Selfies of Lola

I just remembered I haven't posted today. This is harder than I thought it would be to find the time and mental energy to post every day. 

And since I don't have much to say today, I will just entertain you with some photos Lola took with my ipad this morning. 

And there are about 20 more just like this. I think hailey has been teaching her some selfie tricks, like just holding down the shutter button and taking a million pics. She wanted to take a bunch of just the ceiling too, but amazingly I only have one of those. Lola hasn't quite mastered the fact that she can't have both hands touching the ipad screen. But, I'm sure she will have that figured out next week. She is basically a genius. 

One more cute Lola story. Grandpa Reeve lives in the Charleston, which is very close to the Bennett's, so they drive past it often. And, I have taken Lola there many times to visit grandpa. Now, anytime she goes past the Charleston, she says, "grandpa, grandpa". So cute! And smart!

More Halloween...

Ok, here are the rest of the pictures I promised to post a few days ago. I'm still getting the hang of this blogging thing.

 This one is my cute sister at the top, she is a teacher and her theme for her classroom is cupcakes. So she is a cupcake baker. So cute! Bottom left is Lindsey, I believe, just playing with the Casper costume I made many years ago. The kids didn't believe that I made it. Carson said it was too professional. Middle is the 4 oldest Bennett kids. Such cuties! Right is Carly as a witch and Lucy as a baby. I miss those girls!

These are the cute John kids. I will not embarrass myself by trying to tell you what these guys are, because I don't know the right names. But, aren't they all cute and studly?

Lessons learned from this summer

So, I spent this summer preparing for and executing two big events - a family reunion, and girls camp for my ward.

A year or so ago, I was appointed to be in charge of our Waite Family Fun Days this summer. I was excited, and had some ideas about what I wanted to do. Some of which got vetoed by the family, but some of my original ideas I did end up doing. Then, in October last year, I was called to be the Assistant Girls Camp Director for my ward. Which I was thrilled about. I LOVE girls camp. I had to laugh when I got the calling, because I pretty much knew that I had brought the calling on myself, by a comment I had made in one of my Relief Society lessons.

I was teaching, and someone was making a comment, and mentioned that they had just been to girls camp. I said, "I love girls camp. I wish I could go." Completely innocent and naive. But, oh my, the reaction that comment got from the women in that room - it was hilarious! Craziness and laughter ensued for a minute or two. People were telling the Relief Society president to watch out, that she was going to have to find a new teacher, etc. I just laughed about it at the time. But, several months later, when I was called, I was not completely surprised. Brother Ford, who was issuing the call, even asked me if I knew this was going to happen. I guess since I didn't act too surprised or shocked or anything.

I learned the rest of the story later. That same night (as the comment made in Relief Society), there was an open house at a ward member's house for one of her children. The Bishop was there, along with the Relief Society president, and the newly called but not yet sustained (so it was still a secret) Young Women President. The Relief Society president was visiting with the Bishop and WenDee (YW Pres), and telling them about what had happened in Relief Society that day. The Bishop, after hearing the story, said, "maybe if the right person hears that" or something to that effect, all the while knowing that the new YW president was sitting right there listening to this. And so she called me a couple months later.

At the beginning of this year, January or February, the camp director got released one Sunday, much to my surprise. (I found out later she was in the middle of a divorce.) The young Women president talked to me after church that day, and asked if I wanted to be the director. I said yes. It totally scared me, but I had already been feeling like that was what should and would happen, and with Heavenly Father's help, it would all work out. She said she would get a good assistant for me. I told her to get someone who knew about food and cooking because that is my major weak point. 

A few weeks later, they called one of my good friends in my ward, Jeanne, to be my assistant, and I couldn't have been more thrilled about that. She is a great cook, so I knew we wouldn't starve. And she is just a fun, happy, great person. 

So the two of us commenced the serious camp planning. We already had a theme, but that was about it. I had the whole thing to plan and figure out. I walk with Jeanne and several other ladies in the mornings sometimes, so that became our camp planning time. Some days it ended up just the two of us walking, and that's when we would really get some thinking and planning going.  

To be continued. I want to write about our theme and what we did. But this is already getting long. So I will split it up. 

And, I missed posting yesterday. I only made it two days. I had every intention of posting, but I slept at Jeanette's last night, so the kids distracted me. 

Saturday Fun

Here it is, 10:24 again. Although, I have already turned my clock back, so it is only 9:24 actually. 

This morning, I got up and went to play practice, from 9 until 2. It was long! But, it went well I thought. I am not in the play, I am the director's assistant. So I just do whatever she tells me to. It sounds kind of boring, but so far I have really enjoyed it. I am still amazed at how much time and effort people are willing to put into things like this. My friend has done a play or two with her family. She told me she thought of it as community service. I liked that thought, it makes sense in my brain. 

After practice I came home and was lazy bones all afternoon. I finally found some energy, and got my library books gathered up to take back. Barely before the library closed tonight. 

And since this was probably the last nice day of the year, weather-wise, I decided I needed to take advantage of it. If i hadn't been so lazy in the afternoon I might have gone up in the canyons. Instead I ended up at Oquirrh Lake in Daybreak. 

It is a nice walk around the lake. I took some great iPhone pics for you to enjoy of my walk. 

It was just after sunset when I started, so the mountains were looking all aglow.

This is Mt. Timp way down there. It looks pretty at sunset with snow on the peaks. (One of these days I am going to hike to the top of that mountain.)

And this is when I finally found my car again, with the cute daybreak houses too. I started my walk in an unfamiliar section of the lake, so I hoped I knew how to find my way back around. It felt like a long walk, which was actually half walk, half run, but I was really only out there for 45 minutes. But I'm sure it was at least 5 miles! It sure felt like it. 

I didn't have my headphones, so I had no music in my ears, just my thoughts. I kind of like it that way. My thought for tonight was how thankful I am for my body. It may not look as good as I wish it did, but it can still do lots of things. Like running, even though I haven't run for a very long time. My body remembered how to do it. Now, I'm sure it wasn't pretty, but I didn't care. I don't know anyone out there. It just felt good to push my body a bit. And realize how good it feels to do that. 

I came home and flipped through some of my new library books. And now I want to make a quilt. Going to the library can be dangerous to my creative brain. 

NaBloPoMo

So, I am slow to this game, but I decided to jump in. And since it is still November 1st - for another hour and 17 minutes - I have time to start this.

I do have lots of things I have wanted to write about, so hopefully this will give me good incentive to actually do this.

My topic tonight is Halloween. I know, it was yesterday. But I'm still going to write about it. 

First of all, some cute pictures of my awesome kids (my nieces and nephews). 

This is my sister and her youngest daughter. She had planned to dress up as Dorothy, and have Lola be the Tin Man. But the costume never came. I'm glad because I think this is adorable. This is my buddy - I tend her two days a week for my sister, and it is awesome. I love it. We have a good time together. 

These kids live far away from me, in Oregon. I love this picture, because it shows the different personalities so well, and, seriously, how cute is the little monster in the middle? He is almost 8 months old, and I wish I could just give him a big kiss and a snuggle. I am going to have to plan a trip to visit them soon. 

This is my cute Hanna that lives in Canada. She dressed up as her dad, Mr. Nunn, who is the principal at her school. I showed this picture to people at work, and they really thought she was a boy. I'd say she bears a striking resemblance to her dad. And she won best super hero costume. Go Hanna!

Tomorrow, when I have more time, I will add the pictures of the other kids. They were all so cute. And creative. It was fun to see pictures pop up all day yesterday on Facebook of all these cute Halloween kids. 

At my work, they always have a Halloween party, and costume contest. People go all out, with very elaborate costumes. I've participated with groups before, and actually won. I think it is fun to dress up and be someone different for a day.

 But, there was no group thing happening this year (or for the last several years actually...my team has changed and they are a little boring these days). I still wanted to do something, not be a total humbug about it. I just couldn't decide what to do. I didn't want to spend any money. And I wanted it to be easy, and quick, and comfortable. 

I thought about going as girls camp director, and wear the apron we made this year, along with other camp paraphernalia, but I decided that might be dumb. 

The morning of Halloween, yesterday morning, I woke up, still not positive what I was going to do. As I lay in bed, trying to get some energy to get up and get going, my thought was mostly, "let's just get this day over with, so I can move on to the better holidays." Halloween is not my favorite holiday at all. That could be because I don't have kids of my own to celebrate with. 

I ended up going with my old standby Halloween outfit - black skirt, orange shirt, with random colored knee socks and crazy shoes. It is festive. And comfortable. And easy. 

And now it is over and we can move on to thanksgiving and Christmas! Much better holidays in my opinion.