Surprise Work Day

There is an advantage to working in downtown Phoenix today. Jim received a phone call about 7:00 this morning telling him to stay home from work today. The streets near his workplace are a mess with downed power lines and trees. There is no electricity for the building nor for the server in the building, so he can't work in the office nor at home. What a great surprise for our family. It's been nice spending time with Jim. He will be able to have a four day weekend. How often does that happen?

During the electric storm last night, I took pictures of the lightening instead of putting my kids to bed. It's not every night that it rains, except lately. Dani had to run and play in the rain before going to bed. Josh had to check out the lightening storm, so my kids went to bed again late. With the Olympics and the storms, my kids haven't gone to bed at a decent time since school started. We need to work on that.

Here are a couple of photos I took last night. This is the reason my kids went to bed late again. It was very entertaining to watch, especially knowing that it wasn't so close to home.

Josh turns 12

Josh turned 12 yesterday. I can't believe how fast those 12 years went by. The highlight of the day was when Josh was conferred the Aaronic Priesthood by his Father. It was so special to have Josh's grandparents, parents, and sisters there for the ordination. Josh has been looking forward to this moment. He also earned his Faith in God award from Primary, which helped Josh prepare to receive the Priesthood. Josh's favorite memory of the day was the ordination. It just makes a mom proud.

Later that evening, we celebrated Josh's birthday with cake and presents. He picked out the cake, and created the menu for his birthday dinner. He opened presents and just loved being the center of attention. He loved every minute of his birthday, except bedtime. He just didn't want it to end. We will have a birthday party this year, so he can look forward to that. Here are some cute pictures of Josh growing up.

The Music Man

Friday night, Jim and I went with his family to see the Music Man at the Hale Theater in Gilbert. It was so fun to watch the musical and harder not to sing along with the actors. There are some clever songs and great lines in the Music Man. In Women's Conference, Pres. Monson even quoted the Music Man. "Professor Harold Hill, in Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man, cautioned: “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.” There is no tomorrow to remember if we don’t do something today. Let us not procrastinate those things which matter most."

We went to celebrate Jim's Dad's birthday. We went out to eat and then headed to the theater. We knew 3 of the actors in the musical, we didn't know that they were participating until we arrived. It was such a pleasant surprise. We were able to talk to them after the show. A year ago, I went with Jim's mom and my sister-in-laws to see Footloose. When I walked into the theater, I noticed how small the area was and wondered how they could perform a musical in the space provided. I loved how close we were to the performers and truly enjoyed the show. Both shows were amazing. It's an amazing place to see a play or a musical. You might even know one or two of the perfomers.

Computer Crash

Our computer crashed a couple of days ago. I'm writing this post by using my husband's school laptop. He is taking a couple of weeks off school, so I'm able to use his laptop to connect online. We completely lost everything that was on our hard drive. Luckily for us, we have 90% of the documents and pictures we have on an external drive that is separate from our computer. That information was not lost and I'm grateful for that. When we bought our first digital camera, Jim didn't want to fill the hard drive with pictures, so we purchased a drive just to hold those pictures. Eventually, Jim decided to hold all documents on that drive and just use the computer's hard drive for software programs. I'm so glad that we moved our documents into the external drive. There were some information that was on the computer's hard drive that we lost, but we can replace that or do without that information. It was an important lesson that we learned to store our important data separate from the computer. I want to have another backup in case we have a problem with our external drive. We will need to get a new computer and start over with the software programs. I hope to get the computer soon, because we use the computer for so many different reasons, including accessing information that we have stored there. It's sad that we depend so much on the computer, but it's awesome technology.

Olympics

I've been watching the Olympics and loving every minute of it. Every 4 years, I sit glued to the TV set and watch the Olympics. I love hearing the stories of the athlete and the inspiration that got them to the Olympics. I just love watching the competition.

I remember the first Olympics that I watched when I was a freshman in high school. It was highly publicized because of the politics involved. I became interested because of my dad. He has a ham radio license and was involved in the torch relay. He was close to the torch runners and provided communication. This was before cell phones. My Mom and siblings met my Dad in Salt Lake and we met some of the torch runners. It was so awesome to meet these athletes and we received an autographed book about the Olympics which told us the athletes to watch. I was so excited to watch the Olympics soon. I remember the music by John Williams and the gymnastics. I remember watching Mary Lou Retton and the men's gymnastics win the gold medals. After the 1984 Olympics, I was hooked on it and have loved it ever since.

Check out my friend, brother, and I holding a torch from the relay. Don't look to close, you'll see my crazy hair. Did I mention it was a hot day? It was a great day for my dad and the family.

First Day of School

It's that time again, when the kids go back to school. Josh, Dani, and Angela are all excited to go back to school, at least for the first day anyway. I love the first day of school, everyone is so excited to get up and get ready to go to school. The kids were so kind and helpful to each other as they got ready for school. I wish every morning could be that well organized and calm.

Angela is starting 3rd grade this year.

Dani is starting 5th grade this year.

Josh is starting 6th grade this year.

Angela getting on the school bus.

Angela takes the bus to school to and from school. She was lucky to get the same bus drivers as last year. After Angela got on the bus, I took Josh and Dani to school. It's so fun to see them interact with their friends in the morning. I realized that this is Josh's last year at the elementary school. It's amazing how fast they grow up. After school, we went to QT and talked about the exciting day that we had. While the kids were in school, Emily and I visited my mom. I love spending time with Emily.

Jim Released as Scoutmaster

Jim was released as Scoutmaster today in church. Jim really enjoyed getting to know the boys in our ward. He had some great experiences with them that strengthened him and our family. Jim served with the scouts for 6-8 years, we really not sure how long. There has been a lot of scouts that have blessed Jim's life. Josh always wanted to be one of Dad's scouts. He watched his dad go on scout outings every month and waited until it was his turn. Jim was released two weeks before Josh turns 12. They spent a week at Camp Geronimo and Josh was probably the happiest camper there, because he was one of his Dad's scouts for a week. Even though Jim was released, he will always be Josh's Dad and he will be able to help him through the scouting program. Jim is really busy with school, busier than he thought he would be, so being released from Scouts relieves a lot of stress from Jim's life. He will miss Scouts and especially the Young Men in the program. They have been an example to Jim and to our family.

Summer Fun!

Our family had a great summer! We spent a lot of time swimming, especially with our cousins. We toured some of the pools in Mesa and had a great time. A couple of times, we went with Grandma Pace and the kids loved every minute of it. Dani even climbed the climbing rock that the City of Mesa provided Taylor for a couple of weeks. For Grandma Pace's birthday, we had a water day with swimming, slip'n slide and huge water balloons. We als had a BBQ with fabulous food. The battery on my camera died before we celebrated Grandma's birthday.

The girls couldn't wait to get into the pool. They jumped in when the pool was filling up. Angela loved going down the slide, but Emily was content to just stay in the water.

Emily's not sure how the Slip'n Slide works. She looks like she is having a lot of fun though.

Dani's water balloon is so big, it's hard to hold. They used regular balloons and filled them with water, almost too much water.Josh had fun playing in the water, not sure he enjoyed getting his picture taken.

The girls were cold after the water activities. They put on their jackets to warm up. How cute are they!

Fashion Show

About 6 years ago, my sister and I started a new tradition to help the kids get excited about going back to school. We have a fashion show to show off their new school clothes and backpack for their cousins and grandparents to see. The kids love showing off their new stuff and the girls love to pose for the camera. Emily will not attend school this year, but she participated in the fashion show. They become models for the evening. It'll be fun to see what the kids choose to wear the first day of school. Dani and I went shopping in a Target store on Wednesday Aug 6th. The cashier asked why Dani was not at school. I explained that Dani lived in Mesa and school hadn't started yet. Opps! Yesterday we met their new teachers at the school. Angela has the same teacher as last year and is excited to be a big third grader. This will be her last year at Roosevelt. They have an awesome LLD program for Angela. Dani has the same teacher as Josh did last year. That's two teachers that I my kids had last year and I think they are both great. Josh met his teacher at Target one day while we were shopping for his school supplies. It was fun to see his teacher in a less formal setting.

3rd test is the Charm!

In June, Jim took his third Microsoft test. He didn't have time to study like he did the other two tests. He had started school and found out that school was demanding more time than he originally thought. He was so busy with work, school, and scouts that he didn't find much free time to study for this exam. His work company wanted him to certify in those 3 Microsoft areas by the end of June. Jim finished the book the day before he went in to take the test. He showed up at the wrong testing site, so he had to change plans and go somewhere else. Jim remained calm and was able to pass this test. The Lord has blessed us and Jim. I know that the Lord is guiding us and helping us. Jim did all that he could that month, and the Lord helped him remember everything that he read so he could pass that test. Last week, Jim earned a promotion and became a Senior Developer. He earned that position because he passed those 3 certification tests. The Lord is truly blessing us and we are learning how to manage time much easier. This was a great experience for our family as we have learned to work hard and the Lord is there to bless us and help us.