Emma's 11 year-old Interview

Several months ago I posted an interview I did with Heidi and decided that I would do it for each of my girls around their birthday to see how their answers change over the years. Here is Emma's.

What is your favorite TV show? Total Drama Island

What is your favorite movie? "Catch That Kid"

What is your favorite color? Lilac Remember me saying that my girls choose very specific colors?

What is your favorite food? Ice cream cake

What is your favorite thing to do with mom? Go on vacation

What is your favorite thing to do with dad? Snowboarding

What is your favorite thing to do with your sisters? sled

What do you want to be when you grow up? An author

Do you have a favorite friend? Miranda and Allie and Lauren

What is your favorite thing to do when you are not at home? Visit family and snowboard

What is your favorite toy or thing? The Wii

What is your favorite book? Basically all the books I've read but if i had to choose it would be between "The Lighting Thief" and the "Battle of the Labyrinth".

What is your favorite animal? White tiger

Do you want to go on a mission? Yes

Do you want kids? Yes

What's hard to do? Chores

What's have you learned from your primary teacher this year? We've been learning about Joseph Smith. Moroni kept telling him to wait, and wait and wait until he could get the plates.

What do you love to do? Play with friends


Thanks Emma for the interview. You are growing up so fast and you are so beautiful. I can't believe that you will be in middle school next year. I'm not sure what this next year holds for you but I'm sure that it will be amazing. Your Irish Dancing is improving so much and I love that you dive head first into everything you do in order to be the best. I see a lot of myself in you and it gives me a smile. A headache too sometimes but mostly smiles.

Musings on the essentials of life.

In our church we have a program called Visiting Teaching. The sisters (women) in the ward are assigned a partner and then assigned anywhere between 2 and 4 women to visit each month. I have always loved Visiting Teaching. I think it goes back to watching my own mother visit her sisters so faithfully each month. She really cared for them. When I was really small I would go with her and as I got older I was often asked to run things over to them that they needed. This program is truly inspired. Whenever there is a birth of a baby, sickness or tragedy of any kind that sisters visiting teachers will swoop in and bring in whatever support is needed. They are completely there for that individual to help in any way that they can. There have been times when I was out of town and needed help getting my children to different activities. A quick phone call to my visiting teacher is all it took. What a blessing!

As part of the monthly visits to each other's homes is a spiritual lesson found each month in the Ensign. My visiting teachers came to visit me this week and read me part of this month's message. I loved it so much and was grateful for them sharing it with me. I then went and read it again as I prepared to go visit my sisters. They too were touched by the message. This is the part of the message that I wanted to share. If you would like to read the whole thing, you can go here.

Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president: "Latter-day Saint women must be strong and immovable in their faith. They can and should excel in living and sharing their testimonies of the Lord Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. We do this as we:

1. Make and keep covenants with Him.
2. Are worthy and worship in His temples.
3. Study His doctrine in the scriptures and the words of prophets.
4. Qualify for, recognize, and follow the Holy Ghost.
5. Share and defend His gospel.
6. Participate in sincere personal and family prayer.
7. Have family home evening.
8. Live principles of self-reliance and provident living.

"These are essential things which must be done before nonessential things. These are simple, indispensable practices that almost seem mundane. . . . No one can do these things for us—these are personal practices and habits that set us apart as strong and immovable for that which is correct" ("What Latter-day Saint Women Do Best: Stand Strong and Immovable," Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2007, 109–10).

There are a couple things that stood out to me in this. One was shared by my visiting teacher, Bridget. It is number 4, that we need to qualify, recognize and follow the Holy Ghost. All three things must be done in order to have the power of this in our lives. You can't follow the Holy Ghost without first qualifying for it's presence and recognizing it's influence. I love this.

The other part I love is what it says after the list. That the essential things need to be done before nonessential things. This was the message I needed to hear and what I've been pondering over the past few days. Too often I am putting off the essential things like preparing meals for my family, reading to my children and family scripture study because of non essential things like reading blogs and watching TV. I'm going to do better with this and I have done much better over the past few days.

The visiting teaching program of our church is truly inspired. It is the way that God works through us to answer the prayers of others. I have had fantastic visiting teachers since I've been in my current ward. I have loved each of them for what they have taught me and the way they have helped me. I am grateful to a loving Father in Heaven who gave us the means to serve one another.

Going Home

I am from a place called Coos Bay. It is the place where I was born and have lived the longest in my life. But I think I was "outta there" as soon as I graduated, or pretty soon after. Most of my friends left Coos Bay. We felt there was better stuff for us to see and do, not stay in a small coastal town. Since then I have lived a myriad of places, some of which I have loved and some not so much. When Chris and I were first married I clearly remember telling him that I never wanted to live in Coos Bay. It was too "small town".

Fast forward 15 years to our present time and this is what you would have overheard me say this past weekend to some friends of ours that live there. "Yeah, I would love to live here and raise my children here if it weren't for the lack of jobs in Chris' field."

I'm sitting here shaking my head wondering when this shift occurred in me. I'm really not sure. It's been a few years now that each time I go to Coos Bay I feel a longing that is difficult to explain. It is a longing for a simpler life. A longing for my children to experience that simpler life. A longing for a ward that feels like family. Three years ago when Chris and I were rafting down the Rogue River we had taken a break and were taking a small hike into the woods. There were Myrtlewood trees everywhere and I felt so "at home" among that heady Myrtlewood smell. Each time I go to Coos Bay and we go up the Coos River to where these special trees exist I grab a handful of leaves and stick them in my pocket. They dry up but the smell remains. It's a good smell.

As we were taking a short hike this past weekend I told my girls that they were very fortunate to be able to see the breathtaking waterfalls that were there. That I think not many people know about them, only those that are from the local area and those that seek them out. They are most definitely "off the beaten path". But because their mom and aunt are from there they get to see and experience what is in my opinion one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'm not sure if they bought it but I'm hoping they understood.

Here are some pictures from our recent trip. What do you think?

Golden Falls through the Myrtlewood trees

Trail among moss covered trees


found mushroom along the trail


Silver Falls


Tide pools


Let's see if we can get it...

Got it! what else will we find?

Starfish

Sea anemone under the water


Makenzie against the wind carved sand

Beautiful day at the beach

Gorgeous nights

Can you see why I love this place?

12 on 12 for 12

For 2009 I will be posting 12 pictures on the 12 day of each month. The pictures will be of my day, whatever I did that day. It should be fun to look back on years from now.

So here it is for January:

I went to the gym

I fed Sam

I looked at recent blog postings (big kudos if you can name whose blog it is)

I did some laundry

I watched some episodes of Gilmore Girls season 3 which my sister brought with her
(My new favorite show)


I mailed a letter

I took Makenzie's flute in for a repair

I did some shopping for my new niece, Luna.



We went and picked up Makenzie after school


I took Emma to her Irish Dance class

I made dinner

I worked

Book Club Retreat 09

Aundrea, Jen & Emily, Rochelle, Merilee, Jodi, Darilyn, Candi, Amy & Spencer and Krista



Have you ever eaten at the "On the way Cafe?" It is located in Lafayette and you can get a sandwich and a cup of soup for $4. It's small town cheap and you get the stomach ache after to go with it. But the owner there is one hell of a guy and I'm definitely going back for a peanut butter milkshake one of these days.

That is how my weekend started. Leaving town at 12:30 with my sister and Merilee and heading to the coast to meet up with our book club girlfriends. I had such a great time that I didn't really want to come home. And then when I did come home Chris was staring at me and said, "I thought you weren't going to be home until tomorrow." Are you serious? You mean I could have stayed another night and you never would have known? Darn.

But anyway, I'm home and I have these thoughts going through my head of..... the best scare I've ever given, the electricity going out, talking for hours by candlelight, eating the best whole dungeness crab I've ever had, birthday surprises, jumping off a cliff at the beach, a botched mugging of a purse, frozen bras, birthday presents and amazing friends. And all of this in barely more than 24 hours. We know how to party.

And on the way home I got a phone call that I am the proud auntie of a new baby niece. Could the weekend be any better?

Musings on Faith

Faith is an interesting topic. It can encompass all sorts of areas of your life. Like every part of it in fact. The past few days I've been questioning our decision to follow some advice of our Stake President. At our last stake conference we were admonished by our Stake President to go home and cut out whatever was not needful. To cut out those things that if Chris were to lose his job today we would cut out anyway. We sat down the very next day and figured out exactly what we could cut. We spent a good chunk of time comparing phone companies, internet and deals we could find. We finally decided that if we switched from Comcast to Verizon we could save about $40 a month. So we did it. That was on November 3rd. Since then to December 16th nobody with Verizon could call us. Then from December 16th to yesterday nobody with Comcast could call us. Then yesterday morning we woke up to find that we had no dial tone whatsoever. And that is just the problems with the phone. We have had problems also with our wireless internet. In fact, the problem with our internet Verizon has deemed unfixable by them. The next thing we can try is to by a new router, one that Verizon doesn't provide us and we have to spend $70 on this router.

I've been questioning our decision to switch companies. Why is it that we were trying to be faithful in following the advice of our leaders and then to have all of this headache and instead of it saving us money we are spending more?

It is because of faith. Faith is the knowlege of things hoped for but not seen which are true. I know that our stake president is a man of God. I know that by continued faithfulness that we will be blessed for our efforts. Not everything goes smoothly in life but if we continue a long a path that is marked with prayer and hope then we will see the good things in life.

And as frustrating as this has been, i'm grateful every day for the things that are a blessing in my life. Like cell phones. Its not like I dont have a phone. And for once I'm grateful for all my husband's computer equipment in the garage so that he could hook us up to the internet with a cable. And I'm grateful for Leon at Verizon. Even though I yelled (yes i yelled) during the message I left him he called me back anyway and has been dedicated to fixing this for us.

So think on Faith today my friends. Think about the things that you know are true that you can't see. I think you will find that there are a lot of things to be grateful for. I know I have.

January is a purple month

Do months look like colors to you? For example when someone says "March" does a certain color come to mind?

They do for me. And January is PURPLE. I think it's because PURPLE is my favorite color. And since my birthday is in January that makes January my month so that means that January has to be PURPLE because it is my month and my favorite color is PURPLE. Whew, that was a mouthful. Or perhaps my dedication of the color PURPLE to this month is from singing Prince's "PURPLE Rain" too many times. After all, there is a lot of rain in January. I picture January with PURPLE snowflakes, January written in fun PURPLE font, wearing PURPLE skirts, writing with a PURPLE pen and putting PURPLE sprinkles on cupcakes.

A few years ago I had a flocked Christmas tree and put all my purple ornaments on it. I have a pretty nice collection of gorgeous purple ornaments. It was the most beautiful tree I have ever seen. And it also let me cross one more thing off my "50 Things" list. I loved it so much that I left it up for the whole month of January. After all....it was purple!

What color is January for you? Perhaps its blue because its cold or it's white because it's icy?

Here is my Purple Mosiac to celebrate the month of January.

1. Deep Purple, 2. Purple fingers, 3. PURPLE HAZE, 4. PURPLE Dazzler - My first "Smoke Art" attempt..., 5. Purple Rose, 6. purple snowflake, 7. I always wanted a purple eye, 8. Happy Rainbow Friday My Fabulous Friends, 9. Purple Mountain Cupcakes

Happy New Year

Welcome 2009. I'm glad you are here. I love how both 2008 and you get together to give us a reason to party when it switches over. How kind of you.

My brother in law, Ross, got engaged on Christmas day. He flew down to Mexico City to ask Nora's parent's permission. Then after Christmas they flew back to Utah and then to Oregon to spend New Years with us and Chris' parents. We had a great time and it gave me a chance to plan a really nice dinner which is something I love to do.

New Years Eve Menu

Chicken Cordon Bleu
Steamed french green beans and sweet white corn
Garlic infused rice
Cranberry Orange relish

Banana Splits with Pineapple Brown Sugar Topping

The table looked like this:




Then we ate and the food looked like this:



And we were happy:


The rest of the evening was spent playing games. We played Slide 5 and Ticket to Ride. They are both new games that the girls and I gave Chris for Christmas and are really fun, especially Ticket to Ride.

Then after everyone else went to bed around 1 a.m. Ross, Nora, Chris and I stayed up until 3 a.m. playing 3 Dragon Ante. A game that is super super fun.

Happy New Year everyone. How did you spend your New Years?