Sunday, January 27, 2013

New Beginnings is over...YAY!! It was lovely and the only thing that really was a problem was that when you leave girls to decorate things by themselves it sometimes looks a mess. But, then you send older girls in to help and it turns out just fine. I also had a glitch with my part of it, but that's just the way things go with technology. I had pulled up the video I wanted to use and had it down in the task bar waiting, exactly where I wanted to start. Then Trish handed me the cd to use for prelude music. That's great, I put it in and didn't think about it at all. When I went to start the video, I pushed resume expecting it to start my video where I had paused it, but nope...it started playing the cd again...ARRRGGGGHHHH!!! So then I had to find the video again, forward it to where I wanted it to play and then it was ok again. Sheesh! But, it was ok, because we had a scroll to hand out to the girls and we were trying to decide when the best time to do that would be and so Shelly did it while I was futzing with the computer, so it worked out fine. I just hate it when stuff like that happens...I try to be so prepared and have everything lined up, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. Since I already had windows media player open for the video when I put the cd in, it just used the media player to play rather than itunes opening like I figured it would. Hopefully I'll remember that next time and open itunes first. Live and learn I guess...my problem will be recalling what I've learned when I need it again. But, I think it was a successful night and the girls did a really good job with their parts. I thought it before at camp and I was reminded again of what a good girl Peyton Garner is. She was the only one out of all the girls and the leaders that stayed until the end of all the clean up with Trish and I. Katy had to go get her kids so I understand that one, but the others helped for a bit and then left. I'll never get that, I guess it's just not in my nature, but as a leader I would think you would feel a little responsible to help until it's done. Oh well. Good News!! Dad had his "end of radiation" test done and it's good news!! The two tumors they were targeting have shrunk AND the other tumors have not grown! In the past couple of months there has been no growth which is far beyond what they were expecting. They only gave him 4 to 6 months to live and so they were expecting massive growth and spreading and none of that has happened. He also has had no symptoms yet...no coughing, no shortness of breath, nothing which is more good news. He's drinking two different types of tea, eat blueberries, staying away from sugar, and taking frankincense as holistic approaches since there's not a lot modern medicine can do for him and something seems to be working. We'll take every day we can get! Spencer seems to be completely better now. He hasn't said anything about headaches or other symptoms from his concussion, so I'm assuming that has healed. He is working hard and getting along with his companion and members in both of his wards, so that is good news as well. I seem to have hit my limit of attention I can give to this today :)

Friday, January 27, 2012

New Beginnings is finally over and I can breathe again. It feels good to have it done. The girls did a really nice job and I think the evening was a success overall. Our theme was the theme for mutual this year..."Arise and Shine Forth". We watched the video that they made with the song for the year and then one of L. Tom Perry introducing the theme. We had each of the Beehives take a part explaining the Young Women's program and Personal Progress. We decorated with lamps. We had all the girls bring their lamps from home and put them around the room on tables that had the value color tablecloths on them. We also had some luminaries in the closet that were in the value colors and we put those on the tables with the lamps and cookies. The cookies were sugar cookies with yellow and orange frosting and the theme in powdered sugar. We also told the girls they could bring something that they had done for Personal Progress to display if they wanted to. For the closing song we sang a song the girls were asked to learn for ward conference (this Sunday). We gave them each a battery operated candle to hold while we sang. I'm not sure what it looked like because I was behind them all and couldn't see, but they sounded good for the first time. We also didn't turn on any over head lights. The only light in the room was from the lamps the girls brought. It was really nice..Kate brought a couple of floor lamps to put on either side of the podium so there was plenty of light to see and read with. It was actually quite bright in there like that. The effect was nice though and it set a nice tone for the evening. It was also just the right length. We started a little after 7 and I was cleaned up and home by 8:45. It was perfect.
Now that's over I have 2 weeks to get Christen's shower going. Invitations are out and food assignments are made, now I just have to figure out decorations if any and how I'm going to get into the church that day. Maybe if there is a game that isn't too obnoxious, we'll do that. Alysa came over yesterday and we got started on the afghan so that makes me feel better about that and I'm getting close to being ready to backstitch on the cross stitch, so that's coming along nicely. We are sewing bridesmaid dresses tomorrow and hopefully we'll be able to finish those up. Thnigs are getting done and it's good.
We went shopping for Spencer last week. We got one suit, his long sleeved shirts, his slacks, socks, and belts. Yesterday we were able to go pick up his suit and slacks, it was fun to see him in them. We are now working on a date for him to go through the temple which is proving difficult. Between Sam's and Jack's schedule it is getting beyond ridiculous. It's time to get this taken care of. I'm calling the temple today and we're going to get it scheduled before I go to bed tonight. Christen is going through on the 14th, but Jack can't go then because of work, so we'll have 2 different sessions going probably in the same week for these two kids. Dumb, but the way it has to be.