It's All In The Support

 For many years, especially while I served as the Young Women's President for our stake, Dave was my support crew.  I had him doing all kinds of things from hanging that twelve foot tall Ark to drilling holes in 150 wood pieces for Girl's Camp.  He rarely complained, and he has rarely needed my support back.  But Dave was recently called to be on the high council in our stake, and suddenly he needs ME!  I am his companion speaker when he has to speak on the third Sunday of the month, and this week, I was his companion speaker at a youth conference in the mountains.

The theme of the Youth Conference was "Getting rid of noxious weeds in our lives."  And of course, I had to make a handout.  When I showed up with my guitar, because I also taught them a little song :)  and these flowers, the girls were SO excited!!  The boys - not so much.

  

Until I showed them the backs.  "There's SUCKERS" I said in a sing songy voice that Chase taught me.  And then they were all over getting a handout!  Especially when I told them that Dave would get up when I was finished and man things back up again for them. 

The handout was a quote from Abraham Lincoln that said, "I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower wherever I thought a flower would grow."  I like that thought. I think it's a good motto for everyone.  And I just have to say, at times like this, I really wish I had a cricut!!

Back To The Future And Back Again

 This post begins with a story.  The story of how Dave and I met and quickly became engaged and then married.  All within the course of four months.  I know . . . .

 I had just returned to Moab after an exhausting year at BYU and had determined to just work my little heart out all summer because "there was no one left in Moab to date".  All my friends were serving missions and I was sure the summer was going to be LONG and BORING!  My mom said, "Well, Dave Cozzens is working just across the street.  Go over and flirt with him."  My response  . . "Sure Mom, he comes about to my knees."  Because my only memory of Dave Cozzens was that he was short.  And I was incredibly not.  So that ended that, until a few weeks later when Dave walked into the store where I was working.  My first thought was, "wow, he's not that short anymore."  His first thought was, "Wow, she has a GREAT suntan!"  He came back to the store after I was off to ask who I was, then he called and asked me out, and the rest is  . . . well, still going on :)  

But this is the story of how our names ended up on these trees.  Deep breath!  Well . . .when we met Dave was the Scoutmaster of his ward and he had planned a week long camp out at Warner Campground RIGHT during the middle of our engagement.  It was critical time considering we only had only dated for three weeks and only had three months to get to know each other before we were "welded together in holy matrimony".  But he had promised those boys!! So, during his week long camp out with the Boy Scouts, he took the boys on a hike WAY up above Warner Campground, and, without any of those boys seeing him, because Boy Scouts don't carve up trees in the forest!!  he carved our names into this tree with our upcoming wedding date - 8/3/79 - underneath.  So sweet :)  He also wrote me a cute little love note on the back of a flattened out granola box.  It was all he had. 

As each one of our children were added to our family, their names were added to our tree.  See "Jill, Kimbrey, Brennan, Drew", and Kyle's is down below.  I don't know why. 








I'm pretty bummed that there is a stick going right up the middle of me in our cute picture, but when you set the timer on your camera and run to get into the picture, you take what you get.  And for better or worse, we've got each other - we have had for the past 33 years come August 3rd, and we're holding out hope for 33 more. 

Pick Your Favorites!

 Jill and I did a photo shoot for Drew and Kara's engagement pictures this weekend.  These are my favorites.  I'm sure Jill has many, many better ones, but I was getting bumped quite often by a little boy who wanted to hunt for snakes :)

 I really love this one, the one above . . . . probably my favorite. 

 But this one looks so . . .them!

 Love both of these.  We found the prettiest grass!  I love all the pictures of these guys standing in the pretty grass.

What a cute couple :)