DADS AGAINST DAUGHTERS DATING

A friend of Don's sent him a picture of the new movie ad for Arnold Schwarzenegger's "The Last Stand" and said it reminded him of Don. It made me laugh but as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to make this page! It took some work and a couple of tries but I am happy with the end result.

This is a picture I took of Don years ago in our living room and I had fun extracting it and putting in on a new manly background. As the father of 4 girls, 3 of them married, he's fighting a losing battle but he still keeps trying! I have a feeling his 3 sons-in-law are going to just laugh at this picture....

Supplies:
Lynn Grieveson In Distress Paper
Fonts: Century Copperplate Light, Century Gothic

26 Years of Wedded Happiness

Wanted to write a post today because I've been married to my sweet Don for 26 years today! Every year that goes by, just seems to keep getting faster....

I meant to go for a long walk this morning (it turned into a shorter one) but sat down at the computer and looked for an early picture of us, which was a little difficult because the pictures we had taken at our wedding were awful! I think it's one of the reasons why I am so crazy about picture taking now and why I insist on good pictures for my daughter's weddings! I have so few nice ones of my own wedding.

Here is one that I tweaked today that was at our wedding reception. I used Photoshop CS3 and put a "Soft and Faded" action on it from Pioneer Woman which helped to give it that vintage look. Just wish I would have had time to clone out the person behind but will work on that!

Had a few comments that my daughter Melodie looks like me, but I think it's always hard to see when you are the mother. So fun to look back on pictures when Don and I were first married, before kids, before careers, before moving when we were just two young, happy kids trying to make our marriage work. So grateful that Don has been with me through the years, for his patience, faithfullness and willingness to work hard for his family. We love to laugh and read together; I think those are two things that make our marriage strong. I am a blessed woman!

Happy 26th Anniversary Don!

Kub Kar Rally

I realized that I haven't written anything about Mitchell's first kub kar rally! This is his first year in cub scouts and he just loves it! The leaders are wonderful and he eagerly heads out every Tuesday night. They are working on all kinds of badges right now and I think he has about 5 by now.

You can imagine his excitement for the kub kar rally, he was able to go and watch last year......but this year he was going to be making his own. You can also imagine Don's excitement, his only son's first kub kar rally. I think he was almost as happy as Mitchell! So the two of them worked on it, finding patterns, buying paint, heading over to a friends garage to saw it out......and then creating it. They really worked hard and it turned out to be a beautiful spiderman car (we think). The rally was in Clearwater, so I wasn't able to make it (too many other things scheduled that day!) but Don filled the van with Scouts and they headed to Clearwater on a Saturday a couple of weekends ago. They came back pretty happy because Mitchell's car had taken first place at least 6 times (apparently this was awesome!), so even though he hadn't won any of the big prizes, he was still pretty proud of his car and so was his DAD!!

General Conference Spring 2007

It was General Conference this weekend and Rebecca took a picture of Don and I heading out the door with the family. This is one of the few times we get to sit together since Don is usually sitting on the stand so it was nice to be with him.

We both love Conference, funny I don't remember if we were as dedicated about making every session when we were first married....I think we would just watch what we could but now we just absolutely try not to miss anything. We're always disappointed when Don has to work, but we don't schedule anything else Conference weekend.



On Saturday, the little ones and I watched it on the computer..... they love to do it this way because they get out their blankets, colouring books and drawing paper and we all hang out in the study to watch it. Don takes the older girls, Melodie and Vanessa to the chapel to watch it ( he likes to make sure its all set up right.....) and then on Sunday we all head to the chapel for both sessions.


I think we have so many favourite speakers we just can't bear to miss any of them! Always love to hear from President Gordon B. Hinckley, he is 96 and still going strong, his sense of humour is still so sharp. One of my favourites is Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and he spoke about the tongue and how it is a force of good or bad, it was such a wonderful talk..... then there's Elder Bednar with his way with words, Elder Eyring who just touches your heart...... Elder Oaks spoke today on divorce and it was such an amazing talk on marriage as well......Elder Faust spoke right to my heart on forgiveness!! So we just can't miss any of it. I later find when I read the Conference issue of the Ensign I can hear their voice in my head as they were speaking! What's also neat about this time, is that Don and the girls were trying to be the first one to guess the scripture references when the apostles were quoting a scripture........good practice!

We want our children to love listening to the prophets and have wonderful memories of Conference.....so we talk about it lots and try to make it fun and stress its importance! I'll never forget being in the tabernacle when I was a student at Ricks and President Kimball walked in.......everyone was on their feet and there was this awesome silence.........a tangible Spirit filled that place and I knew I was in the presence of the Lord's prophet. I have never forgotten that feeling. Another amazing moment for me was listening to Elder Bruce R. McConkie's last testimony in April 1985 just before he passed away! His voice held such passion as he testified of the Saviour. So General Conference for me is a world time out, an amazing testimony builder and a time of learning and growing spiritually stronger.......





Next.......here's Vanessa looking thrilled by our freak snow storm....

Tonight.....it started to snow big fat flakes.......ughhhhhh..........we want spring, we were just raking the lawn yesterday! I don't think it will last long, just enough to put more water in our pool liner that we have to pump out in the next few weeks, hopefully it hasn't frozen the buds on our cherry trees...........

Bishop Mathieson

I am including a couple pictures of Don serving as Bishop here in the Kamloops 2nd Ward. His two counselors right now are Cam Pierson and Doren Quinton. In the picture at the bottom are Jack Sabey, his Ward Clerk and Armand Pinegar who is the Executive Secretary.
Don has been serving now for just over 3 years so we expect he will probably be doing it for another couple, they are usually called for anywhere from 4-6 years. He started out with Doug Armstrong and John Franks as his counselors but that was changed just in this last year. I know although it has been a tremendous amount of work, he has learned so much and grown so much in the last few years. Don has been so grateful for his counselors and the real help they have been many, many times.
I have worried about him so often but have seen the Lord help him in so many ways. We know that he is being prayed for, strengthened and looked after every day. I have seen him counsel, pray, worry and never give up on people and wonder how he carries on. We both have seen "tender mercies" of the Lord in too many instances to ever doubt that what Don is doing is always being directed by the Lord! Prayers have been answered, calls have been made, work has went forth and continues to go forth every day. I have to say that I loved the man he was before but am amazed and impressed at the man he has become and continues to try to be! We have been so blessed and are so grateful to have each other. I pray that each of our children will have the same blessings in their choice of eternal companion!