Time Out For Women 2011

Time Out For Women is something I look forward to every fall. My friend Lori Mecham is really involved in the event, and has had me come and help for the last couple of years. I LOVE being a part of such a great event. It is a time where we come to just enjoy ourselves, and celebrate the women we are. A time to realize that we are all struggling with something, and more similar than different, but with HOPE we can overcome all! This year, the theme was BECOME. I enjoyed it so much! I will have to say my favorite speaker was actually the one who came to do music. Hillary Weeks is AMAZING! She has a gorgeous voice, invites the Spirit so quickly and is HILARIOUS! We just sat and laughed SO much! Mostly because she helped us to laugh at ourselves.

 

2 of my room mates from college have kept up pretty well. Amy (Slade) Lemke, and Shanna (Wood) Fuhrimann. They came out just to attend TOFW. It's always good to get together with them. They are both such neat friends. We had a few days together, and just found ourselves laughing and reminiscing....and eating, and just having so much fun!

I definitely felt relaxed and ready to tackle anything after that weekend!

 

Sarah Wiltbank and her mom, sister and friend came and sat behind us. Actually, we saved them seats. There is a really neat story behind that. Last year, right after I got put into the Relief Society Presidency....we were planning the RS Birthday Party and decided we would go and hand out invitations personally to people who weren't at church to pick them up. Well, it got down to the end, and the Saturday before Enrichment night, I started driving around delivering these invitations.
Sarah happened to be outside talking to a salesman and I didn't want to interrupt, so I quietly and quickly said "Are you Sarah?" She said "yes"......I gave her the invitation and took off. I didn't know if she would even want the invite. I had never seen her.
Long story short, she showed up to the Birthday party and has been coming to church ever since then. I guess she had started back with her friends a couple of weeks before. But prior to that, she had been inactive for several years.
It has been SOOO neat watching her grow and change. IT's remarkable what having the Spirit does to you. She is such a great example to me.

 

I loved watching Hillary so much that I just HAD to go and get a picture with her! My friends were all shy about it, but I insisted. When it was finally our turn, Hillary said to me "I like your shirt!" And I said "I like YOU!" Ü

 

I can't wait to go next year. I look forward to it like Christmas. It just leaves me feeling whole. I love that feeling! See you in the Fall of 2012! Can't wait!

Camping With Friends is MUCH better than alone!

Anyone that knows me knows that I HATE camping! That's terrible to say, but I don't really see the point to it. You are hot and dirty during the day, and then you are freezing in the night. LOTS of work to prepare food, and just plain not that fun. I know there are lots of people that LOVE camping, but I never did. HOWEVER, this fall, Shelly Turner put together a group of 5 families to go camping and I felt pressured into going. I have to admit, that I sent my family a day ahead of me, and I only stayed 1 night and 2 days, but it was REALLY fun!

 

Camping with friends makes for a fun time. The kids were all playing which left the adults to sit around in chairs talking, laughing, eating, playing games like cards and horse shoes. I couldn't believe I was enjoying myself as much as I was. I kind of didn't want to admit it. Stubborn ole me!

 

Talan Turner is my boy! I love that baby! He is so cute and I could just hug and kiss him all day. He feels more like my nephew than friend. I had a couple of pictures of me with him, but they didn't look so good, so I just put him in.

 

The girls had fun making crafts. Shelly and Katie made fun things for the girls to do while we were up there. We camped somewhere on The Rim near Payson.

 

I am going to admit that THE WORST thing about camping is the toilet situation. I don't love to bare my bum in the woods and especially NOT at a tree or somewhere out in the WIDE OPEN SPACES! I thought it was bad enough to have a latrine or something. This is the main reason I put off coming for too many days cuz I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom that many more times. Dave Mahaffey was awesome and made a little potty out of a bucket so we didn't have to squat and get stuff on our pants. I guess I'm not a professional go-to-the-bathroomer in the woods. I thought Dave was being sweet to make the girls a pot, but really, he was tired of everyone wanting to come into his 5th Wheel to use his bathroom....so this is where he sent everyone to use the biffy.

 

David loves to camp. He just ate it up those few days. He went and did his little mobile shower every day and just hung out with the kids. "Bonding" time is what I call it.

 

We were all assigned a different meal to cook. Which is another reason why I don't love camping. I thought we would have to cook over a big open fire, and do that 3 meals a day. Shelly organized it all to have us take turns cooking for all 5 families for 1 meal. We provided the food, cooked, cleaned up and then were done for the rest of the trip. We brought our own munchies and drinks and stuff, but only had to cook one meal. Not bad huh?

 

The kids had fun games to play, and the boys especially had fun having air soft gun wars. In fact, the girls wanted to get into it and Malory Mahaffey asked for an air soft gun for Christmas!

 

I am totally game to do this again! I was kind of sad to leave that next night while everyone was sitting around the fire bonding. It was so much fun to be with these friends and I hope we do it again next year!!!

 

Smith 7th Grade Basketball Team Takes 2nd!

This has been a fun and eventful year. On the last day of 6th grade, Mason decided he wanted to go to Smith Jr High instead of the charter school Franklin Jr. High....(the public school) A big reason was because of his good friends Mitchell Krummenacher and Tait Brown. These boys went out for the bastketball team and had SUCH a fun time!

 

They are all great athletes! The team did REALLY well! They had a great season and then at the end of the season they went to a tournament and got all the way to the end and finished 2nd! We were so proud of these boys! They did great and we had fun watching them!

 

Mitchell, Tait and Carson were some of his best friends on the team. They are GOOD kids....ones that every mom wants their kids to hang out with. We love their families and think the world of them! Shortly after this Mason, David and I decided to switch him back to Franklin Jr. High. He is loving it there and doing really well. He has lots of friends there, but he sure misses these boys!

 

Abbie and Halle (Mitchell's sister) went out and did a little cheerleading for the boys. Kinda nice of Mason & Mitchell to bring their own cheerleading squad huh? Ü

 

And it never hurts to have your basketball start dad come out to give you a few little pointers to make it a great game!

 

Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make do or DO WITHOUT!

I'm not sure who I"m quoting....I want to say President Gordon B. Hinckley...but I could be wrong. I think it's really true though. We need to find ways to fix our stuff instead of throwing it away the second something bigger and better comes along, or if it's ruined.....

 

I heard my friend Samantha likes to recover things, so I talked her into trading me for a haircut to help me recover this hair chair.

 

It was WAY more work than I thought it would be. But I am SO glad that Samantha knows how to do this! I use the chair almost everyday, and feel bad when they sit down on this falling apart chair.

 

WOW! Look at this! I am SO excited to have a "new" chair again! Thanks Sam!

 

Happy 4th of July from San Jose, CA

4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I've always enjoyed the festivities that accompany the holiday. I grew up where there was always a lot going on for the 4th. It has DEFINITELY taken some adjusting not living where they go all out.
This year, we were all in San Jose. So Aunt Darlene and Aunt Ginger made up a whole program for the Crawford family to enjoy. Apparently, this is the way her family did it. Always nice to have a little change......

 

We had a watermelon eating contest.....

 

An Opening Ceremony....a flag ceremony.....the girls sang the Star Spangled Banner and I think Eli said the pledge?

 

The kids climbed up a pole and got a dollar bill that Grandpa Put at the top. Grandpa was probably poor after all those grand kids climbed up to get their own dollar!

 

My Personal Favorite to watch was the Pie eating contest. Darlene's family does this a lot I guess. You have to eat a pie as quickly as you can without touching the pie. They LOVED it! Yummy butterscotch pudding in a graham cracker crust. That is a flavor that the Crawfords go for. I never thought of buying butterscotch pudding until I came into the Crawford Family.

 

And then last but not least....they did a water balloon toss and just had so much fun. This is definitely like a small town...old fashioned 4th of July.

 

We missed our friends the Langlois, Fishers and Whitmarshes that night who invited us to go and watch the fireworks in Morgan Hill....but we had people in the neighborhood lighting up big fireworks, which made us feel like we had a pretty good celebration and didn't have to fight any crowds!!!!!

We have just had the time of our lives. David's parents Bob and Linda just took all of their 5 kids, spouses and children to DISNEYLAND! We had so much fun! We live in different parts of the country and just enjoyed being together as family....especially the COUSINS!