Chaos...

My house looked like a tornado zone for about 5 days. It drove me up the wall! Becca decided it was time to re-decorate her room (I have encouraged her to do this for about 3 years). She emptied everything out so we could paint - so every room in the house had boxes and stuff where ever there was an empty spot to put it.

The painting project was not too bad. She chose a beautiful pale blue. It looks sensational, and really lightens up her room.

We used the old "Scooby Doo" sheets for a drop cloth.

On Friday of last week, Becca and I went to IKEA and got her new furniture. They delivered it on Monday, totally adding more stuff to the utter chaos in my house. Monday night Rod and I assembled the bed, and a special storage unit that goes behind the headboard. I don't know if you have ever assembled IKEA furniture, but it is quite an experience. I think there was like a 10-pound bag of screws, bolts, wooden pegs, whirligigs, plastic doo-dads, brackets, and other hardware. It takes a little time just to sort it all out. But if you follow the directions, look at the pictures, and do it just like the instructions indicate, you do get a nice-looking finished product. I did put a couple of different pieces on upside-down, and backwards, making it necessary to backtrack some of the assembly process, but all in all we did pretty good with it. We worked on that until well after 10:00 PM. Needless to say, it was exhausting. I am working four 10-hour days during the summer weeks, so I had already put in a long day. I do enjoy the Friday off, though!

Tuesday night, we got the dresser assembled. That also took several hours. Rod and I made and assembly-line type production out of building the drawers and it worked very nicely. As you can see, Becca supervised. Part of the finished dresser...

It all turned out very nicely. I am not allowed to post pictures of the finished room until she does, so I have only shown the production phase of this project. I am glad it is done and that most of her stuff is now back into her room. She worked hard at packing and unpacking, planning it all out, and she even helped paint. Good job, Becca!

Creativity

My sweet mother would always heave a sigh and say "I'm just not creative." Yet we wore meticulously and beautifully hand sewn clothing, we enjoyed home canned juices and jams and fruits, pickled beets, sweet pickles, mustard pickles, dill pickles, chili sauce - all done by mom in her kitchen; we had embroidered pillowcases with crocheted borders (mom never sat down without some kind of hand work going on); every closet, drawer, and cupboard in our home was in perfect order - a place for everything and everything in its place; she had a cleaner home than I have ever experience since I left there; well-balanced meals; well-balanced checkbook; security, comfort, and joy. All because of Mom. She created a heaven for us in our home. She couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but I would rather have a bucket of her mustard pickles any day! She couldn't play a musical instrument, but she could garden, and she was the best helpmeet to my father.

This incredible video contains one of my favorite orations. It is eloquent, sincere, and full of truth. It strikes a deep chord in my heart. We are each divine in our nature, and full of godly qualities. I love this. May it give you a pat on the back for who you are and for the unique qualities you own. Remember, there is no one like you! You are incredible! And I hope my Mom now knows that she is, indeed, creative! I know that she is certainly creating joy on the other side, where she is anxiously engaged in a good work - just as she always was when she was on the earth.

A Thought...

Life is a coin; you can spend it any way you wish, but you can only spend it once.

Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!

We went on a hike at South Mountain last Saturday - a new place for us. It was a gorgeous morning - perfect weather. We enjoyed cactus blooms, fresh air, blue skies and the scent of the desert. We also saw a Gila Monster! He was not as happy to see us as we were to see him. There were about 7 in our group and he felt a little out numbered. He hissed at us and tried to act tough. We gave him his space as they are quite venomous. It sure was neat to see this. Not everyone has seen a Gila Monster out in the wild! I loved it!

First "Pay it Forward" project done!

Yestderday I made the above pioneer bonnet. It is for Miriam. I will present her "Pay it Forward" gift to her today. She is going on the Pioneer Trek on June 12, so I think it will come in handy for her. One down - Four to go! If you don't know what "Pay it Forward" is, see my March 25th post.

Girl Stuff...

The other night I was talking nail polish with a girl friend. I told her that because I have used very cheap polish in the past, I had to let my toe nails heal because they were soft and flaky. She asked about pricing of nail polish. She asked me how long a bottle of polish lasted. After doing the math, (she is a bookkeeper) she pointed out that per use, it was not that expensive to get good polish that would not ruin my toe nails. About a week later, she gave me a present. Guess what it was? Right! Some really nice polish. It was so fun to have her think of me in this way. That night, I did a pedicure.

This is a GREAT color for me. Thanks, Cyndee!

You know I love you, girlfriend!

How does your garden grow?

So we decided to try our hand at planting a few things in AZ. This is what some of our poor string beans look like. Booooo! I have always had the "black thumb of death" when it comes to growing anything! This is what some other string beans look like. Yay!

Our cherry tomatoes are doing quite well...

And we are actually enjoying the fruits of the harvest. YUM!

Tonight we had the annual Community Bar-B-Que at Cordova. The staff memers volunteer their time to set up tables, flip hamburgers, supervise carnival games, clean up, and serve community members. Mr. Phillips and Mr. Goertzen manned the grill. The hamburgers were GREAT! Tina and Georgia sold tickets. (I also sold tickets.) For $1.00 per person, you can get a burger, chips, drink, and cookie. What a great deal! Many of the teachers enjoyed socializing with their students outside the classroom setting. Ms. Erivez teaches math. She is amazing.

Community members flocked to the multi-purpose room to enjoy all of the carnival activities.

National Junior Honor Society students ran many of the booths, with their advisor, Ms. Peterson. The kids loved this one where they got to throw a bean bag into the Cobra's mouth. The Cobra is our school mascott.

More NJHS students entertaining the crowd with the every favorite activity "Can you keep your eye on the ball?

Ms. Knight, Ms. Rodriguez, and Ms. Nightingale made sure there was pleanty of lemonade and ice water for everyone.

Other staff members were in the kitchen on the serving line making sure everyone received their food. They all worked so hard!

Mr. Gunn hates having his picture taken. (So does everyone!) He worked so hard tonight! He was excited about this BBQ and enjoys socializing with the parents and community members in the neighborhood. He is an amazing administrator. I am so thankful to have found my job at Cordova. It has been a great year!

Ma & Pa Training

Last weekend, Rod and I had our Ma & Pa Trek Training. We carpooled to Estrella Park where we camped out for the night and had some intensive training as to what our role will be on the Pioneer Trek in June. We are one of 11 couples that will serve as the Ma and Pa to about a dozen of the youth in each Trek Family. We were asked to dress in our pioneer clothing and come prepared to participate as the children in a trek family, led by our trainers who served as our Ma and Pa.

Julie and John McLean.

The Sharps, the McLeans, and the Beesons - all incredible couples from our ward that will be guiding their trek families.

Rod and I are making sure we have our buckets and sleeping gear. We enjoyed some getting acquainted activities during the evening as we learned certain skills about leading discussions with our Trek families. There are some amazing leaders that have organized this Pioneer Trek. I cannot believe all of the planning, praying, sweat and tears that have gone into this activity.

We slept under these tarps. The wind blew ALL NIGHT and it was a pretty sleepless night for most of us. It was very noisy as the wind whipped the heavy blue tarps around. There were also giant spiders that wanted sleep with us. My poor tent mates said I did sleep for a couple of hours (they could hear me snoring). Sorry, ladies!

Our camp cooks made some dutch oven breakfast burritos. They were wonderful! We had beef stew and biscuits the night before with several wonderful choices of cobbler. I do love dutch oven cooking!

Enjoying our breakfast before the work of the day started.

We had to put our hand cart together. The first thing to do was stand the cart on its end so the axel and wheels could be assembled. Our Trek Families will have to assemble their own carts, load their belongings in the way they think is best and then secure the load before they hit the trail.

They gave Tammie and Me some blue rubber gloves and told us we were the axel greasers. We greased up the axels before the wheels were put on. It was nice, black grease!

Wanna shake hands?

Our little light weight Suzy-Q stood in the cart to keep it from tipping back while the wheels were being installed.

All loaded up and ready for the journey. Make it nice and secure, John. It's still a little windy today.

Tammie thinks she can pull the cart all by herself!

And we are on the road!

We all took turns pulling or pushing in different spots. This gave us a chance to talk to new people and learn about our fellow travelers.

It wasn't too difficult on the paved road. We had a long rope tied to the cart. It helped to move it along as we each pulled on our handle on the rope. I know the pioneers did not enjoy the luxury of pavement!

This will be our second trek. We went to Martin's cove in Wyoming about 5 years ago as a Ma and Pa. I know this trek will be way different, and we are very excited to be involved in this marvelous experience. I have always loved my pioneer heritage as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was the Mormon Pioneers that blazed the trail and settled in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada and many other western states.

This is my turn to push. I almost had to run to keep up. There were lots of able-bodied modern pioneers helping with this handcart today. We had some very interesting activites once we arrived at our destination. I know I had to dig deep to share the feelings that I had during our activities. I am looking forward to our Trek in June. I know it will be a life-changing experience for all of the youth, and for all of the Ma and Pa couples as well. I wish I could share some of the activities, but I don't want to spoil the experience ahead for my young friends that read my blog. There will be many situations they will have to figure out for themselves. After the Trek, I will record these experiences.

Happy Trails!

Do you ever play Hookie?

We took a day off from work and responsibilities on Wednesday and went to a D-Backs game with Janet and Bob. We did do some necessary stuff first, like get blood work done for our annual physicals and get the garage door opener fixed. But the afternoon was great! Thanks for the tickets, Jarret. We drove down town and had lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory before hooking up with Janet and Bob. We parked at a big church just a few blocks from the stadium. I have never been to this particular stadium before. It was really beautiful, and I always enjoy going downtown Phoenix. I love the color of the dirt and the beautiful green grass of the field. I love the sights and smells of a ball game. It always smells like hot dogs and mustard, cotton candy and peanuts. I love watching the people. (It's not really the ball game itself that I love, but all that goes along with it!) This was Rod's first professional baseball game, and so he especially enjoyed the experience. He had never done the seventh inning stretch - so I really belted out the old "Take Me Out to the Ball Game...." for his benefit. The game was rather boring as no one scored until the bottom of the seventh. Then the D-Backs kicked in and got two runs, which won them the game.

The big screens are a nice touch when you are sitting up in the nosebleed section. We decided we like these seats because you can see the whole field at once and for the real action, you can see the replays on the screen. This was an interesting stadium; there was actually a swimming pool over in one corner, and people were using it during the game. I have never heard of swimming during a professional ball game... in a pool located out in right field. Weird. But we are so glad we got to spend this time with Janet and Bob. It was a great day to play Hookie.

Sweet....

It was administrative professionals week. My administrators gave each of us one of these lovely little boxes on Monday wishing us a good week. It came from a special bakery in Scottsdale called "Sprinkles."

Inside we each got a beautiful and perfect cupcake.

Mine was Red Velvet. It didn't last long...

Thanks, Greg and Tami!

Buzzy Boy is turning 5!

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Cooper. He is turning 5 on Friday and I just can't believe it! He will start kindergarten soon!

This is when Cooper got blessed.

I love this picture of Cooper with his Grandma Sue.

She is such a wonderful grandma!

I love his Flintstones feet, and his sweet hands. He was the cutest, chubbiest baby!

Cooper is checking out his first birthday cake, which I had the honor of making. I used to make these elephant cakes for my own children...

He looks like he is tired from his party!

Cooper is checking out Julie's "Billy Bob" teeth at Halloween time.

Look at his beautiful eyelashes.

This is one of my all time favorite photos of Coop.

I think he is 3 years old in this picture.

If you look closely, you can see that the ball says

"Life is Good."

Time for a cookie after playing so hard in the water at Cherry Hill.

Katie always takes the best picnics there!

Peeking out from the fort at Wheeler Farm.

I was lucky enough to be there when Cooper learned how to ride a bike last summer. He just climbed on and took off. (Actually Mom and Dad had run behind him a little the night before.) In November, I got to go to Utah for a visit. I enjoyed seeing the grandkids so much. Cooper is always willing to give me a big smile!

Showing off the skateboard.

I got to go for another visit in February! Yes, I am spoiled. This is Coop modeling the spare body parts I brought for him to play with. He thought this stuff was pretty cool.

Coop and Savannah doing cartwheels and round-offs.

Three of my grandkids. Aren't they beautiful!

Cooper, I hope you have a really happy 5th birthday. I wish I could celebrate with you!

I love you and miss you, Buzzy!