Night Hawks

Because Terry is the high councilman over the Young Women, we sort of volunteered to take a shift as "night hawks" during the youth conference at BSU.  They don't call it youth conference, or EFY (especially for youth) any more.  I'm not sure what they call it, and we didn't know exactly what we were sort of volunteering for, but it ended up being pretty fun.

There were six of us that showed-up in front of the dorms at 10:00.  The 800 teens were just returning.  Once in, they couldn't leave without getting locked out.  Lights out was suppose to be at 11:15.  We were suppose to just watch for anyone sneaking around, propped open doors, excessive noise, and intercept any pizza deliveries (not allowed).  We were split up into twos and just walked around the three dorms that housed the kids.  We might have been unobservant, and they might have been very stealth, or maybe the were just good kids that were tired-out, but there were no incidents to report.  

Terry and I just leisurely walked around and talked.  Sometimes we needed to take cover because of light rain, but it was a nice night, and the dorms are right on the greenbelt.  We ended up off duty at midnight. There were two volunteers that stayed until 2:00. We ended up not volunteering for that shift.  We went home and so did the the other two men.  We left two women from the stake YW presidency to wander around in the middle of the night.  I'm sure they had a great time.  

Homeward Bound

I thoroughly enjoyed the drive home from Eugene.  The scenery is beautiful.  We stopped to check out Shalie Falls which are right off the highway in between Eugene and Sisters.  If I we weren't in a hurry and I wasn't still in my skirt, we could have taken our pick of several short hikes.  I hope we have another opportunity.

We took a different route on the way back, through Burns.  It's more of a straight shot and pretty desolate, but we saw hawks, eagles, ground squirrels, and antelope.  It was good to talk to Terry and good not to talk, but just day dream.  There weren't very many cars on the road and we made good time.  Originally we thought we'd drive straight through and get home around 11:00, but opted instead to stay in Burns.

The next day was Terry's birthday.  We planned on getting back by 11:00 AM, which would be 12:00 MST, so Terry could go into work for 1/2 a day, but we didn't make it.  Instead, we went shopping together for his birthday and Father's Day.  I fixed a complete dinner that evening.  That was something to celebrate since we've been living on healthy snacks every three hours.  By the way, he's a very young 64.  That's kind of a scary number, but we'll get use to it.

High Council Sunday #1

Terry gave his first talk as a High Councilman today.  His mom and sister came, and Bry. He was nervous, but he shouldn't have been.  He had written a good talk and speaking should be easy for him.  He can talk without notes.  He knows his church stuff, and he's sensitive to the spirit.  His topic was on using daily spiritual checklists to keep us safe.  Here are a few he mentioned:

1. Prayer - Believe you will get answers.  Watch for them.  They will come.
2. Scripture study - Pray for enlightenment and you will have clear ideas come into your mind.
3. Physical exercise 
4. Healthy eating - You only get one body - take care of it.  After all, it is an amazing gift from our Father.
5. Smile.  Be happy.  Stop criticizing yourself and others.  

I liked this quote he used from Elder Jorg Klebingat of the Seventy:
"Take responsibility for your own spiritual well-being.  Stop blaming others or your circumstances, stop justifying, and stop making excuses for why you may not be fully striving to be obedient.  The Lord knows your circumstances perfectly, but He also knows perfectly well whether you simply choose not to fully live the gospel.  Spiritual confidence increases when you take responsibility for your own spiritual well-being by applying the Atonement of Jesus Christ daily."

He did a great job.  Now he has a couple months off.  He'll speak in the Oregon Trail Ward in May.  He'll have plenty of time to prepare.

Go For a Walk

Terry and I are out of the habit of our early morning walk.  We ride the stationary bike, do yoga videos, and follow exercises with weights from a Fit for Fifty program, but we haven't been getting out at 5:15 for an early morning 2 miles.  I miss it.

This morning we drove down to Bown Crossing and parked.  We walked across the Park Center Bridge and went for a walk along the Greenbelt.  It was glorious.  The weather was perfect and everything was coming to life.  We're just on the edge of spring.  We saw red-winged black birds, hawks, a woodpecker, and a rabbit.  I wish we could have walked on and on, but we had to get something else done on Saturday.  After spring break I'm going to push for our early morning walks again - and every Saturday, I want to be on the Greenbelt.

My walking partner looks a lot better than me in the morning.

So cute!  The click of the camera made him scamper away.

  

Freedom Weekend...not

Terry was in Utah for three days and I thought I'd have a wild weekend where I could do whatever, and eat whatever, and watch whatever, and wear whatever I wanted.  Not really a wild weekend.  I meant to stay up until 11:00, drink a diet soda without guilt, watch David Letterman for the last time, and wear my pajamas all day, but that dream just didn't work out....

The first night was a school night and I had grading to do.  Friday was a crazy, long day. 
My school has an Art Night which is a big production.  Every hall in the school is covered with black paper and student art (I'll post pictures later).  They have high school orchestra students come and play, and have Jr. high students from National Honor Society serving hors d'oeuvres.  I like seeing all the amazing art projects, but they're better viewed an hour before the event.  The halls are too crowded to even move in.  This year our principal wanted as many teachers as were able to come and support the PTO.  I left school at 4:00 to meet my visiting teacher partner for some visits, and then got back in time to get a parking place, and stayed until 8:00. 

I was exhausted when I got home.  It was too cold for a diet soda, and I couldn't stay awake. I did sleep in and had a relaxing morning, but Terry was anxious to be home, so he left SLC at 6:00 PM in a snow storm, and cut my freedom weekend short. It was nice going to church with him the next morning, but I'm still longing for a wild weekend of alone time.  

End of Meltdown Challenge

We finished our online Meltdown Challenge and both of us were winners - just barely.  I had to wait until the last possible day to weigh out.  I was down 6% plus about a pound, but the Oscar party had set me back about 4 days. (One night off and four days to rebound, but it was worth it.)  I'm glad I'm back on track.  I'm sticking to the 5 small meals and one lean and green.  I'm really not hungry, which makes it easy and I'm losing!

Terry almost didn't make it because he was trying to maintain, but ended up losing 5.9 pounds, and they allow you to go up 1 pound or down six.  He's excited to be fitting in pants that he hasn't worn for a few years.  He's also excited to be coaching.  He's planning on going down to Salt Lake to attend a conference or some training with his cousin.  He's excited, and so am I.  I always love a couple days alone, and I'm behind on reading and Downton Abbey.  

High Councilman

Terry was called to be a High Councilman in our stake today.  He's never done that before and I think he'll love it.  The timing is just right.  He's been feeling like he'd like to do something new.  

He's also been doing a new kind of scripture study for the past few years. It's like the P90X of scripture study.  It's become something that he loves to do, and he's had the time to do it a lot.  He merges reading the scriptures with his Gospel Library notes, with everything tagged, labeled, and highlighted.  The speaking part will be easy for him, and I know he'll love preparing.

It's good timing for me too, since I don't have a calling where I need to be there on Sundays. (I do compassionate service/humanitarian service for the Relief Society.)  I'll be able to go with him and listen to his talks.  I'll make sure he keeps them interesting. 

Our 17th Valentine's Day

We were suppose to go out on Friday night with a couple that Terry home teaches, but plans got moved to Saturday.  Then, since it would be crowded at every dinner location on Valentine's Day, the guys decided to have dinner at home.  Then, they handed the phone off to the wives to work out a plan!  Something went askew there.  I ended up making dinner and the other wife cleaned her house and made dessert.  After dinner we played cards, checked out some military bases on Google Earth, and came home at 10:00.  It wasn't what you'd call romantic, but we actually did have a great meal and a great time.

MLK Weekend

It was our anniversary last Thursday, #15.  I always recommend getting married on a little holiday weekend - nothing big like Thanksgiving or even the Fourth of July, but something like Veterans Day or MLK Day.  You have your own little holiday, without big crowds at restaurants, or parties going on.  We put off our celebration until our weekend..

First, I had to plow through my report cards.  No matter how hard I try, I can never get it done early.  After putting in long days all week, I still had all my comments left for the weekend.  It was Early Release on Friday and I spent five hours chained to my computer, stress eating anything I could find, mostly popcorn and safety patrol candy.  By the time I got home, I didn't feel like going to dinner.

Saturday morning we got a text inviting us to see Hadley's little dance/gymnastic recital.  Our loud and crazy girl was suddenly shy.  She was really good at standing on her blue tape and sucking her fingers.  Then she changed out of ballet shoes and into tap shoes to stand on her taped spot again.  We did see one turn around before moving to gymnastics.  Still shy in the gym, but she did hang on the bars, walked on the balance beam, and collected her certificate.

After all the excitement we decided to celebrate with some KFC.

 

 

   I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and writing comments on report cards.  The KFC ruined our appetites for dinner that night.

One of my favorite people spoke in church.  It was a nice afternoon.  On Monday I went to brunch with a couple teacher friends.  It lasted four hours.  I finished my comments by 5:00. 

Even with the extra day on our little holiday, we still didn't get to celebrate our anniversary.

His Project

For years we've checked out the booth at the home show.  We've talked about it.  We wanted one, and all of a sudden, my husband that is handy, but really doesn't own much in the way of tools, decided to build a wall bed.  He checked out plans on the internet, ordered the hardware, had Home Depot cut the boards, and it's done!  It only took a couple weeks.  Most of that was prep work and final painting.  It's really pretty cool.  Now we have an exercise room / guest room.  It easily pulls down to a comfy queen size bed.  It will be ready for Ty's visit in a couple days.  Maybe now he'll stay here when he comes to visit instead of crashing at friends' houses.

I think I'll hang a bulletin board on this with some motivational pictures and an exercise schedule.  The room is really bigger than it looks.

Late Lunch

After our hike we went to a little place that we found last year for lunch, the Blue Moon Bakery.  The bakery treats are amazing, but we decided to save those for another day.  Last year we had great pizza.  This year we both had sandwiches on their 7 grain bread.  Terry had a BLT and I had the Healthy Nut.  I wish I would have taken a picture.  They were too big to attack just biting into them.  I didn't know how to begin.  I saved half of my sandwich for tomorrow.  Another big meal in Big Sky.  It's also the second time in a row that I've ordered something healthier than Terry.  That never happens!

 Of course afterwards we went next door to a video store that also sells soft serve ice cream.  The ice cream was Wilcoxsons, which is a 100 year old ice cream company in Livingston, Montana.  Terry thought it was good, but not as good as the BYU Creamery.  We both had something like a blizzard.  Terry used peanuts and strawberry sauce.  Mine was swirled with caramel and Heath bars.  I think if he had tasted mine, it might have been better than a BYU one.  I just gobbled mine up without offering to share.

Hike

Just down in the Meadow we found a trail head leading to Ousel Falls.  It was only .8 miles, but we knew that hiking down would mean hiking back up.  It ended up being more than .8 miles - just more fun and beauty to enjoy.  There were grizzly warnings posted and moose territory signs.  When I move here I'll have to carry around bear spray.  My hundreds of visits to Yellowstone instilled in me a love of bears, but they are SCARY - especially grizzlies.

This area is a community treasure.  Everything is very well maintained.  The switchbacks lead down to the west fork of the south fork of the Gallatin River.  When we arrived at the mini-falls above, we thought we had been hiking for at least .8 miles.  It was pretty, but I'm glad we kept going to the real falls.

 These are the real Ousel Falls.  There were paths to the top and the bottom.  The funny kid about to dive in is standing at the same place Terry was at the top.  It was so cool in the mist.  Every thing you looked out was beautiful.  We wished we had brought our lunch.  There was a little picnic table in an alcove at the base of the falls.  Great hike!  And it was easy hiking back up too. 

We're Off!

Took this picture for Hadley,  her motel in West Yellowstone.

Our long awaited return trip to Big Sky, Montana is finally here.  It's an 8 hour drive from Boise, and it's only exciting from Ashton on (about 2 1/2 hours), but with just the two of us, it's relaxing and can be interesting.  For some reason on this trip we didn't have a lot to say, so it was quiet and relaxing.  I worked on crocheting a baby blanket.

The last leg of the trip, as we follow the Gallatin River, is beautiful and everything around Big Sky is breathtaking - mountain peaks, rivers, meadows, and forests.  It did not disappoint.

We hadn't stopped for lunch, so right after we checked in we went to eat at the closest place, a pub in the mall right at the base of the ski lifts.  Terry was not very excited about the place.  He was expecting a noisy, crowded bar with basic burgers and nachos.  It was not at all crowded, or loud, and the food was fabulous!  Terry never orders burgers, but he did this time because it had an avocado on it.  It was gigantic with a big pile of fries.  I don't usually eat fries, but I ate a lot of his.  They were skinny crisp ones without any grease.  I had a fajita salad which was also gigantic.  I saved half of my meal and we're going to share it tomorrow for lunch.  We saw someone order nachos and they really would feed a family of four.  I think we're in for big meals in Big Sky.  Terry was wondering if this place (a bar) served breakfast.  I would never have thought that a pub like Whiskey Jacks would end up being one of his favorites.

This is right outside of Whiskey Jacks.  We might bring our Kindles and use that hammock tomorrow.  I could sit on one of the chairs and crochet.  Yeah, we really know how to vacation.  Everyone around us will be zip lining, mountain biking, horseback riding, fly fishing, golfing and rafting.  We'll be hanging out (literally) in a hammock.

It's Always Something

I cleared this week so we can help Bry and Amee, but they didn't get the key to their house until after work today (Monday).  Did we get to kick back?  Of course not.  The toilet in the downstairs bathroom sprung a leak yesterday.  It became Terry's project.  He checked the internet, made two trips to Home Depot, and fixed it!  I'm so proud of him.

The hole.  The moved toilet. Terry muscling it back in place.

I've decided that it's a great blessing for Terry to live down the hill from Home Depot (and for me to live down the hill from JoAnns).

Fathers Day 2012

      It was Terry's big day, again.  We had all the kids and grandkids over for dinner and pie.  We had Hawaiian haystacks, so it was easy to fix and there was something chopped to please everyone.  The pies were blueberry and lemon cream.  They were all together just last night, but there was still plenty of visiting.  Dinner was early, everyone left early, and we had a quiet evening.  The only part of the day that wasn't so good, was the third game of the NBA finals.  Terry's team won, but it was too intense and stressful.  It was a quiet evening though.

     This was Bry's first Fathers Day.  It's pretty fun watching him be Isaac's dad.  He has almost a month of experience under his belt.

     I didn't get a picture of Mike, the other dad present, but here's his family.  You can't see Maycee very well in the car seat, but she's just as cute as the other two.

Lakewood Garage Sale

I've been looking forward to the second big garage sale of the season.  I planned an early start, but woke up to pouring rain.  We ventured across the street at 9:00.  It was cold and raining all morning.  It was still fun, but we didn't want to buy any lemonade.  Terry bought a laser printer with a new ink cartridge included for 10 dollars.  It's better than the one we're using, and half the size.  It will work better in my new loft/office plans.  My best deal was a hanging plate shelf unit.  They wanted $10, but took $5.  I'm going to paint it and hang it on the patio with plants, and pictures, and stuff.

Naked Yard

Our neighbor's houses with big trees

Our naked yard

We had to take our great big tree out of the front yard.  Then we had to take a lot of grass out of our front yard so that we could grind up all the roots.  Now we have people stopping in the street to ask us what we're doing.  I have a vision for our naked yard, but I need Terry to get on board.  He keeps saying he needs a picture or a plan.  I just have to jump in.  So I started, and dragged Terry, his muscle, and his wallet into this project with me.

So far I've cleared a LOT of weeds from the sides of the house.  I made a path that leads to a back window box of herbs.  I tried a couple things from Pinterest - vinegar to kill weeds, and wet newspapers instead of black lining buried under the path.  It's covered with mulch from our tree that's now gone, and lined with rocks that I dug up.  We've made a couple trips to Lowes for rock and stepping stones.  I've planted as much as I can in phase one.  Terry's now taken measurements and is ready to get lumber for the fence and garden box.  I'm hoping we can accomplish phase two next week.  When the weather warms up, I want to be out on the patio with Nedee.  I'll read and crochet.  Nedee will watch from the shed roof.

Side yard path with new hosta plant

Indexing Kick-Off

Our ward is going to try to index 10,000 names in the month of July.  Terry is in charge.  That meant he had to figure out how to do indexing, get information from the stake family history consultant, hold meetings, and run the computer and projector today at the fifth Sunday combined meeting.  I think we're going to smash the 10,000 mark, but it might be harder than I think to find the time.  Brent did over 500 names this month and Terry did over 250.  I keep saying I'm going to help, but haven't taken a half hour to learn and get started.  I might need the whole month of February to geared up, but I'm sure the three of us will be good for at least 1,000 of those names.  Hopefully we can find 40-50 ward members that want to help.  The youth are going to be involved.  They chose the month, because the last week is Spring Break.  They're use to cramming at the very end.  I might join with them.

Happy Anniversary

Terry and I have been married 14 years.  We're still in love and very happy, but the celebration has to wait.  Terry has visits that he had to do tonight, and I wanted to go to book club, so we celebrated separately.  Maybe this weekend we'll go out to eat.  Maybe it will be two weeks, but we will celebrate, and we are happy.