Harvest Time, Service Style

Do you remember how, in the last General Conference, President Eyring encouraged us all to step-up our service in honor of the Church welfare program's anniversary?

Well, way back in May, the Relief Society sister's in our stake were given "service seed" packets to assist them in their charitable endeavors. The sisters were also encouraged to find ways to document and/or represent their acts of service. The service artifacts would then be displayed during the September Women's Broadcast for the purpose of uplifting and inspiring the sisters in attendance.

But before the displays could be displayed, the stake center cultural hall needed to bit more cultural and a tad less hall-ish.

So, who do you call when you need a celestial atmosphere on a terrestrial budget? Diane of course! She took the "Scatter Sunshine" theme and ran with it.

And the same could be said for the wards and their displays.

All seven wards and both branches created beautiful service display tables.

Each table was as unique as the sister's who designed it.

But the coolest part was the various and sundry acts of service that each table celebrated.

The sister's in the stake found so many ways to serve! I was so inspired!

In -Spi- Ered.

When you add the wonderful, beautiful, inspired talks from the General Relief Society Presidency and from Elder Uchtdorf, the even was almost perfect. Almost. We desperately missed our fearless leader, Jolene, and our hard working secretary Jalene. Color coordinating with five is always much more fun.

Lucky for us, our dedicated Stake President was willing to jump on the matching bandwagon with his stunning yellow tie. He is always a great reminder that the brethren of the Church are also very talented at offering service and scattering sunshine.

Case in point: My home teachers. One of whom rescued me and my trunk full of groceries from the Wal-Mart parking lot when my car refused to start on Friday afternoon. The other, the one and only Brother Barker, spent his Saturday morning checking and then replacing my very dead car battery. The new battery is yellow. Sunshine yellow. And he picked it out without a color coordinating text from Diane!

A Tale of Two Weekends

So, for the last few days, my brother Warren has been in New York visiting our brother Spencer. Well, he was kind of visiting Spencer, and kind of visiting his Raiders, who happened to be playing Spencer's Bills. Warren has loved the Raiders since he was in first grade, which is only about five years more than he has loved Spencer.
While Warren was in New York, his sweet wife brought their little girls and not-so-little baby boy to my cute little cow town to visit her family... and me!

I am always excited when they come to visit, but I have to admit that looking at the photos of how Spencer hosted Wo made me feel like a slacker hostess. I mean, Warren got to hang out in Spencer's wife's helicopter.

Warren's girls got to hang out in my Nissan. And not even an Ultima. A Sentra.

But those feelings of helicopter envy only lasted for a minute or two. Then I remembered that I am a pretty darn good hostess. Just ask my nephews. They think my Sentra is Awe-Freaking-some.

Sure, Spencer took Warren to eat Buffalo wings in the birthplace of Buffalo wings.

But I hooked his daughters up with all-you-can-drink chocolate milk. In sippy cups. Oh yeah.

Spencer hooked up Wo with a chance to hang out with the Raiders...

But I hooked the girls up with a chance to hang out with Chloe and Willow. And, for the record, Chloe and Willow have much cleaner bathroom habits than professional football players.

Warren watched the game from great seats in the stadium...

But the girls watched their dad watch the game on my TV while sitting in much more comfortable seats in my drunk-sports-fan-less living room. And then they watched cartoons.

I guess the most important thing to remember is that everyone enjoyed their weekend (except for Warren's baby Bubba, who was cutting teeth. And anyone who was around Bubba while he was cutting teeth. And the Raiders who lost to the. Bills in the last minute and fourteen seconds of the game). Buffalo and Burley both have their own unique charms and both appeal to a different demographic.

I just happen to be popular with the under-ten-set.

Of course, Tim Horton's will always be popular with me. So start airing out the guestroom, Spencer and Brianna (Yes, that was a comment on how Warren smells). I'll be out to see you this spring.

And I might want to take a little tour of that NFL locker room at some point too. After the Timbits, of course.

Walk This Way

Once upon a time, I started walking with my pal Lacie at 6:30 a.m. That lasted for a whole summer.

Ahhhhh. 6:30 a.m. Those were the good old days. It was a beautiful and wonderful summer.

Then our good friend Elizabeth returned to town and somehow tricked Lacie and I into walking at 5 a.m. F.Y.I. :Nothing is beautiful and/or wonderful at 5 a.m. NOTHING!

Elizabeth and I kept up the 5 a.m. walking thing for a couple of years. Then Elizabeth married Ratha and mysteriously became waaaaaay too tired to walk at 5 a.m.

That is when the lovely and talented Krystal started walking with me at 5 a.m. For two years, we would meet up at the crack of dawn for some serious walking and talking.
Exercise with a healthy side of therapy? Wonderful! 5 a.m.? Not so much.

But then Krystal decided to move to Boise, which made it kind of difficult for the two of us to meet up for some early morning exercise. I was sad. And lumpy. Not a good combination.

But then yesterday, Krystal (and her cute boy!) came for a visit and I stopped by to give her (and her cute boy, and her cute family) some baked goods (that were full of carbs in an uncharitable effort to spread the lumpy around) . While I was there, Krystal's mom, Diane volunteered to walk with me at 5 a.m.

How sweet is she? So we meet up dark and early this morning to get our walk on. It was a blast. I wanted to get some photos to commemorate this new chapter in my walk of life.

Behold: Miss H and Diane walking @ 5 a.m.
I was about to say that it is unfortunate that it is so dark at 5 a.m., but then I remembered what I look like when I roll out of bed at that time in the night/morning. I think darkness at that time of day is probably nature's kindest, most under appreciated gift to mankind.

Diane looked impeccable as always (her clothes matched and everything!), but since nobody really enjoys having their photo taken that early in the morning, I thought it would be best to use some stand-ins who significantly resemble us.

Thanks for being my new walking buddy/therapist, Diane! And to those of you who used to do the 5 a.m. thing with us in the past, you are always welcome to repent and come back to the fold.

Really Elizabeth. You can even bring Ratha.

By the Numbers: The First Seven Days of the School Year

5 = The number of school days thus far.
4 = How many days I walked to and from school.
1.5 = The number of songs on my ipod I go through while walking from my apartment to my classroom.
189 = The number of students are on my various class lists (as of Friday morning).
4 = The number of student aides on my various class lists (as of Friday morning).
67 = The number of anticipated changes to my various class lists before next Friday.
189 = The number of names that need to be written on Popsicle sticks.
8 = The number of Cups of Destiny that are needed to hold the Popsicle sticks.

2 = Days I dressed like a grownup teacher.
3 = Days I dressed like a Comic-Con nerd.
32 = The number of "clickers" (student answer device thingies) in my room.
5 = Times I tried to use the "clickers" in class.
3 = Time the "clickers" actually worked.
12 = New cuss words I invented while trying to make the "clickers" work.
5 = Days I had 7th grade lunch duty
1, 794 = Approximate number of times I had to tell the 7th graders that they couldn't go back to their lockers until after the bell rang.
59 = The hours I worked at school last week.
40 = The hours the State of Idaho is going to pay me for working last week.
Not as many as you would think = The number of times I thought about moving to Wyoming.

1 = Mt. Timpanogos Storyteller Festival events that I attended on Friday night.
63 = Minutes it took me to travel 12 miles on a Utah freeway.
734 = Times I said/thought/screamed horrible things about Utah while sitting on the freeway.
5 = The number of niblets I got to see over the long weekend.
1 = The number of niblets who got baptised by his dad over the long weekend.
4 = The number of niblets who got dunked by their evil uncles over the long weekend.
1 = The number of times I got dunked by my evil brother over the long weekend.
4 = The number of options I am considering getting even with the offending brother.
3 = The number of those options that involve biting insects and/or a fake Facebook account.
10 = The number of hours before I am back in my classroom.
2 = The number of revenge oriented dreams I will have before then.
Sweet dreams Mikey!