Happy Birthday Georgia girl!

This cute little girl has a birthday today!  I can't believe she is all grown up and has two kids of her own!  We love you Amanda!  When the dr. said, "It's a girl," we were so happy and thrilled for another daughter.  You are a joy in our lives and we thank you for being the wonderful person you are today.  We hope you have a fantastic birthday, and please know that if we were in Georgia, we would help you celebrate all day long!!  Love you!  Happy Birthday!!

My favorite husband...

29 years ago he said YES!  It was the best day of my life, marrying an eternal companion in the House of the Lord.  It was the hottest day on record for Mesa, and boy did we know it!  Take a picture, wipe the sweat, take a picture, wipe the sweat.  It was a beautiful day for us and we did not care about the heat!  I am grateful our reception was indoors though.  It was wonderful to have so many family and friends there to support us that day.  

 I love him even more today and look forward to eternity with this wonderful man!  I am grateful that he puts up with me, and loves me back.  So to my husband I say, "Loved you then, love you still, always have, always will!"  I can't believe how fast 29 years have gone...they have been wonderful!Happy Anniversary!

Fun time in Folsom!

Friday afternoon we dropped Joel off at the church for a scout camping adventure..then Dave and I drove on to visit his parents in Folsom.  We stopped along the way for a little dinner (Subway) and got to Folsom around 8 p.m.  It was a fun date night!  Just the two of us driving along and enjoying the time toegether.  This little overnight trip had a three-fold mission.  1) to visit his parents and see how they are doing...Terry had shoulder surgery a couple of weeks ago and we wanted to see how he was doing.  In person.  It's just better that way somehow.  2) I needed to go to the church humanitarian office (conveniently located in the same building as DI!) and get kits for an upcoming Relief Society service project...and 3) hit some out of town stores (Walmart, Michaels, and Bed Bath and Beyond) for times for our upcoming Super Saturday of which our local stroes have run out.  So this was a very importan trip!  When we arrived at DI on Saturday morning, I was shocked to see the humanitarian office was CLOSED.  Only open M-W but there was a number for "special appointments."  So my sweet mother-in-law called the number and explained why I was here and how far I'd come, and the kind gentleman said he would be there in 30 minutes!  So I SHOPPED while waiting for him!  It was perfect!  I loaded my cart with books...look at all I got for 30 bucks!!!  I was in heaven! 

These are all nice hardbound books in excellent condition, only 2 paperbacks.  The reader's digest stack at the back are for a halloween project I want to do.  The Dr. Seuss books for my grandsons, and the Children of the Promise series is for me (I had already bought #1 and #5 at the DI in Utah...but they had 1-4 so I bought them all.  The ones from Utah by the way, were a dollar more!  These were $2 each instaed of 3.  Brand new books!  One of them even still had a card inside it that hadn't been opened!  So I opened it.  Some poor lady named Kay either never got her book, or gave it away without reading it!  The ME book is Mary Engelbreit Chrsitmas ideas and pictures, and there is a fun scrapbooking idea book...and then a few books from some of my favorite authors that I already have but will use for gift giving.  And Dave picked out the Majesty book as I have been interested in Queen Victoria lately and the whole monarchy history and stuff...it shows a "family tree" inside the front cover so he thought I would like it.  He's right!  I like biographies...How much do you think all these books would cost if I bought them from a bookstore?  Hmmmm.

I did look at dresses also, because last time I found about 5 that were perfect for me.  At only 5 of 6 dollars each.  But this time, all the ones I really liked and that looked good, were all size 8.  Guess I will have to excercise and diet quite a bit more before I will be buying that size!

The Gentlema came and he was so very nice.  He let us into the humanitarian center where I picked out kits to make "burrito babies" and I had to sign them out saying when I planned to return them.  They are the cutest little dolls made out of scrap fabric.  I tried to download a picture of them from lds.org but couldn't make it work.  Anyway, they are very cute and I will blog about them when we make them next month.  I was so happy to be able to ge tthe kits and grateful for the gentleman that took time out of his busy Saturday to come and let me in.

After that productive and very fun morning...we went back to the house and picked up Terry who was ready to go on an outing and get some lunch.  We went to a place called Smashburger.  It was really good, but we are not sure why they call it that!  Kind of a fast food gourmet burger place.  We enjoyed it.  I had a mushroom swiss burger and Dave had a fried chicken sandwich.  Then on the way back to their place in Folsom we stopped at their Michaels store so I could use my 50% off coupon which expired that day.  Thank you for helping me get stuff done!

Barbara gave me some of her homemade seedless boysenberry jelly and we soon hit the road for home.  Aren't these little flat bottles so cute!?

On the drive home we stopped in Elk Grove at a Walmart and a Bed Bath and Beyond so I could pick up some things for super Satruday that our Walmart and BBB were out of.  I was able to find what I needed and I bought all the square plates that BBB had!  Then we google mapped Fosters Freeze and Baskin Robbins so we could stop somwhere and get something cold and creamy...Ended up in Atwater heading for a Baskin Robbins but found a Fosters first...so stopped there!  Dave got an Oreo Twister and I got an old fashioned Chocolate milkshake.  It made the rest of the drive home creamy and yummy!  It was a great weekend and I am so glad we got to go!  Thanks Dave for being my chauffeur and  being so willing to make all those stops for me...he really does support me in my calling!   We will be going back in October to return the Burrito babies and to help Barbara celebrate her 80th birthday!  Looking forward to it!

Blog hopping...and free printables...

My name is Allyson, and I am a blog-aholic...I blog hop (stalk) pretty much every morning for about 15 minutes (instead of exercising!) and find all kinds of cute crafts and gift ideas that I want to make "someday."  One of the favorite things that I find are Free Printables...yes, FREE.  You just download and print.  Mostly I just download and save...to print when I need them for a gift or something...or I email them as little happy thoughts to friends and family.  Anyway, I came upon these two particular good messages one day and I loved them...so thought I'd share them here...the first one is a style called "subway art" where they use lots of font styles and I really love them!  So please, don't try to cure me of this disease...it truly makes me happy and inspires me!!  And of course now I am addicted to "Pinterest" which is a virtual bulletin board you can "pin" all these ideas and keep them in one place and see what everyone else is "pinning" to their boards.  Yes, my name is Allyson...and I have an addiction...just pray for me.  :)

 T

Loved this thought on forgiveness, I might frame it someday...perhaps for a Relief Society Lesson, or just to give my brain some deep thinking...

And this was a cute back to school subway art...might give it to a teacher sometime...colorful and fun!

59 years ago...

...these two youngsters got hitched...and are we ever glad!  We wish they were here to celebrate...we miss them terribly.  We know there is probably a big party in heaven on this day though, because 51 years ago on this same day...

...our sister Lori was born.  She passed away a short two and a half years later...here she is holding me...the sister I never knew, but can't wait to meet someday.  Birthday and Anniversary, that's cause for some kind of party somewhere!  Love and miss you all, hope you are smiling down at us from Heaven and that you know how much we love and miss you!

Out of the frying pan into the fire...or a cake walk?

On August 11th, after five years of serving in the Stake Young Women with my good friend Terry Olsen, we were released (along with the other counselor and secretary).  It has been a wonderful five years and I have learned so much!  I began serving as Terry's secretary, and then as changes came along, I was made 1st Counselor.  Serving in this calling has been very busy...there is always something to be doing.  I have loved getting to know the young women and their leaders in our stake.  I have also loved working with such wonderful men as Pres. Matsunaga (our priesthood leader), Jeff Kennington, our High Councilman, Mike Harmon, Matt Ward, Eric Metler, and Scott Olsen, (the Stake Young Men presidency).  As well as with young men presidents and other counselors and secretaries who have come and gone...it has been a great ride and one I am truly grateful for! I will always have fond memories of the past five years. We knew that they would probably not release us over the pulpit the following Sunday, so I thought we might get a week or so to enjoy the break and no new calling...boy was I wrong!

I was prepared for a cake walk, but instead was called in to meet with a member of the bishopric on Sunday morning...a little over 48 hours since my release!  You can imagine my shock when they asked me to serve as the 2nd Counselor in the ward Relief Society presidency!  Wow...I was floored!  Of course I accepted, and knew that it wouldn't happen right away until the Stake YW was reorganized and we were "officially" released.  Well, theRelief Society president, Linda Saunders mouthed a big thank you to me during Relief Society for accepting, and then she called me Sunday evening to see if I could meet with them on Monday.  And of course I did.  I will just say that now I have been "officially" released from the Stake and sustained and set apart on August 28th (it took two weeks and it was hard keeping it quiet!  But I have been busy and am learning my responsibilites quickly.  It has been a differenct change of pace, but a pace all the same.  I love the ladies I will be working with, besides Linda, Susan Tanner is the other counselor and Geri Merrill is the secretary.  They are all amazing women and I know I will learn alot from them.  I also know I will learn to love the women in our ward...I look forward to it!  I was reminded that they are just "older" young women!

 I have been visiting new sisters, planning an upcoming Super Saturday event, with the wonderful Relief Society Meeting coordinator Christi Budge, and this morning, Sunday Sept. 4th, I jumped into the fire feet first by attending Ward Council at 7 a.m. and then I conducted Relief Society as well as gave the lesson...Linda and Susan were both out of town!  Baptism by fire I tell ya!  But Geri was very helpful as well as a couple of other pinch hitters...the ladies are all wonderful and it went very well.  I thought as it was a holiday weekend that it would be pretty empty, but we had a full house!  I found these cute cakes on different blogs I visit, (isn't the hydrangea one amazing?) and I want one of each!  They are so pretty and I am wondering, after five years of Young Women, do you think Relief Society will be a cake walk?  I'm sure it will take hard work and dedication too, and I am ready and willing.   But I will still keep finding pretty cakes to look at...maybe we will have a cake decorating class in Relief Society soon.

I love this whimsical Valentine cake!  I look forward to serving with love in the Relief Society! 

 Oh, and on another note...we still had to be at the Quad Stake youth dance on Aug. 20th as nothing was official yet, and Terry who has served as the Stake Young Women President for all five years, was called over by our Bishop (who was the presiding bishop that night) and she was called as the ward Primary President!  I think SHE is more in the fire than I am...perhaps I need to bake her a cake.  Love ya Terry!  I will miss working with you!