New Great Nephews

One of my new nieces e-mailed me that she hadn't seen many pictures of her Dad and Tammy's wedding except the ones on my blog....since I had some really cute ones of her precious little boys, I decided to post some of my pictures of Will & Owen.  Aren't they so cute?  These are for you Natalie!!!

Me? A Senior Citizen?

I went to the movie with a friend today and this is my ticket:

Notice anything?  Yep it says "SENIOR".  I got my first senior citizen discount at the movies.  I have been to the movie since my birthday but I always forget that I am now a senior!  A year or so ago I went to the movie with the same friend.  When the cashier asked, "2 adults" I had the thought, "Does she think we are students?" and then it hit me!  She didn't think we were students she thought we were seniors!  Now that I am entitled to a discount I say, "Why not?" Not taking it won't make me any younger, would it?

The movie we saw was "Confessions of A Shopaholic".  It was just silly, good fun.  Definitely a "chic flick".  The book (in fact the whole series of "shopaholic" books") is much better. The books made me laugh out loud.   The movie was fun for a "girls day out"....even if it was for a couple of "golden age girls"!!! 

Officer, Officer!!!

My mother gave me a subscription to my weekly hometown paper. It has been so fun to follow the High School sports teams (the Jackrabbits) and read the news in this little town that I love.  I did get a laugh over one thing I read in the "police report" this week.  The names have been changed to protect the "not so innocent" but the ages are correct just so you'll know these weren't clueless teenagers or 20 year olds.

"Officers were dispatched to West Academy Street because officers were told that Tom Johnson, 46, called the Police Department and stated that his brother stole his marijuana.  Tom's brother, William Jones, 50 stated he did not take any marijuana from Tom.  Tom stated that the last time he saw the marijuana it was in William's room.  The police officers asked William if he had any illegal substances in his room and he said no and that they could search his room.  The police did not find anything illegal and told the brothers that it is against the law to have marijuana."

Doesn't Jay Leno have a "dumb criminals" segment?  I think this qualifies! 

White Elephants & Bad Grapes

My friend who lived in China was the Young Women's President. For a Christmas Activity she planned a "white elephant" gift exchange and passed the information onto her young women who came from many different countries with differing levels of English competency. One of the moms and daughter spent a lot of time looking all over Shanghai to come up with the perfect gift to exchange. Can you guess what it was?

What else would you bring to a "White Elephant Gift exchange" except a white elephant. I'm glad they could all laugh about it afterwards.

It reminded me of the time in Spain when I was trying to have a friendly conversation with one of the neighborhood boys about his cute little Scottish terrier dog. All was going well until he pointed to this dog and said, "Ella tiene una mala uva!" I processed this and realized that he had just told me his dog had a "bad grape". I'm sure I nodded wisely and said something brilliant like "Si, Si" all the while not having any idea what a dog having a bad grape even meant! My Spanish teacher was shocked when I told her this story & said that a "well brought up child" would never use such an expression with an adult that he didn't know very, very well. Ok, so not only did I have no idea what he was trying to tell me, I also didn't know that he was being rude. Just so you'll know, to have a "bad grape" means to have a bad attitude. Languages are strange sometimes!

A Taste of China

Two families from our Ward (our church congregation) have had the recent opportunity to live in Shanghai, China.  One is still there but the other has returned.  Last night they shared their knowledge and love of that country with our Young Men and Young Women......

They let us listen to a conversation in Mandarin Chinese

 Talked to us about the written language

Showed us some of their beautiful things

The youth loved it! As you can tell!

We are so glad they got to have this adventure and glad they returned home to us!!

So much talent!!!!

One of our spectacularly talented Young Women created this for the theme for 2009.  Isn't she amazing? And yes she did draw it herself!!!!

Jungle Adventurers

Don't we look like jungle adventurers!

When really we're less than a mile from Iao Valley State Park!!!

I survived the Road to Hana!

I never wanted to drive the road to Hana.  After all, I get car sick and this "narrow corkscrew" road has 617 curves!  If also has "54 one lane bridges, dozens of waterfalls and distracting vistas aplenty".  But it is listed in "1000 Places to See Before you Die" and I'm working my way down the list and I was on Maui SO why not? 

George drove super slow and let everyone who wanted to pass him.  Here we were in this hot little  Mustang and he had to drive like a senior citizen just to keep his wife happy!  But happy I was as we discovered some of the most spectacular places.

Black Sand Beaches

And our own private waterfall...

15 New Family Members

George's youngest sister, Tammy got married in January. She went into the Salt Lake Temple a single woman and came out with, not only a husband, but 7 children, two son-in-laws, one daughter- in- law, and 4 (soon to be 5) grandsons!  How's that for instant family! So that means I now have a new brother in law, lots of nieces & nephews and even "great nephews".  Hey that means I am a "Great Aunt" as opposed to just a great aunt like I've always been!  Just kidding!

We always knew that they were lucky to add Tammy to their family but now that we know all of them, we know we are lucky to be adding them to ours.

Here is Tammy's new family!  All 15 of them!!!   

One of our church leaders said "We come to this earth charged with a mission: to learn to love and serve one another. To best help us accomplish this, God has placed us in families, for he knows that is where we can best learn to overcome selfishness and pride and to sacrifice for others and to make happiness and helpfulness and humility and love the very essence of our character." (Elder Groberg)

I'm so grateful for my family, the one I was born into, the one I married into and the one we created.  I'm grateful for all 15 new additions to the people I call my family!

Purple Inaugural Tickets

Last summer I decided to take advantage of our daughter Mary's proximity to Washington DC and make plans to attend the inauguration.  I knew that it would be historic no matter who won.  We would either see the first woman VP or the first African American President take the oath of office.  After the election I sent an E-mail to Senator Crapo requesting 2 tickets.  I thought my chances were pretty slim so I was surprised when I got an E-mail that contained, "We are happy to inform you that you have been granted 2 tickets...."  Yipee!!!!  We had to go to the senate office building on the Monday before the inauguration to pick them up.  Imagine our delight when we opened the envelope to discover our tickets in the "purple standing section" which was located right behind the seated area.  Wahoo!!!! We thought we had really gotten lucky! 

On Inauguration morning we got up at 3:00 a.m., drove to the closest Metro station and were on the street near the capital by 5:30.  It was an amazing scene with huge crowds of Obama fans, occasional cheers of "give me an O....give me a B......", and lots of police.  Our  tickets told us to get off at the Judiciary Square so we did.  We found a line and a very polite policeman told us to get out our purple tickets and get in line in the tunnel.  This tunnel is actually a four lane highway that goes under the Mall almost directly in front of the US Capital.  We walked and walked down and finally got to the back of the line where we stood and waited.  It was fun to talk to the people around us...after 6 hours you become friends!

During the time we spent in the tunnel lots of incredulous people kept walking by saying, "is this the line for the purple tickets?"  They were amazed that their "wonderful" purple section tickets would require them to wait in such a long line.  We heard that the line went all the way through the tunnel about 1 mile! 

When the security check points opened at about 8:00 the line started slowly, ever so slowly inching forward.  Finally we got out of the tunnel and immediately saw that there were absolutely no police and no barriers anywhere to be found and people were moving towards the security check from the street and from Union Station.  Waiting politely in the tunnel meant that we had little or no chance of getting in to the ticketed area.  Finally Mary and I made our way to near the front of the line where we could see the Capital and the security fence.  Occasionally a small group would be allowed through and they would run towards the Capital.  Now instead of cheers of "Obama!" the cheers were "Let us in!!"  "Purple tickets".....someone suggested climbing the fence but the snipers on the roof made that seem like not so good of an idea!  So this is what we saw of the inaguration of our 44th President!

We were a part of history....we spent Inauguration 2009 in what has been called the "Purple Tunnel of Doom".  Congress is launching an investigation of what went wrong that kept 5 - 10 thousand people who had tickets out of the ticketed area. If you look at the aerial shots of the inauguration you can see that the "purple standing area" was no where near full.  It will be something to tell my grandchildren, just not the story I thought I'd be telling!  And it was wonderful to spend time with Mary even if it was waiting in the cold with no bathrooms for 6 + hours!!!! Oh yes, and in case you thought the purple tickets were somehow reserved for Republicans who shouldn't have been there anyway, there were people all around us who were big Obama supporters, who had volunteered for him and had even worked in the transition office.  So lots of loyal Obama fans also were not able to see anything.  I felt sorry for the older African Americans who were just crying when we heard the big cheer and then the 21 gun salute and knew it was over!

New Blog

I love blogs. I follow a lot of them faithfully. Most are done by children of my friends who have sweet little kids who say amazing things. My baby is 21 and while I think my young adult children are cute & pretty entertaining, I'm not sure that most people would! I'm not living in some exotic place. I don't do wonderful crafts to share with the world. So I never thought I should do a blog. Then a couple of days ago I got a very strong and definite impression that I needed to start a blog. I don't know why. Maybe it is for my Mother who lives in Arkansas and likes to know what is going on with us. I don't know the reason but I'm trying to be obedient so here goes....if you want to you can share some of the moments of my life!