Time Out for Women

On Saturday, I was able to go to Time Out for Women in Philadelphia. It was the 2nd time I’d had the opportunity to attend one of these events. It was really nice. Kind of a Mom’s mini-version of EFY. It had wonderful music and inspirational speakers.
www.deseretbook.com/time-out/ ( I hope this link works -- deseret seemed to be having problems when I tried to test it -- but maybe they take it down on Sundays)

I highly recommend it. If you have the opportunity, Go! Our ward had sixteen sisters attend. It was great to be there with the husbands at home holding down the forts, and just enjoy sister time!

My favorite quote was from the book The Uses of Adversity by Carlfred Broderick: The gospel of Jesus Christ is not insurance against pain. It is resource in event of pain, and when that pain comes (and it will come because we came here on earth to have pain among other things), when it comes, rejoice that you have resource to deal with your pain." This book is actually a talk Brother Broderick gave -- I haven't read the whole talk yet -- but I found it online here:http://rusch.files.wordpress.com/2006/09/the-uses-of-adversity.pdf So I'll save you the price of the book! Enjoy!

General Conference

Sorry to have missed a week of blogging. Last Sunday was the end of Conference weekend. For my friends who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, twice a year our church comes together via television, satellite, and the internet in a worldwide broadcast. I love conference! Funny but when I was kid I dreaded it – it was too long and boring! Even though we only attended the Sunday sessions. We watch the Saturday and Sunday sessions now and with satellite television we get watch from the comfort of our home. I love BYUtv all through the year – but especially on conference weekends.
This conference was especially exciting because President Monson announced the building of five new temples. Temples are special places of worship for members of our church. A new temple is to be built in Philadelphia!! That will be our temple district. It cuts our travel time by half. It will be a smaller, vertical temple like Manhattan’s. It’s currently a parking lot, I got to see the sight on Saturday when I was in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is an interesting city that I’m looking forward to exploring. The temple site is only a couple of blocks from a kind of scary neighborhood. It will be interesting to watch the influence of the temple change that neighborhood.

Manhattan Temple

When we lived in Alaska the temple was seven hours away in Anchorage. But we were grateful that we could drive there, since we were overseas before that flying was our only option. When we moved to Delaware we were thrilled to be just two hours from the Washington DC temple. Barry and I still love the DC temple – it was the one of our youth, our first temple experiences and so beautiful!

Washington DC Temple

I’ll post a picture of the Philly temple just as soon as one is released. It’s hard to believe it will only be an hour away (traffic permitting)!! It is an amazing evidence of the growth of the church in this area and the faith of the members worldwide. We're so happy to have a part in it.

Crabbing

Well I missed a Sunday. I had a good reason though -- we had a Youth Fireside that we were heavily involved with and just weren't home much on Sunday.

Our week was a good one. For Family Home Evening last week we went crabbing. It was a lot of fun. We only had about a half hour of sunlight but in that time we were able to catch 2 crabs. The most exciting time is not just when you pull up the rope and see that crab. It's the delicate little dance you do getting that crab out of the trap without getting pinched. Our trip wasn't completely planned out - so those little crabs had to ride home in a grocery bag. We had even more fun once they were in the kitchen - and skittering around in the sink. Frankie (a huge crab lover!) was kind of freaking out. It was a fun scared though -- and she did help her dad eat those two little crabs.

Oops, where did Sunday go?

I went on the net to research a software question and the time just got away from me. So I thought I'd just post a quick note to say, we're all doing well. It's been a gorgeous week, very fall-like. I'm ready to put away the fans and window AC units. But I know that will bring on a heat wave, so we'll just walk around them for another week or so.

This weekend was race weekend in Dover. That's always exciting. Barry got to go in June and last fall all four of us went. It was a lot of fun. I have never seen so many tattoos or men without shirts. You would think that half naked men was a good thing, but no must of those guys REALLY needed those shirts – especially to cover up all those tattoos. Barry wasn't offered any free tickets this time around so we watched the race from the comfort of our own couch. One bonus was that Thelma and Chip (our fabulous next door neighbors) invited us over to share a bushel of crabs. They were the first we'd had all season and they were delicious – what a treat!

This picture is from last September. Barry's favorite driver is Jeff Gordon, Tori likes Dale Earnhardt Jr., Frankie likes who her dad likes, and I like whoever is winning and seems like a nice guy – especially if they're an underdog (and Jeff Gordon).

It takes three weeks to form or break a habit...

...or so the saying goes. But I'm not sure if that counts for a once a week habit. So maybe after 21 weeks of posting I'll have it down! I'm starting to really look forward to this time of the week though - and that goes a long way towards committing to a habit.

So this week flew by -- but then again don't they all. Most of the week was beautiful but on Thursday it got really cloudy. Usually not a big deal - except that Francesca is part of a group of church friends who formed a Young Naturalists Club and this weekend was their camp out. So all day Friday I watched weather.com and contemplated whether to gather the camping things or NOT. When it started raining here I threw in the towel. Camping in the rain is one thing, but setting up in the rain is really not fun! Francesca was heartbroken. This camping trip was just me and her- since Barry has to work on Saturdays - and Tori said thanks, but no thanks. The kids are quite a bit younger than she is. Anyway, we promised to set up the tent in the back yard and sleep out there Saturday night. About 8:30 I went outside to see if Francesca was ready to get in the tent for the night -- she asked me if we HAVE to sleep outside. Well you know I jumped on that, "No sweetheart, we don't have to sleep out here -- we'll just keep the tent up a couple of days to play in it." Yipee!! A 2nd reprieve from sleeping on the ground. I was especially relieved since the rain had turned everything so muggy and sticky. Today was really hot and humid -- bring on the fall weather please!

One consolation about missing the trip was that we could participate in Barry's work picnic. And this year they had a moon bounce. Since most of the employees are older, there aren't many kids. Victoria, Francesca and Whitney had the whole thing to themselves. Whitney is 17 and her family and ours are in the same ward at church, her dad is Barry's boss.

They had a great time even if the pics aren't great (taken on Tori's cell) you can still tell their having fun!

Tropical Storm Hanna

Well, we had Tropical Storm Hanna pass over us yesterday. We had been watching the new broadcasts pretty closely, knowing it was coming. Friday night we took in the fichus tree and took down the hanging baskets. The rain didn't have us worried but wind definitely concerns us. We have a big tree in the back yard that leans right over our garage. The poor thing is pretty old and brittle. So big, bad wind storms make us a little nervous.

The girls and I had decided that the storm would make for a perfect pajama day, watching movies after chores. So we were all snugged in - poor Barry had to work until the early afternoon. The broadcasters had said that's when the brunt of the storm would hit. But all in all it was a lot more hype than storm. Other parts of our area were harder hit, but we were spared. We got about 3 inches of rain. Rain we really really needed. The wind never materialized - it gusted every now and then - but in the end we've certainly had more intense thunderstorms than this tropical storm ever was.

It seems strange to say, but I was disappointed. I was all set to watch nature's fury. I'm disappointed until I think of that tree crashing down on the garage! I'm certainly not hoping for an honest to goodness hurricane to hit us either. The most impressive part of this storm was the weather maps.

Today there wasn't a cloud in the sky - gorgeous almost fall weather. What a difference a day makes!

Hey! I updated some pictures!

Follow the link on the right to our scrapwow page. I added a couple of scrapbooks. I hope you enjoy them.