Slide Show 2008

NO camera....

What do people do with out a camera? my sweet children broke mine. Yes my digital, my precious, and now I have no way to log my daily accomplishments....

So I have been using the phone camera....gulp... how much do they charge for those transmissions? I am afraid to ask.

So the last log of photos from my precious Canon Digital Rebel were these:


Peanut Butter Buddy, Abigel took these photos and the flash was off, so I had to adjust the lighting a bit, kind of poor quality. 9but better than my razr camera!)


So I have pretty cute kids, this is the reason I did not Kill them when I discovered my broken camera. It was a week of destruction, and I will not re-live the nightmarish events. I will not....

Yesterday I spent my time cleaning house and then running around preparing a 3-4 acre garden. I hope it is enough to feed my family ;)

I get to work at the Far West Store, so if your ever in this neck of the woods, just drop in and come see our Garden!

http://www.farwesthistorical.org/

BTW: current state of house:

Date.... day

We made a 12 hour date yesterday, we drove to Omaha we left at 8:30 a.m. luckily sweet Sasha let us borrow her great gas car. (rather than paying $120 in gas we only paid $30)

I failed to call the Temple in advance, I KNEW we were supposed to go yesterday, I just didn't check out ALL the details. being from Utah, we assume some things, well we arrived at 11:30 and the Temple opened at 6:00 p.m. We had 7 hours to kill!

We had the tour of the Visitor center, it has an amazing set up to get to know the history of the saints stop in Winter Quarters. What an amazing SPIRIT attending the exhibit. We walked through the cemetery of the 600 that were buried at Winter Quarters.

I met with a genealogist, she taught me so much about how to find ancestors, there is some amazing stuff on the saints who traveled with the exodus.

http://earlylds.com/

http://winterquarters.byu.edu/

I found journal entires from Wes's G G Grand father, Curtis Edwin Bolton, he was one of the first to come west with Brigham Young, he was mentored by Brigham Young, and several of his entires include advice given to him from the Prophet!

I also found an excerpt from the church's scribe and it included not only information on the BOLTON family, but it mentioned SETH DODGE, and how when he was on sentry watch they caught him sleeping! I had to chuckle, just like my family to sleep while on duty!

What started out as a big inconvenience turned into a beautiful day, ending with Wes and I holding hands and whispering encouraging words in the Celestial Room. What a day! we returned home at 11:45 pm and the house was in reasonably good shape, only the dishes had to be done, everything else was on the up-&-up!


More with photos later.

Hum Drum and a Wrench

Just as we begin to start feeling comfortable, we get a wrench. Right? isnt that how every ones life is? when I speak to my mom, she concurs. I will give you the run down on my weekend.

Monday was FHE and tidy the house day.

Tuesday I picked up Wes from the airport, drove to Sam's Club and got supplies for the YW camp spaghetti dinner. Service for 150.

Wed. we worked on the house, attended Mutual, handed out assignments for the dinner, and recuperated from our all niter with Zeke (hand foot mouth malady)

Thursday I fretted over how much time needed to be spent doing the cooking I debated on whether I should make meat balls, or just add the meat to the sauce (I added the meat to the sauce, as I did not know how many to plan for the dinner).

Friday I cooked pasta, 30 lbs. and prepped it to be quick serve. Madi began the Sin-a-Buns for her auctioned off item, and the Kitchen-Aid mixer burned up (again), she left to help the widow neighbor vacuum and clean since she is bed-bound for back pain. At 3:00 I had to track down keys to the Church & deliver the items for the YW auction & Dinner.
I cooked.served, and cleaned up from the UBER Successful event. and we returned home at 11:00 p.m.

Sat. I prepared a load of laundry for Sunday clothes. I had a stake camp meeting in Liberty and left home at 2:00. I had to find a ride for Wes as the adult meeting was at 6:00 pm. I attended my meeting, attended the adult session of conference, and then we had a quick bite to eat with Sasha & Brian.(gotta LOVE Chipotle!)

Sunday we woke, ate waffles & oatmeal (not together) and got everyone ready for Stake meetings we left the house at 10:00 am, (giving our friend Consie a ride) we arrived just in time to get a bench, and enjoyed the talks given that were focused of Missionary work. WHAT AN EVENT, our stake president Lehnardt spoke, and reiterated that we as obedient servants of the Lord, should be "Plant a garden as if our lives depended on it" he actually said that. He said as the price of wheat & grains rises we should be prepared in not only the style in which we cook, but the growing and preparing our foods. We left the conference meetings enlightened, and Wes made a 'snarky' comment about how as trials of life have come and gone, we grow and learn so much, and he looks forward to the next challenge. . . . .

Upon our arrival at home we were all starving! the house was in disarray we frantically started lunch (as it was 2:00pm) I fed & watered the chicks, and someone pulled into our driveway. :Enter: our current landlord, the ones who live in Utah. SURPRISE! They had been at our home while we were at church, had taken the liberty to show themselves around the house, and of course found nothing but chaos. They had been waiting for us to come home and I was *SO* upset by their 'surprise attack' I was ill. She made it clear that she was not happy with us, and then made the off comment that we "May want to find somewhere else to live" as she is not happy with the state of the house.

OK, so now some of you ladies know me, and I know I am not the MOST organized person, and I may let things slide for a bit, but I am NOT a slob, and I am not un-sanitary
This woman had raised ONE child 54 years ago, and has a very low tolerance for children she even said "It was against my better judgment to allow a family with THIS many children to move in" As if my 2-dozen children are too many to handle. (read 5 that run around really fast seeming like 24).

The last thing she said as she left the house, was "We will return" kinda of like the terminator, "I'll BE BACK".

So now I sit on pins & needles and agitate myself over this issue, I have 5 months to go before my house is complete, and I may be living in a tent (again), thank goodness I am not 8 months pregnant this time!

Traveling and Dreaming

For many years, (since I was probably 5) I have wanted to do two things,

1) travel the world, Africa , Asia, and South America primarily.
2) Adopt Internationally.

While both are very expensive and loft goals, they are both for good purposes. I want to share my love of life with others, and I want to ease suffering . I long to spend time digging trenches, and building school houses, I dream of toiling with my own two hands and teaching my children compassion and service. I have a desire to spend all my extra time and resources bringing the knowledge of Christ's atonement and love into the hearts and lives of those less fortunate.

I know others who have the resources to do these things, and yet they do not have the desire to help others. they have the desire to feed themselves, and enjoy the fruits of their labors .... however they foolishly believe that the fruits they are enjoying are the labors of their own two hands, rather than the Lords.

It is my desire we stop whatever we are doing, and acknowledge that ALL good things come from a loving and compassionate Saviour.

Please take a minute to enjoy this YOU Tube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/reflectionsofchrist

Thursday April 17th 2008

the porch has begun!

My favorite part about this house is the wrap around porch. I shall SO enjoy it!

What the house looked like on Wed. 3-16-2008

Interior view of the Top floor. so you can see the span of space in the kids 'dorms'

How many wonderful blogs there are!

I just perused my sweet cousins blog:
http://mchllchndlr.blogspot.com/

She is a nice gal, with allot of whit and humor, she had to in order to survive in OUR family!

I just find that I can barely keep with sarcasm out of my writing, so I choose to instead of being interesting, just trying to be nice.

I enjoyed reading her writings though, since it felt like we were sitting around chatting like old times.

I am in the process of putting up even more photos of the house, it may bore you to death, but at least I am finishing a task I have started (this blog)

I will try to put a realistic spin on where I truly spend my time:
I woke at 8:30-ish... to the phone ringing.
Wes jumped out of bed, and got the girls rolling on their animal chores which include:
Feed the chicks
Water the chicks
Feed the Hens (as they differ from the chicks)
Water the hens
Check on grazing pregnant goats (soon we will be milking again)

Put away mud boots and dress for the day
Breakfast was rolled oats, bananas and milk.
Chores, dishes, mopping, reading, scriptures, and then the younger kids went off to work on the house with daddy (yeah so glad he is home!)

Madi and I finished our morning routine, and spent extra time on cleaning the house. She and I began our studies and started baking bread, we got the bread started and began researching our family history, since she will be attending the temple this year for baptisms, we need to extract names for her to take with her, first name we found is "Maggie Ethlyn Barclay" she is a great great great aunt of Wes's.

Pretty exciting.
Then we went to the garden and started our onions, cabbage and lettuce. Hopefully we will get something from these efforst, as immediately after we planted the bitsy teensy tiny seeds, a deluge of rain fell down, and potentially washed away all of our work.



Any one want to teach me how to do those cool links so that I am not posting actual web address? I used to know how, but have not used it in so long, it is lost (in my glacier memory)

Well, now Abigel and I are making Whole Wheat No Sugar Sin-A-Buns. this time we will be adding walnuts...YUMMY!

ONE MORE YUCKY PHOTO

Just for dad, since i told him it was here....oops. Sorry i am mostly wrong nearly half the time ;)

Sick Boy

Have you ever seen "hand foot mouth disease" Well, it is the WORST most hellacious illness for a child to go through!
Here is my happy boy:

And the sad sick boy....

Bright side of life

So here is a hypothetical question,
Within the powers of thought, Do you run out of money because you are thinking about how you don't want to run out of money, or do you start thinking of a shortage and then run out of money?

I am thinking of selling all our animals, for numerous reasons, but mainly they are a stress on my finances, instead of paying for themselves I am paying out he nose for feeding them. should have thought about that before winter when I spent $975.00 of hay!

Two steps Backwards :(

Last nights 75 mph winds tore off the roof of the house! :(

So instead of looking like we are moving forward, it looks like we are 2 weeks behind.

(gotta love the $1,000.00 deductible grrr...)

More photos of the house going up

This is the best way for Wes to see the House progress as he is away, so Enjoy!
(Love you 'Nuggle Bunny)

Sad day on the farm,

While the rain fell last night, I lost 16 chicks, mostly they look like they were huddled to keep dry, and the smaller ones were used to insulate the floor to keep the others warm, We also lost one turkey and the second turkey was pretty rough off, but we may have saved it. ( I don't know what gender it is)
I had to dip her in a warm sink full of water, it got her body temps up, and they I dried her off with pine shavings. She immediately stopped shivering, and was breathing more normal.

My poor Gracie is such a tender heart, she is sobbing at the loss of the chicks.

Started out with 75 chicks and 2 turkeys,
we now have 54 chickens and 1 turkey.

That is a loss of $76.00 so far :(

We are praying that we can keep the rest healthy.

Trusses (as if anyone cares)

Life, can be a handful!

What can I say, with 5 kids, 7 goats, 89 chickens, and a house being built, all while my husband flies planes 2400 miles away. Life can be FULL OF IT! (Whatever "it" is you decide)

The past two days I have cried over:
Mean people
Shallow people
A broken Digital Canon Rebel
A broken heart (7 year olds, not mine)
My wheat grinder is making a whining sound (not good)
my Checking account is at $0.88
and I have 13 days before I get another pay check.
I totally forgot a good friends Birthday AFTER I scheduled a lunch date with her (some friend I am!) I feel like such a LOUSE!

Life can be hard.
On the good side:
I got to speak to my sister Allie until 12:45 a.m 2 Whole hours! (never happens, we both value our sleep too much)
I spoke with Lia about stuff... she always makes me laugh.
And My Under-Roos flashing cousin decided to call me while he drove from Cali to Utah and reminisce. (actually he is trying to guilt trip me into going to Lake Powell this summer...not gonna happen.)



I made a video of Zeke growling (its actually pretty funny) but cant figure out how to get it on here, and it is gettign past my bedtime so I probably wont try any more tonight.

I am on page 196 of 515 of the B.O.M. the Stk. Prez has asked the entire stake to have it read by April 20th (our next stake conference) that is 30 pages a day... NO SWEAT!

Well, I am exhausted just from treading water today. I would love a break. (not of the more broken household items kind... of the Publisher Sweepstakes balloon knock on the door kind... Do you have to play the sweepstakes in order to actually win?

Well, I suppose their is no hope there either.

Who votes for the best invention this year is SPELL CHECK USING THE RIGHT CLICK?@!!

WHOO HOO! ME ME !

Church Unveils a New Program!

Church Unveils 'Slow-Track' Program

SALT LAKE CITY

In order to better meet the needs of 'our most average members,' church
representative Howard S. Jeppeson announced the creation of a new
slow-track membership program. 'This program caters to those members of
the church who may not be top-level celestial material but who are still
willing to put in a nominal effort toward their own salvation,' he said.

The slow-track program includes the same components of normal church
membership, but at a more relaxed pace. Members who sign on for the
program are required to read scriptures and have personal and family
prayer once a week, attend church once a month, visit teach or home
teach four times a year, and watch one session of general conference
every other year. If slow-track members can commit to these requirements
for five years, they can earn a temple recommend stamped with an S for
'slow track,' after which they are expected to attend the temple
semiannually. According to Jeppeson, the church may create a shorter,
condensed version of the temple ceremony for S-track members 'in order
to better accommodate those members' shorter attention spans and lower
levels of ambition.'

Social historian Jane Schippen, PhD, a long-time scholarly observer of
Mormon society, hails the new slow-track program. 'Mormonism pays a
great deal of attention to its high achievers, like those who are stake
president before they turn forty or women who have eight children and
maintain a spotless house,' she observed. Similarly, she continued,
'Mormons spend a lot of time and energy worrying about those on the
other end of the spectrum, the less-actives.' She sees the slow-track
program as 'a way to acknowledge and honor the vast majority of Mormons,
those who will never hold high positions of leadership but who are
nevertheless active - the sloggers, if you will.'

Logan Stake president Gary L. Hackett agrees with Schippen and says that
the new slow-track program 'will prod the lazy ones into progressing at
least a little bit, which is an improvement.' He estimates that
implementing the slow track will cut administrative tasks, such as
nagging phone calls to complete home or visiting teaching, by as much as
75 percent. 'It's about time we recognized that not everyone in the
church is that top ten percent of the celestial kingdom material,' he
notes. 'And, really, that's okay. I mean, the bottom two levels of the
celestial kingdom are supposed to be pretty good too, right?'

Most members seem happy with the soon-to-be-implemented system. 'Let's
face it,' says local member Larry K. Whiting. 'I'm not cut out for this
high-paced, pressure-oriented Mormon lifestyle. I mean, home teaching
four families every month? The scheduling alone takes way too much time.
And then I have to go over there and pretend I care about these people
when I'd rather be home watching ESPN? Give me the slow-track program
any day.'

Local member Kendra Koenig agrees. 'Do you know how much fun it is
trying to roust five kids out of bed for family scripture study and
prayer at 6:30 AM? I am sick to death of nagging them about it, and you
can believe it's not doing our family harmony any good.' She praised the
slow-track system for offering a more realistic temple-attendance
schedule. 'Like anyone who has a life can manage to get out there twice
a month? This slow-track program is the answer to my infrequent
prayers.'

One Elders Quorum President read this announcement to his Quorum. He had
so many wanting to sign up that he had to tell them it was just a Joke!

Article by Amy Chamberlain
Design by Tres Larsen