Zion Conference

I was lucky last week to attend a conference at Zion National Park...I talked my family into coming out and spending the last night with me. We had fun exploring the Virgin River and during my classes on Friday morning, Scott and the girls went into the Park and hiked the Emerald Pools trail. We're planning to go back again, since I won a free night at the hotel and we have the 7-day pass. This is just the beginning of our Spring Break Activities...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Family Night Friends

We had one of the sisters in our ward, Sister Pam Jewell, invite us to her house for Family Night tonight. She said she tries to invite one family a month, to get to know everyone, which I thought was an awesome idea!

She took care of everything...we just showed up and helped a bit with the lesson on Prayer. She planned some fun activities: a tag game and painting prayer rocks, and we ended the evening with brownie sundaes! A much better treat than they would have gotten if we'd stayed home.

We had a really great time! Thanks Sister Jewell! It was fun to get to know you better.

SUPAF Awards Video

SUPAF Awards

Last night, we attended the SUPAF award ceremony. Taylor recieved a $50 scholarship from the St. George Exchange Club for Outstanding Talent! Several of the students played their pieces for us and many thanks were given to the people who helped with the festival. I'm so glad they do this for our kids. It's so encouraging and supportive!

I'm posting the video of her getting her award...I just started recording in time to hear her name announced so it's a little abrupt...but fun nonetheless....and I've posted pictures of Taylor with the President of the Exchange Club, Ryan Robison (who happens to be a friend from our Ward as well) and with her favorite band teacher from 6th grade, Mr. Winslow, who MC'ed the event last night. We are thrilled with her award, but even moreso with her talent and determination to do her best! Great job, my girl!

Tay and Dr. Robison

Tay and Mr. Winslow

Soccer Stars

Message Received

Okay, first of all, I have to thank all my dear friends and family who encourage me when I'm feeling a bit down, as evidenced in my last blog post. And, secondly, I have to say how grateful I am for the ways that the Lord blesses and teaches me...it should not continue to surprise me that He always sends me a personal message when I need it the most. This happened to me again today....

My alarm clock is set to BYU radio, and most days I am glad of this--there are the occasional mornings when I wake up to synthesized 70's Afterglow weirdness and that always puts me off,--but today there was lovely music to wake me, a selection of scriptures as I dressed, and a conference talk by Pres. Henry B. Eyring called "O Remember, Remember" that started just as I was heading downstairs. I love Pres. Eyring--mainly because he makes me feel better about crying everytime I get up to speak and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me--so I paused to listen.

He was telling a story about coming home and passing his Father-in-law who was there working on a project for their home. He thought how grateful he was for the service his Father-in-law was giving him and then he heard a voice in his head, not his own, that said, "I'm not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down." Well, he went on to talk about how the records we keep of everyday simple things that happen in our lives will someday benefit our children and those who read the things we write. He said how from that time on he would ask himself how he had seen the hand of the Lord in his life that day and write down his thoughts. He challenged us to find ways to remember God's kindness in our everyday lives and in doing so, our testimonies will grow and we will be blessed.

I feel like these few minutes that I spent listening to the radio this morning gave me the answer to the woes of my previous blog entry and to the feelings that I've been having recently that I'm not finding enough joy in my life. I am so grateful for our living prophets and for this reminder that whenever I forget to acknowledge the Lord in my life is when I start to feel dissatisfied and down. I'm grateful that the Lord sends me these messages, personally, so that I can find happiness in the everyday, simple joy of living.

So, message recieved. From now on, whenever I feel like there isn't anything to blog about, I know what I need to do....remember how truly blessed I am and post it!

I'm Not Blog-Worthy

I don't know what it says about me that I have begun judging the majority of my life by whether or not the things that I do are blog-worthy. It seems like I have had a week or so without any major bloggable events....hence the lack of posts....and unfortunately this makes me feel like a Major Loser. I kind of lost my camera too, which makes it even worse, because then I don't have any blog bites AND I have no pictures to document the activity, or lack thereof.

This is not to say that nothing has been happening in our lives, because I'm sure we've been very busy....we've had Dr. Seuss week at school, SEP/Parent-Teacher conferences, meetings, date nights, great spring weather, the dog got a haircut. But....No Pics + No Post=No life...or something like that. I'm sure other blog addicts must feel the same way.

I'm thinking I need to do one or both of the following: 1) start making every day more blog-worthy by doing fun, important, interesting and exciting things and/or 2) accept my occasional lack of blog-ablility with stoicism. Either way, I'm in need of an attitude adjustment.

Hopefully, I'll have something worth blogging about soon. I'll post when I do, or if I don't, I won't but I'll try to feel better about it....