Living Waters

This weekend was long and hot and I felt so dirty and stinky after all was said and done... but it was one of the best experiences of my life!! We had a dress rehearsal out at the fairgrounds Friday night and my mom was able to come down to see it. Thanks mom for coming to watch and taking some pictures for us! The stage was so amazing! They built the stage, laid down sawd, and even build a huge waterfall (since the theme was living waters). It was beautiful and I was really wishing I could have taken it home!! :) Saturday we were there all day and the youth did 2 dress rehearsals plus the performance in the evening. It was a busy long day! They youth did an absolutely amazing job!! Our dances turned out just as perfect as we could have asked for and the music by the choir was lovely too. Hopefully they'll be able to arrange another broadcast so the youth will be able to see it all. Because of copyrights and such they're having some troubles but hopefully they get it worked out. Lance and I managed to "sneak" away through out the day when our group was back in our holding area to see some of the other dances but it would be very nice to see the whole performance beginning to end. Lance's mom came Saturday night for the actual performance and took some great pictures that I know the you the youth in my ward will appreciate. Thanks for coming Lynn! This is the beginning number "Living Water" with all the youth from the 14 stakes. It was so amazing! The song was written specifically for this event and is a beautiful song! If you want to hear it, it's not the best recording, but you can go here Living Water Song these are a couple of the head YCC committee people demonstrating the opening and closing numbers so we all could learn them. I think "Carry On" is first and then "Living Water." Here are some of the Italian dancers. We were sooo proud of them all!!! They seriously made me cry they did so well!! And here would be the other half of our stake doing a Basque dance. Here are our youth waiting for the Scandinavian dance to finish (part of our international segment) before going on to polka. You can also see part of the choir in the background. Polka time! Closing number, "Carry On". Our stake is the navy blue. So if you are ever in church with me and "Carry On" is on the agenda, no my hands didn't turn crazy, I'm just doing the flag movements that have been ingrained in my head. I will never sing that song the same way again!

Decisions determine destiny

It was the most amazing experience being so close to the prophet this weekend! I know many of the youth were truly touched by the spirit and I was holding back tears many times during the night because it was just so amazing being in his presence and watching how it affected our youth to be able to perform for him! We were all out on the stage waiting for him to arrive. A couple golf carts came out and Pres Eyring, Elder Cook, and Elder Costas (from the Presiding Bishopbric, I believe) and their wives walked out on the stage and sat down. For half a second my heart sank because President Monson wasn't with them. However, I soon realized that in the program it had listed that he would be brought out last.(A view from our seats on the grass)

The fireside before hand was short but very nice. President Monson talked to the youth about how the decisions he made created a huge impact in his life, hence the title of the blog, his "three D's: decisions determine destiny." He talked about meeting his wife and his choses he made when going into the navy . He also left a blessing on the youth which was so amazing! I have always loved listening to President Monson. He has such a kind, caring, and sincere voice and I have always been mesmerized by his stories. I have felt truly blessed to have been given our assignment to help teach the dances to the youth in our stake . Having this experience to be out there with the youth, so close to the prophet and feel of his spirit and love has truly been one of the highlights of this whole assignment that I will never forget! What a great and unforgettable blessing it all has been! I really am sad that it is over because we have such amazing youth in our stake and I really am sad that I won't be seeing many of them again.Elder Nielsen let President Monson borrow his sun glasses. I thought it was pretty cute. I don't think I've ever seen him in sun glasses before. :)

YCC Practice

So we just got back from our 2nd to last Weds night practice for the YCC. It was our stake dress rehearsal so we got to see all the youth in their costumes. They looked so great! It just adds so much when they do their numbers. I should have taken some pictures or video of them but I was kind of busy with my "responsibilities" (not that the youth in our group really need Lance or I anymore, they're doing AWESOME!!) Go Italian North side! But no, actually all the kids are doing fantabulous, we just "in charge" of the Italian North side so we're a little bias since those are the kids Lance and I have been more directly over this whole time. This photo is one from last week out at the fair grounds with all the youth from the temple district. I just thought it was cool and exciting so I thought I'd post it on here. Each stake has a different color (we are the navy blue just right of the center). It's the closing number of the performance, to "Carry On". It's going to be such a great show!! If any of you are going to be in the temple district area I would highly suggest going to the broadcast on Sat Aug 23rd at 7pm. It will be broadcast to all the stake centers. Pretty much only really important people are allowed at the actual show in the grandstands since the prophet and some of the other apostles and leaders from our church and others are going to be there. We're not even allowed up there that night security is so tight.

Youth Cultural Celebration Concert

So Weds was the first big practice at the Fairgrounds with ALL of the stakes involved. There were a lot of people there!! The estimated about 4000 youth or so. After the running through things, they'd arranged a concert for the youth. Alex Boye came and did a very good job. I took some videos for my MIL because she really likes him and was a wee bit jealous that we got to see him. :) He did some of his own songs as well as some of the "good songs from the radio" (he called them something like that) the kids know. He was very entertaining and I bet he'd be even better if he wasn't confined to the back of the trailer. Eventually most of the kids ended up right in front in the dirt. For the actual performance on the 23rd there's going to be a stage and everything for the youth so the don't have to dance around in the dust. I'll have to remember to get some pics of it that night. There were a lot of dirt clouds at this practice!! It should be pretty cool!

The Audacity!!

So many of you who have been reading our blog from the start remember my little updates on our neighbor kids. People still ask us if our strange neighbor kids have been at it again. We have responded no, that it seems they got the message. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please feel free to read my previous posts, "Neighbors" & "Crazy neighbor girls from nextdoor part 2". So I've been thinking for a while about putting a little update to let all you curious people know that there hasn't been anymore climbing on the house or crazy stuff like that. I just never got around to doing it. Now I can see why I didn't do it. My subliminal was taking over for me or something..... That's right people, it happened again! So the evening we got back from Oregon I was in the bathroom when I heard this strange thundering sound, a familiar sound but I couldn't quite place it. After I few seconds my eyes opened wide as I realized why it was so distantly familiar, "You've GOT to be kidding me!" I seriously did yell at the wall in shock (Lance was on his way to Wyoming to pick up Ace). So I went to look out the window and sure enough the girls were on our shed, by the sound I heard, I knew they had been up on our roof. Words cannot describe how ticked off I was!!! I flung the back door open and probably glared at them a little to harshly. And managed as much niceness as I could to tell them that we'd told them before to stay off our roof because we didn't want them getting hurt. So using this opportunity, like I'd wished I had the second time this happened, I put my shoes on and marched over to their house to inform their mother. I rang the door and surprisingly enough the girl from across the street answered it, with the culprits mother right behind across the street girl. The mother acted like she was in shock and had know idea that her girls had been climbing on our roof. She thanked me for telling her and her and her man or whoever he is, went out to the backyard to scold them or something. The across the street girl was still at the door and dumbly told me, "well they're off now?!" (So she had been back their witnessing...) I looked down at her rather shocked and said, "yea, 'cause I told them to get off!" And with that I turned for home, still a little stunned about the audacity of the whole thing but at the same time feeling rather victorious about "tattling" on them to their mom. Mature, I know! :)

It is finished

I'm very sad that this story is finished! All I can say is, make sure and call me when you're done so we can talk it over!

Newport Oregon

So it has been quite a while since I've posted. July has been our crazy busy month this summer! Last week we spent the week in Newport Oregon with my family (minus Lara). It was our Christmas present from this past year. We had so much fun! Lance and I made a stop at the Portland temple which was very pretty. Then we went and stopped to see our friends Lacey & Jeff and their little boy Eric. They have such a cute new home! We also stopped at Lance's Uncle Theron's house but I forgot to take any pictures. One of his cousins, Ellen, and her family were also there. It was nice to get to visit them all! We loved playing on the beach! We had great weather all week with NO rain and usually just gentle breezes. I love this picture of Abby "flying" the kite. We saw a couple of tide pools which was neat! We saw sea erchants, enemies, star fish, crabs, etc. Abby showing us her shell at one of the tide pools. This is a picture of one of the light houses we went to visit. Here's the inside of it.... What goes up..... must come down. This is outside the lighthouse. There's a bunch of rocks all around with tons of birds on them. I heard one of the tourists saying he wanted to go down closer to the "rocks with the snow on them." Umm not quite snow buddy.....it was pretty funny! We went to the aquarium in Newport which was very good! We saw tons of stuff. My favorite parts were the otters and the bright yellow jellyfish. Lance really liked the huge Japanese spider crabs. We were able to see them feed the otters as well as the sea lions. These next few pictures are from there. Looking at all the sharks. Lance about to be eaten by a huge octopus. Not really, but it's a great picture! The octopus almost looks fake, it was so cool looking! One of the otters taking a snooze after being feed. Another light house in the distance. We had a great view from the beach house! On the way back from Coos Bay where we saw tons of seals and sea lions we also happened to sea a wale who seemed to be swimming around in circles while he slowly made his way up the coast. We were able to see it through my dad's spotting scope. It was very cool! On the long drive home we stopped to see one of Lance's friends from high school, Ross, and then continued the long drive home. After we got home Lance continued on to go pick up Ace who had been staying the week at his parents house. I had to work the next three days so I stayed home to get some rest. The last couple days I've been at YW camp which was very entertaining and fun. We have some great girls in our ward! Today is the first day I've really felt like I've actually been at home in weeks. It's nice to get all unpacked and settled back in.