TOFW - Saturday

Saturday was just as awesome as Friday night's event.

It started off with Emily Watts who is real and funny. One of my favorite thoughts from her talk is that outward appearance can represent inner commitment but sometimes we spend more effort on the outward appearance than on that inner commitment.

Next was Sheri Dew's replacement - Remember those ah's of disappointment? Well when Sheri's replacement was announced, there was a gasp of pure excited. John Bytheway! I'd never gotten to hear him speak before and he was incredible!
Some thoughts from John Bytheway:

• feelings of comparing and competing fade away when the Spirit is present.
• As the sacrament bread is prepared and we are singing of the atonement, watch the Priests breaking the bread - bruised, broken, torn for us. There's a reason this is done in front of us not ahead of time.
• Appreciate our spouse. Not have him come home to a wife fed up with the kids, but to a hero's welcome.
• Ask "what's it like to be married to me?"

Any my absolute favorite was a quote he shared from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland...

The future of this world has long been declared; the final outcome between good and evil is already known. There is absolutely no question as to who wins because the victory has already been posted on the scoreboard. The only strange thing in all of this is we are down here still on the field trying to decide which team's jersey we want to wear!

After John Bytheway, was Wendy Ulrich. I hadn't really heard of her before but had probably seen her books in the DeseretBook catalog over the years. Well, my review after her talk - fabulous.


Favorites from Wendy, who talked about weakness verses sin.

• If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly rather than not at all, while you learn to do it better.
• 5 P's for a weakness... Ponder, Prioritize, Practice, Prop (Prop yourself up with good books, good people), Patience.
• The difference between sin and weakness is it's author!

Our last presenter was Kris Belcher, another newbie to me. But she was inspiring and uplifting. Her story is amazing and she's turned it into a wonderful way to help others. She had us crying sad tears to laughing so hard we were crying.... all 2000 of us!
Favorite thoughts from Kris....His will and my will must be the same and His isn't going to change. Adversity comes from sin or evidence that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ feel we're ready to grow more.

Now you'll notice that I didn't get pictures of everyone. Not sure why. But I know the reason I took like 10 pictures of Wendy Ulrich - I LOVED her suit. I want one for me. I told my friends with me that and they agreed it matched me. So now I have a quest to find that suit for myself :)

Here we are after the event - Heather, me and Claudine.

TOFW - Friday night

October included my favorite weekend of the year - Time Out for Women! I've been on the team for an event for the past 5 years and love it!

This year we were expecting Friday night to be Sheri Dew and Jenny Oaks Baker. But when the team arrived for our training, we learned that Sheri wasn't able to make it (you can hear all the ahs of disappointment). So the schedule had been changed. Her replacement wasn't able to make it Friday night so Michael Wilcox (one of my favorite speakers/authors) was going to talk and for longer than he would have had on Saturday. Yippee!

My favorite thing I learned from Bro Wilcox (who I got to sign his newest book for me) is Worship is imitation - if we worship Christ, we will stive to imitate Him; but we won't be perfect at it.

And Jenny (again one of my favorites - we've been buying her cd's since she started recording them) would be performing for about twice her normal time!!!!

I didn't call Adam because he would have figured out some place to drop off the girls and high tail it up for Jenny's "concert". And it would have been worth it. She was awesome, and so cute. I just loved her story of meeting her husband.

Kaylyn has said for years that she wants to learn to play the violin, in spite of Adam and I encouraging her to play the French Horn (or cello). So on one of our breaks, I bought one of Jenny's cd's (one that we didn't have) and at the end of the night had her sign it. I also got our picture together so that I could put it with Kaylyn's CD. Kaylyn LOVES that CD and always refers to Jenny as "your friend that made the CD". So sweet.

I'm including the picture of us together - Jenny looks really cute and I don't but I'm blaming it on the long drive to Kansas City (although Jenny could argue about her trip from DC).

Fall Festival

In October there was a Fall Festival at Kaylyn's school. When we arrived, we immediately got our dinner. After eating, we did a jumping house and then got in line for face painting. I was working the ceramics "booth" while Adam stood in line with the girls... for an hour. Morgan fell asleep so she didn't get her face painted.

Here's Kaylyn....

By this time, it was 8 pm which is when I thought it ended and Morgan was completely out. It was also cold. So we headed home. It looked like everyone there had a lot of fun. Just wish we hadn't had to spend our whole time standing in line for one thing (there was only 2 people painting faces).

Story time at the Farm

At the end of September, we attended a group activity for Parents As Teachers at a local farm park. Unlike her sister at this age, Morgan had no problem going and sitting amongst all the other kids. Can't find her amongst the group? Here's a closer shot of her.

After the story, I got this shot of Morgan looking around.

After that, they brought in a sheep for the kids to touch. Morgan was hesitant but finally did it. Then we went out to see the other animals. Don't remember why I stopped taking pictures.

MS150 2009

September is our annual trek to watch Adam cross the finish line of the MS150. Kaylyn really looks forward to this each year - in a few years, I expect she'll be riding with him.
Morgan was really enchanted by the noise makers to cheer on the riders.

Here he comes.

Waving as he passes his girls.

Kaylyn so proud of Dad for "winning".

We then waited a few minutes until our friend Brian crossed the finish line as we were his ride back to the start. He's commented how nice it is for us to be there for Adam so maybe next year, I'll invite his wife Susan to ride down with us.

Inspecting the playground

As we've mentioned, Kaylyn transferred to a new school this year. And it's a NEW school - so a new playground. We had to go "inspect" it so we'd know how much fun, I mean how safe, it was.

Dress-up time

My girls love to play dress up and then they demand their picture be taken. So here are some shots from September.

Labor Day at the Ballpark!

Labor Day weekend was beautiful weather! So when we got a call from friends offering free tickets to the ballgame, we immediately grabbed our gear and headed out.

This is Kaylyn with friends Hannah and Kennedy - and you can see Ryker in the background.

After the ballgame, we headed to the Church for Adam to work on some mapping the Stake needed done.

Christmas Piano Recital

Kaylyn had her first piano recital this morning.

She sat with the other students to wait her turn.
Morgan sat with Granny.

When it was her turn, Kaylyn walked up to the microphone, introduced herself and her music.

Then she sat down with her teacher and played Jingle Bells followed by Jolly Old St. Nicolas.

If you really want to know how well she did, you can watch this video.

School Pictures are finally here!

Kaylyn was sick the day of school pictures so we had to wait for retakes. And they arrived today!

Compare the picture above to last year....

My baby's growing up! Too fast!

I also had Morgan's picture taken but they didn't send a CD with her pictures on it. Guess I'll be calling them about that.

In honor of Dad

I wanted to post an update for anyone who's reading. We realized this morning that what Dad would probably like a lot is if someone wants to made an In Memory Of donation in lieu of flowers (since there isn't a funeral or memorial service), the NRA would be a great place to support. Dad has always been an avid gun rights proponent and a member of the NRA.

Pictures of Dad

Dad didn't like to travel and he didn't like his picture taken, usually making a silly face for pictures. This summer Mom and Robin convinced Dad to go to Colorado with them. These pictures are from that trip.

In Memory donations

Since Dad is not having a funeral or memorial services, Mom has requested that donations can be made to the Prostate Cancer Foundation or the VFW in Dad's memory.

My Dad

My Dad passed away this morning.

It was sudden but that's a blessing. Two years ago in October, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and given 2-5 years to live. We were blessed to have two good years. Recently the cancer was no longer being managed effectively so it was decided he had to start chemo. His first dose was Wednesday. We're not sure if he already had an infection or if got an infection after the chemo but he had no white blood cells to fight it off. He was admitted last night to the ICU after collapsing at home with dehydration. The doctors discovered a bowel obstruction but couldn't do surgery until his body fought off the infection. He passed away this morning with my mom present. She is with my brother and sister right now and is going home to get some rest.

Dad's body will be cremated and his ashes scattered on the family farm, where both his parents had their ashes spread. There will not be a funeral or memorial service. I've asked Mom to let me know where she'd like donations made if anyone would like to donate in lieu of flowers. I will post that information here.

Dad - you are very loved and already very missed! I look forward to the day when we see each other again!