Thursday, July 17, 2008

Girls Night Out!

We've been talking about it FOREVER and NEEDING it forever...we finally just did it, Me, Sarah Darlene and Sybrina left the kids with our wonderful hubbies and went for a girls night out. It was so refreshing to laugh our heads off (I'll never tell), and have great conversation over Cold Stone ice cream. Afterwards we went to the Emma Smith My Story. It was touching with hundreds of amazing quotes and to catch a glimpse of the incredible hardships and sacrifice of both Emma and Joseph. My testimony and appreciation of them grew as I watched her lose child after child. When she was recalling the incidents' of her life to her daughter Julia, Julia asked Emma if she could change anything what would she change and her reply..."me, I would change me". I thought that was profound and I can't agree with her more. The other thing she said as she endured so many challenges is, "Strength isn't something you have, It's something God helps you find". And though my challenges aren't even in the same arena as Emma's, the principles of faith and sacrifice and endurance are. Life isn't easy at times but as Emma said, "The Lord is your friend and he has your best interest in mind." It was comforting to be reminded of that once again.
Thanks girls for a great evening!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

"Crappy trash crappy trash"

Monday for FHE Bill announced to me that we were going to go to the park and pick up trash. Of course we didn't tell the kids so we wouldn't have to hear their complaints until we were actually there. We tried to have the kids guess where we were going as we looked for the messiest park or school yard. As we got there with gloves and trash bags in hand, Branson goes, " oh man, we're gonna pick up trash". Bill said, "no, we're going to sit on our trash bags and hear a story".
so we sat on our trash bags and Bill begins his story. He starts by saying there was this guy named Mr.McGrue or whatever his name was. Before he could continue Branson says, "you're making this up!" Bill turns his head laughing. Boy, Branson knows his dad too well! So he started again, "Okay this guys real name was WIM" Branson has another skeptical look on his face. " It stands for Waste Incident Management doesn't it Stephanie" I nodded in agreement to add validity to his story. He said something about WIM started picking up garbage and soon he made a business o
ut of it and that's who comes to pick up our garbage every week. And if no one helped him who would pick up the garbage- no one. Well, that story made the kids all excited to help WIM out so we picked up trash along the fence and playground.Bill said before we go though, we need to have a cheer. Before I knew it we were all chanting Bill's made-up cheer, "Crappy trash, crappy trash go away, help WIM pick up trash today" Bill and I were laughing so hard! (Even this morning at breakfast Britton was singing our little theme song.) Bill has a talent of making the most boring tasks fun!











Here is Maegan very emphatically saying "I am NOT going to pick up the cigarette butts with my bare hands!"


After we helped WIM we treated ourselves to the Hawaiian Ice on the corner.