Activity Days Around the World

What a fun night! Our cute Activity Days leader had the cutest idea to combine our theme of learning about manners in March with a trip around the world. She invited members of our ward who had served missions or lived in other countries to help us learn about manners in those countries. We started out with a photo shoot (that was my job) with the mothers and daughters in fun dress ups.

Then we "traveled" to 4 different stations and learned about England (Molly grew up there and had fun stories which sounded extra cool in her beautiful accent!)

Geff taught us about France which was a lot of fun, partly because he is such a nut. (O:

Brother Rossiter told us about the Cook Islands which was fun. This is him showing Sarah what the language there looks like in it's written form.

Sarah loved the Japanese station - she loves Japan since learning so much about it from Will. We had a really fun time together and even all of us moms who helped pull off the night got to enjoy it. Sharon did a great job planning and all the special guests were so fun. (o:

Conference Weekend

Sunday morning of conference, we always have the tradition of eating sticky buns. It was a little bittersweet as we watched because the last time we watched conference was right before we started packing up the house to move from Oregon. I did enjoy getting an extra hour of sleeping in since conference starts here at 10 am instead of 9 am. (O: I loved conference - always do, but they just seem to get better and better. I think it is really neat how every conference the speakers can choose their own topics, they don't know what everyone else is speaking on, and yet, there always seems to be a theme or two that run throughout. They are definitely inspired by the same source. (o: This time seemed to focus on service and charity. It was very uplifting and made me want to reach out to others more. I love our church leaders and their loving example. I am proud to be a member of our church, especially when I hear of all the good being done throughout the world by our church welfare program. It truly follows the example of the Savior and I believe He leads and inspires the efforts of our leaders to bless others.

During the break on Sunday, we took a little drive. I've really been wanting to drive past my old house I grew up in ever since we came back. Good old house. It looks so run down now. My dad used to take such good care of the yard.

We went by Frank's* house too. The funny thing about us is that we grew up just a few miles away from each other and our houses were the exact same floorplan only swapped and his had a carport.

Natalie has become quite the connoisseur of snow since we moved to Utah. (O:

A little game of Slamwich is always good on a Sunday afternoon!

Miss Manners

On the day it was my turn to be in charge of activity days, Miss Natalie was not feeling well. We had to change our plans around a bit, which actually ended up being more fun anyway. We held our activity at my house while Nat watched a movie in my bedroom. The girls did little skits where the first time around the main characters were rude. They had to "rewrite" the skit so the characters had better manners. They really got into it and did a cute job. Then we ate some snacks using some good manners that we learned after playing a funny game. This has been one of my favorite activities so far. The girls were pretty cute and had very nice manners that day! (o: I've had fun getting to be Sarah's activity days leader too!

The girls have have right now are (front to back, left to right) Sierra, (the one next to her is a visitor), Kaitlyn, Mandy, Sarah, Sunshine, Nicole and McKayla.

Homecoming!

When my aunt Jill invited us to come to welcome my cousin Will home at the airport after his two year LDS mission to Japan, I was so excited! Luckily, the timing of his flight worked perfect with the girls' school schedule on Friday afternoon. Getting there was a little stressful. I am so used to PDX (the Portland Airport), I really had a hard time finding my way around. The girls and I went to where we thought we were supposed to be, and even saw several families holding signs and balloons waiting for elders, but the people did not look familiar at all. I called Chrissy and after a few minutes we realized I wasn't even in the right building! (Thank heavens for cell phones!) Like I said, I don't remember the Salt Lake airport so well. (O:

So the girls and I ran to where Christine told us to go - about a block away. Luckily, we got there in plenty of time. We found everyone holding signs - Christine asked that we not calculate her percentages on the poster above. (O: Brad (below) held one of the signs that a friend helped them write in Japanese. The feeling there was so exciting. There were other groups of families waiting in the same area and everyone was anxious and watching closely up the escalators every time a group of people came down. I think Jill was about to burst with all the waiting.





Everyone cheered as we saw the elders coming down the escalator. It seemed to take forever for them to get down. If you have never witnessed a reunion of a mother with her returned missionary son, I highly recommend it. But I also highly recommend bringing a lot of tissues. It is such a spiritual experience. Here is a young man or woman - as many girls serve missions too - who has sacrificed everything for two years; time with family, money, friends, college, a comfortable home, free time to do hobbies, free time in general - all to go to an assigned mission, usually somewhere the missionary has never been to share the gospel with people they've never met and many times in a language they've never spoken before. It is miraculous that there are so many young men willing to make this sacrifice - who love the Lord more than themselves. It is awesome! It makes me so proud of our elders and sisters serving all over the world. Then you think about the loved ones of that missionary. What mom wouldn't get teary just thinking of sending her son or daughter somewhere foreign for two years with nothing more than weekly letters or e-mails and phone calls twice a year. Not to mention the financial sacrifice to support them. When you get to witness the return of a faithful missionary with his family, who also sacrificed so much - the moment feels so sacred. It still makes me cry just thinking about it. Such a powerful moment. The only thing that I can think of to compare it with is when witnessing the return of a soldier who has sacrificed for his/her country.

We all felt so proud of Will! He looked so great!

Christine and Will

What a wonderful day! And what an adorable group! Mary (Will's sis), Hailey, Will, Christine and Lauren. Will, Hailey and Christine were all born the same year - a rather fertile year in my extended family! Kaitlin was also born that year, but she couldn't make it to the airport since she lives 5 hours away. I used to babysit all of these kiddos (well, not Lauren (o:, I didn't know her yet - she's Will's girlfriend). I love my family!

After an amazing reunion with Will, we headed back to Dave and Jill's house to just talk and catch up. Will showed us how he sat during his two years on his mission. He said kneeling so much was hard to get used to and hurt at first, but after a while, he got used to it.

We loved looking at maps, pictures and all kinds of souvenirs from Japan as Will told us stories from his mission. Just a side note: This really brought back so many wonderful memories of the day Bart* got home from his mission. I still remember sitting in his parent's living room and hearing so many stories, looking at what he brought home and asking him all kinds of questions. It was so cool to learn about Japan's culture and Will's experiences. I don't know how long we all sat and talked, but I could've listened for hours longer. It was fascinating! Will definitely learned to love the Japanese people and culture. The fact that he got home just a week before the 9.0 earthquake hit Japan really made the whole disaster hit home. My first thoughts were, "Thank heavens Will got home safe before it hit." But my next thoughts were of all the people that were there that he loved so much. Luckily, he was able to hear after a few days that everyone he knew was okay. My heart ached for the beautiful country that we learned so much about through Will just the week before.

Natalie thought Will's Japanese sword was pretty cool.

We worked up quite an appetite with all the talking, so we had to get some good old Cafe Rio!

Sarah got to practice using chopsticks by eating M&M's for dessert! She got pretty good!

We got to listen in when a friend dropped by (who served in Japan as well) as he and Will conversed in Japanese. It was pretty cool to hear how fluent Will was! Just amazing!


Is this the sweetest picture, or what?

We LOVE Will! Welcome Home!! I am so so so glad we got to be part of this amazing day! An awesome perk of being back home.

Activity Day Girls

My new calling in our ward is to be the 10 year old Activity Day leader. We have lots of girls in our ward so there is a group of girls for every age between 8 and 11. I was excited to get to be with Sarah's age group. This picture was taken at my first activity with the girls. They are spunky and definitely not boring! Natalie is our honorary member until she turns 8 this spring and gets to go with her own group. (She is soooo excited - you get to start going when you turn 8.) As it turns out, Angela's dance class is at the exact same time as activity days, which works out good, although sometimes she wishes she could come too. My girls are from left to right, top to bottom: Nicole, Sarah, Sunshine, Kaitlyn, Natalie, McKayla, Sierra and Mandy. Great girls. They are always excited and happy to participate in all the activities. In fact, they are VERY enthusiastic about everything. I love it! (o: We have a good time, though sometimes I have a little bit of a headache by the time we're done!

David Archiletta and the MoTab! LIVE - Almost.

From NovDecFavorites

The week we moved to Utah, I got an e-mail from my cousin about the upcoming Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. This is an annual event that has grown in popularity exponentially every year. It is always incredible. I have seen several rebroadcasts that they play on BYUTV during the holiday season and they are so inspirational. They really bring the spirit of the season and the MoTab always takes my breath away.

So the chance to be at the Christmas concert LIVE sounded so incredible! A huge perk to living in Utah. Unfortunately, there are over a million other people who think this would be incredible too. The tickets are so popular, people used to sleep overnight in line to get them. To avoid this extreme, the tickets are now given out using a lottery system. The tickets are free - all you have to do is sign up and cross your fingers. They do 4 performances, but even so - you have to be pretty lucky to "win". I used all my siblings information to increase my chances, but nobody was picked. )o: I was pretty disappointed.

As a consolation prize, the church opens up other sites on Temple Square where you can watch a live broadcast. You have to enter to get tickets for these too and my grandparents scored 4 tickets for a Friday night. They very kindly offered the extra two tickets to Sarah and I! Sarah was so excited because the guest was David Archiletta - and being an American Idol fan, she knew who he was.

Our seats were in the Joseph Smith building theater and we had a FABULOUS time. The concert and program were just beautiful and embraced everything amazing about Christmas time. There was dancing, stirring music, incredible story-telling by Michael York and of course the nativity reading from Luke 2. Whether you are LDS or not (the programs are fitting for any Christian denomination), I'm telling you - this is the most amazing Christmas performance there is and there's a brand new concert with new amazing guests every year. I can't recommend it enough. It just gave me chills.

From NovDecFavorites

What a special night this was for us - we loved going on a "date" with great grandma and grandpa T. I love that my girls are getting lots of time getting to know grandma and grandpa now that we are in Utah.

From NovDecFavorites

I'm not a fan of this picture of myself, but it's me and my sweet Sarah, so I'm including it. (I need to get some more stylish winter garb - I've had that dumb headband thingy since I was 14!) We had fun exploring temple square and the beautiful lights a bit with grandma and grandpa. I LOVE temple square at Christmas. A HUGE plus to being back! I have missed it so much and now it can be a tradition for my girls too.

Mysterious . . .

From Blog Favorites August/September

We've had some mysterious things going on lately. A few nights before I took these pictures, Kyle* came back from some bishopric business with a couple in our neighborhood and found several of these red and blue army men all over his car in the driveway. We laughed about it and wondered what the reason for it was and who it could have been. Then the next Sunday, as we were leaving church Tony saw me with my camera (the bishop had asked me to take some pictures of the young men in the ward) and he asked me to come over and take some shots of his truck. And guess what was all over it?

From Blog Favorites August/September

Hmmm - it looked like the work of some of the young men and young women in the ward. (Tony is the young men's president.) The next day, we got a bigger army guy with a parachute and a message asking us to return his men. Apparently, this was the captain coming to rescue his battalion. (o: I have my suspicions, but none of the youth has fessed up.

From Blog Favorites August/September

It sure gave us some good laughs. Man, I'm going to miss these funny things...

From Blog Favorites August/September

From Blog Favorites August/September

Cute Phoenix getting a kick out of this prank. Sarah LOVED this too. I think she was filing the idea away in her brain for later!

From Blog Favorites August/September

Thanks mystery army pranksters for making us smile!

Friends Forever

From Blog Favorites August/September

I am so grateful for the sisterhood that I feel in relief society. It is such an amazing feeling to be a part of a great group of women who are striving to be like our Savior and are such wonderful examples of Christ-like love. They inspire me, make me happy and are so much fun to be around. Before I was released from my calling as relief society secretary, I got to help discuss and plan this night. However, I thought at the time I might be out of town house hunting. I am so glad I got to be here for this night. The topics really hit home. We talked about relationships - strengthening our marriages and friendships. Angie taught the friendship part of the class. (she had a busy week! Two birthday parties and teaching a class among other things.) At the beginning she talked about a scientific study on female friendships. In the study they found that men who were married lived longer. But they found something interesting. They found women who were married AND who had close friendships with other women lived longer. So basically, friendships play a much bigger role in women's lives even when it comes to physical well being. The 70+ year old women in the study who had close girlfriends were 20% more likely to live longer. She also talked about all the other benefits of strong friendships - emotional support, spiritual guidance, joy, social benefits, etc. At the end we watched a sweet slideshow Angie put together with pictures of women in our ward to the song, "That's What Friends Are For". At the end, my sentimental side couldn't resist, I really wanted a picture of all the ladies there that night. So I bugged everyone to pose for these cute pictures and I was so grateful they humored me!

From Blog Favorites August/September

For this picture, Angie said, "Everyone blow Jen a kiss!" Everyone looks so cute and it was so sweet! I love this picture except it looks like I am posing like a monkey or something! I wasn't sure what to do with my hand apparently! I LOVE these ladies to death. I came home crying because once again, I feel so sad to leave these dear friends. And sweet Shannan made me cry when she admitted she has been trying not to show her emotions at my leaving because she didn't want to make it any harder for me. She is always thinking of others and concerned for everyone else. I am so grateful for the amazing friendship we have had over the years and was so touched to see how sad our leaving was making her. )o: I came home feeling kind of like the past few weeks have sort of been like a funeral, in a way. Only it's happier, obviously. It's just very humbling to recognize all those who have impacted your life and to live every moment with such heightened sentimentality. It fills me with gratitude, sorrow for the loss of living near friends and it is also exhausting all at the same time! But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Every moment has been precious. And every friend will be remembered. And the reunions we have, wherever they may be, will be sweet.

In the picture above - Bottom row: L-R Liberty, Me, Rebecca, Leslie, Jill, Kim, Julie, Jan, Angie, Back row: L-R Shannan, Randie, Karen, Miriam, Janae, Heather, Shalyce, Joanna M., Kathy, Joanna C., Linda and Lisa.

Hagg Lake

From Blog Favorites #4

One of the perks of Ned* being in the bishopric is that I get to tag along for some of the bigger activities and enjoy time with the youth. The Hagg Lake tradition began two years ago and is always full of laughter, mud flinging, water fights and making good memories together. I was so grateful to be a part of it for the 3rd annual event. (o:

From Blog Favorites #4

My girls loved playing with the big kids! They love being with the young women and a part of all the fun. They loved playing with Brother Matteson, Sister Morris and taking a boat ride with bishop Melanson. We just love our ward so much. This was a wonderful and bittersweet night - more on that later . . .

From Blog Favorites #4

From Blog Favorites #4

I love this one of Sarah and Natalie in the background. (O:

From Blog Favorites #4

Angela getting a ride out in the water with Tony. I feel kind of lame for not coming in a swimsuit so I was grateful for everyone that played with my girls.

From Blog Favorites #4

Kaitlyn and Jordan are double trouble.

From Blog Favorites #4

Kaylynn, my photography buff buddy. She is amazing and I love talking photography with her! I couldn't resist getting a shot of her in action. (o:

From Blog Favorites #4

Hagg Lake is gorgeous - I wish I got more pictures of the scenery! (Did I just wish I got more pictures?)

From Blog Favorites #4

Ned* wasn't getting to stay dry just because he didn't dress for the water! Bishop and Tony were VERY gracious and allowed Ned* to remove all his affects before the dunking. It was a little anticlimactic, but very much appreciated!

From Blog Favorites #4

Some of the audience; Lizzy, Sarah and Heather

From Blog Favorites #4

Heidi, Natalie and Kayla

From Blog Favorites #4

Real men can get away with wearing princess towels!

**Funny story: Remember the post about our visit to Hagg Lake with the Fotheringhams back in June? On that night, Ned* was having fun throwing a disc out in a field with Sarah and Lizzy - if I remember right he was trying to get the disc on some deer we saw. (o: Well, the disc got lost in all the tall weeds and he couldn't find it. I guess he was curious last night about it and looked around and he FOUND it! Two months later! How funny is that? Unfortunately, all that time sitting in the sun warped it so it didn't work and he ended up throwing it away anyway, but it's still a good story. (o: