Shaha update

Hmmm… I don't really know where to start.

Well, maybe I'll just copy and paste the post from our family blog since I don't know who all checks it.

But before I do that, besides Caroline's birthday bash, things have been good here.  Ben and I had the chance to go to the temple together yesterday… sadly it is only the second time we've been able to go together since being in Germany!  Hopefully we can go a few more times this year.  It's hard with it being over two hours away…  finding a babysitter for that long.  We swapped with another family in our ward that lives on base, but I tell ya what, it was not a very fun Saturday when we had to spend it watching their four kids and ours.  Totally insane, and we probably won't do that again.  But, it was nice to go with Ben and since the presentation was in German, we had headphones with multiple languages to chose from.  I chose to listen to it in French, which helped keep me awake and alert.  Ben and I were also the witness couple, and considering I had run 10 miles that morning, my knees were not exactly thankful.  But overall it was a really good experience.

So, yeah, I signed up for a half marathon in May… should be fun.  We are so looking forward to Mom's visit in April.  We are going to spend a week touring the northern part of Italy!  Italian Alps, Tuscany, and the Mediterranean coast.

Ben is busy with work, as always.  The kids are doing well.

 The most exciting thing around these here parts is Caroline has made some recent breakthroughs with her eating. In the past week she has tried jam, yogurt, broccoli, and meat and has responded positively to all of them (although the broccoli has been hit and miss).  These breakthroughs have come about since we've instilled new rules/guidelines at meal time, one of which is, "Try a little bit of everything.  You don't have to like it, but you do have to try it." Reading the book, "French Kids Eat Everything" has really given me some great tools and the confidence to steer these kids in the right direction.  Also, Caroline going to Occupational Therapy has been helpful.  The therapist has started introducing food to her  … the therapist told me to take her to the grocery store and let her pick a yogurt out, bring it to OT, and they would eat one together.  This was disastrous as she threw a crying fit in the store saying she didn't want ANY yogurt and she didn't want to go to OT.  Well, after much persuasion and reassuring, she went to OT and since that day has enthusiastically had yogurt every day!  OT comes into play because her aversion to new foods is based so much on her fear of textures. And the jam thing is huge.  All I did was make a smiley face out of jam on her pb toast.  I told her she had to eat the whole piece.  Amused by the smiley face, she ate all around it, and then finally nibbled her way through the jam part.  She enthusiastically pronounced that she likes it!  (I know you guys are thinking this sounds too simple, why haven't you done this by now… but really, it's been very difficult.)   Now she gobbles up her pb&j sandwiches instead of nibbling on dry pb ones.  She actually might put on some weight which would be nice.  We still have a long road ahead, BUT, she is progressing, so that's happy for us.  

Here are some recent gems from Caroline:

Mom, is today fast Sunday or slow Sunday?
(a bit confused) Um, it's slow Sunday…
Oh man!  I HATE slow Sunday!!
(With a little probing we realized she thinks fast Sunday is Stake conference when she doesn't have to go to primary, and slow Sunday is when she has to attend all three hours.  Yes, we have a heathen on our hands).

Emily:  Mom, I have a joke for you.  What do people call a butterfly?
Me: What?
Em:  Butter.  Fly!!! (very amused with herself)
Me:  Did you make that up?
Em: Yes.
C:  That doesn't sound like a joke.

Me: Em, what kind of sandwich do you want?  PB and jam?
Emily:  (being difficult) No!
Me:  Pb and honey?
Em: No!
C:  Emily, how about pb and pb?!

Day after St. Patrick's Day
C:  Dad, next time you have to wear green, I think you will wear brown, and I will punch you.
Em:  PINCH you.

And sorry if this long report about the daily nuances of child rearing has bored you to death.  But, this is my life.  Now for Caroline's birthday party:

 I am quite sure that never in the history of the world has another little girl looked forward with as much anticipation to her birthday as Caroline has…

she's pretty much been counting down the days since December 26.

And I can't tell you how RELIEVED I am it's over! 

We did a little family celebration last Sunday here at the house.  

She insisted on "wall-to-wall decorations" (she read that term in a Berenstain Bear's book and has not forgotten it).  So, Em and I spent an hour decorating while C very impatiently waited in her bedroom.

"Mom!  I'm ready for my partyyyy!"

"Mom!!  I'm ready to come ouuuuut!!!"

Unfortunately, this is the best picture I have of our decorating job… 

Thinking of a wish:

Blowing out the candle on her cookies… because why would you have a cake?

Her favorite gift is her "Brave" bow and arrow set.  She's hilarious with it.  I'll be sitting at the kitchen table and all of a sudden an arrow will come sailing into the room from nowhere.

The other night Ben hit into the chair as he was clearing the table so Caroline decided it was time the chair learned its lesson.  Here she is shooting it at point blank range.

A few days later we hosted a Frozen themed friend birthday party.  Oh my.  I don't know if we'll ever do a party on this scale again.  She invited SIXTEEN kids, and ALL of them came, plus their siblings since it was a school day which meant no dads were around.  I didn't mean for it to be this supersonic.  The problem is that this base has a lot of four year olds, and Miss Personality over here is friends with all of them… the guest list just couldn't be trimmed back…   So, we just went for the gold… go big or go home, right?

We held it at the Community Center, which has a great set up. 

The "ice blocks" are missing.  They were supposed to be blue jello cubes.  Except they were green because I couldn't find blue.  And they were not cubes, they were blobs.  So, I just gave up. 

My artistic friend made the labels, aren't they cute?

Diego was a tad off… 

They built snowmen out of marshmallows, pretzels, mini chocolate chips, and toothpicks.  The kid on the right here is pretty proud of his mutant creation

The moms jumped in and helped make everything run smoothly

James just kind of roamed the party, trying to fly under the radar

We played this elimination game similar to musical chairs, where they all danced around to Frozen music and then jumped on a plate… in theory it would work well with maybe 8-10 kids.  We had 24 playing, so it was kinda crazy.  I was just happy we had beautiful weather.  It's not often we have nice weather on March 16!

The piñata of course was the biggest hit (no pun intended, hehe). 

All 25 kids just lined up single file to take a whack at it. 

Then the stampede for the candy

Cake and ice cream:

And that's how it's done!

As we were sweeping up the last of the cake crumbs Emily asked if she could go home and start making her bday invitations.  

Shoot me now. 

Denver update

OK, this is way overdue.  Thanks Bonnie for getting it set up.  Now that I now how to do it, next time will come WAY faster.  

Not quite sure where to jump in.  So I looked at all my recent photos on my phone and I'll use them to give you snippets of life in Denver.

We can get discounted ski tickets before the season begins - we have been about 5 times this season and still have some passes remaining even though temperatures have been in the high 70's this weekend.  Below I'm on the lift with Sam and Neil on Christmas Eve.  Both boys started pretty conservative this year, but with Sam certainly better.  They have both been about 7-8 times in their lives before this season.

Here we are, later that evening.  We had  a woman and her daughter from our ward over for Christmas Even dinner, the traditional bread, cheese, and milk by candlelight.  Christmas was fully anticipated this year, Neil and Josie especially were crazy with anticipation and excitement.

Travis!  Do you remember this game?  The Braithwaite's had it and we loved it - I think it was your favorite.  It is "Hotels".  We bought it for Neil for Christmas this year - they are not in print anymore so this is somebody's set for 25 years ago.  It is interesting to play it now as an adult, it is a lot like Monopoly but the Strategy is not that complicated.  After about the first 6-8 rounds it is pretty much 100% luck, depending on the roll of the die.  Since it takes 1-2 hours to play, it usually ends with much misery, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.  Neil promises every time that he'll be OK if he loses, then when he does it is the saddest thing you've ever seen.

From the "top view" here, the sleuth can also detect that in this particular game, mom joined us, and we played downstairs with some fresh oven baked cookies and (pictured from the top) milk.  

Neil has turned into our game lover.  He also got Monopoly and I also gave him the original Stratego (40 piece) game.  The new Stratego games are cheaper and only have 30 pieces on each side.

Sam and Neil are both playing chess now too.  They are getting better, and both really enjoy it.  When I play Neil I give him a starting advantage - like I play without my queen, or without both my rooks.  Neil showed some creativity the other day - I came down and he had set up the entire board with Lego Star Wars characters.  I was impressed!  He was proud of himself.

We have gone to two Colorado Avalanche Hockey games.  IE bought 4 season tickets - we won't do it again, because sometimes they are hard to use well... for example, we've had cancellations a couple of times that have allowed us to use them at the last minute.  You can't tell but these are pretty good tickets - row 16.  I took just Sam and Neil at the end of January.  Then last night (March 14th) we had seats again.  Kathryn and I tried to find another couple for a double date - but in the end we couldn't find anybody, so we took the boys and left Josie and Jensen home with a babysitter.  It was fun.

This picture is on the home screen of my phone right now.  I took a "family selfie" at family member's-only night at the Science museum.  Kathryn's dad gave us an annual pass for Christmas this year.   We went on a cold night in January - spent most of the time in two exhibitions:  one was looking through their live telescopes, we saw a comet, and we also saw Neptune, which I had never seen before.  It wasn't impressive, but still cool to see to the outer reach of the solar system.  The second area was where the photo below was taken - in the dinosaur exhibit.  They have quite a team of paleontologists and nearly all the work they are doing is with fossils coming out of southern Utah, including some new species.  The kids were pretty fascinated.  Fun to have that resource so close to us here.

The last weekend in January we had the annual "Klondike Derby" for all Boy Scouts.  Sam turned 11 in November and, if you didn't know, got his Arrow of Light certificate that month (exciting!).  I have mixed feelings about scouts - it just feels outdated and it is a lot of work and leader commitment to it in the church seems to be diminishing some, which means more burden on parents to do it, and it seems like I've got enough things to hassle Sam about (piano, spelling bee, soccer, etc) to not have to chase down where things are with his Scouts advancement.  All of that that is long-hand for saying that I've done basically nothing since November.  But parents/boys were invited for the Klondike.  We went up in the mountains and caught a break on the weather - the low was about 20 degrees and there was no wind.  Last year it was right around 0.  I slept in my 15 degree rated sleeping back with like 3 layers of warm clothes on and still froze.  The activities the next day were fun, and I think Sam enjoyed it, even though none of the kids in our ward came (we combine with another ward and it was all them plus Sam).  Here's a picture.  Doesn't he look great?

By the way, I am Cubmaster.  I planned the Annual Blue and Gold Banquet that we completed on Feb 24th, it is a relief to have done.  We made it "Oscar's" themed (it was two nights after the Oscars), we had Hors d'ouevres for dinner and watched three movies that each of the dens had made.  I think it went really well.  Kathryn helped out, as did many others.  Turns out that having a popcorn machine and a chocolate fountain is pretty much all you need to guarantee success at Cub Scouts.  Sorry, no pics.

Winter has been very mild, to say the least.  In January we had two days in a row at 70 degrees!  We had lots of days in the 50s and low 60s.  So Josie learned to ride a bike.  Bless her heart.  She has a little balance bike on which she long ago mastered the art of balance and steering.  But pedal bikes are completely different, I guess.  She got the hang of it really quickly, but her confidence was very low and on the second day we did it (after she successfully rode on the first day) she passed several people who were out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon walk and she was just HOWLING about how she couldn't ride a bike... just as she cycled right past them.  Finally I made her stop so she could get a hold of herself - we were both about to have a nervous breakdown.  Then she got distracted by some pine cones while we were talking and 2 minutes later she was climbing back on the bike all excited to go find some pinecones.  We did 3-4 laps through the neighborhood, looking for pine trees with pine cones.  Her fear was gone.  The next day she excitedly climbed on her bike with me again in search for pine cones.  I thought we had in whipped.  Well, snows finally came in the second half of February and we were out of commission for about 3 weeks.  We went out today for the first time in a month - she did fine but of course was fidgety the whole time and worried she was going to crash.  I'll spare you the details but skiing (we went for a few days the first weekend of March, more below) and reading have been the same.  She picks them up pretty quickly but she'll sob her guts out telling you she can't do it, right as she is skiing down the mountain or reading you a few words.  Then someone she'll flip a confidence switch and the world is alright again.
 

This is a great pic.  I was determined to go jogging on a Saturday afternoon about Feb 20th.  Kathryn went for like 4 hours for a haircut (OK, so only 2.5 hours... but that is forever!).  It had begun to snow lightly so I put ski goggles on him, wrapped him in about 5 layers, and headed out.  About 25 minutes out at my max distance from home (3 miles), the snow began to come down WAY heavy and I could hardly see.  Then the wind started to flow and giant gusts brought "whiteouts" falling from the trees and onto Jensen and I.  He was fine, he fell asleep, but I passed cars and a few other people out walking who got caught in the quick storm acceleration and they all looked at me like I was a freaking lunatic.  And I guess I probably was.  My phone died while running because it got to cold, and when I got back to the house the main camera was also dead.  But I did get some video footage of Jensen stirring, he was covering in 1.5" of snow (looked nothing like this) and was NOT happy about the world he woke up into.  Luckily, he woke up at home.

Jensen is now eating real food - which means he is having real diapers!  Gross!

So work has been OK.  Two years ago we were almost exclusively supporting the mining industry, but we are now about 70% oil & gas, and we happen to be in that small group of people who like HIGH gas prices now.  Business has slowed down for us.  We are OK for now, but we'll see what happens over the next 3-6 months.  There are some big contracts we are trying to bid on.  The equipment is very different than what we have build before.  We used to make electrical equipment for the mining industry (like substations that worked underground to power coal mining equipment that is all electrically operated).  But we are doing more and more "process & pumping" systems... here is a picture of a large water disposal plant.  when Oil & Gas companies produce oil, it comes up in a mix with water (varies a lot, but let's say 50/50).  All that water has to be pumped back down into other formations deep in the earth, since it is very salty and also still has traces of oil in it.  This is a 70 foot long pump and electrical plant that pumps 10,000 barrels per day of water about 2 miles deep into the earth at 2000 psi.  These pumps are huge, about 28 feet long each.  It was the first project of its kind we have done.  The learning curve is crazy, we are making lots of mistakes along the way but figuring things out too.  On this one we LOST about $250K.  We very rarely have projects that lose money, so this one was a disaster.  But, great learning, and more and more the future of IE.  My role has been building the engineering team (hiring) and identifying new markets to sell to including the right products.  Obviously, it doesn't always go perfectly.  But our mining competition is suffering heavily and we have had nice growth - the question is whether we can sustain it with low oil prices.

Wow this entry got too long, sorry.  Our big news is we are trying to move.  So I have been taking pictures like these... the first is of our laundry room area, where I'm trying to get some doors to cover the washer and dryer.

The previous owners left this fridge in the garage.  It operates, it is old and might have antique value, we took this picture to post on Craigslist (much better than throwing it in the dumpster at work, my original plan).  Within 30 minutes Kathryn had a dozen interested calls.  People wanted us to hold it for them and we just wanted to get rid of it, the garage has been a mess and I finally cleaned it out 100% yesterday.  We told them first come first served.  I think we had this image of some people with a cool loft coming and getting it and it rounding out a fun furniture setup.  Nope, we should have realized it would have been some form of "white trash" that showed up first.  The people that hauled it away had an old suburban that was PACKED full of crap and mess.  this guy came and hardly cleared out a spot, instead he just tried to force it in the back and it wasn't going anywhere.  he cleared a "depression" in the sea of trash, and after a few more false starts, I convinced him to take the door off of it and slide it in on its front, which worked.  I wouldn't doubt it if doesn't work now.  People are so crazy.  This guy was like Lloyd Judd but maybe after having like 6 Red Bull's are something.  Anyways, fridge gone, garage clean.  

  

We are hoping to list our home by end of week.  We aren't quite sure where we'll go, but there are a few options.  We are pretty sure we overpaid when we moved here... but the market is even hotter now here, so we should get the same money or more out of it... we'll just have to pay more for the next house too.  Only the real estate agents and the property tax people win in this deal.

Last, we have done more skiing this winter, as I alluded above, including me taking Sam on my birthday, conditions were near perfect that day and I took this selfie (man I'm a dork!).  The kids didn't have school the Friday afterwards so we stayed in a condo in Keystone for a couple of nights the following weekend.  Kathryn's brother Ben met us there to help with the kids.  Josie and Neil improved quite a bit.  And Sam it now doing everything without any supervision.  It has been fun.  But best part is just being together.  

Hopefully that gives you a feel for our lives.  Some other quick things:

1) Neil's Spanish school is going great and he is speaking quite a bit.  It is crazy to see how quickly he is learning (Estoy muy celoso!!!).  Josie just got accepted into the same school so starts Kindergarten at the Denver Language School in September.

2) Sam had a piano teacher and I didn't like her much - she just moved (hallelujah) and now Sam has a new teacher just 3 blocks from here.  She is great - and Neil has just started lessons too.  He is way behind Ricky... and I don't think he'll catch up.

3) tilled the garden yesterday (mainly to get rid of the weeds as we prepare to list) but planted some tomatoes in "walls of water".  Made me think of dad of course, but also of Becky and her science fair experiment.

4) Kathryn is keeping way busy in getting the house ready to put on the market.  We are clearing out all the storage areas, junk in closets, etc.  It is amazing how much stuff we have we do NOT use.

5) Jensen still doesn't sleep very well - but everything else is great.  He has an awesome personality.  Today he had everybody at church smiling.  What a blessing to our family.  Neil is especially cute with him.

We miss all you guys.  We are coming to Utah for spring break, from approximately March 29 - April 5 (Easter Sunday and General Conference).  Can't wait to see you all then.  Much love!

Phil 

Interview with a General Authrity

Amber and I had the blessed opportunity of meeting with a General Authority. It is part of the process for hiring for a seminary teacher. Every teacher must pass a worthiness interview with a General Authority.

It started off high stress. WE were in a snow storm and we arrived a little late. It reminded me too much of Mom and Dad with their story of going to meet with Elder Hales. The following are some thoughts we copied down as soon as we got home. We wished we had had a tape recorder. What an experience!

-He was so straightforward and direct.  I don’t know if I’ve ever dealt with someone as forward as him.

-”If you don’t hold a temple recommend or ever are not worthy of one, you will be fired”  He said the word fired probably 3 or 4 times

-”This is the beginning and the end of my meeting with you.  I won’t even know if you end up getting the job or not.  Every potential seminary teacher must meet with a General Authority, so that is the purpose of our meeting”

-He didn’t smile for a very long time.  THe first 30 minutes were tense and intense.

-Things loosened up after a little bit. His directness, his straightforwardness was refreshing.  It also reminded me of how serious this work is.  It’s not something to be taken lightly, it is GOd’s work and God’s work should be a priority. The seminary program has a benchmark talk given by Rueben J. Clark clear back in the 1930's in which he says "The youth of the Church are hungry for things of the Spirit; they are eager to learn the gospel, and they want it straight, undiluted."  His speaking to me was straight and undiluted.

He asked several questions, all a little difficult to answer

-He asked me to bear my testimony.

-He asked me to explain what the atonement means.

-He asked me what my feelings were about the family proclamation.

-He asked what we do already with Hyrum to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He told of some of his grandkids that he’s seen pictures of at 6 months of age having their parents take them to the temple and having them touch it.  Another one they had the child reaching out and touching the hand of the Christus.  

-He asked what my personal scripture study was like.  I told him I study D&C for my lessons and then study for Sunday's Sunday school lessons. He said that I should be having my own personal daily scripture study apart from seminary and church and compared scripture study to filing cabinets that need to be filled with scriptures from all sources. I started the Book of Mormon that night :)

All of these questions he asked I was wondering if I was giving good answers or not.  Since then I’ve just thought there’s not a right or wrong answer, they are answers from the heart.  

-His most difficult question, what would you say to one of your students who has same gender attraction.  I did my best.  I asked him if he wouldn’t mind sharing his feelings on that at the end of our interview.  

Question to Amber:

- He asked me if Reed was a good husband and if Reed loved me. He also asked us if we intended to have children, in which we answered that we had a 6 month old boy. Elder Baxter then asked me if Reed was a good dad.

Same Gender attraction discussion

We probably spent 30 minutes talking about this.  It was mostly him talking.  He talked about the love that the Savior has.  If I had a student with same gender attraction issues he said that I would need to tell him how much I love him, how much the Savior loves him, and that there is a place for him in the church.  

-He talked about how those with same gender attractions think they have one of two choices.  Either accept it completely and jump into the lifestyle and the gay scene, or live in misery, knowing they have this issue and because of it they’re not allowed to do anything about it and they just live out their lives being unhappy.  A third choice he mentioned was to just end it and take their own lives.  Our responsibility is to show that there is another way.  The gospel of Jesus Christ provides another option.  Same gender attraction is a serious issue, and it may be one that never “goes away” or is “cured”.  It may just be their lot in life to have that trial.  However, it does not mean they cannot love, that they cannot try, that they cannot be happy with someone from the opposite gender.  He cautioned that “getting married” is not a cure for it.  Marriage is for love purpose, so it may be that there are those who go through life never loving someone from the opposite gender.  If so, then there choice is to serve Christ the best they can by being single.  He shared the story of his wife when she thought she wasn't going to get married. She decided that if it was her blessing to be single or her blessing to not have children she would be the best single servant of the Lord and the best mother to others' children. Elder Baxter said how he loved that she used the word blessing. I think this is when he talked about the lady with depression and the two men who had same sex attraction who eventually got married but never overcame their feelings toward the same sex.  He also said that if you’re miserable being single you’ll probably be miserable in marriage.

My question to him

Towards the end of our interview he asked us if we had any questions for him.  This was our chance he said, to ask any question we wanted.  I asked him if he had one piece of advice for a potential seminary teacher what would it be.  “Go to the temple”  This is an answer for a lot of questions he said.  He talked about revelation that can happen at the temple and talked about a personal and sacred revelation he received in the temple days after being called as a 25 year old bishop.  He described it as pure intelligence going through his body.  He had been praying for God’s direction and guidance and had received nothing and started to doubt that he was the right man for the job, that they gave the keys to the wrong person.  Then he said he went to the temple, and their he received the revelation he needed.

I don’t remember what part of our discussion or why he brought it up, but he said the brethren meet on the first Thursday of the month for a meeting.  In the meeting President Monson shared with the rest what keeps him up at night.  It was “beautiful daughters of God not being asked out on dates”  He was funny when talking about men who don’t do their job.  They’d rather play video games.  He talked about being a young man his only goal was trying to figure out how to get girls to go out on dates with him. I think he mentioned this when talking about being a good dad and raising Hyrum… maybe I can’t remember though.

He talked about his growing up.  He was a convert at age 12, a kid from Scotland.  His mother (I think) was divorced and went through several different boyfriends. He came from a long line of alcoholics. By the age of 15 he decided that he couldn’t change the past or what others had done but he could determine his own future.  I think he talked a bit about agency at this time and how important (great gift) it was.

Things that stood out to Amber

• Elder Baxter asked me if Reed was a good dad. I said that he was a great father and Hyrum loved him very much.  Elder Baxter then said, talking to Reed, that it is very important to be a good dad.  Especially for boys.  He said that 1 in 3 boys are growing up without a father and that’s not saying that the fathers that are around are good. Elder Baxter said again how important it is to be a good dad.  
• When talking about same sex attraction and marriage Elder Baxter discussed providing a good, loving home for children.  He mentioned that if we don't have children then whose home will they go to?   He said some people should not be having children though it wasn’t the Christian thing to say.
• Elder Baxter asked if we were prepared to not become rich. He said that seminary teaching was not a big money maker though it would provide for our needs.  
• When Elder Baxter asked Reed if he affiliated or sympathized with any group or individual that choose contrary to the Church’s standards I felt so grateful that Reed could answer with a surety that he didn’t. I hope that we can always sustain our prophet and the brethren even if what they say goes against the world and even some members of the church.     

CATCH UP ROUND

 Not until Mindy told me to check the blog yesterday for info did I realize I had let Fast Sunday come and go without posting!  Honestly, I never thought about it on Sunday!  No excuses really, just being lame.  I guess I could blame it on being in recovery mode after tending Trav & Tammy's kids over the weekend, or I could blame it on my Sunday afternoon Relief Society Meeting with the Stake Visiting,  or my Visiting Teaching on Sunday, or my dinner at Reetas (with Dan & Larry gone to Guatemala the "girls" got together for dinner)...but bottom line, I plum forgot!

So this seems like a good time to catch up, cuz I am avoiding diving back into my taxes...in preparation for my meeting with Randy Gray next week.  With two rental properties sold and four bought this year, I am very overwhelmed trying to gather all pertinent information.  I now own seven rental properties...the new ones tend to be smaller with smaller rents, but they will give me more flexibility when and if I need to sell off,  and more coverage should I have an empty rental for a while.  I haven't gotten rich with the buying and selling this year; in fact, it's been less profitable, with more maintenance and vacancies between renters, but hopefully I will be better positioned going forward.  Why should any of this matter to you guys?  Cuz by living off of rental incomes, I am leaving your inheritances intact!  But I am putting you on notice…you’d better put whatever you get to good use!  OK…that subject is getting awkward, so I will move on.

The month of February was relatively quiet.  Actually, there were a couple of weeks there where I had spare time!  Of course I quickly filled it by digging into my scrapbooking….I honestly don’t know what to do with the THOUSANDS of pictures I have taken over the years.  In years past, I got them all developed, and now have files unending of pictures.  My goal for now is to  organize and put pictures in books through  the end of 2009.  Picture taking took a definite down turn after Dad….just didn’t have the same heart for it. I have taken pictures, but they have mostly stayed on my phone or in my computer.  SOOOO,  2009 will be the last year. Harder than it sounds.  I have been wading through that year, and it was a HUGE year!  Two weddings,  a trip to Mexico with my siblings in March,  Travis and family living in our basement, summer visits from Phil & fam from India, as well as Mindy from D.C. (with attendant cabin trips),  a Turner reunion in St George,  Girls Camp, Youth Conference at the cabin,  Dad busy working for U of U, Payne gathering in  Bear Lake,  trip to India with Bonnie and Shannon Blackburn,  Blackburn AND Payne gatherings at the cabin in September a trip to DC to visit Mindy and family in October  yada yada yada.  Things fell suddenly quieter after Nov 19, but life refused to stop, as Phil and family moved to Price and we all tried to find our new reality.  Ohmigosh, I will be SO GLAD when 2009 is in the scrapbook!  It has been so strange chronicling it.  I look at those pictures of us and marvel at how unknowing we were of what lay ahead for us.  How interesting our lives are.  Reed quoted Elder Holland as saying, “If you want to make Heavenly Father laugh, tell him your plans.”  That rings so true to me!

Ok, let’s move on.  I will just post some pictures now, of the rest of February.  Like I said, it was pretty quiet.

Ok, so I stole this from Kathryn, just too cute to not post.
(Does this shame you into posting, Phil?

Little Red Riding Hood and a mysterious wolf at the Curoiosity Museum

Another day at Curiosity Museum...this time we get Tammy and family!

I start lots of my days at Zumba...on this day, Wendy brought a couple of her grandkids:  Brent's daughters

I can't believe a friend of  Reeta's posted this pic of my on Facebook.  She gave me some cream to try on after Zumba one day, , then snapped my picture....I look like a freakin terrorist!

Sunrise from Trav's front yard....I always said the prettiest view of Carbon County was above the horizon....the SKY!

Matt beat me at his favorite game

Bubble bath at Nana's


Looking at these pictures, I realize they are all of little children!  Promise to get more pics of big people, as well as the precious new babies.

Should have had a picture of Ben, who turned 16 this month...we gave him tributes and watched him blow out candles....time is flying by!  He is growing so tall and handsome...