Odds and Ends

We had my dad's retirement party on Friday. It was fun to go and see how much everyone looked up to him and respected him. Some of his old bosses flew in from out of town for it. Me, being the dork I am, brought my camera, but didn't find out until I got home that my memory card was not in it. So, I have no photos. Maybe someone will feel sorry for me and email me theirs.
I spent the day on Saturday working on Andrea's baby shower gift and invitations. Sean, Tyrel, and Trevin went on a scout campout/fishing trip over the weekend. Only 1 fish was caught so with the price of gas to get the trucks and boat there, Sean said it was $200/lb worth of fish. The boys did have fun catching and eating crawdads though.
We had Stake Conference yesterday. I especially enjoyed President Trevort's talk. He said that he used to teach his kids "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Later he learned a lesson and they changed their family motto to "If you can't say something nice, think of something nice and say it." I need to live by that motto also. We all need to look at the bright side of things and try to find something good in everything.

Mother's Day and Dad's Birthday

I wanted to take a minute to tell my wonderful mother how much I love her. I appreciate all she has taught me through the years. My top 3 things I am most grateful she has taught me (at least at this point in my life) are:

To be organized - my mom is the most organized person I have ever met, she has lists and plans for everything. I'm don't keep as many lists as she does and I don't plan things out as well as she does, but I have learned to keep things on a calendar, make a menu so I don't have to go to the store so often, and stuff like that.

To serve others - my mom is always taking dinner to others and helping others out any way she can, I also love to take meals in to others and try to look for other ways I can serve others

To cook - I am so glad that I know how to cook. I have learned this from my mom also. We spent many years in 4H and I also cooked at home a lot under her helpful eye. Sometimes I wish I didn't cook well, then maybe I wouldn't eat so much and I could lose some weight, but I am thankful it is a skill I have.

I love you mom!

I also have to thank my wonderful mother in law for the things she has taught me. I don't know why people don't like their in laws, mine are wonderful. Top 2 things my mother in law has taught me:

To be spontaneous - this balances out my organized side, I have learned that it is okay to do things spur of the moment and it is even fun to do things you hadn't planned on. This was really hard for me when I first got married, but I have loosened up since then.

To Scrapbook - she got me started on scrapbooking and it is one of my favorite pastimes now. I love it.

Love you too!

I also want to say happy birthday to my dad. I'll save my top 3 things for him for Father's Day.

I also want to tell my husband how much I love him and my boys how much I love being their mother! I love all of you. They got my garden almost put in on Saturday (that is what I wanted for Mother's Day this year). I know it was a lot of hard work and you are all tired and sore, but I am grateful for your work!

Books continued......

I was asked to rate my books. Obviously 5 stars are the books that were my favorite. Some have no stars at all because I thought they weren't worth the time. All of the books with 1 star I sold back to Amazon because I have no desire to read them again, except for the teen books with 1 star, I kept them because my boys liked them better than I did. I put a "T" at the side of the books that are middle school/teen type books. Hope this helps.

Read a Good Book Lately????

Well, Bookclub is at my house tonight. I still don't have a clue what I am making for treats so I'd better hurry and get this done so I can figure it out. My book pick for this month was Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. It was a fast and easy read and it was a pretty good book. Travis just read it in his English class so it was fun to discuss with him because he and I don't really read a lot of the same books. I am a firm believer that if you are a good reader, you will be more successful in all of your subjects at school. So, I make my kids read a lot, especially during the summer.

We have had our bookclub going since September of 2004 and I started thinking about all of the books I had read since then. I loved to read in high school and college, and then dwindled off when I got married, so I was excited when this bookclub started because it gave me a chance to read some good books and I am hooked on reading again. I love curling up with a good book.

Anyway, with quite a few emails back and forth with Tracie M, our master list keeper and email reminder, we were able to reconstruct the list of books we have read since then. I also made a list of the books I have read on my own and with Tyrel (he and I read a lot together). It is quite an impressive list if I don't say so myself. So, here goes....
Bookclub Books
Books I Read with Tyrel

Books I Read on my own

Shar the Star

I know I already posted today, but I had to post the picture of Shar. She just called and said to go to http://www.24hourfitness.com/ because she "Is the Website". We love you Shar. Her commercial is on tonight on Chanel 13 during "House". Go to stories on the website and check out her story and video. She is the one right below Shaquille O'Neal.

Scouts

For some reason, I don't think I can do a blog entry without pictures, so I always have to wait until some event happens to take pictures at and then I can do an entry. I need to change that. I'll try to do better.

Update on my robbery. The police recovered my stuff, but I still can't have it because it is evidence. What a pain!

We went to Lauren's baby blessing and spent the day with family yesterday. The salads were yummy. I am bummed because I forgot my camera. Jen if you are reading this, send me a cute picture of your cute baby!

Trevin got his Wolf badge, 1 gold and 4 silver arrows and some belt loops at pack night this week. We are so proud of him. He has worked hard.

Tyrel was advanced to Life Scout and just needs 3 more merit badges and to do his Eagle project. He is threatening to beat Travis who has all of his merit badges, but can't get motivated to do his project. There are 15 scouts in our ward all working on Eagle projects so he is so busy helping them and I think he doesn't have time to do his own. At least that is what he thinks. I think he has time and just needs to get it done. Sean told him he couldn't get his driver's license until he gets it, so maybe that combined with a little brother on his heels will get him going. He has a project picked, he just needs to get it done. We will keep you informed.

Travis had a sad week this week, his friend Bo, who has been on his football team the past two years was killed on Tuesday. He was walking (or maybe he was on his scooter) going home from Young Men's on Tuesday night and was hit by a car (or truck, I should really pay more attention to detail) Anyway, it has been a tough week for Travis and has made us all think about how blessed we are and think over how much our life and our family mean to us. He wasn't going to go to the funeral because he said he had enough sadness for the week and wanted to move on, but he ended up going and was glad he did.

School is almost out. The kids are looking forward to the summer, I'm not. I really like the structure and routine of school. Summer always throws me off. We have a summer routine, but it just isn't the same. I'll have to try harder this year to do better and have a better attitude.

Trevin was in the Hershey track meet this week also. It was a great day for a track meet and he had fun. Let me just say, none of my kids will be track stars (I don't think so anyway, maybe they will surprise me!).

Phone Call in the Middle of The Night - a good thing?!

I guess I'll tell you the bad part first. Monday night we went to get ice cream for our Family Night treats. We got home and parked my car in the garage as usual. Tuesday afternoon I went out to my car to go visiting teaching and I noticed the glove compartment and the console were open. Missing were my checkbook, credit card, drivers license, and a cashiers check that I was going to deposit that day. So I spent the afternoon cancelling credit cards, cautioning our checking account, putting a stop payment on the cashiers check and filling out a witness report for the Sheriff. My credit card had already been used 4 times by this point. Needless to say, I was having a bad day.

Well, I went to Young Women's, ran kids around for soccer practices, had to tell everyone to make their own dinner because I had a bad day and didn't get anything out. Watched the recorded episode of American Idol with my hubby and went to bed. At 11:28 p.m. our phone rings. Now I don't know about you, but usually a call at that time of night means something bad has happened. So, with my adrenaline pumping I answer the phone. It was the Spanish Fork Police Department. It seems that they had someone in custody that had my credit card on them. He apologized for calling so late, but wanted to find out what else was missing because the full report had not been entered yet. He said he would see if he could recover the rest of my missing stuff. I got a call today that they got my checkbook, minus the register, my driver's license and my credit card back. So I guess that is good news right?! I guess it should be fun trying to balance my checkbook without a register, yuck!