Surprise 60th Birthday Party

Last Monday morning I flew to Utah! It was a super quick trip, I was back home in my own bed Tuesday night!! Monday night my sister's threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom and my sister from Washington and I both flew in for the occasion. I miss being able to do things like that so it was nice that I could be there, even though it was definitely a quick trip!

Here I am with my sister Shauna who lives in Washington.

Here's Shauna, my Grandma, my mom and me!

Tuesday morning we went to breakfast, then did some shopping before I had to get back on the airplane. Here we are with my nephew Brandon, my sister Michelle, Shauna, mom, me and Denise is taking the picture.

Us girls are having one last picture taken with Brandon who is leaving on a mission to Italy in three weeks. Good luck Brandon! You'll be an awesome missionary!

A Very Long Dinner

On Friday night I went to the Melting Pot with my three friends and past co-horts in Primary. What is a co-hort anyway and how do you spell it? Anyway, we were celebrating my release (that sounds funny, huh?), my friend Dina's birthday (she's the President), and just basically having a lot of fun together. We left about 7:00 and I didn't get home until midnight!!! If you've eaten at a fondue place, you know it's a long process from first course to dessert...and what a yummy meal! I loved the cheese fondue, especially the swiss, loved the Caesar salad, liked the meats and of course, LOVED the chocolate fondue! We dipped marshmallows, brownies, bananas, strawberries, pound cake, rice krispy treats, and I can't remember what else! It was so delicious.

Here is a picture of the dish towel I made for Dina's birthday. It's perfect for her since she has a housekeeper and doesn't do much vacuuming! :) If you can't read it because it's kind of small it says, "I'm not going to vacuum until Hoover makes one I can sit on." he he he

And here is a picture of the blueberry bush they gave me as a "going away" present. And that's after the flowers on Sunday! I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable...but I can't wait to get that blueberry bush in the ground and start eating off of it! :)

It actually came with several blueberries on it...until Tucker discovered them and ate them all!

Happy Birthday To Courtney

Courtney turns 11 today! It is her "off" year for a party so we are celebrating with the family. We went to Chuck E. Cheese for some games and we'll have a BBQ tonight with hamburgers, french fries, corn on the cob and a one-a-day (Brady's drink concoction from his mission which we all love). Here's some pictures from past birthdays. (I have no idea why this is underlined!)






Here are a few more of my favorites of her through the years.

Courtney loves animals. Here she is with a cat, Grizabella, that we had for a few days and then found out that both Courtney and Spencer were very allergic to her. I was "allergic" to her poop so it was nice that she had to go. :)

Courtney is a monkey. When she was in gymnastics she was famous for being able to hold a head stand for a VERY long time!

She got a new haircut and is dying to get some pictures of that posted so I'll do that later on, but right now I need to go make an i-cake (an ipod shaped birthday cake! We'll see how it turns out!) Aargh! The underlining is back!

A New Calling

On Sunday I was released from my calling as Primary Secretary. I will miss it so much! I loved being in Primary with my kids and I absolutely loved the ladies that I worked with! We became such good friends from working together and it was more than just a calling for us. I will miss that contact each week, but that is the nature of working in the church, right? Always a change in store...

So my new calling is the 2nd counselor in the Stake Primary Presidency. I'm excited to get to know some new ladies (I had never even met the president) and get out and visit all the wards in our stake. Actually, the visiting will be a challenge because of Brady's Sunday meetings, but somehow we'll make it work.

My old presidency gave me these beautiful flowers on Sunday and the kids sang my favorite primary song to me. You'd think I had a terminal illness or something with all the tears going around!

Doing My Visiting Teaching

I was at the grocery store last week. When I went to put my shopping cart away I saw another cart with a purse in it. I picked up the purse and asked a lady who was getting into her car if it was hers, thinking she had just put her cart away and was now getting in her car to leave. She said it wasn't hers so I took the purse into the store to give it to Customer Service.

We started looking through the purse to see if we could find a name of who it belonged to. We found a checkbook and I was so surprised to find out that it belonged to a lady in our ward who I visit teach. The phone number on the checks was an old one from Virginia so I told Publix I would go home and call her and tell her she'd left her purse at the grocery store, which I did. She was so surprised but grateful that I had found it! What a coincidence.

Hmmm...Does that count as doing my visiting teaching for the month?... :)