Month: August 2008

Youth Ministers

I recently read this post about some local youth ministers being charged with the sexual misconduct towards the girls they had been entrusted to minister.

I just couldn’t help but think about something our Bishop recently said.

He told us of a story where a church leader went to visit a Stake Conference far away. The Stake leaders showed up at the airport in jeans and t-shirts and it went downhill from there.

On the leaders way out the Stake President asked him why he obviously wasn’t impressed by his stake. The general church leader responded with, “I knew we were in trouble, the minute we got off the plane and couldn’t decipher you and the other leaders from the rest of the crowd. You don’t go down to the level of the youth to help them, you stand strong where you are at and they will want to reach up.” Something like that…don’t know if the story is even true; it was just repeated by our Bishop and things could have been added or taken away or tweaked along the way.

But, even if it wasn’t true. I am a believer now of the fictional or non-fictional story. Look at these two Youth ministers. And, I had typed a few more sentences here, but I will just leave the post at this. I pray for the victims and the perpetrators.

And, I also pray for the leaders who wear suit and ties in public yet still manage to hurt children behind closed doors. I believe strongly in following my gut as a parent and being very careful with whom I trust. And by golly, if I ever find out that any one of the people that I chose to trust has hurt my child for life, I hope they have a very very good pillow for their cell.

Tar jay

Where is your favorite place to shop?
The kids were so excited to receive these flashing reflectors from the Target workers at a local National Night Out dinner.
The kids thought that the Target workers were more exciting than the chief of police, a local politician, the mayor, and the head of the FBI.
Who am I to argue?
We know which employees offer a 75% off discount of the dollar spot from time to time.




11 photos for 11 years

On
August 15th 1997
LG and me
We were wed
For eternity
In Salt Lake City
In 1997
There was no looking back, only forward.
In 1998
I bulged around the middle.In 1999
We added Abigail
In 2000,
You heeded the call very early every morning and tried to stay awake.
In 2001,
Sophia made us 4.
In 2002,
You worked your way to the top.
In 2003, Bella was born.

2004
will always be a little blurry.
In 2005
We ascended every corner.
In 2006,
The picture was brighter than ever.


In 2007,
Your American education was finally complete.

In 2008 The shadows of the past
added to the pureness of the future
make the perfect picture.

God’s in charge, and I don’t need a picture to illustrate my point.

My Internet has been out for a couple of days.
I have been going a little crazy.
I have become dependent, not just because of my blogging,
but because of the following reasons:
I could not get maps to anywhere I needed to go.
I could not balance my checkbook or make sure I had enough money for retail therapy.
I could not check my e-mail.
I could not google anything, including but not limited to the Olympic stats, several health conditions, recipes, school stuff, and church stuff.
I couldn’t use the yellow pages.com and you all know that I have forgotten how to use a real phonebook.
and, last, but not least,
I was forced to finish the organizing and cleaning I started on Monday.
Which, also meant that I was forced to ALMOST finish ironing my husband’s whole closet worth of clothes. And, you all know how much I hate to iron. I say almost, only because I have limited myself to 15 items of clothes a day.

Well, the reason for the post. The at&t guy looked at me a little crazily while I told him that God himself had been making our Internet work, even though it had not been hooked up to the right port for the past 3 years.

“Seriously”, I informed, “I have no doubt that God waited to let my connection go until he knew that I could handle it. Can you believe that it only took me 3 years to get my act together?”

Um, yeah, he didn’t answer me.

So, my friend Kristy e-mailed me a little story that illustrates that God knows what he is doing. I hope you all get a good smile…don’t know if it is good enough for a laugh. Along with that smile, I hope you know that God is always watching over you, even if it comes in the form of a flying cat.

Dwight Nelson recently told a true story about the pastor of his church. He had a kitten that climbed up a tree in his backyard and then was afraid to come down. The pastor coaxed, offered warm milk, etc. The kitty would not come down. The tree was not sturdy enough to climb, so the pastor decided that if he tied a rope to his car and pulled it until the tree bent down, he could then reach up and get the kitten. That’s what he did, all the while checking his progress in the car. He then figured if he went just a little bit further, the tree would be bent sufficiently for him to reach the kitten. But as he moved the car a little further forward, the rope broke. The tree went ‘boing!’ and the kitten instantly sailed through the air – out of sight.

The pastor felt terrible. He walked all over the neighborhood asking people if they’d seen a little kitten.No. Nobody had seen a stray kitten. So he prayed, “Lord, I just commit this kitten to your keeping,” and went on about his business.

A few days later he was at the grocery store, and met one of his church members. He happened to look into her shopping cart and was amazed to see cat food. This woman was a cat hater and everyone knew it, so he asked her, “Why are you buying cat food when you hate cats so much?” She replied,”You won’t believe this,” and then told him how her little girl had been begging her for a cat, but she kept refusing.

Then a few days before, the child had begged again, so the Mom finally told her little girl, “Well, if God gives you a cat, I’ll let you keep it.” She told the pastor, “I watched my child go out in the yard, get on her knees, and ask God for a cat. And really, Pastor, you won’t believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes. A kitten suddenly came flying out of the blue sky, with its paws outspread, and landed right in front of her.”

Flooding, no problem

“I love water”, she says.

At five, she obviouslly doesn’t understand the negative impact of a flood.

I think that that she thinks that her weather jacket is just a snazzy costume.

Thanks to the WBIR TV and The Weather Channel for this wonderful service provided at our Back to School First Night Celebration (which I can’t find a single thing about online, sorry)

My girls enjoyed the free celebration on the evening of the first day of school. No free food was there, but lots and lots of giveaway and a really retro boy band that I will post about later.

Sophia and Abigail were pooped out from a whole long day at school and they had no desire to pretend work for the weather channel, but prefered to stand in line for the big blow up slide.

It would have been nice to see what the teleprompter actually said, don’t you think?

Love Pairs

Look mom, we put all of the Little Pet Shops in Love Pairs.

Oh yeah, what does it mean if you are in a love pair?

It means you are the same kind and you love each other.

What do you do if you love each other?
I don’t know. Mom, why do always have to talk about sex?
They are just pet shops.
They just stand by each other and love each other.
And we put the spider and the pig together because we only have one spider and one pig.
They just love each other like friends.
They can be Charlotte and Wilber.
So, we aren’t going to have any half pig/half spiders running around.
No.
What would we call that creation?
Piggers or spigs?

Mom, you think you are so funny.

You’re not.

I know I’m not funny. To you. Ha ha.

Dad thinks I’m funny.

That’s only because he’s your love pair.

(And I totally just took literary liberty here with this last sentence)

So, what kind of love pair is this?

Oh the butterfly and caterpillar aren’t a love pair.

The caterpillar is too little.

And, they aren’t married yet, right?

Right.

And, I would like to bare my testimony,
You can teach morals to your children at any given time.
The End.

Those Days Are Past and Gone

My baby went to Kindergarten today.
I feel a little lost.
I am happy for Bella to go to school.
I just wish I had some more kids.
I am not ready for this season to be over yet.
I took this photo in South Dakota last week.
And I wrote this poem showcasing my mood today.

Those days are past and gone.
The ones when they were young.

Off, away, they go.
Leaving me feeling so.

The sun sets on my heart.
Do we have to be apart?

This is their new dawn.
Those days are past and gone.

Have It Your Way

Thanks to an old friend, Jen Guthrie, for a really funny piece of entertainment.

I was really happy to find Jen’s new blog.

I haven’t talked to her in years. And her and Paul are crazy funny.

I know that I am going to be in trouble for dissing on the South again, but I have to tell you something that I noticed on our vacation out west.

The customer service in Utah was just so much better than what we get here.

Do you think it’s because Mormons aim to please?

Or maybe because today’s kids just don’t really care?

Next time I am going to keep my order simple and see if I can get some service with a smile.

Five Years For The Fries

We used to live in Utah.
LG had a very favorite restaurant.
Ever since we moved to Knoxville, LG has been counting down the days until he could go back.
For five years, the conversations have been countless.
“We have to go to The Training Table every day whenever we go back.”
He can never get too many cheese fries and Utah famous fry sauce.
You have to try them. Even if you are counting calories.
The caloric splurge will not disappoint.

The kids thought ordering over the phone was pretty cool.

But they knew that they had to work for the food.

Alright girls, figure out how to get home.