Change

Yesterday was election day so today I woke up with a new president who will spend the next four years in the White House. Barrack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States running on the A Time for Change slogan (gee that's something new). I must admit that I didn’t vote for him. There is just something about him that I don’t trust, but he is the new president and so it is my hope that he will try and do what is best for the country.

In 1963 Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in which he stated “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. Even though we now have a black president, I’m not sure we have made much gain since that famous speech 45 years ago; because a lot of people voted for Obama because he was black and not because of his “content of character”.

My case in point goes to the fact that during the campaign, people in Harlem, New York were interviewed. They were asked who they were voting for and most said Barack Obama. They were then asked if they were voting for Obama because he was Pro-Choice or because he supported the war in Iraq (both of these are McCain's campaign policies). The person would then agree with one of these policies. Then the person was asked if they were okay with a woman being vice-president even though Obama's VP choice is male...the person then said they were okay with a woman being VP. This just proves that people didn't even know what Barrack Obama stood for; aka his content of character.

One newscaster after the win said, "The best thing that Barrack Obama had going for him was President George W. Bush". I guess people were so disenfranchised with President Bush that if the Democrats had a monkey as their candidate he probably would have been elected president....now how sad is that!

It's too bad that people were voting AGAINST something and not FOR something.

Since hearing about the election results a lot of sayings have been going through my head. "This too shall pass", "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger", "Endure to the end" and "If you don't stand for something you'll fall for everything". And so I will endure the next four years and hope that the nation is not the worse for wear when it is over. I will get up every day and go about my daily routine putting my trust in God for I know that he is the same today, tomorrow and forever.

So Many Projects....So Little Time!

My husband would probably call me the biggest procrastinator ever, but in my own defense I must plead that I married someone just like me! :)

Once again I had bitten off more than I really could chew and by mid-October I was starting to feel like I was choking. I was in charge of the ward Halloween party, I needed to finish my costume for a party we were going to up at Snowbasin and we also had the family Halloween party to hold at our house plus I had committed myself to sewing (hold on this gets complicated) my daughter-in-law Tiffany's sister Whitney's wedding dress. She is getting married December 5th. Whitney is trying to save money and so she is going to use Tiffany's wedding dress. That would be nice, but Tiffany's dress had spaghetti straps and Whitney is getting married in the temple so spaghetti straps won't look to good with garments. Still, I thought "no big deal, we'll use the skirt and just change the top"....how wrong I was.

Making the top part wasn't that big of a deal, but then I was taking the appliques and beading off of Tiffany's dress and putting it on Whitney's. When I unpicked the lower band the applique and beading all came off in one piece and so I thought this would be no big deal. Then on Saturday I started unpicking the other stuff and the beads starting falling off landing in my lap...needless to say I was almost in tears by the end of the night. Then on Sunday I finished unpicking and sewing the applique on to the dress which just left beading, sleeves and some last minute hand work. No big deal, Whitney's bridal pictures weren't until Thursday, I have plenty of time...so I thought until Tif called me on Monday to tell me that Whitney had moved her bridal's to Wednesday.

So I stayed up until midnight on Monday sewing on beads then up at 5am to finish. Eight a.m. and I still wasn't finished so I loaded the dress into the car along with scissors, thread and needle then off to work! Luckily Dr. Bentley had a meeting and was done with patients early so I went out to the car and got out the dress to finish the hand work. Then Tif and Braedon showed up at the same time so there we all sat in the car while I finished sewing the dress. I'm sure it looked funny to anyone passing by. The dress is now done and Tif called later to say that Whitney loves the dress but.....the sleeves are a little tight.

So, I guess I'm not done after all! It's a good thing I didn't put away my unpicker. Besides, what would I do if I didn't have a project!

Family Halloween Party

Last night we had our annual Halloween Party. I was trying to remember how many years we have held this now but I'm not exactly sure but I think it has been five or six now. This year we had thirteen here which is making for quite the house full.
We started out carving pumpkins and thank goodness the weather this year was nice instead of freezing cold so we could carve them outside. This was the first year that Kayson was really old enough to help carve pumpkins. Once his dad had the top off they rolled up Kayson's sleeves and asked him if he wanted to help. Kayson said "No, don't wanna" as he started pulling down his sleeves. I don't know what they expected since he is just like his dad was at that age and hates getting hands dirty.
As you can see, the pumpkins turned out great! Then it was on to dinner. I made dinner in a pumpkin which I had made last year for a Sunday dinner and it turned out really good, but wouldn't you know it because we had alot of people over it wasn't done at six (even though it had been in the oven for over three hours). I think it was slow cooking because I had guests. When it was finally done it was really good and I think everyone got plenty to eat.
The last thing we always do at the party is make and decorate Halloween sugar cookies. This year we were actually prepared and made the sugar cookies before hand so Tiffany and I weren't busy cutting out and baking cookies while everything else was going on. I had bought M&M's and candy corns to decorate the pumpkin faces on the cookies and we still had sprinkles which Tiffany limited Nicole to one shake per cookie since Nicole has the habit of over doing it to the point that no one wants to eat them. Kayson spent more time undecorating the cookies so he could eat the M&M's and candy corns. I'm sure he was on a sugar high!
Hopefully this tradition will continue on for years and years to come. It's so much fun to see the kids get together and I hope they had as much fun as I did.

Thanks For Visiting

I got on this blog today to write something new and possibly earth shattering, but instead I started reading all of my old posts.

After reading them, I am more glad than ever that I started this blog. It has been a place for me to record my thoughts and feelings for others to read. I even thought to myself that when I die that others can come here and remember me (I know, that's a morbid thought...sorry!).

I also added pictures to old posts because a picture is worth a thousand words.

SOoooo if it's been awhile since you've visited my blog or are new to the site, I hope you will take the opportunity to review my past blogs and that you will get as much joy from them as I did.

No More Living in an Hourglass

Yesterday I had the opportunity to drive on the newly opened Legacy Parkway. This is a project which has been in the works for about eight years now. For years it was tied up in court thanks to Rocky Anderson (boo!) and the Sierra Club who were worried about the affects to the wet lands. The concession was only two lanes both ways, no trucks and a 55 MPH speed limit.

Until Saturday the only access that people in Davis county had for driving into Salt Lake was the I-15 corridor. The Legacy Parkway starts by Lagoon and basically follows I-15 along the west side and connects onto I-215 headed towards the airport by Redwood Road.

I probably won't take it going into work since I miss the worse commute and it only takes me about 30-35 minutes to get to work.

Hopefully now my commute home won't be an hour long any more. And there was nothing worse than when there was a wreck to be on the freeway for two hours.

First Day of School

Wow, it's hard to believe that the summer is now over and the kids are back in school. I can't believe that I have been sending kids off to their first day of school for 20 years now and each year has been bitter-sweet.

I think both Braedon and Nicole were really excited to go back. Braedon was up at 5:00am since he will be a Junior going to East Hollywood High this year which is in Salt Lake. To go there he has to ride public transportation and so has to catch the train to Salt Lake at 6:30am. East Hollywood High is a charter school with emphasis on film and acting. Braedon loves these areas and so we are hoping that this school will give him the love of learning again, plus the class size is about a 1/3 of his old high school.

Nicole headed off to third grade this year. Her teacher is Mrs. Parmer and she has alot of friends in this class. Nicole loves school so we aren't worried to much about her. You can see her picture for the first day of school. I keep telling her dad that I wish she weren't such a tomboy and he says try saying that in about 6-8 years when she discovers boys and she isn't such a tomboy.

Changes

I was looking at my blog profile and realized that it still said I was forty-two years old. And as good as that looked on paper (so to speak) I decided in order to be truthful I'd best change it to reflect the two birthdays I've had since I started this blog...hard to believe it has been that long. I don't feel like I'm forty-four. I remember as a kid I used to always think when you were forty you were OLD, but I really don't feel OLD. I have found that time seems to go by faster though the older I get....funny how that is.

And since I was changing things up I thought I might as well change the template to something new and add a rare picture of me in front of the camera instead of behind it taking the pictures all the time. Believe me, I always feel more comfortable behind the camera instead. I feel like my kids are always much more photogenic than me.

The picture I added was taken by Nicole when we were down in San Diego at the Christmas Festival at Balboa Park with my sister Kim. Hey Kim, we had lots of fun!