Uplifting Funeral

As a kid I went to a lot of funerals. My mom was the Relief Society President* and our ward had a retirement community trailer court, so people died all the time and we kids had to come with mom to the funeral. But the people were all old.

When Wendell's cousin committed suicide at age 13, it was such a tremendous shock. The feeling of, we shouldn't be here, permeated the services. So I didn't really know what to expect when I went to Matt's funeral. Since he was a young father (36) of six children ages 11 to 18 months. He and his wife Crystal would have celebrated their 12 anniversary next month. I really thought that there might have been an air of despair. Not so.

There was such a peace at this meeting. IDispite his youth, it seemed like it was Matt's time to go. He had done all the Lord wanted him to do and had been called home.

Crystal is an amazingly strong woman. She and Matt were very righteous people, but without an inkling of piousness. They were just down to earth, regular people who were always trying to do the right thing.

I'm so glad that I went to the funeral. Crystal and I are about the same age, been married about the same length of time with about the same number of kids. So the death of her dear husband hit me hard, even though I haven't seen them in over 7 years. It was just so close to home, you know.

My prayers will continue to be with the Budge family, but it's nice to know that they're alright. That the Lord has given them peace.

*Mormon 101: Relief Society President is the leader of the women's organization of the congregation or ward.

So You've Had a Bad Day

Have you ever had a day where you learned a friend from a previous ward died, leaving his wife of 12 years and their 6 children behind (please pray for the Budge family, will you?) and then you get a call from the police telling you that your hubby's car was broken into, the crooks broke the dash to steal a $200 radio, then they took all the paper work in his glove box, $400+ worth of new clothes and shoes your hubby had on the back seat and his Oakley sunglasses?

Well, it was one of those days.

At least the crooks were too dumb to steal the $1000+ worth of golf clubs, balls, shoes, etc. And we're glad that Wendell didn't leave his laptop in the car.

Remember...

OK, this is for a couple of my Wyview buddies.

Remember the Waddoups? Well Shawn is in the newspaper. Here's the article.

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/282198/17/

Advising Pres. Bush about Afghanistan. How cool is that?

Things to Remember

When taking 4 kids to the grocery store (one is at a birthday party), please remember to bring your purse. Otherwise you have to:
* leave your grocery cart at the front of the store with an employee
* carry both babies out to the car while shouting at the older children to stay nearby
* drive home
* leave a note for the party goer
* drive back
* buy said groceries
*and hurry home

Although, if you bring your money with you....well, where's the adventure in that?

I'm sooo....

(Tune from West Side Story "I'm so Pretty") I'm.... so.... bu-sy. Oh, so busy. I'm busy and wizzy and hay.....

I know wizzy is not a real word, but as we all know from Dr. Seuss it is not the word, but the rhyme that is important.

I would like to apologize to my vast readership of 6 people for my significant absence from my blog. The last couple of weeks I've had to get our upper grade reading program going again (with a major overhaul that I'm hoping will make it better) and I'm the chair of our School Community Council. Gosh, there is more to that assignment than I thought.

The principal and I had a meeting a couple of weeks ago to discuss teacher incentive pay. Yours truly will be one of 4 parents, who, in partnership with the principal, will decide which teachers get incentive pay and how much they get.

This will be done on a Professional Development day when my kids are out of school. I'm working to get Wendell to take that day off and do something fun with the kiddos while I'm stuck at school for 4+ hours making sure that most of the teachers hate me.

To make the best decision possible, I am supposed to attend collaboration meetings for every grade. This is held on early out Mondays for 1 hour. This would be no problem except that my kids have to be picked up from piano lessons and my babies have to go down for naps while I do this. Seven times. Or more, preferably, by Feb.

Meanwhile, some stupid law maker decided that SCC (School Community Council) needs to post their agendas one week before the meeting not one day before the meeting like last year. So, by tomorrow, I have to have next month's agenda ready and I'm already behind about 5 emails. (One to the lady who didn't come, one to the whole council to read the minutes, one to the teachers in charge of the Math committee to find out while the scores have tanked between 5th and 6th grades for the last 4 years, etc.)

So I haven't blogged. I haven't told you about our trip to Seattle and I never finished telling you about the last three days of vacation to San Diego. And I've meant to post more "10 random reasons I love Wendell" just to make my blog icky. But alas.

I've still got a poster board to make and receipts to submit and newsletter articles to write. So off I go. Don't know when I'll see you again, but having repented of my lack of blogging, hopefully it will be soon.

Magic

One day Annika was demanding that I get her one thing after another. I stopped her and said, "What's the magic word?"

"Spanish," Annika replied.

When I started laughing she ventured an alternate suggestion, "Spanish rice?"

*******************

When we were on vacation this summer Annika awoke one morning and crept over to Wendell's side of the bed. Then she said loudly in a sing-song voice, "Dah, dah, DAH...I'm a-wake!"

Purple People Eaters

BYU 28 Washington 27

What a game! I'll tell you all about my trip to see the Cougs in Seattle in a bit, but in the meantime GO COUGARS!!!