Happy Thanksgiving!

 We started out the week with the news of two baptisms, one in El Salvador and one in Colorado!  Our son Josh is in white on the left, and our nephew Derek is in white on the right.  What happy news!  I'm sure this makes Grandma and Grandp H just want to burst their buttons!

Josh also told us of a wonderful experience he had with a familia Reyes.  They were preparing for baptism, and it had to be delayed because of a small worthiness issue.  The husband really had a hard time with it, but it turns out that during the week, his son decided to get baptized with them, which might not have happened had it all gone through at the beginning.  Josh truly felt that this was a miracle!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, punctuated by having Joseph home with his friend Jacob from BYU-I, and special live ordinances at the Temple.

Jacob was in the Blue Cast in Nauvoo this summer, and Joseph was in Yellow Cast, so they didn't know each other really well, but at BYU-I, they are in the PMP (pre-missionary program) and have gotten to be fast friends.  They talk about Nauvoo all the time, and the great memories they have from there.

We picked them up Wednesday morning, and everyone was determined that Jacob was going to have an "Idaho Experience", and he was a willing participant!  The first thing they did was go horseback riding on Wednesday evening, and he also milked the cow that night with Joseph.  They played Telestrations that night, and Mary said it was one of the funniest times she's ever had playing it.

On Thanksgiving day, I began cooking early.  I was in charge of the mashed potatoes and gravy, fruit salad, relish trays, pumpkin pie and cheescake.  They all turned out really well!  We went over to our neighbors at around 2 pm.

Norm and Sharon had set a beautiful Thanksgiving table:

Mary, Jesse, Tori, Jacob

Joseph, Logan, Peter, Zoe

Bruce, Lorena, Ann, Shailor

Libby, Emilee, Sharon, Norm

Thanksgiving Table!

During the dinner, we went around the table and expressed something for which we were grateful.  Mine was that I was thankful that Joshua is serving a mission.

I just love this video!  It shows the happiness of the day!

The next day, Friday, Bruce & I went to the Temple for Joseph to complete one of the sacred ordinances that takes place there in preparation for his mission.  It was a wonderful experience to be there with him.  Norm & Sharon, Rachelle & Greg, and Elysia were there with us also.  We sat in the Celestial Room for a long time, and Joseph kept saying, "This is a lot to process.  I have a lot to think about."  And he was so happy and grinning from ear to ear.

After the session, Jesse and the other kids came with a picnic lunch that we ate on the lawn of the chapel next to the Temple.  We had a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers, so it was yummy.  Then we went over to Deseret Book for a couple of hours.  We spent a pretty dime on Christmas presents there!  After that, we went back to the Temple and attended the sealing of Tori to her parents, Norm and Sharon.  Emalie and Logan were able to be in the sealing room also, and it was a beautiful sealing!  And THEN, on top of that, I got to attend the sealing of Jason and His wife Anna.  Jason is the son of our friends Dan & Gale F.  That was also a very touching and wonderful sealing.  So in all, I got to attend THREE live ordinances in the Temple on Friday.  My thought as I walked out of the Temple was, "God is good."  After seeing the joy and the happiness that comes from these sacred ordinances, I felt of God's goodness and mercy.  Everything He does is directed toward blessing our lives.  He is good!

Saturday, I got the chance to give two Foot Zones to some friends from our town.  It was so fun to visit with them and work with this therapeutic modality.  In the afternoon, we put up the Christmas Tree!

We actually set the tree up, put on the lights and the beads all in one day.  The kids say it's never happened before.  Ha ha  Now we still have to get the ornaments up!

An afternoon horseback ride followed.

Joseph, Jesse, Jacob and Mary

We turned Jacob into a real cowboy - with chaps even!

That night, we went and saw "the lights".

Hanging out in the Igloo

On Sunday, right before Joseph left, we had the annual Measuring of the Heights!

Libby tries to sneak in with Jesse's high heels on!

Peter won the contest for growing the most - over 2".  Libby and Mary followed closely behind.

We even added Jacob to the board!

I have so much fun writing these blogs and recording the history of our family.  The Lord has blessed our family in so many ways.  I am so grateful for his tender mercies, not the least of which has been this wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Horseback Riding in the Mountains

On Labor Day, we took our horses and went up into the mountains to ride.  We went with friends - Scott and his boys Tyson and Taylor, Rick and his son Hunter, and Brett and his daughter Haylee. We had 13 horses and 14 riders!  Ages 10 - 40 something.  :)

Peter and Libby rode on one of Scott's horses named Lucy. 

Taylor and Tyson are riding right in from of me.

Jesse rode Mackee (Sleepy River McGee) and Joseph, up ahead on the trail, rode Stormy.

It was quite remarkable that Joseph rode Stormy.  He has been riding him at home, maybe 4-5 times, so to take him up in the mountains on a trail was an experiment, to be sure.  Joseph said he wanted to be at the front of the line, always pushing his way to the front, but then when he got there, he didn't know what to do, so he'd just stop!  Ha ha.  That's a "teenage" horse for you.

Jesse, Libby and Peter looking southwest from the peak.

Joseph, Taylor and Mary from the Lookout.

Mary rode Cookie.  I didn't get a picture of her riding, which is too bad.  She found some cowboy boots at the local clothing exchange in August, and if she'd had a straw hat on, she would have looked like a true cow-girl.  Now Joseph, he had chaps and everything.  All he was missing was a big ol' belt buckle.

Bruce on Strawberry

I rode Lady.  Peter gave up his favorite horse so I could ride her, because I have not been on a horse for three years, since I got bucked off of May and got bruised up pretty badly.  I knew it was time to get back on, and I had a great ride on Lady.

We went 11 miles round trip, which made for one sore Momma the next day!  Oh boy!  I was grateful for OrthoSport and an epsom salt bath with Aroma Siez, both of which really helped with the sore muscles.

Overall, we had a great ride.  It was a dream come true for Bruce to have the family up in the mountains on horses.  We got Strawberry and Lady back in 2008, and we've been slowly building up since then to have enough equipment and horses to go around.  We still had to borrow a horse and two saddles from our friend Scott, but we're almost there.

On Wednesday, we went to the Funeral of Ruth Fisher, a dear ward member (our church congregation is called a ward).  I had been blessed enough to go and visit her the day before with Julie, with whom I serve in the Relief Society Presidency.  (Relief Society is the women's organization in our church).  She spent the whole half an hour we were there trying to name each one of the members of her family.  It was a privilege to know her and feel of her sweet spirit.  Her funeral was beautiful.

Peter received his Second Class and First Class Rank Advancements in the Boy Scouts this week!  He had a great Scout leader, Bill W., picture right at the right of this picture, and has moved on to 12-year old Scouts with Clark L. (the back of his head is on the left).  What a blessing to have great Scout leaders! If you look closely in the picture, you'll see Peter has on his cowboy boots with spurs!  He and Joseph rode Stormy and Lady to the neighborhood in back of ours, where the Court of Honor was held.  Peter is really proud of his spurs!

On Thursday, Joseph and I left with Grandma and Grandpa Whetten in their car to take Joseph over to BYU Idaho!  Joseph drove the whole way, and we had a great talk with Grandma.  She told us about being in 6th grade and lining up to go to Dublan with the 7th and 8th graders.  We said, "Now we know where Mary gets it from!"

Joseph wasn't nervous until he walked into the office to check in at his apartment.  When he was putting food away in his apartment and new roomates were milling about, he said, "Does anyone else feel nervous besides me?"  I think I was the only one that heard him, so no one replied, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't the only one.

That afternoon we got to eat dinner with Craig and Jenette!  Yeah!  We loved being with them.  I got to have a "sleepover" that night with them, as they gave up their bed to Mom and Dad, and they slept on the couches, while I slept on the living room floor on an air mattress.  We talked until I fell asleep listening to Craig tell Jenette about the adventures of the time they came to Poulsbo to help us move in the middle of the storm that lashed the Pacific Northwest. 

Dane (in the blue) and Joseph (in the white) playing soccer

That night, as I was driving Joseph and his friend Dane around, we saw a pick-up soccer game going on, on the same field that Josh had played his championship intramural game two years ago.  They begged me to go back, and so I turned the car around and they went and stood on the sidelines for a few minutes watching.  Pretty soon, they were back in the car saying, "We gotta go get our stuff!"  Most of Joseph's "stuff" was coming the next day with our neighbors, but Dane had enough soccer stuff for both of them!  So I took them to change at Dane's apartment, and they went back and joined the pick-up game for about 1/2 an hour.  In the few minutes that I stood on the sideline watching (because it was cold and I was in shirt-sleeves), I saw Joseph score two goals!  That was fun!  The next morning, Joseph said, "Mom, that just made it feel comfortable."

I am so excited for this next chapter of Joseph's life!  He is well-prepared and will have the time of his life over at BYU-I.  Back at home, when we had dinner on Saturday evening, we had two empty chairs on the one side of the table.  Jesse said, "I'm feeling kind of lonely over here."  Mary and Peter got it in their heads to take out a leaf of the table, and Bruce flatly refused to help them.  But then when they started pulling up, instead of out, he blurted out, "You gotta pull out!"  Ha ha  So pretty soon he was helping and jockeying the table around to get it loose.  When we finally got it back together, we sat around the smaller table looking at each other, and it felt very strange!  Pretty soon we had watery eyes, and said, "This isn't very fun!"  :)  We still have some adjustments to make to having Joseph gone on top of Josh being gone...   Jesse said that people have been asking her, "Are you OK?" since Joseph is gone.  Her answer was that she is going into a deep depression.  Those two were as tight as a brother and sister could be.  In fact, once when someone had just moved in, they thought Joseph and Jesse were dating because she saw them together so often.  :)  Jesse said she went up on the roof at sunrise yesterday morning and talked to Joseph in spirit.  I'm smiling while I'm writing this, but there are pretty deep feelings involved.  But Jesse will be OK, and so will Joseph.  At least they can still text and call, well, for a few more months, anyway, until Joseph leaves for his mission.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves - he's still in college!

I've talked to Joseph at least a dozen times in the three days since I dropped him off, so we're still communicating!  Ha ha

Peter running across the field for High 5's after the game.

Midfielder Peter in his pink socks and yellow shoes.  Nice!

Peter had his first soccer game on Saturday.  Bruce is his coach, and they won handily.  Peter played great in the midfield.  He was smaller than most of the players on the field, but not intimidated in the least.  Maybe when you work with horses all the time, size is not an issue. 

One of Joseph's calls was to tell us to get on the Internet and watch Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's CES Devotional, which we did.  WOW! I loved every word of what he said.  I am so grateful that we have prophets on the earth today, that speak the mind and will of the Lord.  I loved how he talked about the very real challenge that we have in our day of standing up for what we believe, and doing it in a kind, respectful, charitable way.  I have been thinking a lot about this, and talking to my children and others about it, so to have Elder Holland speak about it was assuring to me that the Spirit has been leading me in the right direction!

Life Events - Engagements, Births, and other such happenings

The biggest news of the week: Joshua Wayne and Rachel are engaged!!
Now just to be sure you don't get mixed up - this is not our son, Joshua, this our nephew Joshua, who is Bruce's oldest brother's son. (Joshua Bruce - you are banned from dating anyone named Rachel. Anyone named Rachel that likes Josh - sorry).

We're so happy for these two! They plan to be married on August 29th in the Salt Lake Temple. Josh started talking about Rachel last December when he visited at Christmas and New Year's. On New Year's Eve, when we thought he was asleep at 2 am, he was actually talking to Rachel on the phone for an hour and a half, keeping her awake as she drove home from a New Year's Eve Party. If you know the men on Bruce's side of the family - they like their sleep - so I knew right off she was someone special to Josh for him to do that for her! He just kept saying, "She's a keeper. She's a keeper." We are so excited for you two!
For the proposal, Josh put a trail of balloons up to "R" Mountain near Rexburg. At the top, he proposed.
And here is the hug afterward! Does that make you cry, or what? It did me.

ANOTHER happy announcement, although not nearly as important or eternal, but still, fun enough.

Remember this? The nest in the barbecue?And then this?
Well, this is what we found last weekend!
These little bitty things are nothing but feathers and beaks! They don't even have their eyes open. Their bodies are just tiny with a whole blur of feathers around them, and then the beaks!!
This is today, which would be Day 3 or 4 - not sure exactly the day they were born. What a treat to see these little things up close an personal. Not being the tree-climbing type, I've never seen anything like it before!

Last Friday we had team parties for both the soccer teams that we coach. For Mary's team, we had a fun time at the local pizza parlor. Mary won the award for the "Outstanding Defensive Player" on the team. Congratulations Mary!
For Joseph's team, we had a picnic at the park. (We went from the pizza parlor to the park).
To adults reading this post: Have you ever tried doing the monkey bars as an adult? If you haven't, you can't really appreciate what these monkey-children are doing! They are strong! :)
These picture of Peter and Libby makes me happy.

A pick-up soccer game ensued, with siblings from all the families out on the field running around trying to put some moves on their other siblings. This was one of the most fun things I've done in a long time - to sit and watch all theses brothers and sisters playing soccer together. And they were good too!
Ty (tall blond to the left), whose high school team won the state championship, had just gotten back from the airport just hours before, having served a mission to Toronto, Canada. When they drove up to the park, he told his dad, "I think I'll just stay in my suit." There was a moment's pause when he saw the kids out on the soccer field. "Oh, they're playing soccer. I guess I'll change..." Ha ha I got a kick out of that.

Josh gets ready to boot the ball.
Ty told me later that he was surprised at what a good defender Jesse was!Here's Peter with his shoes off. No surprise. And he complains every morning that he has no socks to wear. (Do you see the socks in the background, randomly strewn about? Uh-huh - that's what I'm talking about.) And he wonders why he has no clean socks??

Unfortunately, Joseph was not able to attend because he was at a track meet. He came home happy though, because he ran a PR in the 1600 meter - 5:00 minutes flat! He was expected to come in 23rd, and he came in 17th. (Yes - there were that many guys that ran under 5:00). Not bad for a freshman!


On Saturday, the Church held a special "Día de la familia" for all the Hispanics in our area. They think that about 3000 people attended. They asked us to give kids horseback rides. So from noon to five-thirty, this is what we did.It was really fun to see members of our Spanish Branch. We haven't seen many of them since last October, when we switched back to our regular English branch.This is Sleepy River McGee, affectionately known as Mackee.This is May. A lot of kids wanted to ride her because she's small - only about 13 hands, so she wasn't so intimidating. The weather was perfect for this. It did pour down rain for about 20 minutes, but that had the effect of driving people inside the Church where they had all sorts of displays set up about the different auxiliaries, and messages about the Church. Many of these people would not have gone inside had it not been for the rain. The Lord had it all planned out! After that the sun came out and it was perfect weather again.

I had the great joy of seeing Miriam again, one of the sisters that was baptized while we were serving in the branch. She and her son had recently immigrated from Argentina and were introduced to the Church by a friend. She moved about a year ago, and I have not heard from her, but she told me that she was going to go through the Temple to receive her endowments on the 16th of May. What joy!! We hugged and hugged, and felt the joy that comes from a sisterhood in the gospel.

Earlier in the day, Jesse had hurt her ankle in her soccer game. It wasn't one single thing, it just started to get progressively worse during the game to the point that she couldn't put any weight on it or step on it. I used lavender essential oil on it for the next two days. This morning, she walked in from doing the milking and said, "Mom, look at this," and she was walking without any problems. Lavender essential oil - where have you been all my life? I feel like a heel (no pun intended) because my sister has been telling me about lavender for years, and I haven't tried it. Now I'm sold. It's a real blessing because Jesse has a Dance Recital this week and I was really worried about her foot being ready for that. I'm very grateful that the Lord has provided such wonderful natural remedies for us to be healed.

Yesterday, the testimonies in our Sacrament Meeting were as powerful and sweet as any I've ever heard. There is precedent in the scriptures for passing out when one is so filled with joy, and I swear one of these Sundays I'm just gonna keel right over and they're going to have wake me up with Peppermint essential oil. I love hearing honest, sincere, beautiful testimonies.

The words to the Hymn, "Nearer my God to Thee" struck a deep chord with me yesterday. Had I never read them before? Of course I had, but yesterday, they just leapt off the page at me. Hear these words:

Though like the wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone.
(here is the commitment)
Yet, in my dreams I'd be
Nearer my God, to thee.

(here is the hope)
There let the way appear,
Steps unto heaven;
All that thou sendest me,
(and the gratitude)
In mercy giv'n;
Angels to beckon me,
Nearer my God, to thee.

(And then listen to this!)

Then with my waking thoughts,
(gratitude and hope)
Bright with thy praise,
(determination)
Out of my stony grief
Bethel I'll raise,
So by my woes to be,
Nearer my God , to thee,
Nearer my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee.

(italics and commentary added)

These words mean a great deal to me. Through any trail, we can praise God and be grateful for all that through mercy is given, and then with the experience and knowledge we gain from that trail, we can build an altar unto God in praise. And thus, be "Nearer to God."

One last word - if you haven't already heard it, listen to Elder Bednard's talk at the CES fireside last night. It's a must-hear.

And one last picture - one of my all time favorite pictures ever!

Happy Spring!