Happy Fathers Day

What a fun Fathers Day we had! I love days when we get to celebrate those we love. They are the best days. In the most recent years we have not been together for Fathers day because we have usually begun our trek to Utah for summer break but this year it work for us to all be together.

As part of the Fathers Day festivities, Ben made butter steaks (yum), I made his fav chocolate cake and as part of our Fathers/Mothers Day tradition we have our Sunday round table except this time we all went around the table saying at least 3 things we love about Dad (or mom on mothers day). A few of the things that were said were " I love it when Dad pushes me on the swing" "I love it when Dad plays the guitar" "I love it when Dad sings bedtime stories to the little ones""I love that Dad is always happy"..... After dinner the real activity began. The kids and I planned a scavenger hunt. There were 11 clues with a  small love letter from the kids in each red envelopes. We hid them all over the house and some in very tricky places.
EXAMPLE
"Poo, foo, dew, moo and lue all rhyme with__________? "
After about 45 minutes of us giggling and him trying to find all the red envelopes. Once he found the clues, the last one led him to where his Fathers Day presents were stashed. One box had a real gift (his favorite RVCA t-shirts) and the other was a heartfelt and sweet 16 minute DVD we (the kids and I) made for him, about him. We edited it to great music and defiantly was one to pull on the heart strings. It was a great and memorable fathers day, we sure love this man!

Oh... and to not forget about my own father... read this here.
And my utmost love, respect and affection to my other fathers Garth and Reed. I love them too, dearly.

Doueys Preschool Days Gone By

Doueys last few days of preschool were filled with love, fun and a bit of sadness.... for me, the mourning Mama. The thought of those sweet simple preschool days drifting behind me, bring a pinch of sadness and mourning with no cure. My baby girl is growing. The obvious and unalterable fact that every parent experiences as their prized angels grow up but the sting still lingers and I am left uncomfortable. As the curtains were drawing to a close the dangerous and reflective questions peer over my consciousness "did I savor it in all ways ways I had hoped? did I live in every moment? did I miss anything?" because if I did... that time has now passed and all I have are the distilled memories of this blissful time.

With those thoughts also come many overwhelming feelings of jubilation and breathtaking thanks. Also anxiousness for all the wonderful times ahead that I can feel bright and shining in the horizon. So grateful to have had this time with her, truly a gift.  So grateful to be her mother. So grateful to call her "mine". SO grateful I am the one she calls out "best friends" to as she skips into class. So grateful that she is loved enormously and prized beyond measure. So grateful for the sparkle she adds to our life, she is the quintessence of light.  Her shining spirit sings to this Mamas heart, I love her so.

Mothers day program with cookies and lemonade.

 Preschool Graduation and year end party.

Beach to Bay in Corpus

This was so duper fun. This little group of friends ran the Beach to Bay relay marathon in Corpus Christi. We each took a 4-5 mile leg of the race and bam! there you go, a full marathon. Well.... things did not go that smoothly. As we were waiting for leg 1 runner to finish we saw the dark wretched rain clouds and gusts of wind and knew we were in for an adventure.  Basically from there is was crazy. Since we had already dropped off runner 2 and 3 by the time it had started to downpour, those 2 ladies are my hero because they ran in sheets and sheets of rain (I kid you not). By the time runner 3 was done we were still miles away stuck in stand still traffic, in theory we should have been there to pick #3 up and drop off #4 runner. In the meantime runner 2 decides it would be faster to run her way back to us rather than wait (in pouring rain) so she finally gets to us and attends to her nursing hungry baby while we inch along the road. Eventually we pick up runner 3 and decide to drop off runner 4 and 5 together just in case traffic was bad.. which it was so they ended up not only running their leg but 3 legs.... they are my heroes too, they ultimately ran a 1/2 marathon. I had the last leg of the race and it was a breeze. I loved it! Completely. I am not sure my awesome bionic team mates appreciated all my enthusiasm but I was the greeny after all so it was probably a good thing this was a good experience for me. I loved it. Super fun.  

This was our "strategist" Andrea.. sorry andrea I had to post it... I love you. She was brilliant in figuring everything out. Had it not rained and poured it would have worked perfectly. 

Love ya girls! Cant wait to do it next year!

Webelos... check.

Dang, I love these boys! 

Sweet Bubbas Piano Concert

Our sweet and precious Bubbie had his piano concert and he did a fabulous job. He played the theme song to James bond and Cold Play Clocks from ear. He real has music in his head and we are so proud of him, he was proud too :) 

Women's Conference & Sister Retreat

Paradigm shifting. That could sum up all that I experienced at women's conference this year. My sweet darling held down our fort in Texas and cared for our angels perfectly while I was gone.  I was able to tag along with my dear mother who is on the PLC (Presidents Leadership Council= group of high donor philanthropist) at BYU and partake of her privileges by way of invitation. If was a spectacular few days. Edifying, uplifting and inspiring in every single solitary way. We were housed as part of the PLC Womens Retreat up at Sundance in the Ashtons Cabin, (the Wordperfect people) 3 nights approx 60 women. Among the company there were the owners of Jet Blue, Oakley, Black and Deaker  and on and on... Tremendously grounded and spiritually in tune women. One of my favorite things was to sit at the dinner or breakfast table and ask them to tell me their "story" not one of them mentioned their status or position or the companies in which they owned, but shared tender sweet vulnerable testimonies of their life's experiences, many of them included tragedy. Marvelous women and I am so grateful to have met them, a great gift. 

I experienced a candid conversation with an apostles wife, Sister Bednar and received memorable and personal counsel from Sister Ashton who serves on the general YW board of the church. I took copious notes of every talk and feel it nearly impossible to articulate all that I felt while at the conference but I will sum it up this way. 

Sister Beck... with a concerned and loving expression

said "this is an emergency meeting" and "I feel great urgency for the daughters of God to do all they can do". She taught me about being the strongest Lioness at the gate, to safeguard my home.  She said to "GO to the temple AND PAY ATTENTION!" (wow). She talked about priorities and that we loose power when our priorities are out of order. She broke things down into Essentials Things, Necessary Things and Nice to do things... She told us to get a floppy book of Mormon and write these 3 questions in it. "Who am I, What are my responsibilities and How do I fulfill my responsibilities" ... and "Do not fail in even one responsibility!" 

We learned about why women believe the things they do about ourselves. We learned to be explicit teachers of truth and about loving those hard to love. Elder Oaks talked about the godless and amoral generation we live in and the problem of american society we live in is that there is a preoccupation with oneself but that we have been prepared for this generation. and on and on...... so much to share here....watch my BYT blog and I will post those details soon. Really super marvelous! All I can say is this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ and that I know. 

Day one was marvelous. We went to lunch at the Church Office Building and then crossed the street for a closed to the public tour of some church archives. I was a little disappointed as I was sure we were going to see the sword of Laban (haha)... but for some reason they could not find it  :) so instead they they showed us 100's of millions of dollars worth of church archives items. The most priceless is one page from the original translation of the Book of Mormon. This sheet of paper below sat on the table side by side with the brass plates. Another interesting thing about this page was there was a 4th unidentified handwriting that they have never been able to source ownership. Very cool!!!

We had a mothers daughter luncheon one day and my 3 nieces were able to join us. 

Our view from the floor.

At the end of the day we would have a wonderful meal prepared at the cabin then we would high tail it over to our room where we would get in our comfies and piled in bed together. We would discuss thats days big ideas and life changing things that sisters talk about... at least this group of sisters. We always seem to have a beautiful blend of giggles, tears and motivation. I love these women. 

This was our last night up at the cabins. We had the privilege of watching Hilary Weeks in a private concert there at the Ashtons cabin. Really sweet!

Our stay at Grand America Hotel, the concluding night of our sister retreat. 

(In photo, sister Deb, me, Sister Diane, Niece Kylie)

We went to eat at this wonderful Italian restaurant in SLC and the owner was rather enamored at my beautiful mother so he treated us with bittersweet Italian hot cocoa and biscuits on the house.