A new calling

Larry received a new calling today that changes our life and the way we know it for awhile. He was called into the Young Adult branch as the 1st counselor. He was called, sustained and set apart within 2 hours. Gary McCracken is the president. Larry is the 1st counselor and David Been is the 2nd counselor.
We will now attend church with the young single adults from the Walla Walla, Dayton and Milton Freewater area. We will go to there activities and Family Home Evening with them on Monday nights. Before Michael graduated from High School we told him how neat it would be for him to go to church with the branch and have some independence from Larry and I before his mission. Poor kid, I guess he still gets to go to church with us. I did tell him though that he can sit with his friends and be as independent from us as if we weren't there. I didn't want him to think that I expected him to still sit with me. Communication is a good thing.
One of the first things The Branch President asked us is if any of us knew anything about music and could play the piano. I have butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it. But until a young adult comes to the branch that can play the piano guess who gets to play? I really haven't played with people singing to what I play. I told Larry a month or so ago that I have a feeling I should learn how to play the hymns from the hymnbook. I guess I get too. Prayer and practice = piano playing???
Oh yeah I almost forgot. Larry is still teaching seminary 3 classes a day during the school year and I am still helping with that. He was relieved. He knows someday that he will be asked to stop and they will have a new teacher but for now Larry gets to do it. He loves teaching the youth the gospel.
How can we get older when we get to spend time with the young people of the church?

Spending Time with Mae. Oh yeah her parents too.

When we go to Spokane we get to visit two of our children and their families. Sunday evening when we first arrived we went to Rachel and Sean's house. We visited awhile and got to play with Mae. Lucky for us Rachel and Sean hadn't eaten dinner yet and offered to make enough for us too. They made a smothered burrito that was really good and dad wants me to get the recipe or as Rachel would say the ingredients and method because she doesn't have a recipe. We as you know were spending Monday with Misty's family at Silverwood (previous post) but Tuesday morning I picked up Rachel and she cut my hair (which is a nice cut) and then we got to watch Mae while her momma worked and daddy went to school and then studied for a test. I watched her at Misty's house and it was fun to see how much she loves her cousins and lights up when she sees them. Mae really wants to walk. She crawled over to the stairs and started climbing up the stairs and so I ran to get my camera so I could show her momma and daddy. Don't worry Rachel I didn't leave her alone on the steps:)

We spent some time outside playing on the swing set. It was fun.

It was exciting for me that when we arrived Sunday evening and again when I saw her Tuesday morning that she was excited to see me. I'm glad she knows I'm her grandma:)

Silverwood with Misty's family

This last Monday we went to Spokane so we could go with Misty's family to Silverwood. Nathan had earned a free ticket because of all the reading he did at school. We drove over Sunday evening so we could get to Silverwood Monday morning. Aria was so excited she was up at 6:30am. We got to Silverwood not to long after it opened and began our day. The ride with the big round raft was first.

Nathan and Aria tried their hand at rock climbing. Larry and I were pretty impressed. Nathan climbed half way up the rock and Aria did pretty good too. They were excited because they "won" a fuzzy monkey for climbing.

Gabe wanted a prize too but he didn't want to climb the mountain. As we were walking Larry spotted one of those games that if you swing the hammer hard enough you could win a prize. He said "I could do that." So I said he should and win a prize for Gabe. So for $2.00 he swung that hammer...

He "WON"! You won with 100 points and he got 102. He said all the wood splitting came in handy. Does Gabe look happy or what?

Can you tell that Gabe and his Papa J have the same smile?

The kids had a great time on the airplane too. Later in the day they rode the helicopter. That was one of Gabe's favorite. He even got the helicopter to go up.

Their is a water park connected to The theme park and so it was decided to go spend some time there. Aria and Nathan had a great time. Gabe was sleeping and Clara didn't want to go in the water. :)

The blue slide Aria went down was longer and a little higher than the orange one. Nathan really wanted to go down the blue slide and tried for a long time. In the first picture Aria is showing Nathan it isn't that scary. The 2nd picture is one of Nathan's attempts. The third picture is when Papa J came to the rescue and went down with him. I was proud of him that he wasn't giving up. He didn't want to leave until he did it. Aria was fine with that because she got to keep going down the slides.

This was a ride they talked about all day and they were not going to leave the park without riding it. Nathan was excited he got to go by himself. Aria wanted to ride with me and Papa J volunteered very quickly to take the pictures. I didn't want to get soaking wet again so I tried to stay away from the other boats.

After the ride though Aria said to me that next time she is going to go by herself so she can go where she wants and get all wet. My bad I guess.

Larry said that this was the best part of the day!

If you knew how much he loves ice cream you would know why he said that. Can you believe that it was a two scooper and cost only $4.00 for the ice cream cone?

Clara didn't go on any rides but she was so good natured all day and just went along with the flow. Isn't her smile precious?

It was a fun day and Nathan and Aria as we were walking out were talking about all the reading they were going to do next school year so they can go again next summer.
I guess as Clint Eastwood would say.... I'll be back.

Yeah for our garden fence!!!

This is the reason why we needed a fence for our garden. Had their been no fence we wouldn't have any more garden. If not the deer then the cows would have eaten it.

Ooooops! Lesson learned.

This is the lesson I learned and would like to pass on to everyone else.
It's not a good idea to mow a dry field when it is hot and your mower gets hot and the dried grass collects on the mower. This is what happens...

The thing is is that I have mowed like I did yesterday lots of times before but our mower "was" getting older, leaking and just having problems. I had been mowing for just over three hours and was in the dry field and started smelling something like a campfire. I didn't see any smoke any where so I just kept mowing. My right foot that was pressing on the pedals was getting hot through my shoe and I was thinking I probably should stop the mower for awhile and let it rest and cool off. Then I thought I should probably stop the mower and get all this extra grass off but noooooo I just ignored those thoughts (promptings) and kept on mowing. It was sounding like if I stopped the mower it wouldn't start again cuz it kept sputtering because of all the dust I thought. I wanted to finish the mowing. Finally I thought I should should look down because I sure still smell that campfire and sure enough underneath the mower was on fire. I jumped off and ran to the house and opened the door. Michael and Matt were playing the Wii rock band game and I shouted in the door MICHAEL GET DAD THE LAWN MOWER IS ON FIRE! I started getting the hose and looked back in the house and Michael hadn't moved so I shouted in again and then it clicked and he jumped up. This is what he heard the first time. Mummble mummble mummble! Matt asked him what did your mom say? Michael just shook his shoulders. BROTHER BOYS!!! Dad, Michael and Matt all came out to put the fire out which by that time was getting bigger. I'm grateful that the lawn mower didn't explode with me sitting on it. It took the fire extinguisher and two or three buckets of water to put the fire out.
This is the crazy part (as if the other part wasn't crazy) as they were putting the fire out I thought I should blog this so I had Michael run in to get my camera.
I guess I'm an official blogger nut.

Love this saying...

I saw this saying on a board in one of the Levenworth shops. I had a good laugh and I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget. I decided to share it:)

Remember As Far As Anyone Else Knows - We are A Nice Normal Family!