Sunday, February 14, 2016
Happy Valentine’s Day from Snowflake! We are having a wonderful visit with my Mom
and other family members this weekend.
Monday I had several errands to run to get a few
last minute things ready for our ward’s Young Women’s New Beginnings. Tilly and I stopped to have a lunch date at
Chick-fil-a in between stops at different stores and had a nice lunch
together. She is such a fun shopping
partner. For FHE that night we had a
dinner at Heather’s with Chad’s mom Brenda, and his siblings Heather, Devin and
Anna and their families. Bryant gave a good
lesson about how serving a few people can encourage others to serve so you’ll
never know how much good you can do by being kind and serving others. Brenda also gave a nice lesson about
confident body language. Several of the
kids recited poems or sang. It was a fun
evening.
Tuesday was the day I had been planning for and
praying about for weeks. It was our ward’s
New Beginnings. Tilly got to go to
Grammy Days that morning while I met several other young women leaders at our
church building to set up chairs and our minimal decorations. Our theme was the mutual theme for the year, Press
Forward and Come unto Christ. We
decorated with some cute arrows a woman in our ward made for us and we set up a
path made out of paper arrows taped to the floor that we all followed to a
picture of Christ. There were three
stops on the path. Each stop had a speaker
who gave spiritual thought about Pressing Forward. That afternoon I made cookies for the kid’s
after school snack and for new beginnings dessert. Marlee had soccer practice that evening,
Bryant had a band concert and Spencer had a school science fair. Tuesdays are such crazy nights lately, but we
manage to make it all work out. I love
my friends from my ward family who help me out with carpools and I help them
out by driving their kids in carpools too.
Carpools are my favorite. I was
so relieved when it was finally actually time to have the New Beginnings
program. The highlight of the evening
was when we had the parents of the girls who will be entering young women’s
this year introduced us to their daughters by telling us what they loved about
their daughter. It was such a good way
to get to know those new girls and to feel of their spirit. When I came home that evening I was tired. I didn’t go play volleyball, mostly because I’m
still resting my knee from hurting it last week. It is still a little bit sore. I hope I didn’t tear anything!
Wednesday I took it easy all morning because of being
worn out from all the stress about putting New Beginnings together. I even went back to bed until about 9:00am
after getting the kids off to school.
Tilly laid down with me for a while and then she watched a movie on the iPad
for about 30 minutes or so. Bryant was
sick that day and stayed home from school.
Tilly had her music class that morning.
I walked while she was gone and then picked her up and we walked home
together. I cleaned up all the leaves
that had blown into our front yard that afternoon. There were 2 big black garbage bags full of
leaves that had blown off our neighbor’s tree into our front yard. Our neighbor’s trees are beautiful though and
provide great shade in addition to their beauty. They are worth the work it takes to clean up the
leaves. I love yard work. Wednesday evening Brenda took the kids out to
frozen yogurt and they were so excited to go with her.
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| Tilly with her bird on our walk home from music class. |
Thursday Tilly and I went out to lunch with my
good friend Emily Lines and other friends to celebrate Emily’s birthday. I took a birthday gift to one of my laurels
after lunch. Bryant had basketball
practice and Karalee had soccer practice that evening. Sadly I don’t have carpools for either of
those practices so there was a lot of driving back and forth, but luckily both
practices are quite close.
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| I found this beautiful large framed photo at Fry's marketplace on Thursday. It was a closeout. Since it was such a good deal I snatched it up. I got it for $37.50. Normal list price was $250.00. |
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| Thursday Chad got clearance to start jumping!! He's now working on increasing his vertical. He still can't run or cut so no basketball for a few more months. He's so excited to start playing again. |
Friday Bryant was feeling sick again and stayed
home from school again, missing his school Valentine’s party. My kids are passing around a sore throat that
turns into a fever and a headache but the sore throat goes away so it’s not
strep, at least I think it’s not strep.
Bryant’s better now, but Marlee’s got it. Friday afternoon we got all packed up to come
to Snowflake if Spencer’s team lost his basketball game. Spencer’s game was at 6:00. Heather and Elliot and their kids came to
watch too. Spencer’s team played very
slowly and the other team had a guy who hit 5-6 three pointers in the first
half. Spencer didn’t come out very aggressive
and didn’t get to play much during the 2
nd half of the game, which
is fine; there are many more important things than sports. His team ended up making a good run and only
lost by about 5 points when the game was all over. My girls were so excited Spencer lost though
because that meant we didn’t have to wait until Saturday night to come to
Snowflake. We grabbed a quick bite to
eat on our way out of town after the game was over and got to Snowflake around
10:30.
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| Karalee and Marlee wanted hearts in their hair for their Valentine's party. |
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| Tilly set up a little throne for herself. She cracks me up. |
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| Tilly wanted heart hair too. |
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| I think Bryant forgets that his head is supposed to go on his pillow instead of his feet. |
We’ve had a very nice stay here in Snowflake. Late yesterday morning I stopped to visit
Uncle Steve and Aunt Sharla and Uncle Dean and Aunt Nerita on my walk. Aunt Nerita even joined me on my walk for a while. My Aunt Nerita is very wise and I love
visiting with her. It meant a lot to me
to get hugs from Uncle Steve and Aunt Sharla and to have them say come in and
visit for a while, to have my Uncle Dean call me beautiful and to have my Aunt
Nerita tell me she was proud of me after we finished walking together. I have wonderful, faithful Aunts and Uncles. It was a privilege to grow up near them, to be
around them often and in their homes regularly.
Yesterday afternoon Chad, Spencer and I watched Weston, Trevin and Trey
play basketball. My best friend from
high school Mistie Ramage was at Trevin and Weston’s game watching her son play
so I got to visit with her. That was a
treat. On the way home from the games we
stopped in at my niece Jewel’s home to see her new son Calvin. He’s so cute.
After we got home, I played with the kids in the yard and in the barn. Then Travis called us and told us he, Tyler
Ann, Taden and Spencer (Spencer got to go riding with them!) had the cows
gathered at the corrals because he knew Marlee wanted to see the baby calves. My Mom drove us out to see them. Tilly, Bryant and Karalee decided they wanted
to come too. Travis and crew had loaded
up two cows in the trailer and then Spencer got to continue riding because they
needed to drive the cows across the five mile draw to a different pasture. Last night Chad and I went out to dinner at
Eva’s with my Mom, Crystal and Darrel, Penny and Dean and Travis (Teresa was
out of town). It was sure fun visiting
with each other. My siblings (Chad’s
siblings included) are my best friends.
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| Meeting my new great nephew Calvin. |
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| Spencer and Chad love babies! |
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| Playing in the barn. |
Today Chad and my kids woke up to the Valentines I
had set out for them and for my Mom and Kari’s family. Chad wrote me a nice Valentine and slipped it
in the pocket of my church jacket. He’s
so good to me. I’m looking forward to
Sunday dinner in a few minutes and visiting with family here at my Mom’s house
this evening. I better go help prepare
dinner.
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| My cute Valentines. Marlee came and crawled in bed with us around 7:30 this morning. |
My quote for this letter is about love in honor of
Valentine’s Day. “No matter what circumstances you sisters experience, your influence
can be marvelously far-reaching. I believe some of you have a tendency to
underestimate your profound capacity for blessing the lives of others. More
often than not, it is not on the stage with some public pronouncement but in
your example of righteousness and the countless gentle acts of love and
kindness done so willingly, so often on a one-to-one basis." --James E.
Faust, "You Are All Heaven Sent," Ensign, Nov. 2002, 110
Love,
Mindy
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