UP

The last 2 weeks we've had a few occasions to be UP. 

The weekend before our Stake Women's conference (that we've been planning for months) we were able to have some uplifting training from speakers who flew down from Salt Lake in addition to Stake Conference. 

The next weekend was the culmination of all of our preparation and planning. We spent two days decorating and setting up, our birthday party themed celebration for Women's conference. 

One of the councilors commented that our decorations reminded her of the movie UP. 

I agreed!

After the balloons we blew up the day before all losing their air and the helium balloons that we were trying to close with plastic clips losing all their air...getting the gym to look this way was a big effort. But in preparation of being UPlifted it was just fine. 

We had a hair cutting and styling class that was standing room only...

Money help and budgeting

This was "Powertools are our friends" Participants got to have pink stickers that said this to wear and they got to...

practice using a variety of tools that you might use around the house. 

(I have to admit it was weird watching ladies in dresses sawing wood in a church classroom ;)

One on one computer help

A boy in the stake got to have help with his Eagle project and much more. 

I was glad that once we got things up and running I was actually able to enjoy most of the conference until it was time for cleaning up. Then all the hard work was put in the trash so we could get home. It's a relief that it all turned out successful and it's done for this year. 

That night We had some family time at John's Incredible Pizza. We have been in a long time but a coupon in the mail and some desire to do something fun with the kids brought us out. 

(They've been sitting around a lot while Jeff and I have been doing what we need to do)

Jeff's new favorite game is the Wheel of Fortune game...

We ended up earning tons of tickets...in fact in the course of the night they had to come and either fix or replace the tickets coming out of the machine 3 times!

Of course each of the kids got to pick a ride to go on. I let Jeff go on this one with Jacob...I didn't want him to miss out (hee hee) I was just fine watching. 

This last week we bought a third car so Taylor will have something to drive when he gets his license next month. 

Jeff and I wanted a small, older Toyota Takoma. We found out after a month of looking that they are not easy to find! We also found out that to get one for the price we were hoping for we would be looking at a dinged up, junky looking work truck complete with metal bars welded on (for all your dry-walling needs) not what we were looking for. 

When Jeff saw this truck online out in Fullerton it was the truck we were looking for with as close to the price we wanted as we were going to get. So we thought we'd go out and look at it.  Jeff had mentioned it at dinner and showed Taylor a picture but he had no idea we would actually buy it. 

It was very fun when he walked in the door calling "Mom?" when he saw the car in the driveway. When he asked if that was "the" car and found out it was ours he was very excited. 

Good timing because Youth Conference was that weekend and he was grumbling a little about going (he knew he would not be able to relax or sleep in all weekend) and he said "I won't complain  about going to Youth Conference!"

While the boys were away at Youth Conference Ashley got to spend time with friends and we spent most of Saturday at home with nothing much planned (that hasn't happened in a while) so I decided to do some crafting. I had seen a couple of pins on pinterest that I had tagged over a year ago and never did anything with. This was the day to try them out!

So one of the ideas was to take silky material and cut it out and burn it over a flame to seal the edges. I made all kinds of hairbow flowers out of scraps of material. Pretty fun.

So now that I have all these hair-bows I was thinking they might sell for Easter. Ashley grabbed a few for her collection and I am going to a couple of preschools this week to see if anyone wants to buy some. (I know if Ashley is wanting them that's a good sign ;)

That night Jeff and I got to have a date night with the Smiths. 

We won tickets to a Murder Mystery Dinner in a raffle over a year ago. When I mentioned it to Penny she said how much they had enjoyed going in the past. So we made it a date and made it happen! The cast was also our servers and the acting was happening as we were eating. It was nice that you could hear and see everything that was going on and they were very colorful and fun. 

I was happy that I was one of the ones that guessed the murder correctly but any number of them could've been the murderer. 

It was fun meeting the cast at the end. We found out that their were two married couples in the group even though they watch someone else play romantic partners with their spouse every night. 

The man that Jeff has his arm on actually met him over 20 years ago when Jeff played Rumpelstiltskin in a play at RCC. He was very happy to see Jeff and see that he is doing well. 

The boys got home from Youth Conference late, late Saturday night. 

I heard they had a great time and their favorite was the dance. They said there was a good DJ and lots of good songs to dance to. We got this phone picture forwarded to us from a friend. 

The only thing they complained about was being tired! They had 2 very sleep deprived days following a morning of getting up at 5:30 for seminary.  

Sunday morning you could see the effects of it. After an hour of trying to get the boys out of bed for 9:00 church I realized it wasn't going to happen. Jeff came back at 10:15 to try  and then realized they probably just need to sleep. 

Jacob literally slept until 3:00 in the afternoon! 

Taylor woke up at 11:00 and ate breakfast, then went back to bed until almost 4:00!

The good thing was they were awake for the testimony meeting that night where they did another sacrament meeting to help bring in the spirit. (Taylor thought it was because so many people missed church that morning) The youth kept their testimonies short and sweet so they didn't have another late night out. Taylor even got up there, I was glad I was there to see it! After all that Sunday sleep I haven't had any problems with them getting up for seminary the last few days. 

Over the weekend Ashley and I also worked on her 3D state map of Washington State. My favorite are her little volcanoes. 

The price of the project was one tablecloth. She was working on top of a tablecloth that now has blue puffy paint all over it. 

Yesterday I was happy to meet Ashley at her school and watch her get a medal for her performance in math last year on her CSTs. The students that earned medals are encouraged to wear them when they take their CSTs this year. 

Way to go!

With everything going on I haven't pulled out many Easter decorations. Maybe I'll get them out today. 

Here is the chocolate bunny that was in Jeff's car too long...Ashley said "That's OK I don't like those bunnies anyway, they don't taste good"

She then proceeded to read the ingredients, the bulk of which are vegetable oils...cocoa isn't until 4th on the list. She said "It's not even real chocolate!"  

Well I can see your point...but it sure melts like chocolate. 

Hope everyone has a HAPPY EASTER!