This & That

The Fruits of the Labor

A couple of weeks ago the youth group at our church went to a couple of the elderly members of our ward (congregation) to do some service. At one house they scraped the paint from a shed, prepping it for repainting. At another house, dandelions were dug out of the ground, fence posts were set, weed mat and gravel was put into flower beds. At this particular house, even after all that was done, there was a large pile of wood and prunings to get rid of. We asked the owner if the girls could come over and have a bonfire with it, as a reward for working so hard in the yard. So last week, we all gathered there, hoping it would rain on our plans.

We had our very own fire marshall to supervise. This is Bud. He's 89 and is a retired fireman. He came over early and started the fire and then stood like this all night watching over the fire and the girls, making sure nobody got hurt and the fire didn't wander where it wasn't supposed to. I love Bud.

 

The fire was still a little hot when we got there.

So hot that it was hard for the girls to stand close to roast marshmallows. They devised their own system.

Which the leaders quickly adopted.

The girls roasted interesting things....like Peeps.

And Starbursts....who knew?

Don't ask me where this came from, I have no clue.

We played a hilarious variation on Musical Chair meets Fruit Basket called "Do You Love Your Neighbor?" And ended the evening with a rousing round of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" played on kazoos. 

And a group hug. I love these girls.

 

Have a Wonderful Easter!

I hope your day is wonderful....that you can spend time with family...and while you are hunting eggs, eating that special meal or enjoying your favorite treat, maybe think for just a moment about the reason Easter exists.

 

In the Mountains

Usually when I talk about being in the mountains, I am talking about the cabin. However, because of the new church responsibility I have, sometimes I have to head out on various excursions as a chaperone for the youth group. Last Friday, The Girl and I had just such an adventure. We headed in the opposite direction, about an hour away from the house, in the same general vicinity as where we cut the Christmas tree this past year. We went to some church-owned cabins for snowmobiling and definitely NOT sleeping. Is it a sign that I'm getting old when I can't sleep well except in my own bed? Probably. I did get some good pictures, though.

The Girl and company on top of the lodge. The snow was at roof level at the back so kids were tromping around up there all night. She's preparing to launch a snowball at me. Her aim is horrific, or maybe she wasn't trying that hard.

This is how we got stuff into the cabins. One of the leaders has this snow cat thing....think several steps up from the rhino.

 The men leaders getting breakfast ready. It does my heart good to see men cooking.

Loved this hat.

This was what this kid wore for the whole time. Dude! Where are your pants??? It never seemed to bother him at all. Of course, it was warm enough that there was a constant stream of melting snow dripping off the roof.

I just liked this one alot. Little 12 year old giving me the thumbs up.

And several of us young women leaders...no make up, no hair product, no sleep. Oh yeah, good times. No sleep, but good times.

Family Time

My nephew came home from his church mission last week. He went to New Zealand for two years. He came home with a bit of an accent and a very definite island vibe because....correct me if I'm wrong, B....most of his mission companions were Polynesian. He spent the first week telling his mom how much better "N-Zed" was than home. I remember going through the same thing with Eldest when he came home from Russia. That was a little interesting for me to hear since I grew in the Cold War era.

 The man of the hour. He's nicely focused...needed a narrower aperture, but already had really high ISO's and noise. You will notice there's quite a redheaded theme going on in a lot of these photos. We can thank my grandfather for most of it.

SD Boy and his wife. They've been married a whole year now.

LS Boy and my mother. She's feeling pretty spiffy now that she's had her cataracts done and doesn't have to wear glasses all the time. That hasn't happened since she was a little girl.  It was good to see all my Utah kids. It seems like forever since we have.

My brother. His hair used to be redder than this, but then again, so did mine.

His littlest girl...she's just adorable.

We had a great time mingling with family for the afternoon and it's always awesome to be together for these milestone moments.

It Strikes Just a Little Fear

I have a new church responsibility.

I've been asked to work with the 16-18 year old girls. This entails preparing a lesson for them most Sundays and helping to plan and carry out activities for them on for the Wednesday night youth group time. This means I'm the advisor to my daughter's group. She's not sure she's happy about it at all. She really liked the teacher she had before. Everyone cried when that teacher left. I have really big shoes to fill and I'm a little scared. 

I have a lot of experience working with the younger children....like the 3-12 year olds. I get along with them really well, probably because I'm not afraid to be silly with them. I also have a lot of Cub Scout experience because, well, I have five boys and was happy to be there when no one else wanted to do it.

But this.....this is teenage girls. They are different, and I've only had one to practice on, so those of you that have done this could offer lots of suggestions......so I don't run and hide cowering under the bed.

 

The Camel Story

We got our weekly email from PB and in response to my questions about seeing him in the snow....with a camel, this is what he said, in his own words.

"As far as the camel story goes, they had a live nativity thing in downtown Mt. Vernon.  There was a camel there and so Elder Pass and I got a picture with it.  We used that as our christmas card that we gave to the members that fed us.  The camel's was named Jabbara and had really stinky breath."

So there you go. PB with a camel, in Iowa.

Hawkeye Photos

With our email from PB last week, we got a couple of pictures. We don't get them very often, so it's wonderful to see his face and be reassured that he's doing OK. He says it's really, really cold there right now and that they've been "grounded" for a couple of days when it snowed more than 7 inches. Yeah, they don't want those 19-21 years boys out on the roads in it, especially if they're from somewhere warm and don't have any experience driving in it.

I'm not sure what the story is with the camel. I asked him in yesterday's email, so I hope I'm going to get an explanation. This to me looks like it would prompt that standard Minnesota weather phrase...."Cold enough for ya??"

It's Christmas Eve

Hopefully you have everything done that you need to, and you have those you love around you. My loved ones are spread far and wide this Christmas Eve. I am missing my kidlets and grandbabies some, and because they aren't here, I will share this video with you.

 

Have the best holiday!

This Is Big

This is a big deal. The Girl has earned her Young Woman Recognition Award. It's our church's equivalent to an Eagle Scout for girls. She has been working on it for 4 1/2 years, did lots of reading, lots of service, and 8 projects that required at least 10 hours of work each.

It's a big deal, and I'm really, really proud of her.

Conference Weekend

We made a very quick trip up to the cabin over General Conference weekend. We put a satellite dish on the cabin the last trip up so that we could get what we affectionately call "TV Church." Two years ago we tried to get the broadcasts over the radio...that failed miserably. That was the weekend of "I Think We Might Need to Chain Up". Thankfully, the weather was much better this go-round. In fact it was darn near perfect. We drove up Saturday morning early and in addition to listening to some awesome counsel about how to be better people, we got a few projects finished off.

I worked on this, which is a special project I'll post about when the other part of it is finished. But you can bet that the SPGB is going to love it.

We moved the solar panel to the "winter" position.

LS Boy moved the rhino around...with Ollie as a passenger.

We saw a little wildlife.

And I caught this photo of The Girl...in her piggie pj pants.

We woke up Sunday morning to a few rain showers. I wish I could bottle the fresh, woodsy smell up there after a rain shower. It's just about the best thing ever. Next to the cinnamon roll pancakes which we also had that morning.