Amazing Weekend!

This past weekend was a whilwind of fabulous activities! I chaperoned and hosted our Stake Youth Conference which started Thursday at 4:00.

We got into family groups: 8 boys/girls 2 male/female chaperones. We played a huge game of Dodge Ball, then went to an Ice Skating rink, then went to a Bowling Alley for Cosmic Bowl until midnight. Then back with our "family" for a devotional and home at 1:30 a.m. for some sleep.

The morning started with fabulous fun, and spiritual workshops, then off to the beach for a picnic lunch and a boat-making contest. The trick was to make a boat that actually floats out of 4 sheets of cardboard and 4 rolls of duct tape. One member of the family had to use an oar and row it to a buoy and back. That was interesting!

After fun in the sun it was back to my house to shower and change for a semi-formal dinner dance. Semi-formal meant formal on top and casual on the bottom: jacket and tie with shorts and flip-flops. What great fun. The kids had a blast, and I only had to go on "make-out" patrol once. We have a really great group of kids. There were literally no incidents! After the dance it was to another house for some more partying until the wee hours of the morning.

Saturday morning was a service project, followed by lunch, a devotional, and a 3 1/2 hour testimony meeting. I didn't attend the Saturday activity because I had another engagement. See the next post!

Youth conference is great fun and it has taken me a few days to recuperate!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

Girls love to dress up and it starts very early on! It must be a natural instinct. . . case in point: Ashlyn is 14 months old - and she wants to dress like this! Nobody forced her. Luckily girls don't grow out of it or I wouldn't have any success with my jewelry business! :-)

Girls are drawn to frills, glitter and bows. Boys are drawn to cars, balls, and trains (and anything that can be construed as a weapon).

This is how I found Ashlyn when I went to pick her up from Auntie Lisa's house. I was cracking up and still do everytime I look at this picture!

Girls are so much fun!

Happy Father's Day

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home, glad as I can be!

Clap my hands and shout for joy and climb upon his knee.

Put my arms around his neck, hug him tight like this.

Pat his cheeks and give him what?

A Great Big Kiss!

Dedicated to the Father of My Children

Today at church, the speaker asked for any father who is perfect to please stand up. Brooke kept nudging John to stand up! He is pretty near perfect in our eyes. Incidentally, nobody stood up! The girls were so adorable singing this favorite Father's Day Primary song today and what was even more adorable was their father tearing up! This is dedicated to John, on Father's Day, who is a dedicated father, husband, priesthood holder - and an all around great guy!

He loves to cuddle with his babies and they all have fallen asleep so easily on him.

His son looks up to him and cherishes the fact that he is his "champ".


Loves to be with his kids - even if it's an impromptu sushi picnic on the front lawn.

Is very patient with the little ones when they have to go out to the foyer

An adventurer with the family. Here we hiked to a waterfall near our home.

Yeah! Finally!!!!

My sister Andrea is engaged! Yahoo! They are planning on being sealed on August 18th. We are all so excited!

This is pretty bad that I can't find any good pictures of them. My kids are overjoyed to have Adam as an uncle. As you can tell, he's a load of fun!

One Fabulous Weekend

On Saturday, we had a Stake Day in the Temple commemorating the 50th anniversary of the L.A. Temple. We got to meet in the Assembly Room (most have never seen it before, nor knew of its existence). The room is massive and seats about 2,300. It's as big as a football field.











It was a wonderful, spiritual meeting with messages from the Stake President, and the Temple President, and a beautiful choir directed by our internationally reknown choir director, who also directs the So Cal Mormon Choir.

Just as the Temple President was closing the meeting, and turning the time over to the choir for the closing hymn, a man sitting in the congregation gets up and walks all the way up to the pulpit and puts his arm around the President. What a shock to everyone, including the President, to have Elder Uchtdorf show up!

Most people initially wondered who that extremely handsome, dapper man was walking up to the front before realizing who it was. Once he started to speak, all were well aware. His accent is undeniable.

We were blessed to hear directly from an Apostle of God and receive his apostolic blessings. He's pretty funny, too. He joked that he loves California, even with its Governor (they share a common accent) and said we are in such a beautiful area that we need to start paying 20% tithing.

The moral of the story is to always attend your meetings as you never know who will show up! :-) Reminds me of the time when my friend Kim was on vacation and wanted to attend church, but decided not to since it was Stake Conference, not really wanting to go to someone else's stake meeting. Instead, they went on a nice family picnic, keeping the Sabbath in mind, thinking that was OK in lieu of attending a meeting. It wasn't until after the fact that they heard President Hinckley showed up at that Stake Conference!

Psycho Cycling

My local gym just added a 1/2 hour noon-time spin class so today a couple of friends and I thought we'd give it a try. We brought 6 of our littles along with us, dropped them off at the kids club, then proceeded to work our little (or not-so-little) tails off. What a great, quick work-out.

The people in this picture look like they're having way too much fun. Our room was dark, hot, and we all were drenched with I'm sure a very pained expression.
Because I'm having shoulder problems, I had to give up my boxing classes - hopefully only temporarily - so spinning will have to do!

Power Nap

My little guy is at the age where he still really needs an afternoon nap, but resists. This day, he was so tired, but didn't want to get out of the car to go in the house (because he knew it was naptime). I unbuckled him and brought the baby in, and thought he was coming in behind me, like he usually does. After I put the baby down, I went out to look for him and found him on the floor of the back row completely sacked out. He looks like he's having a very relaxing nap! I couldn't resist and had to capture this Kodak Moment. Three-year-olds are so funny!