Seattle Temple Trip 2010

So grateful we could join the youth on their temple trip last weekend. It was our last Stake Temple trip because our new one in Langley is being dedicated this May. There wasn't room on the bus so Don and I drove down in our van with the Fraziers. I'm glad I could be there with Rebecca, I coudn't be there for her first trip so this was a wonderful memory for me. I think she had a great time.....

My fourth baby girl who is no longer a baby!

Couldn't resist taking this picture of the twins, Katelyn and Alyssa Chenuz, they are such sweethearts. I was bummed because I didn't have my SLR with me and my little Canon has been giving me trouble lately. Sometimes it turns on, sometimes it doesn't.  Well it wasn't working until everyone had already posed, then of course it worked after....so I just had to get a few pictures in before we went inside. I wasn't very good about getting pictures this trip, sometimes I really work at and sometimes I don't.

Also, crazy I know but I was happy to stop at Costco and buy cheese! It's so much cheaper in the States.....I think I bought like 30 lbs!!

A big thank you to Jack Sabey and all the leaders that went along and did so much work!!

Movie Making

What a day! I have been worried and dreading this job I was asked to do by the Relief Society. My Vanessa (who is on the Enrichment Committee) came home and asked me if I would put together a slide show for the March Relief Society Dinner. My first reaction was dismay........and I wanted to say NO. With a missionary leaving, a grandbaby coming and being in Young Women with the Youth Temple Celebration coming up (they asked me to be on the committee for costumes) I just did not want one more thing on my plate but when I prayed about it and thought about it, I really felt like I needed to try. I love scrapbooking but have never made a movie with my pictures, just pages. I knew that this would force me to learn new things!

A couple of things took me by surprise, first of all I found out that this slide show is for both wards because it is a combined dinner and second, men kept coming up to me in church and taking me aside to quietly give me pictures of their wives, a little disconcerting but fun. They make me laugh......some of the pictures are wonderful, some are awful. How do I tell these sweet fellows that women want flattering pictures, not pictures with their mouths open, messy kitchens in the background, pictures with red eyes.......I have been collecting pictures for the last few weeks and also found out that they were given a deadline for the middle of February. Thank goodness for the RS Pres. because that means I have a month to put it together.

So it has been on my to do list for days and I have been working on the pictures but have been so intimidated by the movie part until today! Mitchell was home from school sick today so I had to stay home from work......so I decided to tackle it for 15 minutes and I ended working on it for almost 3 hours and I absolutely LOVE it! It's almost done and I feel so good about it. I used Windows Movie Maker, plugged in all the pictures, made transitions.....even found music in Vanessa's list and voila, a RS movie!!! When I was done I went through both wards and tried to write everyone I thought was missing and emailed the ladies about it. What made such a difference is that I have taken so many pictures over the years of the sisters at Relief Society that I was able to use a lot of my own.

So I felt empowered today, so grateful that I can keep learning new things and for a Father in Heaven who knows what I can do even when I don't know myself! I am looking forward to giving this as a gift to the sisters here in Kamloops.....

Grade 8 Brocklehurst Secondary Student Speakers!

Rebecca and Tatiana Stone put together a speech to give at the school board presentation held at Brock last Tuesday. School District 73 wants to change Brock and Norkam making them a middle school and high school. The girls are concerned as to how they are going to be able to do this in regards to all the sports teams when none of the other schools in town will be changed. We were so proud of them, they were the youngest ones there and they both got up and spoke clearly, concisely and brought up some good points. It was pretty brave of them and I think this opportunity gives them more confidence. This was after Rebecca wrote a letter that was published in the Saturday Daily News that concerned the same issues.

After they had to go and give their favourite teacher (Mrs.Cowden who taught them Grade 3 at Parkcrest) a hug and hello.

My Valentine of 25 years!

Happy Valentine's Day to my sweet valentine of 25 years! We actually spent time together yesterday seeing the movie "Sherlock Holmes" (my choice because Mel highly recommended it) and then appies at Boston Pizza. Today we were in church listening to wonderful talks on opening your heart and hearing the most beautiful song "Lord, My Redeemer" by Kamloops 1st Ward missionary Elder Furr.

Cards, Cards, Cards.......Paper Cards

I know, I know, hard to believe but actually put my hands on paper again yesterday! I am so used to crafting on the computer that I forget how fun it is to design, cut, glue and stamp on paper. Well I had lots of fun last night with my "card ladies!" We all design a card, bring the supplies for extras and then end up with 4 cards at the end of the night. I like the fact that we usually end up with 4 totally different looking cards and last night proved that.......I love how we all learn different techniques as well! The hardest part is giving them away, lol.......so if you don't see one of these cute cards in your mailbox you will know why!

My Babies on Santa's lap!

Kind of sad that my babies are not babies anymore! Here are Rebecca and Mitchell sitting on Santa's lap at the ward Christmas party! I was lucky to get a picture of Mitchell because he didn't sit there long.... I miss having no "Santa believers" at my house but have to admit life is certainly easier with older kids:
   *No more having to walk them up to the school doors, just drop them off..
   *No more getting up at crazy, early hours Christmas morning...
   *No more putting away breakables, just putting away books, shoes, coats, backpacks, etc.
   *No more giving baths, they all shower themselves
   *No more fixing breakfasts and lunches, they fend for themselves as long as you buy food
   *No more tying shoelaces, now we are just trying to find shoes
   *No more chasing kids back to the dinner table, they sit and visit and eat
   *No more guessing what they want, they'll be happy to give you lists
         then again,
   *No more sticky fingers, cute little faces or sloppy kisses....... I miss my babies!

Thankful for Mayonnaise!

Here is another page I have done this week, this took me awhile because I've been on the road so much this week. I posted this on facebook but want to try working with my blog more, wish I could figure out how to post here and then just send it to facebook!

Me Abridged More Pages

I am still working on my Abridged Book! I've decided that I can't take anymore classes until I've finished this one and since I'm really anxious to start another digital one, this will give me incentive to keep working! The writing is hard, but it always is but it is so satisfying when you finish one. I've been posting them on facebook and I think my kids are enjoying it too!

Singing in the Church

Don't let the title fool you, it is not me singing in church! My Vanessa and Rebecca will be singing today: "Jesus was No Ordinary Man" and so I'm a little nervous. Vanessa has asked Derek Deschenes family and her boss from Quizno's all to come and they said they would. I know Derek will be there but not sure about the others, so hope they do well.

I'm grateful we are able to get Rebecca into singing lessons this year, I just wish we could have persuaded Mitchell to continue with piano.

Well, we have an electrician coming over this morning to get our hot tub running and I need to go pick up Kevin Lee from the airport all before church so lots to do and hoping to get some writing down for my album.

Me Abridged Pages A and B

So I signed up to take an online scrapbooking class with Big Picture Scrapbooking and I am loving the challenge. It's by one of my favourite scrapbook authors, Cathy Zielske and it's so much fun. There are over a thousand women registered in this class from all over the world. We are making an album about ourselves using the alphabet and I am doing it completely digital. The hard part is the writing.... we have to keep the entries to a certain format and so it has been making me really think about what is important in my life. Of course it's hard because we have to use all these letters, but that makes it challenging too!

So here are my first two pages and I have to keep working because I have 24 to go!

Camping in Lac la Hache

Camping always means lots of dishes.........but it also means lots of food too and that's always fun!

We went on a nature walk and it ended up being quite the adventure because we had to clear a lot of the trail.......I use "we" loosely here since it was Don and Ryan most of the time but even Darci helped! Here I took a picture of Sam and Zac resting with Superman snacks!

The kids were pretty excited because Dad took them fishing!

We had to laugh because Ryan and Darci brought the biggest tent we had ever seen! They borrowed it from a friend because Darci gets claustrophobic. We could have had a party in this Taj Mahal!

I had fun getting these pictures! These squirrels were so tame and were coming up and eating right out of Ryan's hands! Then I caught this one climbing up!

We decided to take some couple pictures while we were there and we happened to catch this beautiful sunset!

The kids took some pictures of Don and I! We celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary while we were camping!

Group pictures while we were on our adventure hike!

Journaling time!

Just read another blogger today who blogs every day...and she scrapbooks every day and adds templates. How do people do it? I am just so lucky to get a little scrapbooking time! I'm really thinking it's time for the kids to go back to school because I am starting to go crazy. Maybe I'll have some day time again if I can quit answering the phone, driving kids to friends (like that will stop) and being bombarded with questions all the time. We've had lots of company this summer and teenagers especially, who hang out in our pool. I am still recovering from Vanessa's 18 birthday party where almost 30 kids showed up! Back to scrapbooking.....today I am especially feeling overwhelmed.

Mitchell turns 10!!

Hard to believe my Mitchell turned 10 on May 21st. My last baby and my only boy. What a treasure and I know I am biased but he is such a nice boy! All his teachers love him because he is kind and helpful. He's also pretty smart, makes up his own spelling lists! He is in Grade 4 this year and loves to play basketball, soccer and baseball. Not too keen on going to watch his sister's dance recitals.......is sure he can find something better to do but he goes anyway.
This is a picture Maranda Schwarz took about 5 years ago, time goes so fast.

Loved this picture, he had hurt his ear but was still hungry. Can't believe I've forgotten how he did it but not surprising, maybe one of his sisters will remember!

Rebecca and Mitchell and all you need to have fun.....a big box. I don't know if they would sit this nicely together any more!

Happy Birthday Mitchell! We love you lots!!

What's Been Happening!

I wish I was better at keeping my Blog! I go through good days and then get busy and don't do it for awhile. I've been reading a writing book that encourages you to write every day for at least 10 minutes. I answer emails but that's not always what I want to write and it's not really keeping track of my own life.
I've been so happy to be home, just feels good to be here getting things done! I think we have been so focused on Disneyland for so long that it's funny to have it all over and be focusing on different things.
What I want to remember about these last few weeks:
*The wonderful memories that we made in Disneyland!
*How grateful I was to be able to gather with Don's family for Burnie's funeral.
*Thankful to have Ryan and Darci (with their 3 boys, Sam, Zach and Connor) visiting with us this weekend.
*Especially happy to have Ryan here to help Don empty the pool so we can get the liner changed in the next couple of weeks.
*The fellow doing our pool explained to us how he can get our hot tub up and running for a pretty reasonable price so hope to do that this fall!
*Another anxious morning waiting for a daughter to come back from a driving test......third daughter and she didn't pass but learned lots from the experience so will be doing it again.
*Happy to have Sandra buy my camera today, it was the one that had to be sent to be fixed, didn't get back in time for my Disneyland trip so they replaced it.
*We went to the airport to welcome our two missionaries home, Lauren Razeau and Corey Jensen, it was a special night.
*Pretty happy to know that Vanessa is a co-valedictorian for her graduating class! She is just thrilled to be doing something her sisters haven't, lol.
*Still love scrapbooking digitally and just wish I had more time for it!
*Excited to find out that Melodie has won an all expense paid trip to Quebec for an RT conference because she and her roommates entered and won a contest for RT students to make a video!
*Learned again a valuable lesson: People are more important than things!!

My Boogie Kids!!!

Rebecca and Mitchell who I usually have to drag out of bed on Wednesday and Friday mornings to help me do their papers, informed me last night that they wanted to get up this morning and go running! I was a little nonplussed but told them I would get them up. So to my surprise, Rebecca was up and dressed before I was (Mitchell was ready to go back to bed but then found out Rebecca was up) and so at 6 this morning I have these 2 wide awake kids ready to run...and run they did. They were half way down the street by the time I dropped off my first paper and they kept going. Our block is about half a kilometre and they ran down our street and Greenfield a couple of times, so by the time they were done Rebecca had run about 3km and Mitchell about 2 1/2km (he helped me do papers). I couldn't believe it as I watched them running the whole time, crazy kids! I think they are planning on doing Boogie the Bridge, so I better get going if I want to do it with them! (Boogie the Bridge is a big family, community run that we have every April started by Jo Berry......it's amazing, fun, energetic and really promotes being healthy and happy!)
What makes me really happy is that I think I have "MORNING" kids! Kids who like mornings and who have energy in the morning, because it's my favourite time of day!

Just 15 MINUTES at home!

Yesterday, Wednesday was a good day for me! I actually had the whole day to be home.....and it was wonderful. I've always been grateful to be a stay at home MOM (SAHM) but now that I'm working 2 days a week I find I appreciate it even more. The days I am home seem to be filled with appointments, meetings, grocery shopping and driving kids to lessons, so a real at home day is rare. I have to be careful when I'm at home though, because I'm a computer junkie and can spend more time there than anywhere else, although yesterday I was pretty tempted to just get in the bath and read. I used my flylady skills (flylady.net) and got out my timer, set it for 15 minutes and got tons done. I really wanted to tackle my downstairs, especially my craft area that had got overrun in the last week........so I did it 15 minutes at a time. I then spent 15 minutes on the computer scrapbooking, so fun too. I ended up going through my kids school boxes and dejunking a ton of stuff......I'll be so glad to get that organized so I can find things and stay on top of it. Looking through Rebecca and Mitchell's old schoolwork brought back so many memories.....I still miss Mrs. Cowden, their Grade 3 teacher!

So after a day of decluttering, it was fun to just go over to Sue Ferguson's last night and make cards!

This is a picture of Kathy and I playing colour Yahtzee on the computer, one of our traditions whenever she visits!

Vanessa is a HAPPY girl!

Vanessa called me yesterday and was pretty excited!! I was working ( I do bookkeeping at the Petro Canada up the hill two days a week, I have been enjoying it, it works right into my schedule, I have been learning lots about Simply Accounting and it gets me motivated to do my own accounting, lol) and it was around lunch time. She had went to school but forgot her lunch.......tried to persuade me to drop her off some but I was the mean Mom that day and told her I was too busy. I had just tried to phone a few minutes earlier because I knew Don was home but there was no answer and I laughed to myself. Figured Don had probably brought Vanessa her lunch, (he's much more patient with that kind of thing) but actually he gave her a ride home.

So she's on the phone with me with "great news"! "Guess what Mom? I just got a scholarship in the mail!" I was thrilled to hear that Thompson Rivers University here in town where she applied for the nursing program last month just sent her a $3000 TRU Regional Board of Governors High School Scholarship! What a gift! We were all so thankful, that almost pays for one year of school and with what she has saved, her first year is covered. She's hoping to get a few more and then to work during the summer because 4 years is a long time........but this is such a wonderful start!

The other wonderful blessing for her yesterday was that she received her patriarchal blessing. Patriarch Branchflower dropped it off to her and so that was pretty special as well.

So Tuesday, March 24 was a spectacular day for our Vanessa. We are sure happy for her!

Camera woes!

I have been so thrilled with the Canon Rebel camera Don got me for Christmas! The pictures it can take even though I am a complete newbie (I usually just keep it on automatic), are amazing. The last couple of months I have been learning more every time I use it. I have been taking it to basketball games, using the zoom lens on sports mode and getting some good shots of the girls playing basketball.
Here Kathy took this picture of the kids and I home from church. It can be fun just pointing and shooting.

I also took it with me when I was down in Vancouver at a scrapbooking convention in February. Melodie and her roommate Jade Shultis joined Jen Oviatt and I and we had fun doing some pages....... I'm pretty much digital now, the only traditional I occasionally do, are cards. (I think the picture with Jen is on her camera!!)

So you can imagine my dismay when in the last 3 weeks my camera keeps reading Error 99 and that I have to take out the battery or turn the power off and on. I went online and tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. So I took it back to Future Shop (they figure it is the lens) and they said all they can do is send it back to Canon to have it worked on.......... so I am without my Rebel for 4-6 weeks! I'm just hoping I can have it back before we head to Disneyland in April!!!!

Edis Reception

We were happy to be able to attend the Edis/Everett reception last month! Aaron and Savannah were married in the Seattle temple and we went up to Kelowna to their reception. I worked with Nadine in the Stake Young Women Presidency and still miss her so it was sure fun to see her and all the family. Of course the bride and groom looked absolutely happy! We were also glad because Melodie was able to get a ride from Vancouver to be there. We just wish that Danielle and Tim could have made it especially since we were able to visit with the Wilsons, Carole, Kristina and a very pregnant Jaime.
My two beautiful girls, Melodie had her hair cut and a darling new dress from Le Chateau. We brought her back to Kamloops with us and Vanessa was sure happy to have her home. She really misses her and would go live with Mel in Vancouver if she didn't have to go to school!

Poor Mitchell, dances are really not his thing yet! So he was pretty patient with us that night, just sitting around waiting!
Vanessa was able to get Mitchell up dancing at least once, sisters are okay, girls are not!
Even our Rebecca was dancing with a boy!! I'm not sure I'm ready for another dancing daughter, where has the time gone? She is as tall as Vanessa now and is often mistaken for her!

As usual Melodie found someone's cute baby to hold!
Vanessa and Dad!

Warren and Nadine Edis, the happy bride's parents!

It was a beautiful cake!