Nephew Jeff...

Check out this article that was in the New York times last Sunday. The missionary on the left is my nephew Jeff! Pretty cool.

John and I bought a NY times in the airport last Sunday, but couldn't find the article... it must have been in the local city section. So I was glad to come home from our trip and find it in my email!

Way to go Jeff! Keep up the good work!

I will write about our anniversary trip tonight... It was amazing!!!

girls camp a huge success!!

What a week! I'm not sure where to start and there is so much that I can't put into words.... you will have to ask me for more details in person.

We took the YCL's up to camp on Monday and had an amazing day with the girls. I had a lot of fears with this group because at our pre-camp activities there were a lot of cliques. But we were able to break them down. We spent the morning getting them organized and getting them trained. Then we had the most amazing activity. Our 3 youth camp directors (YCD's) planned this activity that we sort of helped them plan, but they implemented it all on their own. There is this company called "Challenge Day" and they go around to schools and try to break down racism and cliques in the high schools. Maybe you have seen them on Oprah.... but we did some research on what they did and then we made our own questions and things that applied to our YW. We had no idea how it would work and had no idea it would have been as successful as it was. You start out with them all in a long line and we had a rope on the ground and the YCD's would make a statement and if it applied to them they would cross the line and then go back and wait for the next question. The questions were as general as, have you ever gossiped? have you ever been gossiped about? have you ever felt alone? have you ever been picked on? Have you ever felt like the girls at church were nice to you because they have to? The list went on and on. About 35 questions. Not once did just one girl cross the line. Then the girls sat in a circle and discussed how that made them feel... comments were made about how they didn't realize that they were the only ones that have felt alone...they realized everyone has been hurt, they were not the only ones with problems. Then they asked the girls to share any stories about how they have been hurt by friends etc. It was pretty sad to hear some of their experiences. Then they went into the section call "if you really knew me, then you would know that...." We went around the circle and the girls answered that question. I expected answers like "my favorite color is red, etc." Not at all... the ycd's started with answers that were pretty deep and the girls followed their lead. It was VERY emotional for the girls... lots of tears. We eventually did this activity with all the girls at camp. We did it by level, 2 on on day and 2 on another day. Here are some of the responses we heard: If you really knew me you would know that... I have suffered from an eating disorder...My dad died when I was 4 and it's really hard for my mom to raise us alone.... you would know that every time I hear a lesson in church about eternal families it hurts so much because i am the only member....you would know that in 8th grade i often ate my lunch in the bathroom stall because i had no one to sit with at lunch..... you would know that I suffer from depression.... that I feel alone all the time... that I don't feel welcome at YW's.... that my brother committed suicide last year.... i could go on and on. By Thursday night after hearing 130 girls problems I was a mess. I don't know how Bishops and Stake Presidents do their calling. I couldn't stop hurting for them... I had no idea that they were dealing with so many issues. The next part of the activity was the "apology" section. The YCD's encouraged them to make some apology's. They could do a blanket apology or to someone specific... they could be there or not or they asked them to write a note later that day. Some of these were heart wrenching to. Some girls apologized in general, like: I'm sorry if I ever made any of you feel left out.... I'm sorry if I ever judged you.... then there were some that said things like "i am sorry for giving Mormons a bad name by some of the choices i make....a few girls apologized to each other and mended friendships that had been hurt for years. It was pretty cool. then the ycd's ended it with talking about the atonement and the Savior and how he never wants us to be alone. They talked about forgiveness and how we are Daughters of God. Then they had a big group hug and sang "Love one another". It was so amazing. The girls bonded so much after this! We had no contention at camp and I never saw a girl alone. It was so cool. Almost every girls talked about it at testimony meeting.

On Monday night we had the stake presidency wives come talk to the YCL's. It was wonderful! They are amazing ladies and they have such strong testimonies. The girls asked them a lot of questions, like how they met their husbands and things like that. Then they asked more deep questions like "have you ever found it hard to pray?" The answers were led by the Spirit and were exactly what the girls needed to hear. Thank You ladies!!!!

The rest of the week ran smooth! No major problems. The daily activities included the zip line, climbing wall, crafts, lip syncs, lots of singing, a service project, great food! We had a Fireside Wednesday night that the YCL's did and it was all on the theme that was " There is no place like home, you can't make it alone." It was great. Thursday night was hikes and Bishops night and then Friday night was testimony meeting. We decided to try one big testimony meeting instead of by level and it was great. A few goofy ones, but so many amazingly strong ones. So many girls were able to hear sisters bear testimonies and ward members and bishops were able to hear all of their girls. It was so nice. It was interesting to watch the first years. They didn't know how to control their emotions. They sobbed uncontrollably! I didn't know what to do! They finally settled down... cute girls. It's probably the first time they felt the Spirit that strong and they didn't know how to handle it.

We cleaned camp and were out of there and home by 10:30 and Saturday morning.

Here are a few camp pictures and a few from Angela's wedding.

Our 3 ycd's ready for our lip sync...

My presidency ready for lip sync...

The Westra family: my brothers and sisters and their families:

Ashley was a bridesmaid:

Angela's wedding...

I'm up in Utah at my nieces wedding... My sister Cindy's daughter got married yesterday in the Salt Lake temple. She is the first one to get married on my side of the family. It was beautiful! She was a gorgeous bride. her dress was a true princess dress, so big and fluffy. You should have seen all the little cousins looking at her!! She married a great guy names Shawn Blymiller. He's from West Jordan and has a wonderful family.

i'm headed to bed and we are headed home early tomorrow morning. I will hopefully have time to post more details and some pictures tomorrow when I get home. I forgot my camera cord!!!

It's been nice to not think about camp for a few days and just relax with the family.... that is until today at 6:00 when my camp director called and said there has been a plane wreck on Mt. Charleston and all roads to camp are closed!!! No i am not kidding. I am very stressed.... but trying to stay positive. the internet says they should have the fire contained by tomorrow. we are praying hard!!! I could be in for a crazy week! Wish us luck and pray that we can have camp as planned.

Girls Camp is in a week......

That's all I have time to say... Camp!

Week in review...

A bunch of things happened last week that I never blogged. First of all, Ashley got a new job! She is working at a local little restaurant called Farm Basket. The teenagers love to eat there! fried chicken strips and french fries! nothing healthy on the menu... hopefully she won't eat too much! she and I spent all day Monday down at the health department getting her a health card. I walked away a little nervous about eating out.... to get the card, you pay 50 dollars, they make sure your shots are up to date and then you watch this hour long movie on food safety. They hand you a test on the way in and then at the end of the movie, they hand you a card. They never collected the tests!!! So, basically, you could have slept through the movie and now you are ready to serve food! Scary!

Tuesday night I spent a few hours with Mitchell at the medical center because he fell at soccer and he was sure that his wrist was broken. Luckily it wasn't broken... the doctor called it a "buckle" and gave him a little brace to wear for a few days. Here is my dilemma... it wasn't broken, but the Dr. referred me to an orthopedic Dr.... I don't see the need to go if he is going to tell me to have him be careful?? Should I go or not?

Saturday John, Tanner and I went to Zion National park and hiked the narrows. We hiked for about 4 hours. I'm not sure how many miles we went... It was so pretty!! Ashley had to work and Mitchell didn't really want to go, so we didn't make him. Although I think he would have enjoyed it. Tanner wanted to come and he was a trooper! More than half of the hike was through a little river. It was so fun. You would get a little hot, and then there was a section of water! It was great. Tanner floated down the river on the way back!

Happy Fathers Day...

Happy fathers day to all the wonderful fathers out there! Especially mine! I love my daddy so much! Here are a few things I love most about my dad:

1. He's got a great sense of humor.
2. His unconditional love for me and all of my brothers and sisters.
3. His patience.
4. His love for the outdoors. If my dad woke up on a Saturday morning and the sun was shining (remember I am from Seattle and that is a rarity) he would wake us up early and we would head to the mountains or down to Cannon Beach. I have great memories of those days! Every-time I see a river or stream I think of our drives in the mountains where we would just pull over and go play in the water!
5. His love for my mom!
6. His example of service by serving a full-time mission with my mom right now.
7. Teaching me to enjoy watching a football game. When I was in High School none of my brothers that were home at the time really cared about football. So, I would take advantage of some one on one daddy daughter time and watch the Seahawks games with him every Sunday. I have fond memories of going to Huskies games and Seahawks games with him. I think the love of football that he taught me helped me find a great husband. John and I watched the Superbowl together on our 2nd date... he was impressed with my knowledge of the game...I scored big points with him!
8. His love for my kids and husband.
9. His love for the gospel and our Heavenly Father.
10. He is always happy to see me!

I love you DAD!! Thanks for being the best dad ever!

I can't write about Fathers day and not write about the Father of my children! John is such a great dad. He loves each one of our kids so much. When the kids were babies he would hardly ever let anyone hold them. Especially after Ashley was born. We would be at family gatherings and he wouldn't let go of her! It was pretty funny. It didn't make my grandma very happy.

He loves to play games with the kids. Every Sunday he tries to get the kids to play board games with him. Tanner is getting pretty good at checkers thanks to John.

Thanks for being such a great husband and father!!!! Your father would be proud of you.

Happy Day!!!!!!

I finally got a call from the Apple Store today saying that my laptop was fixed!!! I had been tracking it all week online and it finally arrived today. Luckily they didn't have to replace the hard drive, so all my stuff is still on it! YAH! I was worried that I would have to reinstall programs and stuff. I feel like my life has been on hold for a few weeks! I have needed so many things on this. I mostly missed my address book. I need to back that up on my ipod.

So, this should be a lesson to all of us... back-up your computer today!!

4th year hike...

One of the any benefits of my calling is that I can go on any of the pre-camp activities that I want to. So I chose to go with the 4th years on their hike on Friday. It was AMAZING! Brother Thorley in our ward offered to take the girls up to their property above the Kolob reservoir near Zion National Park. His extended family owns like half of this mountain that overlooks all of Zion and beyond... absolutely beautiful. We drove up to their cabin Friday morning with 14 girls and met the Thorley's there. We made the hike a little harder this year, the girls had to pack in their tents and food! I think my pack was 3 times heavier than last year! I cheated last year and threw my sleeping bag into the truck that drove in the food and tents... So it was a lot harder this year. But well worth it. We all felt very accomplished when we finished. We hiked about 4 miles in and 2-3 out. Brother Thorley planned a hike that took us all around his property... there were huge hills to climb, ponds to skip rocks into, breathtaking views of the earth below! When I left the beautiful, green, mountainous Pacific Northwest to live in the desert, I never thought that I would see such earthly beauty again and it was only 3 1/2 hours away! It made me a little homesick for my hometown. The highlight of the hike was when we were about to hike out Saturday morning, we were out on this ridge and the 4th year leader, Tori Jackson, had the girls sing "How Great Thou Art". It was so cool. We were looking over this amazing earth that we live on, thinking and singing about our loving Heavenly Father... so cool. The spirit was so strong and I think everyone was shedding a few tears. I pulled out my camera and videoed a bit. I have to say that the girls were great! They go along so well and there weren't any bad attitudes or big cliques to break up! So fun to be with them!

School's out for summer!

Tanner had that song blaring on the Guitar Hero yestarday! A nice thing to wake up too...

I am always a bit mixed emotioned with the last day of school...

Top 5 reasons why I am sad that school is out:
1. My house can't stay clean...
2. I hear "I'm bored" all day! (Tanner came in a few minutes ago and said he was tired of swimming...maybe it's just not warm enough yet and the water is still a bit chilly.)
3. I hear that there is nothing to eat all day long...
4. I have to fight for TV and computer time... especially at night when they think they can now stay up late every night!
5. No more lunch dates with my husband...

Top 5 reasons that I am glad school is out...
1. No more backpacks all over the house
2. No more waking up Ashley for seminary! (that's not easy)
3. No more driving carpools.
4. No more making lunches
5. No more fighting kids to do homework and going to bed early.

I decided to let them do what they want until Monday and then the job chart will come out! I am actually excited to do some fun activities with them and go on a few trips with the kids! I really do love my kids and enjoy being with them.. I guess I need to be organized with some fun ideas and projects for them to do... Let me know if you hear of any fun day trip ideas.

Miss him.....

Listen to this story told by President Hinckley. He's so cute!

when one thing breaks...

It started with my laptop.... now Ashley's car is dead. We think the alternator is out. She called us late Saturday night and said that her battery was dead, so her friend jumped it for her. We told her to come straight home, she was way up north. As she was coming home she called to tell us that it died again at a stop light. So her friend Alex called her uncle and he came to help and we decided to drive up there so John could drive the car home. We got it going again and it made it home, never to start again! We had to call a tow truck... Ashley was so sad. Luckily it's finals this week and school only goes till 11:00 or so. Because this lazy mother can't get up early to drive her to school, I let her take my car. So I am home catching up on my blog reading this morning....

laptop update.... i decided to be smart, save money and just get my laptop fixed. So it is somewhere at an Apple hospital getting all better. Hopefully it will be back in my hands soon. A new one just wasn't in the budget right now.... it killed me tadmit that! Family night was on "Wants and Needs" last night! We all needed a reminder.

Check out this cute picture of Scott & Jenn's dog Duce trying out the pool Saturday. He hated it! He wouldn't get in, they finally got him in and the minute they let go, he was out! pretty funny!

Candace's wedding...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Phoenix with most of the Barnes family at our niece's wedding. John's sister Cathi's daughter Candace got married. She married a real nice guy. Cathi did an amazing job with all the decorations! She is super creative!!!! She did almost everything herself! wow! Everything looked great. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best. Who would have thought that the end of May would be rainy, windy and cold! It was a bummer! But still a great night!

We enjoyed seeing so many members of the Barnes family! The kids all got along great and it was fun to visit with the adults. Everyone played a big game of Mafia... (not my favorite game... a little too loud and crazy for me) But everyone else had a great time playing it. The kids look forward to playing it every time we head to Aunt Cathi's, it's become a tradition!

We stopped at the Mesa Temple on our way home and saw the "Reflections of Christ" exhibit. It was beautiful! (click on Refections of Christ to see their website)

Enjoy the slide show of our weekend! (I didn't like the font in the program so I didn't capitalize all the names, you couldn't read them!)

Congrats Mitchell!!!

Props to Mitchell! He won the "Walter D. Johnson Award" tonight!! This award was given out to 2 girls and 2 boys from the 8th grade. They had to be nominated by a teacher, then they had to fill out 3 pages of questions and then give a speach in front of a panel of judges. Mitchell worked hard on his questions and wrote a great speech. John made him practice it outloud a few times against his will... good thing dad's know something! We are so proud of him!! Way to go Mitchell! (if you notice in the picture he has 2 medalions, he won another one for having a 3.5 or higher grade point for all 3 years... yah!!)

sad sad day!!

Those of you who know me well, know that I have some issues with my apple laptop. I've had it for 4 years now and it lives on my lap or the kitchen counter most of the day... well, it died today. It's been acting up for the last few weeks and today it finally gave up. I took it down to the Apple store and they confirmed that it was dead. I am SO sad. I told the guy that it was my baby! The only good thing is that I had a feeling that it was on it's last leg, so I backed it up last week onto a portable hard drive. So, I only lost the pictures that I took this last week. So now I have to decide if I want to spend $300 to get it fixed or buy a new one. I really don't want to pay for either one, so I might have to use the Family PC for a while! YUCK!! What am I going to do! I'm having withdrawls already!!

Surprise!!

We had 2 surprises this weekend! It was so much fun. My brother Scott graduated from UNLV yesterday and his sweet wife through him a big surprise party last night. So that was surprise number one and the second one is that my Sister Cindy and her daughter Angela and son Spencer came for the party and they brought my MOM! It was so good to see them, especially my mom since we have been so worried about her. Cindy convinced her that she could recover from her surgery here just as well as she could at home. She already had a few days off from Temple Square so why not come?? She's actually not suppose to leave the mission, so don't tell anyone!

They came on Friday morning and we spent the afternoon sitting by the pool. It felt so good to relax and enjoy the sun! Scott and Jenn came over for a while and got a little sun and enjoyed visiting with everyone. We barbecued that night and then went down to Luv It's for dessert and met up with Scott and Jenn again. You've got to love "Luv It's"! I am sure the frozen custard is low fat right??? NOT! That's why it's so good. As we were driving home my mom said, "Do we have time to see the Bellagio fountains?" They are her favorite!! Every-time she comes to visit she want to go visit them. Last time she was here she asked if we could leave her there for a few hours! We weren't sure if it was appropriate to take a set apart missionary down to the strip, but we did. We saw 3 shows. It was beautiful as always!

Saturday morning Mitchell had a soccer game. We will say they tied because the ref's messed up on something that should have been a goal. Mitchell had to play goalie for half the game and he did a great job! Yah Mitchell! Mitchell's coach let Spencer play with them, it was fun.

We spent more time by the pool and then headed over for the big party!! Scott was very surprised! It was cute. Jenn had everything decorated in rebel red! She had UNLV t-shirts placed on the tables as decorations and then all the snacks were red and everyone was asked to wear red! She had all kinds of red fruits, red rice crispy treats, cupcakes, strawberry pie, red candy all over and i made chocolate covered strawberries! so much for the diet this weekend! weekends are so hard!!
Ashley found a new friend at the party! This is Tyson and he was full of energy!! so cute.


My mom is doing good. It was so nice to spend the weekend with her. We found out this week that her cancer is in stage one and she will do 6 weeks of radiation and then be on a pill for the next 5 years and that should be it. We are so grateful that she won't need the chemo! She is so blessed and we are so thankful to our Heavenly Father that she is healing well and that she caught it so early.

Happy Birthday Julie & Mark!

I almost forgot to wish Julie and Mark happy birthdays! Mark is one of my older brothers and his birthday was on Monday. He is in the process of moving his family up to Pocatello Idaho. He's a great Brother and I hope he had a great birthday! My older sister Julie turned 42 today. I am good at remembering birthday's but not ages. Not sure how much older Mark is, but I know Julie is only one year older than me! I think keeping track of all 9 birthdays is pretty good, don't think I am stupid that I don't know ages. I would bet that half of my siblings don't know all the kids birthdays, right Julie?? haha family joke... Julie and I were always close friends because we were so close in age! It was great growing up with a best friend at home!

Love my family!! Wish we all lived closer! Love you all!!!

You win some and loose some...

Tanner had a playoff game for football tonight and they lost. So they are out of the tournament. He was pretty sad and so was John. I had to miss the game because I went to Ashley's award banquet for student council. John said the kids played pretty good, but missed some important passes. John had a fun time coaching them. Not sure he will do it again next season... we will see. Tanner thinks he wants to try basketball next. I don't think he has found "his sport" yet. Tanner has tried soccer and now football, so maybe it will be basketball?? Mitchell loves soccer! He did t-ball and coach pitch in Spokane, but it was a little slow for him and he's not the type of guy who wants to be center stage at bat.... he's more of a big group sport guy.

Ashley got the award for "best listener" at the student council dinner tonight. Not sure how she won that when she is talking all the time! Just kidding, she is a great listener. I hear her friends telling her all their problems all the time. Listening is a good skill to have! Way to go Ashley!!

Happy Mothers Day!!

Happy Mothers day to all the wonderful mothers out there! I love Mothers Day! It's 11:00 and I'm still in my pj's (one of the advantages of 2:00 church), I got breakfast in bed and some wonderful presents from John and the kids. (notice Mitchell's haircut! best present!!) I love being a mother!! When I was a little girl, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I always said "a mother". I am so lucky to have such great kids and a wonderful husband!

I've been thinking a lot about my mother in the last few weeks.... she has a new trial in her life that she is handling so well and I am learning so much watching her. We found out about a month ago that she has breast cancer. Yup, that awful disease has hit our family. So depressing. She had surgery 2 weeks ago to take out the lump and that went good. But a few days after the surgery they were studying the tissues that they took out and they think that they didn't get all the cancer out, so tomorrow she has to go back in for more surgery. A big bummer that she has to go back in, but we are so grateful that the doctors are being careful and want to be 100% sure that they have it all. At this point we don't know what kind of treatment she will have to do after she heals from surgery, but it will be some sort of radiation or chemo. 

We feel so blessed that she and dad were called to the Temple Square mission, because if she was in Africa or something, she would have probably waited to have her lump tested when she got home and that could have been too late. She has had many cysts, so she thought that it was just another one. Unfortunately it wasn't. My mom is being so positive about everything, I am so thankful for her positive outlook on life. I am sure she has her down moments and scared times, but she doesn't let us see those. My mom is a very strong lady! I know it wasn't easy for her to raise 9 kids, but she did it so well! 

I thought I would share with you a few things that I have learned from my mom:

1. How to be positive and happy 

2. How support and love my husband. ( I never saw my parents argue... not once. The only thing they fought over (in public) was when my mom put an onion on the Sunday roast. My dad hated onions)

3. How to love unconditionally

4. How to be a good mom... 

5. How to serve others.

6. How to live the Gospel.

7. To understand the Plan of Salvation. When my 2 brothers died, my mom reassured us that Families are Forever!

8. To fulfill a calling, no matter what it is and to support a husband in his calling. (she had 9 kids with a husband sitting on the stand in the bishopric for Many of those years!)

9. How to play games with the kids. I remember playing Boggle and many other board games as a family.

10. How to love the outdoors. We took many trips to the beach and the mountains and i know that wasn't easy... road trips with 3 kids and a tv in the car are hard... she had 9 kids with only a tape player. I do remember listening to the dramatized church history tapes and learning a lot from them.

11. I learned how to cook

12. I learned too love cookie dough : ) Some of my friends mom's wouldn't let us touch the dough, but my mom would let us eat it and would even freeze it for us! YUMMY!! I remember running to the kitchen to be able to lick a beater... only 2 beaters and 9 kids, you had to run fast!

I could go on and on... I love my mom so much and appreciate all that she has taught me! Happy Mothers Day Mom!!

My "rocker" boy! (updated)

Mitchell has played the electric bass in jazz band for the last 3 years. He loves it and he has gotten really good! We are so lucky that we have the best band teacher in the state of Nevada at our Junior high! He truly is amazing. I won't go on about the teacher because i want to talk about Mitchell! Lucky for us, the jazz band has like 6 concerts this spring! I'm not being sarcastic... i really do enjoy going to his concerts. His teacher says that Mitchell is very talented and if he continued on playing through high school he could possibly get a college scholarship... but for some reason Mitch thinks that the band program at the high school stinks, so he doesn't want to play there! So we are trying to convince him otherwise, because a scholarship would sure be nice!!

edited: I figured out how to post the video. I think the file was too big, so I uploaded it to Youtube and linked it to this page! You can hear the bass in this song the best. I was sitting down and couldn't move my camera around very well... I will try to take better video at Wednesday nights concert!  enjoy...

Keep playing Mitchell, you are awesome!!

All I want for Mothers day is for him to get a hair cut!! 

One more YW event done!

When I wrote 2 weeks ago that I was going to cut back my time on the computer I didn't really think I would only read blogs once this week.... I just thought I would maybe only read them every other day instead of  every day. But this week has been crazy and I haven't even looked at them and I miss it so much! Thanks for your comments on that by the way... I do have to remember that blogging is a great family record for us and it's not just wasting time!! I went to bed at night this week wondering how my blog friends were doing and if anything exciting had happened to them. So tomorrow is going to be catch up day! This week was crazy getting ready for our YW recognition night tonight. My counselors and I spent hours making these really cute frames for the girls. I will take a picture tomorrow and post it. They turned out great. Then we covered the little Book of Mormons with the cutest fabric! I loved how they turned out! But it was a bit of a challenge getting them all done! But we did it...

We had a nice simple program tonight. We had each Bishop introduce their girls who had received their medallions this year and then the girls each told about one of their projects or bore their testimonies. They are amazing girls with strong testimonies. It was a great night!

So girls camp is next on the list! Good thing I have a great camp director!