Jack O' Lantern

Here are some shots of our pumpkin, we carved it on Friday afternoon before the ward trunk or treat...where it won a prize for being the cutest pumpkin...which made perfect sense because we carved it to look like the baby. It's smile in particular is modeled after Asher's, we gave it the same teeth that he has in right now. Both eye teeth and the two front bottom ones. (A genetic trait that I have passed on to both of my children so far is that all of our eye teeth come in first, making us look like vampire babies until the rest come in. Apparently this is fairly odd as eye teeth usually come in closer to the end if not last.)

Halloween F.H.E.

Tonight for family home evening we totally ripped off Kristi's idea of making pumpkin bread in the little seasonally festive baking dishes from Micheal's (I wouldn't be at all suprised if Kristi were entertaining offers for her own "lifestyle" program as we speak), we packaged them up in clear plastic bags and tied them with orange ribbon that said "trick or treat". I am generally not a creative or crafty person by any stretch of the imagination so this was a low stress and fun way for me to step out of my comfort zone. We made a half dozen to take to all of our home teaching and visiting teaching families. Everyone was home but one so we were able to stop in and visit with most of them for a few minutes, which was really nice. It's so rare it seems that anybody ever spends time socializing when it doesn't revolve around business or meetings, at least to me. It just feels good to interact with people, especially when there isn't a particular reason for it.

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip Picture

Fortunately for me, even though my camera batteries had died the morning of the trip Liam's super organized teacher took pictures and just emailed them to all the parents. Here is a great one of all the kids togethor in front of the giant inflatable jack o lantern outside of the pumpkin patch at Centenary United Methodist church. Can you guess which one is Liam?

Zoo Pictures

It's All Happening At The Zoo

After we got home from the ward trunk or treat on Friday night Bevan checked his email only to discover that all graduate students enrolled in UNCG's Bryan School of Business and Economics had been invited to the second annual Bryan MBA day at the zoo....free of charge, even for spouses and children! The NC zoo is actually probably the best zoo I have been to, and I have been to quite a few. What makes it so great is that the animals are not caged up, they live in natural, free roaming habitats. The downside to this is that occasionally the animals will not be visible from the observation areas, but this actually happens suprisingly rarely and is a small price to pay for happy animals (With the exception of the gorillas, they always seem sad no matter what zoo they are in. I think they are just too smart to be fooled.).
So off we went to Asheboro, which is about a half hour from Greensboro. It was lots of fun because the last time we went was for Liam's second birthday, and he really was to young to care much still. But this time he was really into it. His favourite area was the monkey habitat, especially the Patas Monkey's. They were lots of fun to watch jumping and running and swinging. He really thought they were exciting, and didn't want to leave to move onto the next area. We got a really good view of the elephants and Liam got very up close and personal with a python, which scared me more than it did him...it didn't bother him at all actually (fortunately it was behind a glass wall!). The mama Lion had just given birth to cubs on Monday and they had set up a closed circuit TV near the Lion area so that the kids could watch the babies, sadly though the papa Lion was all by himself since his wife and kids were being taken care of. Oh, well. Anyhow, it was a fun day. I would have to say though that overall Liam probably liked riding the Tram back to the parking lot the best...kids are so funny like that!

Ward Trunk or Treat

Tonight was our annual ward trunk or treat...but since it ended up being a rainy evening it had to be moved indoors and each family set up shop in the different classrooms. Normally there is a potluck dinner before hand but they decided not to do that this year and just provide some hot chocolate and games first before the treating. It turned out very nicely. Our ward is a little on the small side with an even smaller primary, which honestly made for a more laid back event. The kids really got involved with the games and everyone was able to win a prize for something...our family actually won several prizes...including the "cutest" pumpkin in the Jack O Lantern competition.
Liam and Asher dressed up as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. Mostly because Liam had a big Pooh Bear Obcession last fall so we got him the costume from the Disney store only because it was big enough for him to wear two years in a row. And since we found a Tiger costume at Target for the right price we figured, Why Not?
When I went up to the refreshment counter to get a hot chocolate I put a hand full of mini marshmallows in my cup first. I was also holding Asher at the same time. While waiting in line I looked down to see that Asher was very eagerly plunging his little hands into my cup and grabbing fists full of the marshmallows and stuffing them into his mouth...I don't think he has ever had that much sugar, oh my! He liked them for sure!
Here are some photos of the boys at the party.

Field Trip Update

Sorry there are no pictures to go along with this post, I did attempt to bring the camera but realised en route that the batteries had died. Anyhow, Liam's field trip to the Pumpkin Patch at Centenary United Methodist Church was reschedhuled for yesterday morning. I know this is awful, but I actually was a little agitated at first when I found out they had reschedhuled because this meant that I had to go through the whole process of finding a substitute for my class again, which isn't always the easiest thing to do. After a couple of days of calling around I did manage to find a sub and was able to take Liam on the trip with his class.
It was actually really neat because I got to meet the other children in his class and the other parents. I was feeling a little left out at first because they already seem to know each other from talking while dropping off and picking up thier kids, I have obviously not had much of an opportunity to do this since Liam gets dropped off early and picked up late since I am teaching my own class down the hall (teacher's kids are allowed to do that).
When Liam and I pulled up in the church parking lot we realized that another mom who pulled up beside us had a BYU sticker on the back of her car just like us! It turns out they had moved to the Greensboro area less than a year ago and meet in the same ward building as us, just in the ooposite ward...how crazy is that? Liam and her little boy get along really well and played togethor all through the field trip while we talked. They came here from Simsbury, CT. which is such a coincidence because that is where my sister in law Lisa is from and they knew her family of course. We had a lot to talk about since we had visited Simsbury and Hartford summer before last when Adam and Lisa got married. Anyhow, we are making plans to get the boys togethor for a play date and I am really excited about it.
As far as the actual field trip is concerned, basically the children were supposed to sit togethor in a big bale of hay while a lady read them a story about pumpkins, after that they were each allowed to go and pick out a mini pumpkin from the patch to take home. None of the children however were very interested in sitting still and listening to the story...they mostly just ran in circles around the pumpkins.
After that we all took the kids back to the school and I had a whole HOUR of free time before I had to pick up Liam and Asher from school. So I went to the Subway down the street and ate a turkey sandwhich in peace and then walked around the dollar store next door for a few minutes....such a luxury!
When I went back to pick Liam up his teacher told me that he has a little crush on a girl named Emma Kate. I had noticed that he had been holding her hand on the way out to the field trip. She said that he was getting all giddy around her all morning and was following her everywhere. She is a very cute little girl. Liam cracks me up, my casanova three year old!

Genesis 30:13

Asher is our little happy guy. He posed for this photo at UNCG on Sunday. I know his hair is kind of long, but we just don't want to cut it yet.

Speaking of UNCG, while I was at school today studying in the food area, I tooka few minutes to evesdrop on a conversation. This one girl, we will call her "Bulima" was talking about how she took the McNugget Challenge. Appearantly such a thing does exist. The rules are to eat as many nuggets as possible. She got to 34. Her friend said, "I would have gone to the bathroom and thrown up!" I couldn't stop laughing, and had to pretendthere was something funny on my laptop like a "Everybody to the Limit, C'mon Fhqcghads" video or something.

Anyway, here is another picture of Asher falling asleep while I cleaned his crib and room. I had to make this bed for him and he actually used it.

Asher is himself again

After a lot of Tylenol and Amoxicilan, Asher is a ham again. I ground up some grub for him in the Happy Baby food grinder for breakfast and he ate it. It was banana cinnamon oat vanilla yogurt. He also talked a lot in the car on the way to Church. Liam kept telling him to "stop it baby" and "baby, close the mouth". Which is uncharacteristic of him, because a week ago he was patting the baby's head and saying "Atcher sick, Atcher get betters."

Here Are Some Happy Pictures

Since its been such a yucky week at our house I thought I would post some happy pictures. Here are some shots of Liam and Asher back at the start of September at Yum Yum's having ice cream, (Well Asher was just watching us have some, but he was having a good time anyways). And it looks as if blogger will finally let me upload pictures again, so I have got that going for me, which is nice.

Baby Update

Well Asher is finally making a turn for the better. After about three days of his cold symptoms and fever not subsiding on thier own we decided that it must be something more serious than just the basic flu. So I got someone to cover for me at the school and took Asher to see a Dr., which was quite an ordeal. But to make a long story short he does have an ear infection and possibly strep throat as well, but they decided it wasn' t worth the trouble to run the official test on that because the antibiotics for the ear infection would work on his throat as well if indeed it is strep. Anyhow, as long as he is medicated he is doing fine now and is back to his usual antics ...exploring and getting into everything.
However...Liam woke up last night with a temperature of 101 so it looks like we aren't out of the woods just yet. But at least this time we konw what we are up against.

Sometimes I Wish...

Last night I was talking to my mom on the phone in the midst of what had been (and was still in the process of being) a very insane sort of day. During the conversation I expressed what at the moment was the most sincere desire of my heart...to move into a pottery barn catalogue. Just pack my bags...or even better, not pack them...and just move my family in. I feel that if I lived in a Pottery Barn Catalogue my children would never be sick, but even if they were it would be a very elegant, convalescing in coordinated bedding with a tidy tray of chicken soup sort of sick (as opposed to the "Oh no, are the batteries on my thermometer worn out? And what happened to all the baby Tylenol?" that we generally tend to experience). It wouldn't matter if I needed to take a day off from housework to focus on my poor little sickie because the house would already be perfectly orderly and prepared. Field trips would never be rained out, only nice and crisp fall weather for pumpkin patching excursions. There would be no waking up my kids at 10p.m. to go pick up my exhausted husband from the bus stop because his class went over and he missed it (because if we lived in the PB catalogue, obviously everyone else we interacted with would be to...and would undoubtably be running home to relax in thier Manhatten Leather Armchair or have a late supper on thier Celery Sausalito Dinnerware). No wonder everything from that store costs so much...not only are they selling merchandise...they are selling perfection. To bad its not real, if it were we should all buy some stock. (P.S. these are the ramblings of a very tired mother who had to get up early to work an extra preschool shift).

Rained Out!

Today Liam was supposed to go on his first field trip to a pumpkin patch. We were all very excited about this. I even traded shifts and worked Monday instead of Tuesday so that I could go with him. But we woke up this morning and it was pouring rain, when we got to class they said they were going to have to cancel...so sad, a morning off for nothing! I guess it all ended up working out in the end though because Asher is fairly under the weather, he has had a mild cold for a few days now but he woke up several times last night with a low grade fever and is very uncomfortable. So he wouldn't have been able to go to school this morning anyways when Liam and I would have been at the pumpkin patch. It is just kind of a sad rainy morning I guess!

Here are the pictures for Fall Festival

I can't seem to get any pictures to load on Amanda's blog account but they load just fine on mine. If anyone has any tips or thinks they know why then, have at it.

Fall Festival

This afternoon I took the boys to a free fall festival that was taking place at Bur Mill Park, which is a local recreation area that has a really nice swimming pool in the summer, a golf course and driving range, a wildlife education center and hiking trails. Bevan needed to study so we dropped him off at school and headed over to the park which is on the outskirts of the city limits. The entrance to the park was packed and thier were cars everywhere, we had to park really far away and had to walk a long to distance to the event. I kept thinking "Wow, there are so many people here, this must be a great festival"...then I finally got to the party and couldn't believed I had bothered fighting the crowds to get to it! There wasn't much going on at all. There was a face painting booth with about a 45 min. wait, a rock climbing wall which you had to pay for and isn't exactly something Liam would go for, hayrides (also with a really long line), some food vendors and a few wildlife groups educating about mostly local animals (although one lady did have a little aligator for the kids to see and I am pretty sure we don't have any of those but I guess you never know...). Luckily we ran into some good friends we hadn't seen in a while and got to visit with them otherwise it would have been a total bust. So Liam and his friend Sarah made a bird feeder out of recycled coke bottles at a booth sponsored by the Audobon Society and then we decided to get in line for the Hay ride which was the only thing Liam was even remotely interested in, aside from Sarah. We waited for 45 min. only to have a bunch of people jump line in front of us!! Honestly, what are people teaching thier children? When we did finally get on our driver was driving the tractor crazy fast and swerving all over the trail, which I am guessing he thought was fun for the kids but was really just terrifying. Someone had to ask him to please stop driving like that because the children were afraid...and so were the adults for that matter...I was. So anyhow, thats that I guess. It was a beautiful day and we got to spend some time with good friends so in the end I guess that is all that matters. Here are some pictures of Liam and Sarah with thier birdfeeders, Asher being cute in the stroller and we tried to get a picture taken of the boys and I on the hay ride, but niether of them were to interested in looking at the camera.

Miss Panda

On Wednesday I substituted for "Miss" Vicki in the two year old preschool room. It was really quite fun because the children there are obviously much more verbal and independant than the 13-18 month olds that I usually work with, so it was a good change of pace. The lead teacher in the room "Miss" Cindy is really incredible with the kids and has lots of fun activities and crafts that she does with them, it is a really wonderful program.
Anyhow, so I was back in my regular room on Thursday morning when "Miss"Amy who was subbing for Vicki that day popped in to say all the kids wanted to know where "Panda" was. It took them a minute to figure out what they were talking about, but apparently they couldn't pronounce Amanda properly so they all ended up calling me Panda. At the end of the day one the little girls and her mom popped by my room because she really wanted to say hello to Miss Panda. So I guess Panda is my new name.
(I still can't get over that everyone here trains thier children to call women over the age of 18 "Miss" so and so. Where I grew up that would have been considered fairly rude and/or condescending. But I understand that here it is considered respectful so I am fine with it, but it still makes me want to laugh sometimes.)

Wishbone

Liam and I each made a wish on a wishbone while Amanda was at Enrichment tonight. Liam was so excited because he saw me pull this thing out of the Turkey Carcass on Sunday Night (Thanksgiving). I told him it had to dry so that it would be ready for good wishing. As you can see in the next picture, Liam got his wish and I didn't. I told Liam that he would get his wish and he got really excited. He said, “Yep, Liam the wish a DVD.”

New Goal

So I have been thinking about what tasks to tackle in this the next year of my life. And of course there are many things I need to work on, but the tangible one that I could plot my progress on and be willing to post about would be to increase my physical fitness. I have been an avid walker for many years now, and have always really enjoyed that. But now that I am trying to shed the last ten pounds or so I feel I need to step it up a notch. Thus far most of my weight loss efforts have centered around improved diet and decreased portions so it seems appropriate at this point to focus more on exercise.
I have decided that running is probably going to be the most time efficient way to achieve this goal, I don't have much time or resources to use at this point...so the pro to this is that the only equipment I really need are some running shoes, which I do already have. Plus at our complex there is a workout room with treadmills which also is convieniant. The con is that I have never have been much of a runner. At first I considered training for a 5 or 10K, but at this point that is kind of overwhelming. I probably could handle a 5k but I would feel like a fraud showing up to something like that . I need to prove to myself that I am runner enough to run in a race first. So step one is being able to run a solid half hour without stopping. I found a training routine to help me do just this on runnersworld.com...it promises that in just ten weeks I will have acheived the desired result. If I make it to the end of the program (when I make it...I should talk positive shouldn't I?) I decide where I want to go from there....will I decide to enter or train for a race of some variety...or will I just maintain that and start focusing on flexibilty or strength training? We'll see. I am on week one right now and so far so good...but if you looked at the training link you wouldn't be very impressed by that. I would love any advice from more seasoned athletes if they are willing to share.

Internship Update

I have officially accepted an offer to work as an intern at the High Point Office at Sharrard McGee. It is only 11 miles from home and will give me the opportunity to do audit and tax work. Since, I have just started the Masters in Accountancy program, it is hard to say what I really want to do. My first pick is audit because it can give me a boost into high positions later on in the corporate world. But being able to do both is a great advantage that these smaller firms have over the Big 4.

Pictures With Ethan

Canadian Thanksgiving And A Visit From Ethan

Columbus Day weekend and Canadian Thanksgiving are always on the same weekend. We usually have our Thanksgiving Feast at this point as opposed to at the end of November when American's have thiers. (If someone invites us over or if we have guests or what not we don't mind doing it a second time however!) This year was super great though because my brother Ethan flew out from Canada to spend the weekend with us. When we went to up state New York and Canada in July he was involved with the Hill Cumorah Pageant so we only got to see him for about a half hour. Since he is getting ready to go on his mission when he turns 19 at the end of January he decided to come and spend some extra one on one time with us and his "favourite" (and only!) nephews. When he told me over the phone when he was coming I pointed out that it was the Thanksgiving break...he chuckled and said, "well, yeah. if you guys do anything...". Silly boy. I have been planning this for months. Some people sew and some people scrap book, but my hobby is menu planning, setting tables and reading recipe books. This year I decided on a menu of feta, cranberry and walnut salad with a dijon vinagrette, homemade rolls and pumpkin pecan maple leaf shaped muffins (thanks mum for the nifty pan!), turkey with sausage and mushroom stuffing, gravy, garlic cream cheese mashed potatoes, southern style green beans with bacon, carrot souffle (thanks for the recipe Kristi, everyone loved it especially Asher) and apple pie with fresh whipped cream. I also had a lot of fun setting the table, I printed off some really great place cards from the marthstewart.com website and had an excuse to break out the fancy place mats and napkins. Ethan is really great to have around. He is wonderful with the boys. He holds and plays with Asher and is very patient with Liam. On Saturday night he came with us to the UNCG soccer game and it was lots of fun with him there. He and Bevan are also good friends so it is really nice to see them building thier relationship. We are all really flattered that he would use his time and resources to come and visit us. He will be missed when he leaves on his mission, (he is putting his papers in next month so we'll soon see where he is off to!).

Chrysler Classic

I went to the Forest Oaks Country Club to volunteer with some of my friends from Beta Alpha Psi on Friday. We were counting tickets and collecting money... for about 4 minutes. We spent the rest of the morning watching Davis Love III, Camilo Villegas and the tee off of Mike Weir, John Daly and K.J. Choi. Camilo was not so great, but we wanted to see him putt, because when he crouches down to putt, he does it in an interesting way. They were calling him Spiderman. I don't have a whole lot of pictures. Taking pictures was not aloud, and probably would have gotten my camera taken away. So here is my only decent shot of something I was able to take. Davis Love is in the very far rightin blue. His pairing just finished putting on this green. He is actually tied for first and we should see how he does today. It will be on ABC today (Sunday).

Donald's Milk... Gone :(

We drove by the corner of West Market and Spring Garden and saw that the McDonalds ruble had been cleaned up in no time. 5 days ago, it was closed for remodeling. 3 days ago, a wrecking ball smashed it to the ground, and today all the rubble was deposited into a a dumpster and hauled away. Now all that is there is a sign telling customers to drive half amile away to another McDonalds location because this one is in the process of being "remodeled." When Liam saw this he said, "Donald's Milk gone." And then he said it again, in a low voice, and started to cry. I tried to console him, but he pushed me away. At that moment in time he thougth all restaruants were gone for good (Yeah right, you wish Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood). Liam just loves chocolate milk from McDonalds. He calls it "Donald's Milk." Anyway, he recognizes the arches but no other brand whatsoever. He likes Subway and Panera Bread, but has no name for it. Tonight at Panera, he ate a bunch of bread and honey and some of my apple. We were celebrating because... well I will post it later.

A Picnic At The Park

Well we missed play group this morning for a couple of reasons. I had to go into the school very early for a staff meeting even though I don't normally go in on Wednesdays. On the way home I made a quick trip into the Harris Teeter to pick up some milk and bread. At home Bevan was waiting for the washing machine repair man to come...apparently our machine actually ate one of Asher's little socks and had clogged the whole thing up. Luckily it is still under warranty so we didn't have to pay for it. Then we had to drop Bevan off at school because he missed the bus and by then play group was long over.
Anyhow, I was sorely in need of some physical activity to burn off my birthday indulgences so we headed to the Battle ground park to walk the loop ( about 2 and a half miles...with some big hills). Since it was such a beautiful day I brought lunch for us all and we ate it on a park bench at the end of the walk. Liam had a great time collecting the acorns that were falling from the trees. It was a good mommy day for me.

27 down... 73 to go.

Well I have made it through yet another year! I now find myself at the ripe old age of 27! Yesterday was a good day, even though I wasn't necessarily expecting it to be. I had to work so it started out at 6:30 a.m. pretty much like any other school morning. But when I got to my class the room mother for my class had brought me a surprise on behalf of all the parents, which was really unexpected and sweet. At 1 p.m. Bevan came to pick the boys and I up and had brought lunch with him that he had picked from Elizabeth's Pizza (a nice local Italian joint), we took it home and to my utter astonishment the house was spotless and organized! Bevan had come back home after dropping us off at school and cleaned the house and put all the laundry away and everything. I really appreciate this because I know what a sacrifice that time was for him because he has a lot of tests and projects due this week. There was a potted plant of gerbera daisies on the table and in the fridge was a Cheesecake Factory pumpkin cheesecake from Sam's. (Amazing because I had been at Barnes and Nobles the day before and seen a poster advertising this exact cheesecake, I am on a big pumpkin kick at the moment so it looked really good. I mentioned to Bevan later on how good all things pumpkin were seeming to me although I did not mention the cake. And lo and behold that exact cake appears in my fridge the next day like magic!) Liam was really funny about blowing out the candles on the cake. He pretty much did it for me! I certainly appreciated his help. After lunch Bevan had to get back to school so it was just the boys and I the rest of the day.I did get some great phone calls from Patricia and Vivian (who actually coordinated their lunch breaks in Salt Lake City so that we could all talk together at the same time, very fun!), my parents and brothers, Ruth and of course dear old Autumn (my longest running friendship...she is 13 months older than me and actually came with her mother to visit me at the hospital when I was born...we hit it off from day one, literally!!). I also got adorable e-cards from Heather P. and Sarah R., I really appreciated those you guys! "Good Mail" came on the weekend from Ruth and my Mum. A fun delivery arrived on my door step later in the evening, Leah and Philip from our ward and complex left me a package with the just released that day copy of "The Little Mermaid", they called to let me know the bag was at the door and that they had knocked several times but said I probably didn't hear it because they could hear Liam screaming very loudly inside. I had been trying to clip Liam's toenails which were nasty and he was having a conniption...how embarrassing!All in all it was a really nice day. For me birthdays are like New Year's, a time to make resolutions and gage my progress. One goal that I had set for myself to achieve this past year was to loose enough weight to be within my BMI range, even if it was at the highest end. This was no small goal considering that during this time period I gave birth to my second child and of course had gained a great deal of weight in the bearing of that child, not to mention the fact that I was overweight before starting the pregnancy and had not been within this range since I was twenty. But I want to document that I did achieve my goal. I actually even managed to go two pounds below what my original goal was. So, since Asher was born I have lost 66 pounds, and am 25 pounds lighter than when I started the pregnancy. I still have another 5 or 10 pounds to go until I reach my final weight destination, but I feel really proud of myself that I am within my body mass index range and feel that I can now classify myself as a healthy person. It has been really rough from time to time, with lots of bad habits to replace but I made it through the worst of it! So now I am in the process of assessing what my goals for this next year are going to be, I'll post about it when I know.

Moravian Chicken Pie

There is a religious group in the Triad area called the "Moravians" who broke off from the Catholic church in Moravia Germany before Martin Luther even did. Because of persecution they had to move around alot and eventually ended up coming to North America and founded several settlements, with a large one in what is now our community. For at least a century they have been famous for thier chicken pie, which is really good. I have tried it at "Salem Tavern" before, which is the restaurant located in Old Salem, a living history mueseum that enacts life in the earliest Morvian community in the area.
Anyhow, my friend Anne from church used to be Moravain before she joined the LDS church. She mentioned to me once though that she still participates in many of the Moravian social functions, such as making the pies for fundraising. I told her many months ago that I would really love to come and learn how to make them if she wouwld invite me. So this morning she gave me a call and said she had just found out that they would be meeting that night and I was welcome to go if I was free. So of course I jumped at the chance.
I learned all the different steps and helped to make 69 pies that will be frozen and sold at thier candle tea the first weekend of December. They will be meeting every Monday night for the next several weeks to do this. I don't want to brag or anything, but I was a pie making machine!! They even invited to me to come back next week if I wanted.
It was such a great experience to be involved in a tradition that has been going on for so many generations. I always think it is really amazing when people are willing to teach and share such long lasting traditions with an "outsider". I will definately be making some chicken pies this year. It might even become a yearly tradition for our family as well!

General Conference Highlights

Well conference weekend has come and gone again! This was a noteworthy one for us though since it was really the first time since moving to NC that we have been able to watch at home. Since Bevan got the new laptop for school this year and we are somehow using wifi that is floating in the air at our apartment that we are not paying for we were able to watch it online, which with to little boys made things much easier. It is hard to keep them both entertained at church and get anything out of the session as well, so overall it was a good expereince for me.
I started out with really good intentions of taking notes of each talk, however my resolve only lasted through the first session since I still had to make sure my children were not entirely left to thier own devices all weekend.

I really enjoyed Dallin H. Oaks talk, it was a good reminder that life doesn't have to be as hard as we make it. That Jesus can heal all afflictions...physical, mental or spiritual...if we will let him. And that we can be given patience and understanding to deal with our burdens even if they cannot be removed. If we are fearful this evidences a lack of faith. All these things are reminders I needed right now, a very timely talk for me to hear.

Paul B. Pieper's talk directed to 1st generation members also really caught my interest since I am working with the new member's in our ward as the gospel pronciples teacher. I hope they all heard this one! It basically tells how important a role they have in thier families and with thier friends and what chosen people they are!

David Baxter talked about what he thought were the three gospel fundamentals that everyone needs to know. I was most impressed by the third which basically stated that discipleship does not make us immune from the challenges of life and that there may even be long stretches of time, even years, when life will be very difficult. The only real tragedy is when the trials blow us off course and we are only lost if we choose to let go of the iron rod. He used a very familiar example from the scriptures to demonstrate this that I had never considered in this way before. The story of the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built his house on sand. Basicly the two men both had the same challenges, it was how they dealt with and prepared for the challenge that made the difference.

Robert C. Oaks pointed out that 4 of the 13 elements of charity relate to patience. Very interesting, I really need to work on that.

I really enjoyed M. Russel Ballard's talk because the overall message that I got from it was essentially that we need to have an economy of how we prioritize and use our time and resources. What are willing to give up for what and what prices can we not afford not to pay? He gave some guidelines to help us choose. This also was a very timely concept for me.

I can't remember her name but she spoke Saturday afternoon and I think was the 2nd counselour in the YW's presidency...anyhow, she talked about how we always need to be pure because there will be times in our lives when we will need immediate blessings and we need to be able to recieve them not because of Heavenly Father's mercy towards us but because we are worthy to recieve these blessings.

Anyways, it was a marathon of great talks but these are the ones which really stood out for me. ( Interesting that most of them came from Saturday morning when I was taking notes...message to self, take more notes!)