So Many Days Are Bitter Sweet.

Today I attended Sacrament meeting in another ward.  It was their ward conference and I am in the stake YW presidency, so there I was.  The bishop of this particular ward was a friend I grew up with, so when, in his talk he said as he was growing up he had two heroes in his life, his father and his Bishop, I knew the bishop he was talking about was my Dad.  Because Dad was our Bishop when we were growing up.  My Dad was a great bishop.  He was a people loving, caring, there for you kind of bishop.  It was thirty years ago that Dad was bishop the first time, and people still remember him, talk about him, and ask me how he's doing.  And all my life I've wanted to be just like him.  I hope I'm coming somewhat close.

Oh, the wonderful things of our childhood that make a tough life easier!  This weekend we spent time hiking in old childhood places. 

 We call this place "The Giant Stairs"  It was a rite of passage when I was a kid.  We could hike as far as "The Little Hill" until we turned six, then we could go to "The Big Hill", and when we were eight, we could hike all the way to "The Giant Stairs"

 

The Giant Stairs are just above the old Senior Center.  But yesterday we hiked from our house, up to the Brown Rocks, and then over.  It was a little bit of a hike, so the boys were glad to see them when we got there.  

 

And when we got there, Daniel said, "We could have driven here!"  I said, "And miss the experience of hiking here?  Don't ruin everyone's fun :)  He said, "I was just saying what everyone else was thinking."  We're all about the experience. 

 You know how things are SO BIG when you're little, but when you get big, those big things aren't so big anymore?  Jill said just what I had thought before when seeing these GIANT stairs after not having been here for awhile.  "Funny how these used to be a lot bigger than they are now." 

 Brody didn't think he would fit inside this little cave in the rock, but I talked him into trying.  It was a perfect fit!  If you didn't mind spending your life bent over at the waist :)

And these two boys are at that the "I need to jump off things, the bigger and higher the better"  age.  Here they are jumping off the Brown Rocks. 
The Brown Rock are a rite of passage for my kids.  They love the Brown Rocks.  These three boys and Daniel camped out at the Brown Rocks on Friday night.  Ah, the memories  they are making . . . someday it will be these little things that will see them through the tough times ahead. 

Cozzens Camp Continued . . . .

Luckily we did get everyone  settled down for the night and we all had a good, first night's sleep.  Even Brody, who was sure he heard a Tiger outside and wanted to go home.  By the next morning and the light of the sun all was well and we were ready for a great camp to begin.  

We had our flag ceremony, and then an orientation, which included instructions on the "Sure Grandma" chart, which worked like a charm . . .sometimes :)  And then we painted rocks, which we made into magnets.  Hopefully you have all found those wrapped up in paper towels in your kids suitcases.  We learned to play T-ball, and we took our fishing poles and the four wheeler to the creek to fish. 

This picture wasn't taken at the creek, it was taken at Miller's Flat the next day.  We tried and tried, at the creek, at Miller's Flat, and at Potter's Pond, but not one fish did we catch.  Much to Jill's delight.  She wasn't at all excited to try and take fish off hooks for anyone!

And we practiced our skit.  No camp is complete without skits, and we came up with a good one :)  It involved a trained caterpillar that, as it turned out, was NOT potty trained.  Jill and Capri were our audience.  And our volunteer from the audience.  Jill got a little peed on :)  I videoed it.  Ask me, and I'll show it to you.   
There was no theme for this day.  We were just getting our feet on the ground, doing some fishing, and learning to play T-ball - because I love baseball, and T-ball is where baseball starts.  And we had a whole camp full of pretty good athletes!  In a nutshell, Monday was good, good day.    

Cozzens Camp - From the Middle, To the End, and Back Again

 

Once upon a time a Gramma and her lovely daughter spent a week at this beautiful place pictured above.  It was really a nice vacation in the mountains, but they called it Cozzens Camp.  And they loved every minute of it!  Oh, yes they did, even the tense, "nothing is fair and I want things MY WAY" minutes.  Even the "six kids from 6 to 3 bouncing off the walls because it's raining outside and we're stuck in the cabin" minutes.  It was wonderful.   

 Jill was our official photographer, but she came home to life changing news and has had a full plate since Cozzens Camp, so we're going to give her some time to edit and post her pictures, meanwhile, here are a few I snapped in between frantically transitioning from one activity to the next.  This was Brody's day to carry and post the flag.  Every morning we had a flag ceremony that included saying the pledge, singing a song and saying a prayer.  We sang I Am A Child of God one morning because God gave us this free country, and we sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star twice, because there are stars on our flag :)  And one morning we sang The Star Spangled Banner.

And to my complete delight and unleashing of Gramma emotions, Porter already knew every word of the Star Spangled Banner.  With actions!  And he sang it for us while I cried and cried and then tried to ask him if he would sing it again so I could record him. I say tried to ask because I could barely talk.   I didn't want Grandpa to miss that moment!  It was precious. 

As so many moments of that week were.  At the beginning, Sunday evening after everyone had dropped their kids off and left and we were left with six kids bouncing off the walls, so excited to be there among cousins and without parents.  Jill and I were trying to get them settled down and ready for bed and they were having NONE of it.  And that is when Jill looked at me and said,  "I think this was a bad idea."  And for one of those moments we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.

Just Playin' Around With PicMonkey

 I'm supposed to be outside screening gravel, but it's 106 outside and there's no one around to see that I'm inside playing with pictures.  So, I just discovered a new photo editing website that makes kinda cool changes to your photos with the click of a button.  In just a few minutes of playing around today I edited the above photo . . .

Into this.  I boosted the color a bit, added a dark edge, and added a sun flare to the top of the falls.  Does everyone know about this site but me?  It's called picmonkey, and most of the features are free, but there are some additional features you have to pay for.  But . . .you can get a free 6 month trial by entering the promo code ISTE2013.  You can also make photo collages and stuff.  Give it a try.  I think it's kinda fun : )

BRAVE

So, here is another song, which seems to be a trend lately, but it's how I've been rollin'.  This song got it's start when Jill called me one day and said, "Mom, go to youtube and type in Brave by Sara Bareilles.  You'll love it1"  So, I did . . . and I did!  Love it, that is.  My first thought when I heard the song was, "We have to fit this into Girls Camp somehow."  See, our theme for Girls Camp this is was B.O.O.T. Camp - an acronym for Building On Our Testimonies.  And it was military based, with an emphasis on putting on the whole armor of God and our war against Satan.  So a song that said "I wanna see you be brave"  over and over again was such a perfect fit.  

So, I rewrote the words and our stake young women's presidency sang it as part of our silly skit.  It was a BIG hit!  We had posters with the chorus on them and after we sang, "Show me how big you brave it"  we had all the Young Women sing the chorus with us.  We ended to resounding cheers, which I think meant they had forgotten our stupid skit by the time the song was done.

Go to the link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQsqBqxoR4  and sing along using these words if you can.  (You have to be a little creative in a few places where they don't fit the original exactly)

You can be amazing

You can have faith in our Savior and His love

You can be the candle

You can take a stand, He'll send blessing from above

So you can start speaking out

Give the world a good cue – the gospel is true

Then say it once again

Kept on the inside with no sunlight

Will help nobody win

I wonder what would happen if you

Stand each and every day

And leave the world no doubt

Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

And know just what to say

Show what we're all about

Honestly, I want to see you be brave

We are but a few but that is nothing new we're

Ready now to commit

We are gearing up for Satan and his big war

And we will never quit

Don't run, we know who has won

We are shod in the armor of God and we're strong

We will stand with the righteous where we belong

Show me how big your brave is

Stand each and every day

And leave the world no doubt

Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

And know just what to say

Show what we're all about

Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

Enlisted in this royal army

With expectations more

For great things are in store

Marching forward valiantly with courage

Hey world, we're telling the truth

So stand each and every day

And leave the world no doubt

Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

And know just what to say

Show what we're all about

Honestly, I wanna see you be brave

We sang it accompanied by my fine guitar playing, so I also have a version with guitar chords if someone out there wants it.  

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Yeah, THIS is what I am teaching in Seminary tomorrow. And THIS is the picture from the seminary manual that I'm supposed to show teenagers.  I'm sorry, but this just scares me. 

Revelations 6 is the chapter I'm supposed to teach, and I'm supposed to focus on the first six of the seven seals from the sealed book.  MORE than a little confusing and hard to understand, this Book of Revelation stuff is.  So, I wrote a little song to help break it down.  It's to the tune of The Beverly Hillbilly's, which isn't irreverent.  At all.     

John saw a vision of a book with seven seals

When the seals were open symbols inside he reveals

What those symbols represent are pertinent to know

So come along and into Revelation we go

The first seal that was opened, John saw a horse of white

The rider had a bow and he was ready for a fight

On his head he wore a crown, a conquering he would go

Enoch was victorious over evil we know

Inside the second seal was horse of deepest red

There also was a sword that meant destruction and bloodshed

This describes Noah's day when evil filled the earth

The Lord sent a flood and gave this world a rebirth

A horse of blackest black was seen inside the third seal

A rider rode with balances, a penny for a meal

Was more than people could afford, starvation filled the land

The age of Abraham and famine now was at hand

The wars and torments, treacheries inside seal number four

Were represented by a pale horse, death was at the door

Hell followed after him, and war overran

Nations fought, kingdoms fell again and again

In five John saw an alter representing sacrifice

Martyrs killed for their beliefs, many lost their lives

Persecuting Christians was the sport of the day

The priesthood lost, the church was gone 'twas bad all the way

Seal number six showed catastrophic events

The earth did quake, the heaven showed great things of consequence

The great day of His wrath had come, who was left to stand?

The righteous living in our day on this promised land

The book was sealed up seven times and six have been unsealed

One more seal has yet to show events that were revealed

When Christ will come again and peace will reign upon the land

Righteousness will conquer and will have the last stand.

The Journey of A Thousand Miles . . .

 Brennan graduated from Utah State on Saturday.  Summa Cum Laude.  Bren is my fourth child to graduate from college.  And this Mom is proud of every last one of those college graduates.

 But for some reason, maybe because he doesn't have a wife to share these things with, and he's pretty quiet around his friends, I was lucky enough to share many blood, sweat and tears moments of Bren's college days.  Days when he thought he had failed a test, and then found out the next day he had the highest score and would set the curve, sleepless nights when he was up trying to finish a paper or project or just studying for an exam.  Moments when he needed the encouragement that he really COULD ask a professor to write him a letter of recommendation.  And many, many papers I proofread for him.  Papers I could not make heads nor tails of, but could at least decide if he was using proper English and punctuating correctly.  In those ways and many others, I got to play a small part in Brennan's college life  So it was a fulfilling experience to see it all work out in the end.

 Here Brennan is getting some last words of advice from one of his professors.  I know, looks like a punk kid off the streets, but he is a professor of some engineering classes.  And Brennan TA's for him.

Mr Unsocial here had a hard time focusing on getting pictures take.  He was too busy saying hi to all his graduate friends.

                                                        And being the class clown . . . .

                                                           So we threw Emma into the mix. 

 Then we went to the lab and tried to watch his senior project in action.  It didn't work, apparently because Brennan hooked something up wrong and blew another something up.  "If we only had ONE MORE WEEK, we could have worked the bugs out,"  he said.

                                                           These two are such a pair! 

                      Receiving his diploma in action - as it happened.  Live from the College of Engineering.

This picture has a story.  It is a long story, but one that makes me smile in retrospect.  This is the procession leading to the main graduation that happened Saturday morning.  Brennan didn't really want to participate in this graduation, but I wanted to see him walk so I could take pictures of him in the processional, so I played the "Mom Card"  and made him go.  We were waiting along the processional path - a glorified name for the sidewalk where the graduates walked, for 15 or 20 minutes in the wind and freezing cold before they finally showed up.  I was talking to a lady standing next to me about her daughter who was graduating in Education.  I offered to step back and get out of her way when her daughter's group came by so she could take pictures, and that started a conversation that lasted until we saw the caps and gowns streaming down the path.  The graduates were walking by college, each group wearing a different colored tassel,  and Bren's, as you can see, was orange, so when we started seeing orange tassels I got ready.  I told Emma, who was waiting with me, to let me know when she saw him.  Almost immediately Emma said, "There he is!"  I looked over the crowd of graduates practically RUNNING past me!  ( I think they should make them slow down for the sake of us picture taking Moms!)  I couldn't see him.  "Where?"  I asked Emma.  "He's right there!"  She pointed right in front of us.  "Where?"  I was frantically scanning the crowd, but I just couldn't see him.  Then, the lady I had JUST met 15 minutes before, and who had NEVER met Brennan, said, "HE'S RIGHT THERE!!"  She didn't even KNOW him and SHE could see him.  I still couldn't.  So I just started taking pictures of the crowds of graduates hoping he was in there somewhere.  Suddenly I heard a voice.  In the midst of the confusion and the noise of hundreds of people, I heard a very familiar voice cry, "MOM!"  and I turned, and there he was.  My Brennan with his cute little smile.  And I had time to snap one single picture.  Luckily, it worked. 

I told this story in testimony meeting today and talked about how sometimes, because of the glitter and confusion of the world we can't see what is right in front of us, sometimes even if we are looking for it.  But if we have spent time reading the scriptures, listening to the prophets and apostles and feeling the spirit in our lives, we will recognize that familiar voice when it calls out to us.  And we will turn towards it and find what we are looking for.  I thought that was a pretty good analogy.

But then a man who was visiting our ward from Levan, got up and told how impressed he was with my story and how it made him think about the importance of mothers in the world.  How, when he came home from school, he would walk in the door and yell, "mom!" and she would answer, "What!"  and he would say, "oh, nothing", he just wanted to know she was there.  He talked about how,  when Brennan called out, "Mom!"  I was probably the only mother out of hundreds of mothers there to hear and recognize his voice and turn.  It was probably a sound that was lost to everyone else, but I heard it, recognized it, and turned towards it. It was evidence to him how important mothers are.  And there I sat, on the stand, tears streaming down my face, without a Kleenex.  A very touching testimony.

Amid the good and bad, heart ache and incredible joy, I SO love being a Mom!  "Behold, my heart is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy"

Happy Graduation Brennan : )