Diane Does it Again

We had a member of the Seventy visit our stake conference a few weeks ago. An AWESOME member of the 70, as it turns out. A sweet, spiritual man and a very engaging speaker. He really needs to speak in General Conference more often.

As the visiting authority, he had a lot of input on the structure of our stake conference and was very specific about what should happen. Our stake president had asked our Relief Society presidency to prepare a dinner for the stake presidency, the bishops and branch presidents in the stake, and their wives between sessions. Our visiting Seventy requested that it be a SIMPLE dinner, so President Jones passed that request for simplicity along.

The problem is, he asked the RELIEF SOCIETY presidency to do the dinner. And the RELIEF SOCIETY doesn't specialize in SIMPLE. Especially when Sister Woodhouse is the special events coordinator for the Relief Society.

I guess she might have done simple in her own special Diane way. I mean, she did use the china from Star Ward instead of buying all new place settings (although she did buy a few new goblets).

And she did go with the laser-printed scripture cards instead of the by-hand calligraphy option.

Sure, she scrapped the actual Church lighting and brought in floor and table lamps, but it's not like anything had to be rewired. I mean, calling in an electrical contractor would have been much more complicated.

Each table had its own glowing tree and twinkle-light-strewn ribbons, but as far as Diane's centerpieces go, they were actually pretty understated.

And when you think about the giant, Celestial-room-worthy center table displays at our stake meetings, the display at the front of the room that night was just a nice little touch.

If we had more time, I could tell you about the music, serving protocols, and menu for the evening. Just think: beautiful, elegant, and delicious. Sister Woodhouse's events are truly EVENTS.

So the moral of the story is if you want a SIMPLE dinner, ask the scouts to help.

If you want classic patterned china, goblets, glowing centerpieces, mood lighting, spiritual music, elegant service, and fancy food, you call Diane because THAT is her SIMPLE.

My contribution to the evening: Baklava!

The Broken Heater Song

I realize that I am about 8 months too late to be on trend with a Let It Go parody, but when Elsa invades and turns your school into an ice palace, what else can you do?

Let Them Go

The BJHS Broken Heater Song

(To be sung to the tune of Let It Go from Frozen)

Breath clouds white in the hallways tonight,

Not a student to be seen.

 The junior high's deserted,

Abandoned by all tweens.

 The heater's broken, we're wearing coats and gloves inside.

Couldn't teach at all, Heaven knows we tried.

 The halls were cold. Some pipes, they froze.

Water dripped down through the ceiling tiles.

 Moms were appalled,

Maintenance guys stalled,

School board was called...

 "Let them go! Let them go!

Send them home until Monday.

Let them go! Let them go!

The buses are on their way.

It's too cold to have class," they say.

"Let the storm rage on...

In March, you can have class on Saturdays."

It's funny how some school years,
Have no snow-days at all.

But now we're gone for three days,

After two days home last fall.

First we lost power, now it's the heat.

We can't keep kidlets in their seats.

No lights, no heat, what will break next?

This building's hexed! 

"Let them go! Let them go!
The classrooms are too cold.
Send them home! Send them home!
This building's getting old."
Let's hope our school gets fixed real soon,
'cuz if we miss more days...
We'll all make them up in June.

When You Are The Baby...

When you are The Baby, you get to stay in your jim-jams all day long...

... except for when you dress up as Thor. 

When you are The Baby, you always get to swipe the Kindle to turn the pages when your sister reads you a book. 

When you are The Baby, you get to ride Maxwell's tiger while you coach him in a card game.

You also get to ride a wolf while forcing your older siblings to watch Elmo.

When you are The Baby, you get to eat all of the marshmallows out of the cereal. 

You also get to double-dip your nachos at basketball games.

Oh sweet nectar of life that is nacho cheeze.

When you are The Baby, you get to eat Oreos for breakfast. 

And instead of taking the Oreos away and giving you oatmeal or eggs, the grownups take photos of you eating Oreos for breakfast and tell you, "You are just so stinkin' cute!"

Yes, it is good to be The Baby.

Pictures

So I had planned on doing daily Red Ribbon Week posts last week, but things ended up getting a little busy. Not bad busy, just busy-busy. And this week isn't shaping up to be any less-busy, but I don't want the awesomeness that was last week to go chronicled, so here is a quick recap...

Tuesday was Tourist Day: Go Places and Be Drug-Free

Tuesday night was stake auxiliary training, which meant rushing home from school to get refreshments ready (thanks again for your help, Val!) and to get my part of the training ready. 

Except for a few technology hiccups, the training went really well... at least that is what I am told. I didn't get to stay for all of the auxiliary training because I had to drive to Sun Valley that night so I could be there for a training on Wednesday morning.

That made for a long drive after a long day, but it turned out to be a pretty fun long drive thanks to my traveling companion: my awesome assistant principal. And even though I didn't get to see it until 11 p.m., my lovely little room was a beautiful sight.

The training the next day didn't have the Sister-Woodhouse-Flair of the auxiliary training the night before, and it's subject matter didn't have the same eternal importance, but as far as school training go, it wasn't too painful.I was a little sad to have had to missed Red Ribbon Week Wednesday, Camo Day: You Can't Disguise Drugs.

But I did make it back for Thursday, which was Olympics Day: Winners Don't Do Drugs. 

I was a coach on the Canadian Curling Team.

Then Friday was Super Hero Day: Heroes Don't Do Drugs.

Friday was also Halloween and, instead of hiding from kidlets who might accidentally tract into my warm little hobbit hole while scavenging for candy, I went to dinner (Taco Bandido) and a movie (Meet the Mormons) with Valerie and Bill. Dinner was tasty, the movie was uplifting (those Mormons are actually pretty cool! Who knew?) and afterwords I ran into some former students, one of whom is going to be majoring in English when she goes to college next year!

In between all of the training, traveling, and dressing up last week, I also managed to get our yearbook shirts picked up from the printers. One of our 8th grade staffers came up with the idea for this year's shirts [Yearbook Staff (Not a Stalker)] and I think the shirts turned out pretty awesome. I was really tempted to order a special shirt for me to wear when I take awkward photos at the awkward wrestling meets, perhaps something along the line of Yearbook Staff: Not a Creeper. Please don't call Dateline NBC or Nancy Grace.

We took our staff photos yesterday. Aren't my staffers the cutest kidlets you have ever seen in your life? And they don't just skate by on their looks, These are some seriously sharp, hard-working reporters and photographers. 

By the way, my hair really did look nicer earlier in the day, I promise. But by 4th hour, a quick ponytail was necessary.

Also necessary? Having Coach Bus around to help the yearbook guys down from the school sign.

If we decide to take our staff photo outside again next year, please remind me to bring the kidlets a step ladder so they won't injure themselves getting down from the sign. I am a little concerned that there might be a three way tie for "most accident prone" in our favorites voting tomorrow, with all there winners being yearbook staffers. 

Who knew yearbook photos could be so dangerous? 

Red Ribbon Week: Monday

It's Red Ribbon week in Cow Town again! And that means one thing...

Dress-up days at school!

Run away from drugs!

 The first day of Red Ribbon Week, usually has the fewest number of kidlets who dress up.

  They plan on dressing up, but then they start to worry that nobody else will dress up.

 Almost 100 of the bravest kidlets showed up in their runner's gear today.

 Which means we will have a lot more kidlets in costume tomorrow.

The teachers didn't want to be left out either. 

 Sometimes I think we like the dress up days more than the kids do!