working again...

So before I moved to Vegas I worked for my good friend Stacy...  She was the editor in chief of a scrapbooking magazine called Simple Scrapbooks. I was her Editorial Assistant... the magazine was headquartered in Utah and Stacy lived in Spokane... so she had a little office in her basement that we worked in. I would come over a few times a week to help her stay organized... Scrapbooking manufacturers would send her tons of product in hopes that she would like it and use it in the magazine. So I spent many hours filing cute papers, organizing stickers and tons of other products. I organized different products that would be in the magazine and talk to scrapbook designers about their deadlines and sending their layouts in... I also got to travel with Stacy. She is an amazing speaker and speaks at all kinds of scrapbooking conventions around the world. I would go along and help her get her classroom set up and make sure her computer worked for her power point presentations and helped her design her presentations... so fun. We went to some fun places like; Orlando, Vancouver BC, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Stamford Ct, Anaheim, Seattle, Provo... I am sure I am forgetting a few. 

Anyway, Stacy called me a few weeks ago and asked me to rescue her and help her get her blog organized and help her with a few other projects. I am so excited to work a few hours a week with her again! I have missed it and her! Maybe it will help me get motivated to start scrapbooking again. Check out her blog... she wrote a fun story on how we met and how I started working for her. Simple Scrapbooks was killed in the economy... this months issue is the last one ever! So sad!! So she is writing about some of her "Simple Memories" on her blog this week. Stacy now has her own company that does online scrapbooking classes called Big Picture Scrapbooking. I've done a few classes and they are so fun! Check out her website, she has some great free classes too.

These pictures are from the last trip I went on with her.... Houston Texas.... we found the coolest candy store in the mall. We rarely had time to explore the cities we went too, but this hotel was connected to the mall! Lucky us. 

Prom update...

Sorry to leave ya hanging like that... life got busy.  So, Ashley came home and read the note and took all the "flour" in and ....

Started sifting through it to find out who it was....

No luck!

An hour later the real "flowers" were delivered....

With this note....

Ashley needs a creative way to answer him (Eddie De la Vega) ... any ideas??

Prom...

Ashley is getting asked to prom today... come back later to see her reaction and find out who it is...

Great support

So I had Stake Council Meeting this morning and I walk in the room and the entire Stake Presidency and High Council members were wearing gold ties... I was like "wow, what's with the ties?" And President Hyer said, "We wanted to show our support of the new Young Women's value Virtue." It was SO cool. It means so much to me and my presidency. At the overnighter (which I will post more about later...) President Worthen invited the rest of my presidency to Stake Council and he wouldn't tell us why.... we were a little nervous, we even joked that maybe we might be getting released... SO we were extremely happy with the surprise being that they support the YW program!! Thank you!!! We have the best Stake Presidency and High Council ever!

Nathell took a picture with her iPhone...

Slumber Party Tonight

I am off to a YCL overnighter tonight with about 30 16-17 year olds! I hope I get some sleep! It should be fun. I love hanging out with the girls! We are going to help them get prepared for camp....  I will post some pictures tomorrow... If I'm not sleeping...

Spring Break...

We had a great time at the beach last week. We were able to spend a few days with 3 of Johns sisters and his mom. Debbie came from the bay area with her two boys (we missed you Steve!) and Cathi came from Mesa with her hubby and their 4 boys and a friend (we missed Candace & Richard) and Edie came from Hisperia with her hubby and 3 kids under the age of 3! and Grandma came from Idaho Falls. We had a very full house! But it was a blast. The kids got along great, it was so fun to see them having a good time with their cousins. We just wish Annette and Barbara could have made it with their families. 

Here are some highlights from the trip in no particular order... I'm not in the mood to sort them out... i'm not a master of posting pictures yet... they always come up in a weird order...

grandkids trying to make a pyramid...

Mitch bought some new shorts...

When there are kites, there is kite string to be untangled! Mitchell gave it a shot. (I seriously spent HOURS trying to untangle this mess... not sure why i didn't just run to costco to buy a new kite! it became like a puzzle to me and i couldn't put it down.... 

I finally got out the scissors)

Max was covered in sand! But had a great time!

Luke with his 2 little boys... I love this shot.

the kites...

Tanner and Kade flying the kites... (a funny side note... the people next door were having a big fancy party in the backyard and one of the kites went flying down in the middle of it... oops.)

We tried for a long time to get a jumping picture... this was the best one....

Cute daddy / daughter photo...

Not sure why i agreed to bringing guitar hero... i am not a big fan... 

but it kept the teenagers busy when it was cold outside.

We took some family pics...

dying easter eggs!

John always builds the biggest castle on the beach...

It was cold... but it didn't keep us out of the water... once you got numb it wasn't so bad! Notice i am the only girl that got in that day... i think ashley got in the first day with me...

Silly kids...

Ashley singing away!

Ashley and Aunt Debbie

Ashley and Cienna... she held her constantly.

The Anderson's

The Cenatiempo's

I missed getting a picture of Debbie and her boys and I haven't gotten the big group picture yet...

I love the ocean!! I have a whole blog post in my head about why i love it... but I will write it another day...

Conference Sunday...

I love General Conference weekend. I love that I can watch conference in my pajama's on my couch with my family. We always make a big breakfast and cinnamon rolls... then we munch the rest of the day. I was so proud of my kids this year. They watched all 8 hours without complaining. Ashley and Mitchell took notes for extra credit in seminary.... It really helped them pay attention. Ashley had 5 pages of notes!

My favorite talk was Elder Holland's... it was so amazing. It was such a powerful testimony of the Saviour. I can't wait to watch it again. I loved the little video they played while they sang "We Thank Thee Oh God For a Prophet".... it totally made me cry. I love our Prophet!

Youth Conference 2009

(not sure why this has taken me all week to post!) We had youth conference last weekend and it was a blast! Our committee did such a great job planning it! The theme was Hero's, "not all hero's wear capes" was the tag line. We had an amazing service project! Mack McKnight in our stake is on the board of directors for a community center in town called "The City Impact Center". It used to be a private church school and the Trinity church donated it to the city as an outreach place for teens. It has collected a lot of junk over the years and needed some good cleaning and fixing up. The couple that runs the place mentioned to Mack that they would love to find some people to help them and Mack said he knew who could do it.

A former NBA player named Jerome Williams does some basketball camps at the City Impact Center and he is the chairman of the NBA's community service group... so he got involved and he happens to go around to schools talk to kids about who their "hero's" should be! We chose our theme before we knew anything about him and the city impact center.... pretty cool.

So, Friday night we had Jerome come speak to the kids about hero's. He did a good job. They played a little video about his NBA career and talked about his nickname, "Junk yard dog". After he spoke, President Worthen talked for a little while. He did great as always. Then the kids played a few games and had a dance.

Saturday morning we all met down at the City Impact Center and got to work. It was a little crazy getting 200-300 kids to their working groups, but we did it. We had 25 different area's that needed work. In less than 4 hours, the kids had painted the front of the building, painted new parking lot lines, painted curbs and light posts, painted a stage, painted storage rooms, cleaned out about 5 classrooms of junk, organized clothing, cleaned a kids playroom, scrubbed lockers, bathrooms, showers and a kitchen. It was amazing!! The kids worked so hard. I never saw anyone complain or goof off. They filled a whole DI trailer and a huge dumpster with stuff. We fed them lunch and called it a day. The kids had fun getting autographs from a few NBA players that were there and Mayor Goodman even came by! We were a little worried that he would have a Martini in his had...hahha... luckily it was only 9:00am. Mack worked real hard getting donations for the project... we could not have done this without all his hard work!

Saturday night a guy came and sang a few songs and told a few jokes. I think the kids enjoyed that. Then we watched a slideshow of the weekend... And to top the weekend off we listened to our wonderful Stake President speak. He did a great job! We are so lucky to have such great leaders! President Schlauder and President Worthen were both working so hard with the kids at the service project. I know that meant a lot to the kids to work side by side with them. They are great examples of hard workers.

Sunday morning is always the highlight of the weekend... testimony meeting. The kids have amazing testimonies and it is so rewarding to hear them.

Getting started....

The Stake YM/YW Presidencies sang a silly song... (not my idea)

Can you tell I was really stressed out at this moment...

( that's a story for another day... i faked my anger pretty good!)

My cute Ashley...

JYD giving Mayor Goodman a tour...

Kids working hard!

Mitchell scraping paint off... with lots of people watching him!