I'm sure it never happens at your house, but at our house the toilet paper roll seems always to be empty. Everyone in family counsel complains that they are the only one that ever changes it on a daily basis, and yet it always seems to be empty. Last night dad went in there and did his chores and for the first time in months got the last few squares off the roll. as he sat there pondering whether to be kind and install a new one a sly grin made it's way across his face, and he picked up a stray crayon that happened to be there by the sink, and wrote upon it "HA HA!"in bright red letters. The roll still stays there waiting for someone that has charity and compassion to make a change. Just hope you aren't the next one in trouble in there.

Life's blessings!

I want to just say that my Family is the best. Through thick and thin they are there for each other. It is really amazing in this world where there are struggles and problems what happens when you work together. My Heavenly Father has blessed me so much and I'm so thankful for all of them, extended family and so forth. Thanks also to family and friends. I have been very blessed in my life!

Harv

Hello Friends!!!

Once again I have decided to try the blogging world.... for this once at least. Many of you know our faithful truck Harv, well again he has gone through a tragedy. This of course deserves a post: Harv has been a trooper. He's been there through thick and thin and has always pulled through for us!

When we first got Harv 4 years ago from my Aunt RaNae we were told that, "He is on his last leg and probably won't last too much longer." I loved him from the start! All the scratches and dents didn't make a difference to me. It just added character and from that first moment I knew we were meant for each other! :)

Since that first day Harv has been through a bunch and for someone who was on his last leg he has been AMAZING!!!

First of all Harv hit a deer. (Actually, Mom hit the deer, but Harv got the rotten end of that deal.) :) The deer mashed in the front bumper and almost knocked the radiator off. However it held on by one screw. (That screw is still holding on!! Can you believe it!?!)

Secondly, there was a milk spill. This was really bad! If any of you have ever spilled milk in your car you know how bad it STINKS!! It's the worst thing ever! Especially in the summer cause the heat gets to it and makes the smell about 10 times worse.... I tried everything to get rid of the smell: vacuuming, power spraying it out, air freshners, eventually I decided that I would have to just redo the carpet. It was a job! It had to take out the seats, rip out the old carpet, round up some new carpet, cut it out, and piece it all together. After hours of hard work and dedication, the bad smell was finally gone! Thank goodness!!

Thirdly, my family borrowed Harv to haul wood and someone accidently threw a piece of wood a little too hard and it went straight through the back window. Luckily, that one was a pretty easy fix. A trip to the junk yard for a new window fixed that!

Then, came all of the struggles with the handles. The door on the passenger side was hard to get open from the inside. I guess when it had been hammered by so many people for so many years those plastic handles have a tendency to give out on you! Can you believe it!?! Finally the inside gave out and I made another trip to the junk yard for a new handle. That all worked great until the outside handle BROKE OFF!! After that my brilliant father fashioned a new handle for th passenger side door. That worked great for a few weeks until the door accidently got locked. Now unfortunately it will remain locked. Because despite all of our loving care, soft coaxing tones and gentle tugs it still won't unlock. So the fate remains: if you want to get in or out quickly you get to jump through the window!

Now, for our latest adventures!!! Diana and I are in Cedar City attending Southern Utah University. Diana's car gave out on her. (That's another story for another day.) So on my birthday my AWESOME parents surprised us and brought Harv down for Diana! It was the best birthday ever... for both of us!! :) Over the next few days, everything was going great! We had to run to wal-mart for some groceries, but before we could both pile in, we decided to see if we could lock the drivers side door and make sure that Harv would be all safe and secure in this crazy little college town. So I climbed in and locked it and Di stayed outside to see if she could unlock it. Well, unfortunately, while trying to unlock the door she got a little over exuberant and the plastic handle came off in her hand!!! We were both shocked! I quickly climbed out of Harv to see if I could be of assistance, and I might have accidently let the door shut! OOPS!!! (Now remember, the other door DOESN'T open!!) and both of the windows happened to be up! We were in a real pickle!!!

So now what!?!? When you live two and a half hours away from your Amazing Dad, you have to use your other resources, so of course that meant our trusty brother-in-law, Joe! It was Joe to the rescue!!! (This was the second time he had to rescue us in the middle of the night! We are getting really good at the "Damsels in Distress.") He came up with this brilliant idea of shoving a hanger through a gap the the door and trying to hook the hanger around the handle and pull it open . . . . .

Here's the two mastermind going at it! They were doing all the easy stuff so Katie and I got stuck with the hard job of trying to document everything. It was a chore! Here's the camera crew, hard at work!! Like always!! :)

(Sorry some of the pictures are sideways! Try resting your head on the keyboard if you need to! It helps to get the correct angle!!) :)

We were all pretty distressed!! Poor Harv!!!

But don't worry too much!! The camera crew never gets discouraged!! Just keep SMILING!!!!

Eventually Joe and Diana suceeded in prying the handle open but it was a huge ordeal! Here are the two champions!! Just looking at the two of them, you would think that they had climed Mt. Everest!!

nde">Thanks to Joe, Diana has her trusty truck back and we are in buiness agian. Now all we have to do is get a new handle on it! Everything will be great! Harv has pulled through for us agian!! Our trusty truck is the best ever!! We love you Harv!!!

So, as you can see Harv is definatly one-of-a-kind! Where else would you ever get such a truck!! He just never quits! Harvard is a GEM!! (Thanks everybody, especially Dad, Joe, Ben and everybody else that has helped keep Harv in running order, you are the best!!)

Cross Country

I finally gave in. Ben has been telling me for 3 years how fun Cross Country is. I did Summer Cross country last year and then I didn't do it anymore. Then this year as I was slaving away at work I decided I needed to do something besides work, school, homework, eat, sleep and more homework. So I talked to a couple of my friends and (some in XC) and decided that I was actually going to stick it out this year.
I went to practice Thursday and Friday... I thought I was going to die! But that's nothing compared to what I feel today I can't even walk straight. :D lol I love the people in it. So that makes it all worth it right... :S

Matthew and the horse

This is Steve McDonald teaching Matthew how to take care of the horse

Rebeckah riding

Matthew was in his glory

Matthew just learning how to ride

We do a lot of work with Steve McDonald. Steve knew tht Matthew loves horses. Steve and his wife Maureen invited us upfor dinner and to let the children ride the horses. Matthew was i his glory. Maureen taught him how to ride the horse and guide it how to make it turn and how to get it to stop. It was a small enough horse that Matthew could even get on and off of it by himself. It was almost as much fun as riding it. Alll the children tht wanted a turn had one. But Matthew rode as much as he could then the next morning he informed me he was ready to go to Steve's again. We had a wonderful evening and something that the children will remember for a very long time

Ben in full custome.

Laura and Miriam had the part of the Heavenly child. We curled Laura's hair in ringlets andit was beautiful.

Ben with his wig on for the Indian part

Mark was Angel Moroni

It was drenching wet. One of the first nights they canceled the dress rehersal because it rained so much

Pageant was so fun. I love it because the whole family gets involved. We have other pictures with everyone in custome but I'm not sure where they are at. I guess I'll have to find them. The best part of pageant is the testimony that grows as we do it.

Youth Conference

Karri Stevens and Amy Young are wonderful Young Women leaders. I'm so privledged to work with them.

You had to hang onto the rope above your head and walk across. It was a bit scary.

Getting off the rope you climbed up and then to the bridge was pretty difficult also.

This is how we climbed up. It felt like 25 feet but Lynn said it was only qt. It was a long ways.

We had so much fun at Youth Conference. we did different activities and then we compared them to life and to our lives. Sometimes Life isn't always easy but we have to keep trying. I loved the experience. I was so grateful that I could go. They didn't have enough room for everyone to go but at the last minute I was invited and it ws well worth it. I'm thankful for my older daughters who took care of everything at home. Boy do I miss them!!

This is when we went to the Ute Sanpete. Matthew was so intrigued with the rodeo that he set there the whole night with out hardly moving.

I figured out how to download pictures. I love pictures. I'm even going to take a photography class so maybe I will improve. I'm just going to download pictures and write captions under it and it might be short but at least it's a bit of what is going on.

Lynn came

Playing at the Park

Shopping

Playing at the Park

This is the big ball that you sit on and jump out at the tree and here you go

Shopping

Miriam at the Park
Laura

This is a boiler that Lynn was working on.


This is is by the river waiting for the Duck race

Dad's are such an important part of our lives. The last weekend that Lisa and Diana were here we had made plans to go to Idaho to visit Aunt Dona. She has been a favorite around here and the girls promised that we would go visit her. She has such a fun sense of humor and keeps us laughing all of the time. I think we arrived late Friday and poor Dona was waiting up for us. She had beds made and all ready for us. That is quite a job. Saturday we went shopping and down to the river to see the duck race and walk around, then Sunday we went to church and then we found this fun ball that you swing out of a tree on. Lisa and Di commented on how if we had been home we would of had Lynn there with us and how they loved the visit but wish Lynn had come with us. We planned on leaving on Tuesday morning but by Monday the children were pretty homesick. We comtemplated about going home but then we found out that Lynn was working out of town so it didn't matter if we were home or not. I had gone to the park with Lew (Dona's husband) and had a fun time. As we were walking home Lynn called and said well, I need to know your plans are you coming home tonight or should I come up. I didn't know what he was talking about. He said Lisa, Diana and Hannah had called him and told him he had to come up. Everything fell into place and Lynn came. He was planning on going to Manti to get a trailer for a job he was doing but he was able to get another one closer and it was all well. It was so good to have everyone one there that we could. We were still missing a couple of children but that couldn't really be helped. Lynn came up that night and then we all went home the next morning. It was a really fast trip for Lynn.Lynn had to laugh the next morning as he said everyone was so glad to see him but once he was there it was like everything was all right and we went about life. It doesn't matter who is there but if there is someone missing it like a big hole until they come. It made it easier for the girls to go knowing that their Dad would come if they needed him.