A little older and hopefully a little wiser

I enjoyed a birthday today. It was such a fun day, but 1st, a recap of the previous days:

Friday night Rick and I went to the temple and then he took me out to eat at one of my favorite restaurants - Thai Mango. I love me some Thai food.

Saturday I spend the day with my friend Marcy who came to visit from Cali. She is my 5th sister. I love her so much and she is such a great friend. She gave me an awesome purple jacket, scarf and hat and I much say that I love it. We drove to SLC and spent the day looking around. We went to the church history museum and she enjoyed that a lot since she had never been there. We wandered around temple square, check out the almost complete City Creek center, ate a delicious lunch at Blue Lemon and then hopped on Trax and went down to the Gateway to poke around (another place she had heard about but never seen.) In honor of the 10 year anniversary of the SLC Olympics, I went to the Olympic volunteer board and showed her the names of Claire and Rich and his sister Max engraved on the wall. I still think that is pretty cool that they got to be Olympic volunteers. That evening we returned to Provo and picked up Rick to go to the Covey Center to attend the Kurt Bestor & David Lanz concert. It was wonderful! Two pianists just doing their thing. They are so talented and I love that New Age sound they create and some of their melo compositions. Great evening.

Sunday I made dinner and Rick's parents came over to eat along with nephew JRE and niece Brooke along with Andy and his friend Alex. We enjoyed a lovely meal and a rousing game of THINGS at the end with Grandpa Vern stealing the show. We had some great laughs.

Monday, was by actual birthday and it started out when I opened the door and found my exercise buddy Patsy standing there with a gift. All the ladies at Pilates sang happy birthday to me and wished me well. I had some nice surprises at work along with some well wishes as I advance in the aging process, and Andy brought me flowers and took me to Zupas for lunch. That was so sweet of him because he knows that I love those two things...fresh flowers and lunch at Zupas. After work I went and got a pedicure in preparation for my trip to AZ. Rick gave me a new purse and that afternoon I went and picked it out. Love what I found. I met Andy and Rick at Los Hermanos for dinner and we enjoyed a lovely meal complete with fried ice cream for dessert. It was so nice to receive cards, calls, texts, Facebook messages and gifts from friends both far and near. I must say that I felt really loved and it certainly filled my cup. Thanks to all who made my 57th BD a special day!

And the best part is that I get to travel to AZ in a few days to meet new grandson Charlie, visit Dave and Courtney, Jord & Jake and their girls, my Mom and brother Paul and his wife DeNae. Great times are ahead.

Ellen DeGeneres, Target give elementary school $100K grant | ksl.com

Ellen DeGeneres, Target give elementary school $100K grant | ksl.com

Click on the link above and check out this great story about a generous gift that was given to a school in our area. OES, the BEST! Wow, who wouldn't love receiving $100,000 for new computers in any elementary school? Way to go Ellen and Target. That's pretty impressive that they are awarding that amount to 50 different schools. That's $5,000,000 going out to deserving schools across the country. Impressive!

10 things that happily married couples do

Thanks to Valentines day, February is typically a month to think more about love and romance. There is so much written on the subject, but one thing is clear. Marriage matters for many, many reasons. As marriage drops in popularity in our country, so does the moral fabric of our civilization. I just read this article in Time magazine this morning while I was eating my oatmeal: "We are casting aside the institution of marriage and with it the notion that children should be raised in stable two-parent families. This is a social catastrophe."
To counter that trend, I also read this week another great article about 10 things couples can do to make or keep their marriage strong. I think they are worth mentioning here:

1. Have positive conversations.
2. Show affection.
3. Remember that you are each other’s therapists.
4. Be humble and cultivate Christlike attributes.
5. Date frequently.
6. Enrich your intimacy.
7. Spend time with children and grandchildren.
8. Seek feedback and help each other.
9. Eliminate anger.
10. Be sensitive to each other’s stress levels

My all-time favorite short piece of counsel on marriage came from President Gordon B. Hinckley, who shared this important key to a great marriage: “A happy marriage is not so much a matter of romance as it is an anxious concern for the comfort and well-being of one’s companion." If you want a happy marriage, do what happily married couples do.

Charlie's adoring fans

Courtney's sister Kim had her baby boy just a few days before Courtney. Her parents have been busy helping both daughters. Another sister is in having a baby in the next few days, so these little cousins will be very close in age. How fun!
We can't wait to meet little Charlie! What darling little boys.

Young Women camp

I've mentioned before that I've spend a goodly amount of time in my life with girls at a summer girls camp up in the mountains not far from here. I'm preparing to go again. I'm pretty sure that this will be my 20th year...yikes!
Our wonderful ward president and I have been attending some camp training. Even though I've been so many times, I always learn something new when I go to a camp training meeting. At the very least, it helps me to remember why we do what we do. As I've mentioned before, it has less to do with actual camping (although we do plenty of that) and more to do with getting the girls out in nature so that they can feel the spirit of our Heavenly Father. These goals really are at the forefront of our preparation and planning for a great experience for our Young Women:

• Draw closer to Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
• Feel the influence of the Spirit.
• Serve others.
• Build friendships and unity.
• Learn skills.
• Appreciate God's creations.
• Have fun!!!
  

Our stake joined together with the surrounding states over 40 years ago to purchase property in the mountains for this purpose. Recently, we were made aware of this fantastic web site that is for all who need ideas for girls camp preparation, as well as containing policies and procedures for this particular Camp Shalom. Check it out here. It's a great resource if you are or will ever be a Young Woman leader who "gets" to go to girls camp. Be sure to scroll through the handout section because it contains a lot of good information.
Plus, we got to listen to this classy and amazing woman and hear her thoughts on the subject. It was truly inspirational.