Landon's Birthday

Happy Birthday Landon!! He had bariatric surgery on November 2 and has lost about 70 lbs! He looks so great! He went to buy some new slacks for work, saw this suit, decided to try it on just for fun, and fell in love with how it fit. His other one is very baggy now. I am so very proud of him! Deciding to have the surgery, taking the required classes, and a handful of appointments with various doctors takes a big commitment. After the surgery, the diet is mostly protein and he has done a good job of sticking with it. He is also riding his exercise bike now. He said the other day at work someone didn't recognize him. Haha! Big change for sure!

Landon didn't have a request for any specific dessert. He will only be eating a sliver, but I made fake cheesecake because I know it is one of his favorites. He is 33, so we put 6 candles, 2 sets of 3 to mimic 33. Lots of excited kids gathered around him.

Landon didn't have any guesses, but Lincoln knew right away what it was. He didn't shake it, so I don't know how he figured it out.

 A puzzle! Landon has been doing a lot of puzzles lately. He has a table set up down the basement where he works on them. I love puzzles, and I'm so happy Landon likes them too. He has helped me work on mine when he comes to pick up the kids after school. This one looks fun, and I want to borrow it after he's finished. 

Happy Birthday Landon!

Relief Society President Release

I have served as Relief Society President in the Terrain Ward with these lovely ladies for almost 4 years. We were sustained on Memorial Day weekend 2018. Nancy Brown--First Counselor, Courtney Judd--Secretary, Me--President, and Tiffany Thompson--Second Counselor. When you serve in a presidency together, you really get to know and love each other, and these ladies will always have a special place in my heart.

Nancy has been wanting to have all of us and our husbands over for dinner. We had a date picked in January, and then Courtney and her family got Covid. Nancy went out of town and other conflicts postponed our dinner until tonight. We were released on February 13, but had this dinner planned before that. It was so fun and we wished we had done this a few times while we served together. We had pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes, spinach mandarin orange salad, rolls, and brownies with ice cream and cherry pie filling. It was all so tasty! 

Janae Coy brought these flowers and a card thanking me for my service. So thoughtful of her.

 I got this card in the mail from Jaime Cavanaugh thanking me for my love and strong testimony. I was truly touched by her message.

We were all asked to share our thoughts and bear our testimonies in Relief Society. I thought about how I had the great opportunity to be part of people's lives, to share in the happy and sad. I saw the joy as families welcomed new babies, sent their kids off to be missionaries, and saw families grow as their kids got married. I tried to provide comfort to those who had surgery, felt lonely during Covid, and those who lost family members. I really enjoyed getting to know the new families and visiting them in their homes to welcome them into the ward.

I also thought about how overwhelmed and intimidated I was when I received this calling. Most of my church experience has been with Primary kids, and women are scary. The thought just kept coming to me to love the sisters, so I did. It was pretty easy to do and I hope they felt my love and concern for them.

My life felt like something was missing for 2 or 3 days after I was released. I felt like I had lost a good friend or an essential body part, like an arm. I was quite surprised at how I felt. It took me a long time to feel comfortable in this calling and to enjoy it and I thought I would feel relieved to be done, but I felt a little empty. I've never felt this way before. 

I cried when I was released from Achievement Day leader. That was back when you taught the girls on Sunday and also did activities with them twice a month during the week. I loved those girls and didn't think anyone could love them like I did. This was different from that though. I've heard people in high leadership callings say that they felt the mantle leaving them when they were released. I don't know if that was part of it, or if it's just that I served for so long that it was a major adjustment to not have that responsibility any more. I would never have imagined that I would feel this way, especially since it was so hard for me in the beginning. I hope I fulfilled this calling the way the Lord wanted me to.

I love the Terrain Ward and the unity and friendship I feel there. I love the sisters I served with and hope we can stay close.

Camille's Community Program

I was happy when Melissa invited us to come and watch Millie's school presentation about communities. I love to watch the grandkids in all their activities. First they sang a song in Japanese! That was impressive! Seven year olds singing in another language? Wow! They had some hand motions that went along with it.

They sang a couple more songs and then the other second grade class sang a few numbers.

They did a dance around the edges of the gym, skipping and twirling their hands.

Then we went out into the hallways to see the posters the kids had made. Millie was in a group with 4 other students and each group made up a community with laws and values. Millie's town was called Animal Rock.

One mode of transportation in their city is a cat bike. The handle bars have a cat's face including ears and whiskers. There is a tail behind the seat. How cute is this??

The school has a clock tower and the community has phone stations.

My favorite law they have is to make music. 

I love that they want their community to value kindness and people. I think we need second graders to be in charge, what great towns we would have.

Great job Millie! It was so fun to come to your presentation on communities!

 

Valentine's Day

Last night at the Super Bowl party, Calista brought these boxes of chocolates for all the cousins for Valentine's Day. She was very excited to hand them out.

Dagny was very excited that hers had a unicorn on it. Unicorns have been her favorite thing for a couple of years.

Ready to eat that chocolate!  Austin's girls also brought Valentines for everyone, and I had a package of M&M's for each of the grandkids. There was a lot of love going around last night.

Lincoln was so proud of his mouse Valentine pouch that he made at school. He wanted me to take a picture first thing, even before he took his coat off. The mouth and whiskers blend into his coat, and it's a little hard to see them, but it was very cute.

Dagny had a lot of little toys in her Valentine bag. One of her favorites was this little heart squishy. Dagny recently got a hair cut. It frames her face and is so cute.

A side view. Dagny has thick hair, lucky girl!

Happy Valentine's Day Blake! We thinking of you on this day of love.

Super Bowl 2022

The Super Bowl seemed rather quiet this year, I don't quite know why. I didn't take any pictures, but wanted to write a little bit because sometimes I like to look at past years and see what we  did and what food we had.

This year's menu was sub sandwiches with the smaller hoagie buns from Sam's Club that I like better than the full size ones, several kinds of chips, shrimp, little smokies, buffalo wings, morzarella sticks, a fruit tray with dip, chocolate chip cheese ball with vanilla wafers, brownies (we didn't even eat them because we had too much food), and fancy lemonade. It's the lemonade with syrup that we had at Britta's wedding and the the grandkids, mostly Claire (who loves it more than anybody) named it fancy lemonade.

The teams were the Los Angeles Rams vs the Cincinnati Bengals. Delwyn was cheering for the Rams, I don't even know who anybody was cheering for except Britta and Kade, and they were hosting their own Super Bowl party in Utah. They were hoping for Cincinnati since Kade was born in Iowa. The Rams won 23-20. I'm not a football fan, and I stayed in the kitchen most of the time. I didn't hear much screaming or yelling, maybe that's why it seemed quiet this year. Wade and Kimberlea left at 6:45 since Calista was falling asleep. 

Next year I promise to take some pictures and maybe I'll be a little more involved in the game, but don't count on it.

Snow Day

Back in mid December, weather forecasters were begging for snow since we had a very dry fall. We are making up for it now and got 7.8 inches last night. It was a snow day for Douglas County Schools, and so I had no grandkids today. Kimberlea's office follows the school district and closes when they call a snow day.

Every now and again Delwyn works long shifts in Aurora at Buckley Air Force Base. Lockheed puts their employees up in a hotel so they don't have to drive back and forth when they are working 12 hour shifts. He worked one night and then they closed the base to all but essential workers because of the weather. He wasn't sure he could make it home and went back and forth over what to do. At 4:00 pm he was tired of being cooped up in a hotel room, and so he came home. The snow had stopped by then, and it took a little longer than normal, but he made it home without any trouble.

 I had most of the day to myself, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I worked on my blog, I have a puzzle going, and I read a book. I didn't feel lonely in the least. At 3:00 pm I went outside and shoveled. The snow was light and powdery and easy to shovel. It's hard to tell in the picture, but a snow plow came around the circle. I can never remember what their rules are, but it does have to snow quite a bit for plows to come to neighborhood streets. I don't mind the snow because most of the time I don't have to go out into it. I am thankful to live in a place where we have all the seasons. I am always ready when the seasons change. I love boots and sweaters, and I also love flip flops and time at the pool. Colorado is the perfect place for me!