yep

Look at these cute YW doing baptisms... I love them.

Our watercolor teacher posted this picture... I thought I'd share.

Sam didn't have a music stand for pep band in the commons the other day.  Ada took a picture of him and said that it sounded like she was walking into a movie as she walked down the hall.  Sam pointed out his music on his lap later.  I love it all.

 

Mindy

My cousin, Mindy, graduated from the University of Utah this last week.  She's a good woman that works hard and loves what she does. I'm so glad that I got to wish her well. And I'm so glad that I got to say hi to cousins I haven't see in years. I saw Tyrone for the first time in almost 20 years and Eric for the first time in 10.  I loved being able to catch up and be with them for a while.  My Mom came with me. She knew it was going to be hard for her to get to the pavilion, but she came anyways. Time with family is worth physical pain.

Me and Eric. Janelle, Eric and I went to High School together and Eric's biological sister was my foster sister. He's a proud father and grandpa. I love that he's thriving.

Mom and Dar

Good luck Miss Mindy! All the luck and wishes your way!

 

Mom

My Mom had a knee surgery a few weeks ago.  While she was recovering, she stopped being able to keep anything down and ended up in the ER twice.  They found a tumor in her kidney and ended up taking it out.  It was cancerous, but thankfully an operation to get it out is all that they're recommending.  The type of cancer had something to do with cancer of the veins around the kidney.  She's slowly getting better and I've been so happy to spend time with her and my dad.

 

Ellis Bear Lake

My parents took my kids up to the lake a couple weeks ago.  It was a cold week, but my kids are always up for the lake no matter how cold.  Evelyn loves her cousin Kat and says that she's going to name her daughter Kat.  Ada loved spending time with Ellen.

The boys had a sand war.

Ada loved being Thea's buddy.

My mom said that Seth spent hours in "his hole".

And Evelyn always does Evelyn with style.

Burying is a must.  I don't know how Michelle felt about it, but everyone else looks pleased with themselves.

Happy 2 weeks #2

I love extended family get togethers.  I love to see these people that are part of me, but not quite.  This last week was my Great Aunt and Uncles' 50th wedding anniversary.  It was fun to visit, hug and catch up with all these Aunts, Uncles, second cousins and their families.  Congratulations Lynda and Doug!  (Doug is fighting cancer and Lynda has severe arthritis, but seeing them with their families you would never know it.  They are happy and Lynda even joined in dancing with her granddaughters.)

Seth decided that he liked Uncle Duck.  Doug has been talking to kids like a duck since I can remember.  He wins over any kid with his fun trick.

Ada has always liked Uncle Frank and Aunt Margaret.  In my mind they are always 50... but they are both seeing their ages.  I've never seen them as tired and willing to sit back and watch everyone else.  I did promise that next time I'm driving up to Idaho that I would stop to say hi on the way.

My IQ test

I did my IQ test this week too. I told Seth that I was going to do the same kinds of tests that he did last time. He told me that I need to hold very still and not wiggle.

It was very interesting too. Some of it was problem solving and some of it was General Knowledge. I enjoyed doing the problem solving ones. There were some that were very fun like trying to identify what was missing in a picture or putting pictures together in my head to figure out what it was of. Other things that I did not like like ordering numbers and letters in my head. They would give me 6 or 7 numbers and letters and tell me to put them in alphabetical and numerical order starting with numbers and ending with letters. I could get four or five but six or seven was really hard. There were some things that I realize that I answered wrong after the fact. Like he asks the boiling point of water and I said 32 degrees which is the freezing point of water but I was just answering to be done at this point. It was a four hour test. There was another one that I thought was really funny after the fact. He asked me to name the continents. I named seven and then insisted that there was two more that I could not remember. Jer commented to me afterwards that there are just seven continents. He said I was one of three people that he's ever tested the new that Goethe wrote Faust. So even if I didn't know the boiling point water I did know that.

I am both excited and a little nervous to get my results. I've always been pretty mediocre in most things. I do well enough to feel good about what I've done but never really excelling. I think as long as it's a mediocre score I'll be happy. The next test I'm going to do is a 90 minute MRI. What they're going to do after that is compared the MRIs and the test results between the control group and those with autism. I think any more information we can gather is a good thing.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time, Jer's Grandpa Robertson took pictures of us while Jer and I were fencing. He printed them on paper and filed them away. Jer's dad found it in his stuff and thought we'd get some enjoyment out of it. Which we did.

Conference Sunday

In between conference sessions the kids wanted to play games with me. So of course we had to.

Friday

Friday I went in for a surgery. They were going to clean out all the scar tissue in my foot and it put in stem cells so that my foot would heal completely. I was a very first one scheduled for the morning. We were there at 5:15 a.m. . Not even the receptionist to gotten there yet.

Parents Farewell

I love when a family comes together to support their members.  It's really one of my favorite things about growing older.  My parents are currently in the MTC and doing some training in Salt Lake City.  But a couple of weeks ago we went to their Ward to listen to them both speak and celebrate with an openhouse at their house afterwards. 

Sharon and I performed "I know that my Redeemer Lives". My Mom spoke about covenants and invited Sam up to recite the 4th article of faith... I loved when he got up there because he just disappeared behind the podium and you could hear him and not see him.  My Dad talked about 3 main points, but the one that stuck with me was talking about Peter getting out of the boat.  How he had the faith to get out and follow the Savior.    The whole meeting was beautiful. 

At the openhouse, not only were all my siblings there, but all my Dad's brothers were there and most of my Mom's siblings were too.  I was in the kitchen for most of the openhouse, so I assigned a couple of the girls to take pictures and was very happy with what they took.

Roger, Moana, Beth and Diane (my Mom's biological sisters)

Diane, Carol and Mark (my Mom's brother and wife)

My girl

I can't believe how grown up this girl is getting.

Funny girl

Ada has a great sense of humor. She's been writing comic strips and reading them to us. They are seriously very funny. She always tries to joke with me and I don't always get it. Her dad does. I've been trying harder to let her be silly with me. That's hard for me because I'm trying to stay in the mom mode. I'm going to have to take pictures of some of her comics to post on here.

Bern #4

These were in the Rose Garden on top of the hill.

Jungfrau #3

And this is the epicness that is European food. 

Halstatt

One of the stops we made was a village outside of Salzburg named Halstatt.  It's where they filmed the wedding scene from the movie.  It was a cute little village.  They were celebrating a harvest, so the church had harvest offerings on the altar.  The church was moldy and when it's rainy it gets worse, so I ducked in glanced and ran back out.  They had this little train that we rode on up to the village square.  I made Jer get a picture of it to give to Seth when we got home.

 

The Austrian chocolate isn't nearly as good as the Icelandic, German or Swiss, but they have a fun marketing campaign.  It's called Mozart Chocolate and it's everywhere.  I really enjoyed this little town.  It's beautiful and the people were kind.  I'm sure they get lots of tourists, but the tour guide pointed out that The Sound of Music wasn't released in Europe and most the people we met had never seen it before.  They must think we're crazy for touring all the sites then.