Our Family History

In Our Family This Week... What a charged week it was! We started off with Veterans' Day on Monday. John had it off and was planning on spending the day fixing the Heater Core in the Suburban... however, he put a call into his friend, Tony, and scheduled a time for Thursday for them to work on it together at Tony's heated garage! That ended up being good in more ways than one since John came down with a migraine and spent the day in bed. Tuesday was Enrichment for me.  We had Sister Carlene Tanner come in an talk to us on strengthening Relationships.  It was very uplifting and motivating and made me even MORE grateful for John and for all that he does and stands up for! Wednesday was our last Youth Cultural celebration for the youth. I spent part of each day this week finalizing things for the celebration and on Wednesday there was another meeting giving out even more "last minute" instructions. Thursday I went Visiting Teaching and Friday I took Nathan and did the grocery shopping for the week - Including the food needed for Thanksgiving! It was pretty fun just having little Nathan in tow (although it took me longer with the bathroom breaks and "rests" on the benches, etc...) After we got back, John and I designed up sweatshirts for he and Brent to wear to the BSU game on Saturday.

and there's little Benny in the hoodie right next to John! :)

August and Seth had a Homeschooling Teen Night get together on Friday night over at the Gonzales'.  They both came back saying they'd had a good time :)  On Saturday, I drove some of the youth to the high school at 9am to start the final dress rehearsals for the Cultural Event. John and Ben left for tailgating down at BSU by 8am and were gone until 5:30ish. The little ones and I did some crafting and made Photo Coaster for Grandma Vogt's birthday.

 I also spent some time this week getting our Thanksgiving/Fall Decorations out.... I made some of the decorations:  the "Thanksgiving" quote (in the corner frame) in photoshop and printed the Happy Thanksgiving Banner and hung with ribbon and I'd made the "HOME" wooden blocks at a Relief Society Craft night. Also, when Nathan and I were at Walmart, they had all of their Fall Decor on massive clearance!  All of their bouquets of flowers were only $0.75!  I think I used 4 for the table center bouquet and then used a 5th for accenting the shelves.  The rest of the decorations I had from "collecting" at either yard sales or thrift stores.  I think it turned out super cute and it makes me happy every time I walk into the Kitchen!

 and then Saturday Night was the BIG YOUTH CULTURAL CELEBRATION in front of the prophet! I have already written down my thoughts from the night in my personal journal but wanted to give a brief re-cap of it here as well.  In addition to the Prophet, Elder David A. Bednar and his wife were in attendace along with Craig Christensen (in the Presidency of the Seventy) and his wife and William R Walker (of the Quorum of the Seventy and he is also serving as the Executive Director of the Temple Department) and his wife. John and the kids were able to go to the Stake Center and watch a live broadcast!  It was held down at the Taco Bell Arena and over 9000 youth were participating!  The Taco Bell Arena only holds about 13,000 and so this obviously didn't leave enough room for family and friends to attend. Only youth chaperones and drivers were allowed into the Arena - of which I was one!  I had a PRIME seat!  On the Parquet level (one up from the ground level) we were in the 2nd row about 20 seats to the right of the Prophet!  The Prophet started the evening off with a short talk directed to the youth. He said that he is the biggest advocate for these big events and that it gives youth something wonderful to participate in and also creating amazing memories - Memories that will be "the June Roses in the Decembers of our Lives." What I found most awesome about his talk is that he pronounced a blessing upon them that they would learn to love serving the Lord! After the words from the prophet, the 9000 youth from the Boise Temple District entertained the prophet with song and dance - it was incredible! Having the youth erupt with applause as the prophet entered the arena was amazing (I can't quite find the right words to describe the feeling in the room adequately!)... Anyway, the whole night was magical and inspiring.  Here are some photos that I was able to get (from my awesome seat! LOL). But first, here is a video that another mom from our Stake took (however it's shot from the "back" but oh well!)  If you'd like to see it larger CLICK HERE to watch it at youtube.

President Monson as he was exiting the Arena in the BSU Golf Cart with Elder Bednar and his wife following behind!

And also this week, Ben had a loose tooth and decided to have it pulled in an exciting way - with the Suburban! We got it on video and according to Ben "it has gone Viral with 150 views!" John and I's favorite part is the very end where Ben says "YES!" and pumps his arm... it's tooo cute!

After making this video, Ben was on a mission to make more videos.  All.Week.Long. This is how Ben looked the remainder of the week...

In Our Homeschool This Week...  We had some fun at school this week!  Well, I think we always have fun and this week was no exception!  The girls and I went on a field trip to the Foothills Learning Center and had a nature hike and learned all about owls.

and then the girls got a little out of control with their artwork and Aubrie ended up looking like this!

Spiritually Speaking... Well, this week has been like none other in regards to spiritually!  Being in the presence of the prophet has been incredible!  Then this morning was the Temple Re-dedication!  Each of the boys had a worthiness interview last week and were given their "recommend" to attend the re-dedication. We switched babysitting with the Erbe's (since only worthy Baptized members can attend) and so the 3 older boys along with John and I went to the 9am session (there were 3 sessions broadcasted live throughout the day to all of the Stake Centers within the Boise Temple District). David A. Bednar conducted and we heard from both him, Elder Christensen, the Matron and President of the Boise Tempe (the Brinkerhoffs) and then from the prophet himself!  It certainly felt like a mini General Conference! I am excited to take the words of the prophet into my heart and commit to attend the Temple often and to make time for Christ and welcome him into my heart and life! After participating in the re-dedication, I feel rejuvenated want to make Christ and the Temple a priority in my life!  The prophet also challenged us to BE AN EXAMPLE OF THE BELIEVERS! The last 24 hours has truly been an amazing time for me!

GOALS... report on last weeks goals:
1) Exercise 5x's -- sadly, didn't happen. I think I only went to the gym once.
2) Make a detailed cleaning list.  DONE.
This weeks goal is to get that detailed cleaning list done! More specifically by Thursday since we are having Thanksgiving at our house!