Sunnie Bunny!!

Sunnie is back! We're so glad she's back with the family. The little cousins in Orem miss her terribly. She was such a big helper. They wanted to keep her forever. Baby Mckayla was 10lb.
2 oz. Her big sisters Katelyn and Alexis are so happy that she's finally here.

Christmas is Almost Here!

Once again Christmas snuck up on us extremely fast. Our family has drawn names every Christmas. We try to keep it under control with gifts. We want to focus on the most important meaning of Christmas. Last week I sent out a list to have everyone write down the three things they needed most and they will get one out of the tree. And of course Preston went first and he list his three and a few more extras. Tyler; radio, Justin NCAA 2009 Football and a new cell phone, Sunnie still not home yet, and Kailee wrote NONE don't get me anything. unless.....it's the one thing.( which is cell phone) I told her that's not going to happen. Next thing I know Kailee handed me a notebook and said here is my Christmas list. It looked like this:

Kailee
Christmas List
Do you remember me? I sat upon your knee, I wrote to you, with childhood fantasies. Well I'm all grown up now, and still need help somehow, I'm not a child, but my heart still can dream... So here's my lifelong wish, my grownup Christmas list, not for myself, but for a world in need. No more lives torn apart, that wars would never start, and time would heal all hearts, everyone would have a friend, and right would always win, and love would never end. This is my grown-up Christmas list. As children we believe, the grandest sight to see, was something lovely wrapped beneath the tree. But heaven only knows, that packages and bows, can never heal a hurting human soul. What is this illusion called, the innocence of youth, maybe only in our blind belief, can we ever find the truth.

A lovely song called Grown-up Christmas List by Whitney Houston

My Prince

Every day when I drop Preston off at school, he says to me "Bye Mom I love you, have fun storming in the castle," After the famous quote from "The Princess Bride". He is so cute.

Kailee and Carly's Late Night Adventures

We were in bed when all of a sudden, we heard from the kitchen a soft "klink, klink," and smelled the aroma of food. It was around one or two in the morning. Paul said to me "What is going on and what is that smell?" Half asleep, I told him to go check it out. He snuck into the kitchen and there was Carly and Kailee cooking, cleaning and goofing around. Kailee was washing a big pile of dishes, when Paul came up behind her and said "BOO!" They stayed up until about three.

Missionary Time

We had the privilege to have the missionaries over for dinner yesterday.
One of my awesome favorite nephews (Elder Shingleton) with him was elder Torres.
We love having them over. Adam looks good, very spiritual, mature and very organized. I'm so proud of him. He has a great personality.

Check it out!

Mother/Daughter

Last week, Paul and I went to see 007 and we saw Kailee's twin.
The girl in the movie looks just like Kailee.

Aloha!!

This year Kris Palmer took her violin students to Hawaii.
Justin, Sunnie and I went, and we enjoyed every minutes of it.

Honolulu Airport

Looking out from our hotel room balcony.


A block away from our hotel.

Peal Harbor

Performed at a five star Hotel.

Performed at the Polynesian Cultural.

We had such a great time!!

Five days and Four nights was not long enough.

Next time we'll go for two weeks or more.
Everybody thought we were Hawaiian.

Bryce Canyon 1/2 Marathon

As soon as I got home from Cedar Mountain at 1:30 Friday morning, I took a long hot shower. I was so cold. We got rained on pretty good on Thursday. I also got to sleep in my bed for about 5 hours. Then I had to get up, unpack and pack again. I took Tyler, Justin, and Sunnie with me. Then we went to pick up my friend Tiffany and her two kids (Glen and Jennifer) and we were on our way to Bryce Canyon to run the 1/2 Marathon. In the mean time my other friend (Becky)and her two daughters (Katelin and Cami) and Kailee, left from girls camp to meet us in Bryce. Becky had reserved a room there. When we got to Bryce, I went to check in my teepee that I had reserved two weeks before. They told me that they had emailed me back saying that they were all full and of course I hadn't checked my email for two weeks because we had been gone. So we all ended up in Becky's room. There were eleven of us. We finally went to bed after lots of rearranging and trying to fit the eleven of us in one room. There were about four of us that set our alarms on our cell phones. When I went to bed, I kept dreaming that we would wake up late and be late for the race. I was kind of awake but laying there for about 10-15 min. Then got up and went to the restroom and turned on my cell phone and I couldn't believe it was 5:59. I panicked because the race started at 6:00. Well, let me just say that we were about 20 min late and we all did well. Justin came in second, could have been first. Katelin came in second, Kailee came in third, and Sunnie would have been first if I signed her up. This is in thier age group. I was so proud of everyone. We made such a great team. It was magnificent!! Bryce was beautiful and peaceful! We had a GREAT TIME.

Lunch after the Marathon, we were so hungry!

Girls Camp

Girls Camp was awesome!!

I'm so glad I got to be a part of it. I serve in the Miamaids. Kailee won't be in my class for seven more months. We left the church at 7:30 am on Tuesday morning. We went with the stake this year and it was at Cedar Mountain. When we got there at about 10:00, we set up camp, then at about noon we had to go down to the ampitheater for roll call. Then we had a course where the girls went to different stations and learned how to make a fire, sleeping bag, how to treat a broken leg and more.

Before girls camp, the girls voted for Cambodian food Tuesday night, so we made egg rolls, stir fry noodles, and rice. Almost all the girls wanted to help with dinner. After dinner we went back

down to the ampitheater for roll call and prayer and they did a spot light on me. After everything was done, we went back down to our tent and sat by the fire and talked until we were really tired.

On Wednesday we went on a hike in Cedar Breaks. It was incredible. The wild flowers had just bloomed. There was a little pond along the way that was so beautiful. Kailee and her friend Charity fell in it and were soaked from the waist down.

The mountains were so beautiful. We had lots of fun. On the way back to the car, we were making up

cheers for when we had roll call. We had fun

making up funny cheers and we made up some pretty good ones to the Spongebob Squarepants theme song, the Addams Family theme song, and many others.

When we got back to the campsite, we had lunch

and each ward had to make up a skit that went with a mormonad, and the mormonad that we got assigned to said "Don't be two-faced." We had lots of fun making up a skit for that. We had three different scenes in ours, and everyone wanted to be a part of it. It was awesome.

We did our Addams Family cheer that night for roll call. When the Generals (leaders) called us to do our cheer, we all screamed and ran down to the platform and stood in a line and did it. The girls did a great job with the words. We made up three verses for the song.

Then after dark, the girls went on a "Change of Heart Walk." Three by three the girls got taken to go start the walk. While the girls were waiting they read their solo packet that was given to them. It had the Testimonies of the Stake Presidency and Stake Leaders in it. As I was holding a flashlight for a girl that sat next to me, I was able to read some of it. It was beautiful. As the girls left one by one, we (the leaders) sat there, and it was magnificent. The moon was almost full. As I looked at the moon I felt so peaceful and my heart filled with joy. Then after all the girls were gone, the leaders of our ward wanted to go and see what it was. So they let us, and we started the walk. First they took us to a string that was tied to the trees and gave us a flashlight but we couldn't use it at first. After following the string, we got to the first station. They read us a quote and told us we could use the flashlight, which represented that we had the gospel in our life. We used the flashlight and string to the next station. We had to put a red cloth over our flashlights representing that we had sinned in our life. We walked over to the next station with the dim light and string. When we got there, we had repented of our sins, so we took off the cloth and started on our way to the next station. We went to the last station and they read us a quote and told us to enter the Celestial Kingdom. As we walked up the hill towards the meadow, we could see, there our loved ones were waiting with open arms giving us hugs and telling us we did a good job and welcome home and they loved us. It felt just like heaven. Then after all the hugs, we saw all the girls finding each other. After I came in, Kailee found me and rescued me from the crowd. She took me and we found a quiet spot and sat with just a few of our friends. It was such a peaceful feeling. The girls were crying with joy everywhere.

The next day we did some stuff for humanitarian aid. We sewed quilts and made rattles for children in an orphanage in Haiti. Even Bishop Powell was willing to help out! We had lots of fun and were disappointed when our time was up. So they said we could take it back to camp and finish it there.


Later that night, we watched a slideshow. It was from the very beginning of camp. They did a great job with it. It had a few pictures of me in it! Then when that was done, each ward separated and went back to their campsites for testimony meeting. It was so spiritual. It was hard not to cry. After everyone was done bearing their testimonies and giving hugs, I left to go home with one of the other leaders, Shannon Klomp. The rest of the girls went home the next day after finishing 90 quilts and cleaning out the bathrooms. All of the other wards left and didn't do their job, so our girls had to finished up cleaning.

I'm ao proud ot these girls. I love each and everyone of them.