The Week In Review

Veronica turned sixteen years old this week. She was given birthday money to go to a nice restaurant, so she took the family and her best friend to Cheesecake Factory. Everyone enjoyed a delicious meal and then we shared a few desserts. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday evening we had a birthday party. I made six dozen cupcakes, we had all the fixings for s'mores and roasted starbursts, Travis built a big fire, the kids hit golf balls into the lake, sang songs (a couple of them played guitar), visited, watched part of the Jazz game, played games and had a great time. There were about twenty kids that came.

During the middle of the party, Travis held down the fort while I took Joe to Urgent Care. A reckless dunk on the neighbor's basketball hoop, off a trailer, resulted in a broken wrist for Joe. It was very painful. (This picture was taken the next day)
We enjoyed visiting Grandma Higginson and Grandma Rindlisbacher on Mother's Day. We love them both! I had a wonderful day with cards and a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble.

Bruce's friend (and future college roommate) Skyler came to visit over the weekend. We loved having him come and look forward to seeing more of him this fall.

Our Young Women had a fund-raiser for girls camp. For a $40.00 donation, we'd get a ten-minute family photo session and a disk with the two prints of our choice. These are the two we chose.

Leslie and Kristi and their boys Visit the White House

After the sad events following Thanksgiving, I felt sad that I was so far away from Leslie, so I was really glad she came up with Kristi and the little boys for a few days. We watched hundreds of good television shows, played thousands of games and ate millions of treats. We loved having them come. In this picture, you can see the bed on the couch that Leslie made for Aaron, and where Aaron ended up while we played And It Came to Pass.

Savannah enjoyed playing outside with Benjamin and Aaron.
Joe and Spencer got a couple of great 88 cent cell phones on our trip to Wal-mart.
Aaron found a great little forgotten car in the toybox. He especially enjoyed it because he could turn it on and it would bounce all over the table.
After an afternoon of running errands, Kristi and Luke took a nap.

Spencer enjoyed the massage chair. It tickled his back. He laughed and laughed.

Veronica taught Spencer how to make chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips (Leslie was here, remember). They did a great job! It was one of the many treats we enjoyed (peanut butter m&ms, fudge, caramel popcorn, to name a few).
Luke and Joe have a tug-o-war with something. I'm not sure what.
Savannah and Aaron had a great time together.
Lauren came and helped make fudge and caramel popcorn.
Jordan came with her and she and Savannah enjoyed a bagel with half berry cream cheese and half strawberry cream cheese.

YW Evening of Excellence

We had our YW Evening of Excellence. Lauren, one of my Laurels, worked with me on this event. Our theme was "Following the Savior's Footsteps." We then went with a shoe theme for decorations. Across the front were seven pairs of shoes on tablecloths in the value colors with the values displayed with flowers and beads. It looked really pretty. Here are some pictures of them and Lauren. Be sure to expand them so you can see some of the details. It looked really cute.


We got a cookie cutter shaped like a high heel and Lauren spent two afternoons at our house baking and decorating over 100 sugar cookies, decorated with the value colors. We had five speakers (about 4-5 minutes each). The talks were on Loafers--Don't be Lazy, High Heels--Set High Goals, Athletic Shoes--Lengthen Your Stride, Flip Flops--Don't flip flop on your standards, and Slippers--Take Comfort in the Holy Ghost. The talks were all so good. The evening was perfect.
Here is Lauren with the refreshment table. She worked really hard. She's a great girl and I really love her. It was a nice evening.

Personal Progress Project--Completed!

After many hours (well over the 10 hour requirement), I have my "Good Works" project completed. As a Young Women's leader, I have to do three projects. I already completed one of them in the spring. I made paper pieced board books full of good thoughts for all my graduating senior girls. This is my second one. I made tablecloths in each of the value colors, to use when we're teaching lessons, etc. I embroidered the name of the value on the two front corners of the tablecloth. They turned out really nice and I used one in my last lesson.

My last required project is completing the book by Elder Holland, "Christ and the New Covenant." That will be finished in a couple of days, as I am just reading the notes at the end now. I would recommend that book to anyone and everyone. It was so good and strengthened my testimony so much. It has been a good challenge for me to earn my leader medallion.

Girls' Camp 2007

This is me with Brenda, Theresa, and Liberty, the other three leaders that were over the 4th year girls. I stayed in a tent with Brenda on the far left. Theresa and Liberty stayed in the cabin. It smelled really bad. I was so glad I was in a tent. Veronica with some of her friends and her Beehive leader, Geana. We went to a place not very far from Redfish Lake, called Lake Alturas. It's a nice campground. I didn't get to be with Veronica, like I was last year, (she was a 2nd year) so I was sad about that. Luckily, Geana was with her group, so they had a great time. Veronica and Kimberly, her best friend. They got to know each other last year at Girls' camp. She is in our ward, but when they make the ward changes in October, she probably won't be. Sad!
This is me and Geana at the lodge. She's not only my second counselor, but a really good friend.
This is Veronica working on the Humanitarian project. The girls put together 1000 family hygiene kits and 100 ABC books for the education kits. The girls did lots of coloring in their free time. It was a great project!

I enjoyed camp a lot and so did Veronica. We came home tired and dirty, but glad we went. There was more free time than last year and some of the activities were really fun. Besides the Humanitarian project, there was first aid, boating, a color Personality class, some nice devotionals, an inspiring testimony meeting, first aid, a hike, and the commitment trek, which was excellent. It was a very nice few days for the girls.

We're glad to be home and showered and I really enjoyed my own bed last night. We missed Travis, Bruce, Savannah and Joe while we were gone. They did a good job at home and when I got home, it looked good and they were all well-cared for. Thanks to all of them for making it possible for us to go.

Cowboy Stuff and Silly Kids

We made a birthday cake for Jordan Rogers and her sisters came over and decorated it. (Jordan is the youngest daughter of my friend Lori, who died at the beginning of the summer.) Jordan takes after her Mom and loves all things cowboy. Her Mom was a championship roper and grew up on a ranch in Nevada. Jordan is turning 9 on Sunday.
For her birthday present from our family, we made this charm bracelet. The picture in the charm is of her Mom.
Savannah and Joe being silly. It's hard to imagine a time when a jacket was required. Hopefully this heat wave will end soon. Savannah looking cute. I think she took this of herself.
I think Savannah also took this cute shot of Joe. I love the toothless smile. That one lone tooth on top is very loose. Soon he'll have nothing right there.