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This past weekend, we celebrated Baby's third birthday.  I can hardly even believe that it's been three years since we watched her come into this world, and yet I can't imagine there was ever a time when she wasn't with us.  Maybe that feeling comes from the idea that we all knew each other before we came to earth, so really, it was just a few years of being  separated before we were reunited with her again.  Who knows? In an unfortunate turn of events, John's call in Altoona was cancelled last minute (where we were all supposed to meet) so fortunately Ethan and Rebecca made the long trek from DC to Dexter for the long weekend (thank you, Ethan, for taking Friday off).  Of course, John and I were rather nervous about them arriving, because we knew that they were coming sick.  Coughing and sneezing from three of them, and John and I are headed on a dive trip in just two short weeks.  No joke, I wore a mask the first day. Friday morning, bright ...

When John and I were first married, we owned two things:  a queen-size bed (we bought the mattress used), and a small round kitchen table with four chairs that someone gave to us after using it for 20 years with their own family.  Needless to say, when our home teacher in Wymount Terrace came over for the first time, and noticed that we didn't have anything in our apartment but those two things, he immediately called the bishop and got us store credit at Deseret Industries so we could buy a very small sofa and a matching chair. We didn't need much really. I put towels over the moving boxes that we had and called those end tables.  And we had milk crates too for furniture.  However, about six months into marriage, John stumbled upon a garage sale (although nobody in Wymount had a garage, but anyway...) and found a very old, very used TV for $20.  The problem was that it was a green and white TV.  Yes, GREEN and white.  Not black and white, and certain...

Glo's birthday this year was a little anti-climactic, seeing as she didn't come home on her birthday itself.  Normally, we spend her birthday weekend watching General Conference and building Legos, but we had to just FaceTime her for her birthday unwrapping (this was the first time we had contact with "Glo's Ethan" though, as he was sitting in the room but Hannah and Glo kept him off camera). Never keeping things easy though, we tried to get everyone in on the birthday call which meant Ethan and Rebecca were part of it as well.  Glo got a new pair of Maui Jim sunglasses from me, and Baby didn't let the moment pass to show that she also has a pair of sunglasses ;-) #MeltMyHeart We did bring her and Johannah home a couple of weeks later though to go to drink apple cider. And to attend a Michigan hockey game. And to go to Cedar Point Halloweekends, because let's face it, it's no October without a visit there. And every year, Glo brings he...

President Nelson asked the women of the church this past weekend to refrain from getting on social media for ten days.  The youth of the church were asked to do this earlier this year, and I rather half-heartedly went along with the challenge (after all, I am not a youth). When I heard the challenge this time, my first thought was "Really? Ugh."  For me, social media is a way to stay connected to a lot of the friends I have.  I like to send birthday wishes, and give some positive feedback to people's posts, hopefully helping them feel loved.  I also have my news sources as "favorites" on my feed so that I get all my news headlines in one place.  Lazy me, I don't like to go to NPR, and CNN, and National Geographic separately.  Plus, I'm not on a bunch of social media sites--Facebook is my daily check (who am I kidding?  I check it multiple times a day), and I check Instagram every couple of weeks.  That's it.  I don't usually have a feeling ...

At the beginning of this year (possibly end of 2017), a new prophet was called when President Monson died.  President Russell M. Nelson, at the young age of 93, was called to be the new president of our church.  As a church, we should have known that he was going to shake things up when he didn't leave Presdient Uchtdorf in as a counselor, but instead called Dallin H. Oaks as his counselor (along with Henry B. Eyring).  A lot of people in the church worried for President Uchtdorf--how would he feel about the "demotion"--and a lot of people didn't want to see him go as a member of the first presidency. At the first General Conference where President Nelson presided, (April, 2018) several key systems in the church were changed.  Home and visiting teaching were replaced by "ministering".  The High Priest Group as a large organization was dissolved, and all men are now working under the Elder's Quorum. At first, no one quite knew what to think about the ...

When we moved to Michigan, the choice came from several specific requirements.  I wanted to be close enough to an airport that when we would fly, it wouldn't be a separate journey to just get to the airport.  I also wanted to be in a "healthy" stake.  We have spent the majority of our married lives in small stakes that don't offer everything we would like (it's unfortunate that our kids had to grow up without real church friends), so I wanted a stake where I felt I could lean on other members and be strengthened by them and their testimonies.  I also didn't want to live in a small, struggling ward where everyone is in everyone else's business--that always spells trouble. I also wanted an area that would offer John and me a number of choices for things to do--concerts, sporting events, festivals, and so on.  After all, without children around, we would have to find our own entertainment, so I wanted a locale that could do that.  And fourth, I wanted to live...