So I was on our blog and noticed that the archive started April of last year. So happy 1 year anneversary to me. I feel proud I have kept it up this far, I am quite enjoying the blogging world and being able to keep in touch with family & friends. Whoever came up with this idea, is really cool. Hope you all have a good week.

So I thought I'd better get a post out quick before you decided to stop looking at our family blog.

Anyway, as you know our 2009 year didn't start off the greatest nor has it continued to be the calmist either. We ended up having 3 leaks in our kitchen, and a leak outside with our stop-and-waste, so as you can imagine our water bill was enormous! All this occuring one after another. So the walls in our basement have been fixed twice and we are left with the 3rd time that we haven't been able to get around to yet.

We were 2 months without a kitchen and it was, as Christie would say, "H-E-double hockey sticks" not to mention the stress of dealing with Insurance and the workers always trying to cut corners. Through this whole project, Jon ended up taking 4 vacation days from work to make sure the workers were doing the job right. (I guess that was our family vacation for the year) However, with all the stress and frustration we managed to get a beautiful kitchen out of it and a new basement, minus the currently unfixed wall.

So it doesn't stop there with the chaos. At the end of February Jon & I were called to be the Stake Dance Coordinators for this huge "Temple Detication Celebration" that about 20,000 youth will be involved in. This is to celebrate Utah's 2 newest Temples, the Draper Temple and the Oquirrh Mountain Temple (which is our temple).
When we excepted the call, and in the middle of our kitchen mess; we weren't given a whole lot of info about the calling due to them not knowing fully what it intelled. We were also under the impression that we would be just be learning a dance and then teaching it to the youth, that was also the impression the stake was under. So we excepted the call feeling like we could handle that.
When we went to our first big meeting to find out all the information about this big celebration, we learned that we would be choreographing, staging, and teaching this dance to about 300 youth. We were later assigned by the General Committee, to choreograph a 40's swing number. The fun thing was that we only had 10 days to come up with the choreography and have only 8 rehearsals to teach it.

To make a long story shorter, we've had the privledge to be involved in the most amazing undertaking. At times it has been overwhelming, stressful, discouraging, and a test of faith; But then very exciting, encouraging, fun, and it's got Jon and I out dancing again and learning a lot of great things that we never knew were possible.
All in all the Lord has definitely had his hand in it, and things are excitingly moving along well. We have come up with a really fun dance for these youth and have great leaders helping. Although our lives have consisted of non-stop meetings, staying up til wee hours in the morning preparing & putting things together--while still trying to stay on some sort of healthy schedule with our kids; we have been blessed in many ways to carry on and move forward with this amazing opportunity. This is something the youth, as well as all us leaders will cherish and remember for the rest of our lives.

We'd like to add a very huge "THANK YOU" to all our wonderful Family and Friends who have been such a big help to us during this busy past few months. We could not have survived as well as we have without you!
This performance will take place at the Conference Center May 30th. We have about 25 other stakes that are part of our temple region who will be performing different dances as well. We created a blog for our Stake and have been busy keeping that up. You are welcome to take a look if you'd like: http://www.copperhillsstaketdc.blogspot.com/