Michelangelo?

I was going to Arizona Mills the other day to do some shopping.  Stephen said to me, "Hey, Old Navy has Michelangelo shirts.  Could you get me one?"  Of course my mind goes to the artist, the painter of the Sistine Chapel, David, etc.  I thought maybe they had a shirt like this one with a fig leaf place in a strategic location.

So, I'm looking all over for a shirt like this.  Couldn't find one.  I finally gave up and decided to check out without the shirt.  As I'm ready to check out, I asked the clerk about the Michelangelo shirts.

He replied,  "Oh, Michelangelo, the ninja turtle."  Duh, I should have known, Stephen, Chris and April watched that cartoon every day. (April would HATE it when they would call her April O'neill.)

Stephen is now the proud owner of a Michelangelo t-shirt.

January Happenings

When last we corresponded, April was writing the newsletter while I was busily making Christmas cookies.  I love December, but I like January because it is like the calm after the storm.  

We all had a very Merry Christmas around here.  It was especially fun to watch Lily.  We went to church.  Sam sang a solo.  Chris gave me a Kindle Fire which I have had a lot of fun with.  Especially since I can take it to church and it has all the scriptures plus the George Albert Smith manual.  No more heavy scriptures for me.  It also has the internet.  What more could I want, oh yes, games and books!  I love technology.

We started off January with our anniversary--31 years.  Gary and I took a trip to Sedona and stayed in Oak Creek Canyon at a bed and breakfast called the Canyon Wren Cabins.  Oak Creek Canyon is one of my most favorite place in Arizona, probably because it reminds me of Utah.  We went hiking and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  The weather was perfect.  We had a fire in the fireplace in our cabin every night.  The breakfasts were yummy.  We got a homemade brownie every day.  We found some great restaurants in Sedona--Mexican, Italian, and a sandwich shop that had the most delicious soft bread ever.  Fun times.

Sam jumped right back into PCC.  This Saturday is singing regionals for school.  Sam has been working hard on his solo and sight reading. His voice teacher has been a huge help.  Good luck to Sam next Saturday!  Break a leg!

April and I got Lily some new spring clothes.  She is insisting on wearing them now however, even though the weather isn’t totally cooperating.  She also insists that the new baby’s name is “Cake” even though all of us have tried to tell her that it is “Kate.”

Tax season has started for Gary, so he is getting very busy.  Lily likes to help him with the garden and loves to eat the broccoli.

I jumped right back into school also.  The second graders have been working on “carrying and borrowing.”  The new term is regrouping.  Whatever it is called, some of them are having a hard time.  They almost had me convinced that 2 is greater than 9.  Needless to say, we have some work to do with a few of them.

I must say this whole Relief Society President thing is a little weird for me.  Nothing like getting a new calling to see oneself in a whole new light.  I see my strengths, but I also see things about myself that I wish I was a whole lot better at.  I have to say my favorite part is feeling the guidance of the Holy Ghost.  Anyway, I’m sure the more I work at it, the better I will get with the Lord’s help. 

Bad Behavior at Frys

April, Lily and I went to Frys on Thursday to pick up a few things for dinner.  Lily loves to ride in the car attached to the cart.  As we were walking to the store from the parking lot, we observed the following:  Apparently someone in a truck accidentally almost ran over someone or simply got to close to them.  All of a sudden the "f" word starting flying along with the middle finger salute.  As the woman in the truck was backing up, one of the men standing there hit her window and challenged the woman in the truck to a fight.  (By the way, the truck had handicapped license plates on it.)

I have to wonder--what were they thinking?  Does swearing and flipping the bird make one tougher?  Why are some people so aggressive?  I don't know, but they looked liked total idiots to everyone standing there watching them.  And I wonder why some of the kids at school act the way they do.

Ending 2011

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! As Christmas quickly approaches we are franticly trying to prepare for it’s arrival. This week will be spent doing some last minute Christmas shopping and will be very filled with baking for Carol and April. Every year they prepare plates full of numerous goodies for neighbors and friends.

Lily is VERY thrilled to have Santa come and visit her. She is certain he will bring her a princess for Christmas. We are also prepping her for sleeping over at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. She loves sleeping in her bed but anywhere else is questionable.

 Gary has been busy with tithing settlement and is all finished. He and Carol have also attended two parties for his work. One was a catered event at a museum and the other was held at a Brazilian restaurant. Carol had some very “exciting” things happen this month. She was called to be the Relief Society president in the ward. All of the information and duties are very intimidating at first but she will do awesome. She has some very good counselors and secretary to help her out as well.

Sam is counting down the days until he gets out of school for the Christmas Break. Only two more days full of finals left. Sam has been extremely busy with all of his singing and all of the concerts he’s been in (as have Gary and Carol). A big group of us got to attend one of his Phoenix Children’s Choir concerts, it was very enjoyable. He had another concert with school called the "Holiday dinners." They perform at a local vocational school where they have a culinary program. So Gary, Carol, Stephen, Chris, and April all went, ate dinner, and watched Sam sing. At the end the alumni get to join the students and sing two songs that they sing every year. So April went and stood by her “little” brother and sang with the choirs. He is also singing in church on Christmas.

 Stephen is still working hard. He is the one of the Gospel Doctrine teachers in his ward and is excited to be teaching about the Book of Mormon next year. He is also co-chair of the ward Home Evening Committee. The name of his ward was changed to the Mesa YSA 3rd Ward in anticipation of the forthcoming YSA stakes in Arizona. Lily loves to come over and find Stephen and then play with all of the stuff in his room--especially when they get to play with animal puppets.

 Chris has been pursuing a new hobby. He goes rock climbing with a friend about three times a week. He is getting pretty good at it and has been acquiring as much equipment as possible so he can do outdoor and indoor climbing.

Sam and April did not attend his work party since all it involved was riding a bus around Phoenix and bar hopping. Sam would like you all to know that The Dear Leader, Kim Jung Il passed away ascended into heaven escorted by a multitude of cranes today. Praise Allah. Anyway, yesterday Sam held his first "Operation First Class." He’s developing a way for the boys to get a lot of the basic requirements up to first class scout out of the way so they can work on more nitty gritty stuff. It went pretty well. April is relieved that she made it to the end of the year with enough teachers in primary and is excited to start the new year fresh with only one teacher short. She’s also excited to get the new babies room all cleaned out, organized, and eventually painted. Lily loves to tell stories, we understand some more than others and her newest word is “hypothesis”. She learned it from her new favorite show Dinosaur Train.

 Well that’s it for us. See you in 2012!!!

School--First week

So I made it though the first 3 days of school, but not before almost dying on Thursday because it was so humid. Yuck.

I am helping in a kindergarten class for the first two weeks of school. Very interesting experience. One little boy cried ALL day on the first day of school. Believe me, that takes effort. He would stop when something interesting was happening, then realize he wasn't crying and start wailing again. Then there's the poor little girl who speaks NO English. She doesn't have a clue about what is going on. And here's the thing. This little girl will be expected to perform as well as English speaking kids on tests at the end of the year. I ask you, is that fair? Talk about setting someone up for failure. Just my opinion.

Here's some things I took for granted working with first graders: they know which part of the paper is up, they know how to hold a pencil, they know that we read from left to right, they can follow directions, they have known how to write their names for a long time, they know what to do in the cafeteria, and they can listen for more than 3 minutes.

I really miss my teacher friends in first grade. I miss my friend Sheryl because I won't see her as much this year.

And yet, I came back because I love the kids and it is a pleasure to see them learn and grow.

I also decided that I needed to get up at 5:30 so I can exercise every morning because I am way too tired after school. So I go out to the swimming pool and do water aerobics. It is quite pleasant out there at that time of the morning. I just really don't like to get up so early, but since I do, my new bedtime is 9:00.

Sam started high school this year and so far he seems to enjoy it. He is at Phoenix Children's Chorus camp this weekend in Prescott. Lucky him. Gary and I took him up yesterday and it was so nice!!! Chris and I are going to pick him up tomorrow and listen to his choir sing. Lucky us!

Wise Words to Live By

Brother Gordon is the president of FAIR. The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of LDS (Mormon) doctrine, belief and practice. I think we need to remember that questions and concerns about the gospel aren't evil or bad. They are just questions. It's how we choose to deal with the questions that we have that can make or break us.


A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity of visiting with a
brother who is struggling with his testimony. He was kind and
gracious as well as being open about his struggles. He is a good
returned missionary who is active in church and married in the
temple. He objected to one of the policy decisions that the Church
has recently made, and when he brought that objection up to members
of his extended family, he was immediately criticized for not
supporting the brethren. These confrontations with family members
then made him start to question other things he had learned in
Sunday School and Seminary.

As I have been thinking about this, I realize that the policy
decision by the Church did not impact this brother. There was no
change he had to make in his life; there was nothing he had to do.
But, questioning the one thing, and being met with negativity,
brought everything else into question.

It is not an uncommon occurrence that spiritual difficulties with
one small item can cause a larger problem. This "chink in the armor"
theory is a strategy that is often exploited by anti-Mormons
familiar with the phenomenon. Many anti-Mormons throw accusations,
many of which can be easily reconciled, with the hopes that one will
stick and gnaw at us until it leads to a major crisis of faith. In
the case of this brother, it wasn't anti-Mormonism that caused the
chink in his armor, but simply a Church policy he disagreed with.

While some believe that the gospel gives us answers to everything in
life, others feel learning to deal with ambiguity in life is an
important skill to master. I am a committed, believing Latter-day
Saint who believes the Church gives us many answers. I hold to the
position that the Lord wants to bless us, but sometimes we aren't
ready for that blessing, teaching, or information. There are good
members of the Church who may not do everything right, which brings
difficulties or ambiguity into our life. At times, we don't have a
complete understanding of some principle or practice. Sometimes we
can feel absolutely right on some principle or teaching, but we may
not be in agreement with another member or Church leader.

When I observe this principle, as I observed it in this brother, I
often reflect upon the phrase to "hold to the rod." What should we
hold on to in order to buttress our testimony and carry us through
life? There can be many things to choose from, but we must choose
wisely. In my case, I hold on to my testimony that Jesus is the
Christ, that He loves me, and that He died for my sins. I also hold
on to my testimony that the Book of Mormon is true. With those two
beliefs held as the rod of my testimony, other difficulties,
ambiguities, or disagreements become secondary.

I pray that we all can hold to the rod, that we can be kind to
others, and treat others as the Savior would treat them. This will
lead to happiness in our life.

--Scott Gordon
President of FAIR

June Fun

The thing I love about summer, that if done correctly, there isn’t a whole lot to do. Except, of course, for those lovely vacations we all enjoy. So, pretty much I am loving summer. Well, except it has been over 110 degrees for the last couple of days.

Last week, Gary, Sam and I went to St. George to attend the plays at Tuacahn--The Little Mermaid and Grease. We loved both of them. Jeff, Debby and Neal joined Mom and Dad and us for The Little Mermaid. We dined at Chuck-a-Rama before the show. Ursula’s death scene was stupendous, Scuttle was hilarious, and Ariel had a beautiful voice.






The next day Gary, Sam and I visited the home of Jacob Hamblin. His job was to work with the Native Americans and help keep the peace. We also toured the St. George tabernacle, a beautiful old building, in which all of the presidents of the church (except Joseph Smith) have spoken. I had to go shopping so I dropped the other two off at the hotel. I found some cute clothes for Lily.





Tuacahn procured some great old cars for Grease. But why oh why is Sandy the one who has to change. I guess it wouldn’t be “cool” otherwise. As an added bonus, it started to sprinkle during intermission, which made the song “It’s Raining on Prom Night” even more fun for the audience. We were all sweating during The Little Mermaid; the weather during Grease was much more pleasant. I’m sure glad it didn’t really RAIN or we wouldn’t have gotten to see the rest of the play.

On the way back, just east of Kingman, there was a car fire. We were stopped for awhile, Thank goodness it was only about 84 degrees so it wasn’t to bad to sit there on the freeway. The truck, that I assume ran into the gas tanker, was toast. The only thing left was black metal. There was also a fire along the side of the road, which firefighters put out quickly. It did make our trip seem much longer.

All of our kids and Lily were here for Father’s Day which made it a lot of fun. Chris gave Gary a Diamondback’s cover for his Iphone and April made him a excellent memory book.

I am now helping to teach the 11-year-old Primary class as well as doing Activity Day for the girls. This month we held a recognition night for the girls. Their favorite thing we did seemed to be the scripture plaques they made. I purchased a sheet of fake wood and Sam S. cut it into pieces. The girls painted them. They each picked their favorite scripture and we put that with a picture of the temple and a picture of Jesus and mod podged the whole thing. I was a little worried about how a few of them would turn out, but they all did. Gary is going to be teaching Gospel Doctrine along with his clerking duties. Sam is the secretary in the Teacher’s Quorum.


We have had our old living room couch in the kitchen for the past few months. We finally got rid of it. Yahoo! Someone in our ward needed a couch so they hauled it away last night, now maybe I can restore a bit of order in the midst of chaos. I always envy RaKay and Stacie because the houses are in such good order. Mine, it seems, never is.

Last, but not least here are some pictures of Lily's favorite activity--unloading my purse of all its contents. I couldn't get her to smile either.