordinators, one of the boys told his mom, so then she told the school. Oh, great. We’re being tattled on.

I tried to install the whatsapp on my phone. I still couldn’t message the boys, though. We didn’t know what time they would be coming home on the train, IF they made it on the train. But the coordinator called to let me know he had taken them to the station and they should be with the group this time.

Just a long day. And on top of that, their luggage STILL didn’t come. All the others had their luggage. Ryan tried to figure it out, and was on the phone for over an hour (most of that on hold). I offered to wash their clothes, started some laundry for them, and went to bed. I was done. Craptastic day over.

What do you know, but the luggage came at 11:00. One of the bags was wrapped in plastic and quite damaged.

Don’t know what they did to that bag, but it’s missing a wheel, cracked in several places, and really banged up.

I asked Ryan to drive them all the way to the school today. They got to sleep in a bit longer, eat a little breakfast, and take that bag to the school so they can file a claim with United Airlines.

The first day with any exchange students has never been this hard. Let’s hope that we got all our bumps in the road over with and we can all have a great experience.

What a wonderful month it’s been!

Christmas eve was fabulous.

My parents came over for dinner, and we acted out the Christmas story with puppets. We gave our presents to Grandma and Grandpa, and who knew? The necklace hanger also works as a moustache.

Games were played, there was a lot of laughing. Even before I broke out the Hillbilly teeth and tried to get a picture.

On Christmas, after all the gifts were opened and played with, we got the wonderful present of getting to see and talk to our Missionary. He looks and sounds about the same, which is comforting.

We even had to take him downstairs and show him the cool arcade game that Ryan built and Megan has been painting. He’s still a geek, just like his dad.

My heart is full, for these are my greatest treasures.

Merry Christmas. I hope you also had a wonderful day with those that you love, and that you remember Jesus Christ in all your Christmas celebrations.

Back at the beginning of November, I started a healthy holiday challenge with a group. We had over 30 people sign up to join. Of course, not all of them have stuck with it, but it’s been a good experience for me. I’ve done these challenges before, and I always start out with good intentions and then get all lazy. But, if I were the one RUNNING the group, I would Have to stick with it, right? Right. It’s been 7 weeks. I’ve lost 10 pounds. Who would think I could actually lose weight between Halloween and Christmas? Crazy, right?

And while I’m not down to the next size or anything, I can feel the difference in some of my clothes. You see, even within the same size of clothes, there are the clothes that fit and are comfortable (I wear those ones all the time, like the jeans that I have worn through the thighs and really should throw away, but instead I tried to repair them), then the clothes that I could wear, but they aren’t super comfortable. And then there are the clothes that just laugh at me because even though they are in “my size” we really know that they AREN’T my size, and I’m not going to be able to wear them until I’ve lost WAY more weight than I have. They mock me. Really not nice, clothes.

The other day I was looking for some jeans to wear, and I pulled out a pair of jeans that I haven’t seen for quite some time. Oh, I loved these jeans. I wonder why I haven’t been wearing them. I put them on. Pretty tight, still. Oh, yeah, I remember. I grew too fat for them. Well, a couple weeks later I put them on, and while they are still tight, they are a little less tight.

I had one friend comment that I looked skinnier and asked if I had lost weight. Why, yes, I have, I told her. It’s GREAT to be able to say that and not be just fibbing.

There are some super annoying over achievers in this challenge, too. They have to get EVERY point and eat ALL the vegetables and lost TONS of weight, even though they are really skinny to start with. That’s ok, though. I can deal with a little annoyingness because it is helping to motivate me. Today, I trudged through my treadmill time and really hated every minute of it, but I did it. I’m hoping we can buy a stationary bike after Christmas. I’ve discovered that I have foot issues and when I walk for 30-45 minutes on the treadmill, my heel hurts all day. I think a bike would be less stress on the feet and I hope that I would use it more.

We have two weeks to go in this challenge, and then the winners will get the cash or a prize. I haven’t totally figured out how many winners there will be, but at least one for the points, and one for weight loss. The points are SO close, though, we may have to break it into smaller amounts and give out more prizes. We’ll see.

It’s been a positive thing, and I’m SO glad I followed through with my thought to start this group.

Wow! I think we’ve come to the end of the concerts for Christmas this year. It’s such a busy time of year for me with bells that I often miss school things that are going on. Usually if I can’t go, Ryan can go, but last night Ryan was my date to the MoTab Christmas dinner at the Grand America Hotel (our fancy date night of the year), so neither of us could go to Natalie’s choir concert. Luckily we had Megan here, and she could drive Natalie to school. She and Jenna attended the concert, as well as Grandma and Grandpa.

Jenna’s choir concert I also missed, but Ryan was able to go. Things just get so busy!

I had a wonderful time with the MoTab Christmas concert weekend. Where else am I going to be able to meet muppets and their handlers? It’s an experience I will never forget.

I have been quite a slacker over here on this lonely blog.

I’ve been in kind of a funk lately. Just feeling a little bit down. A little bit sorry for myself. Not sure why and I’m not sure how to get out of it. It’s weird because I’ve been exercising and trying to eat right, too. Maybe that’s it. I miss my sugary treats. But I feel cheated when I do what I’m supposed to do all day, I go to bed hungry at night, even hearing my tummy rumble. But when that happens, I think to myself, ‘It’s ok. I’ll see a difference on the scale in the morning,’ only to wake up and weigh and see that I’ve gained half a pound. That’s not fair at all.

My daughter has a blog and she writes about the sad in her life. It’s depressing to read. I cry for her hurting, then I call her and she tells me she’s FINE, that it helps her to write, to get things out of her head. But still I worry. I want her to meet new friends. I want her to have a fun college experience. I want her to be happy. She’s so different from me, yet I understand her (well, sometimes). I was an insecure teen, too. I wrote many a depressing journal entry, trying to make sense of the world and my roll in it. Trying to find my way, wondering why I kept auditioning for things and not getting the role. I always kind of figured if I weren’t so fat, I would maybe get those roles. Or if I wasn’t so fat, maybe that boy I liked would pay some attention to me. I seemed to blame all the bad things that happened–all the disappointments, all the failures–on the fact that I was overweight. Poor fat cells, having to shoulder all the blame. What do thin, beautiful people blame for their failures? They must have something they don’t like about themselves that they blame for the things that don’t go perfectly in their lives.

The other day I got the sweetest comment on facebook. I had written that if I taught Kindergarten full time I would probably be a lot skinnier. No time to eat and constantly on the move. My friend and neighbor wrote, No one cares abt skinny. You are beautiful and talented and funny and sweet and giving. If you were also skinny, we would have to hate you. I don’t know, it might be nice to be hated, just a little bit. It made me laugh. And almost cry.

I really have the most awesome people in my life.

Instead of dwelling on the blues, I’ll tell you about the GREAT things in my life, my reasons to smile.
*Thanksgiving was GREAT. I love getting together with cousins and aunts and uncles that I don’t see often and catching up. My brother and his family also stayed with us Thursday night and Friday night. It was wonderful having them here from Arizona.
*Our Bells concerts went SO WELL. We had two concerts on Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving. The hall was full, the music was great, the spirit was there. It was SO fulfilling to play all those songs that we had been working on for so long. My friend Janeen and I even stayed overnight in a hotel in Salt Lake Saturday night so that we wouldn’t have to do the whole drive home and then turn around and drive back thing on Sunday morning for Music and the Spoken word.
*Christmas preparations are in full swing. I’m picking out presents, got the tree up, and am on to decorating the house.
*My little chimes choir is doing quite well. They will play for our ward party on Saturday, then have the school concerts on Monday, and then they are done for the season. We’ll get a few weeks off for Christmas break (hooray for not having to be at the school by 7 am!) and then we’ll start up in January and get right into things with two basketball games to perform the National Anthem. One of them, when I was explaining things said, “Why do we have so many performances?” That made me laugh.

So, I’m going to get working on decorating my house for my favorite thing ever….Christmas. And I’m going to be thankful for everything I can think of. And I’m going to tell people thank you, and write some thank you notes and maybe do some service. Because I don’t want a blue Christmas.

(edited)…..Doing much better. Ward party great success. And PMS. Hmm. Who knew?

Late this summer I went to the funeral of a dear friend’s mom. Afterwards, I stopped by my parent’s house, and I said, “Mom, don’t expect me to sing at your funeral”. My mom is nowhere near needing to have a funeral, by the way. She and Dad are still doing well and are very healthy, but when they are still healthy is the time to discuss this stuff.

“What?” she said, “but I was planning on having you girls sing something, maybe have Lori-Kay play the flute.”
“It’s just rude to ask someone to sing when they have just lost their mom. Or their grandma.”

She just looked at me like I was weird (I get that look a lot).

“I have an idea, Mom. If you want a musical number, how about we do something while you are ALIVE to be able to hear it.” And then I had an idea. “How about I get a group together and we play something on the bells?”

So I asked my friend Liz, who also group up in the Butler 8the ward, and her parents are still in that ward, if she would like to play a small group number in the home ward. We found a song, found a date, and found a couple other people from our bell group who could do it, and made a plan. Of course, two of the 5 ended up dropping out because they had other things going on on that date, but we were able to find others to fill in. A few practices before our regular rehearsal and we were ready. So, on Wednesday night, I borrowed our director’s bells (just two of the boxes), and hauled them to the car after rehearsal. Hauling the bells in the worst part of one of these things.

This morning, we all met at my parent’s ward, rehearsed a bit before the meeting, and then were ready to go.

My parent’s ward has not changed much in the 22 years since I got married. People get older. Some people have died and a few people have moved away, a few younger families have moved in, but not a lot. During sacrament meeting, it was SO QUIET. Wow. Compared to my ward, it was like silence. And sparse. The whole middle section was almost empty when the meeting started. I’m not sure why their ward is dwindling. If I were to come back to my current ward (where we’ve lived for 13 years now and in that time it’s split twice) in twenty years, I doubt I would recognize as many people. But people in my parent’s generation tend to move less, I guess. They raise their family and stay in the same house.

It was fun to see so many people I know and recognize from my youth. Some I am friends with on facebook (yes, my home ward has a facebook page), and some I see when I visit my parents. Some I had to really think about to remember who they were, since they have aged 20 years from my memories, and one lady I didn’t remember at all (she seemed to remember me), but it was nice to be back.

The comments were all so nice and they really appreciated that we could come and play for them. It was a special experience for me (and for Liz). I’m grateful for my musical friends that they would give of their time and talents to help us perform something like this.

Argh!!! Whiner alert. Look away.

No alarm. Woke up at 6:55. Grabbed clothes and brushed my hair and teeth. Ran downstairs and grabbed John. The two kids I normally pick up in the morning before my early morning chimes class were not there, they had given up after 10 minutes of waiting, I’m sure. CRAP, CRAP, CRAP.

When the kids have a drink break after 20 minutes of playing, I put on some makeup. It didn’t help all that much, but at least I knew I had tried.

In addition to throwing myself together in about a minute to get to school to teach, I ran out to the car and the steering wheel was adjusted WAY high because hubby was working on the car last night. I didn’t have time to fix it, and I hit the windshield wipers on. Finally figured out how to get the steering wheel the right height, but the windshield wipers WILL. NOT. TURN. OFF. No problem. It’s dark. Got to school in my frazzled state. Taught from 7 to noon, and then went back to the car. Since I hadn’t eaten breakfast, I was looking forward to a hamburger or something that I didn’t have to make myself from a local fast food establishment, but couldn’t do that with the windshield wipers furiously swishing back and forth IN THE SUN! People looking at me like I’m an idiot because I don’t turn off my wipers.

ARRRRGH!

I really wish I had a cookie.

That is all.

For Natalie’s birthday party, she wanted to do a How to Host a Murder party, but one that was clean. Luckily, I had purchased a printable story a while back, and so I could just print that out and they could use that. Most of her friends are girls, so some of them had to play boys, but they didn’t mind. My pictures are so dark, since they were in the basement and my camera had decided it didn’t need much flash. Megan took a bunch of pictures with the fancy camera she had checked out from school, so I’m sure she got some good ones.

If the amount of laughter is any gauge of how much fun they were having, they had a BLAST.

I love how some of the girls dressed up for their characters!

No cake for this girl. I had told her that she’d have to make her own cake if she wanted one, and we just all ran out of time. Cupcakes from the freezer did just fine.

They even sang happy Birthday to her. They sang a LOT, these girls.

Fun, but LOUD, evening. So glad she had fun.

It’s been a busy month so we just had John’s birthday party on Saturday. Only 25 days late, no biggie. Plus, isn’t it great to celebrate all month? We had arranged to go to the local karate studio for a party. As his friend arrived, the volume level of the house really went up. Lucky me, I got to drive six 10/11 year old boys to American Fork. But if you can stand the noise, you can learn a little something about them. “Remember in first grade when that one kid smelled so bad and the teacher had to remind everyone to change their underwear every day?”
“Oh YEAH!”
“And that one kid said, ‘I’m haven’t changed my underwear all week!'”
“GROSS!”
“I’m wearing clean underwear.”
“Who was that kid?”
“I don’t remember.”

Whew! Good. I don’t really want to know which kid prompted that lecture from the teacher, but having been in many classrooms of stinky kids, I can understand why she brought it up. It’s sad when kids come to school with dirty clothes or not combed hair and you wish you could make things better for them at home.

Then they talked about kids at school who were ignoring the rules and getting tickets; who is getting the most tickets, etc. They are a good group of kids.

It was POURING rain, but the kids didn’t mind getting a little wet as we climbed out of the suburban to go into the Karate studio. The door was locked, but there was a guy in the back. He came and opened the door. “Hi, guys,” he said, “What’s up?”

“We’re here for a birthday party,” said, smiling.

“Oh, our birthday guy is not here right now, but come on in and I’ll call him.” he said.

“Great,” I said, not smiling quite as much.

He called Jason, the guy who was supposed to do our party, but he didn’t answer. We were indeed on the schedule, though, so I hadn’t screwed up. The kids were excited, and didn’t seem to mind that there was a possibility that I would be scrambling with no party plans.

The guy (who was just leaving) said he was so sorry that Jason wasn’t there, and if we would give him a minute to change, he could do about an hour party/class with us. That sounded great to me. The boys all took off their huge shoes and socks and proceeded to roughhouse on the wood floor.

When the teacher (whose name was Dallas) came out, they scrambled to sitting, as if they had been sitting there waiting the whole time. Right.
He explained about respect being the number one rule in martial arts, and taught them a few punches, and did a few drills with them.

Then he brought out the bags and let them do some kicking. The boys were in heaven.

John even got to break a board with a kick. It took him a couple of tries, and the instructor talked to them about how that is just like life. If we can’t do something the first time we try, we don’t need to feel like a failure, we just try it again, and again, until we can do it.

Instead of a cake, I had a “donut cake” which was just two dozen donuts with Happy Birthday John written on them in icing. Easier than a cake and they could eat it with their hands. The boys loved that idea. John even got to use a samurai sword to cut a donut in half.

I am SO grateful that Dallis was willing to stay and do a party for us. Even if it was a shorter party, it was great for these boys. And great for me! What would I have done with them? I promised them a karate party! He apologized over and over that his employee wasn’t there and that it wasn’t the real party, but I think it was really fun anyway. And he gave each of the boys a vip pas so they can come to the studio for a month of Karate lessons for free. They thought that was GREAT! I’m so thankful he was willing to stay and do that for us, not just say there was a mix-up and leave us to do our own party (we would have ended up home watching Karate kid for sure). When we got back home, the boys all ran off to play nerf gun wars and didn’t even mind that the karate portion of the party was less than it should have been. They were just happy to be together at ANY kind of party.

Crisis averted.

Now this Friday I get to play host to Natalie’s 16 birthday, a murder mystery party. Hooray!

Last weekend our Relief Society group went up to the Heber Valley Girl’s camp for a ladies’ retreat. We met at 5:00 in the church parking lot, and after a full day of Kindergarten subbing (my first sub job of the year), I was ready for some adult interaction with my friends. The drive up was fun, talking to friends. When we got up there, it was time for dinner, and they had it all ready for us. We unloaded our stuff into the cabins and enjoyed a yummy dinner of chili, salads, and cornbread.

Once we were stuffed with yummy food, we got our jackets (because it was starting to get cold) and sat down for a class taught by a new couple in the ward who do motivational speaking. One of the activities they had us do was to get into groups and we were supposed to look into one sister’s eyes and think “Who are you?”. Then write down 5 or 6 words that we think describe her. Then the 3 of us would come up with the top 5 words we thought were perfect for them. As we were discussing each sister, it was interesting how we would think of their best or most interesting qualities. I ended up writing down things like “Creative, problem solver, and industrious” for one sister. Another sweet sister who seems to do everything perfectly, I said “calm”. She always seems calm to me. As she read her list, she said, “Thank you for saying you thought I was calm. Do you really think I’m calm?” I really do. When it got to be my turn I realized how uncomfortable this was, to just sit and have people look into your eyes and write things about you. My list was words like “Energetic, motivate, friendly, fun, talented, service.” Some of the words I understood, but the Motivator and Energetic? I tried not to cry. I don’t feel like I’m motivating to anyone, and it seems I can barely get through my day, let alone my to-do list. It was nice to see myself how other people might see me. And if they can see the good qualities in me, it should be easier to see myself as my Heavenly Father sees me.

We had fun staying up to talk and eat snacks, although I was still so full from dinner I didn’t really eat many of the snacks. My friend, Serena joked with me that it was past my bedtime (because it totally was), but I stayed up until about 12:30, when we all mosied into our cabins to go to sleep. I don’t have much of a pad to go under my sleeping bag, and those bunks in the cabins are just bunks, so it was quite hard. Luckily, even though it was cold and windy outside, it was a nice temperature inside, so I slept on top of the sleeping back with the blanket I had brought. Darn if I didn’t forget my earplugs, though. But I slept some. Enough to have a few strange dreams.

Breakfast in the morning was french toast with rasberries and buttermilk syrup and bacon. So great! We were very spoiled.

The theme of the retreat was “One drop at a time” from Elder Ballard’s book by the same title, and we read from that book about how each bee only makes 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey from all his work. Our good works may only be a drop, but at least they are good works, and we can add to them one drop at a time.

When we had signed up for this camp, we could sign up for a hike and/or a ropes course. I haven’t been in Relief Society for a few weeks, so I didn’t remember which I had signed up for. But we all decided to go on a short hike, and then we all went to the ropes course together. We knew there was a zip line but we didn’t know much else. WE got there and there was indeed a zipline, but in order to get to it, you had to first climb a 26 food pole, then tightrope walk across a cable up 26 feet, holding on to ropes to get across. I looked up and didn’t know if I could do it. I mean, I am overweight and severely out of shape and not keen on climbing. But then I saw Sister Hansen. She’s about 70 years old and she was the second in line to suit up in the harness. If SHE can do it, I could certainly give it a try.

And there she was climbing up that pole. She didn’t make it all the way to the top, but those missionaries just held on to her and slowly lowered her down to the ground. She was safe, but she had tried. I had to do it. I got suited up with the rest of the ladies and waited my turn. “I can’t go last,” I said, “If I wait until last I may not have the guts to do it.”

I had to try. Up the pole I went. Climbing, pulling myself up, listening to the missionaries who were telling me where to place my feet and where to reach my hands. Even though I was breathing hard (practically panting), I made it to the top of the pole. Once I was there, I didn’t really know how to get onto the tightrope, but the missionaries were there to coach me along. I got to the tightrope and I did not look down. I just kept scooting sideways (always be sure to keep your foot farther out than your shoulder, they said), grabbing each rope until I got to the end. There were no more ropes, only a sister missionary there to reach out her hand. I had to scoot a couple more feet before she could help me onto the platform. I made it. I can’t believe I made it. I was feeling joy, fear, amazement, pride, and terror all at the same time. So weird. She unhooked me from one rope and hooked me onto the zipline rope. “you’re going to have to let go of this pole,” she said, “The pole does not go with you.” I chuckled and let go and scooted a little closer to the edge. She told me I was good to go. I had to finally just step off. Once I was did it, it was fun and exhilerating. But I had to take that step. I had to step with faith. Wow! So incredible. I wished I could try it again (not the climbing and tightroping part, just the zipline part). And my fellow sisters were there cheering me on. It was awesome. There were 15 or 16 of us who did that ropes course. For so many of them it was easy and fun. For me, it was terrifying and life changing.

But I DID it. I did it!