Feb 4, 2010

The Pledge of Alliegence??

Gavin came home from preschool today and had a certificate which said "Congratulations to Gavin who can say the "Pledge of Allegiance". I asked him to tell me the Pledge - this is how it goes (in Gavin's mind anyway):

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic ... who believeth in Him shall not perish
but have Everlasting Life. Amen."

I think that he has gotten Primary and Preschool mixed up, but I believe the scripture about "out of the mouth of babes" is right on the money...how TRUE would this Pledge be?? I believe the "Proclamation to the World" on the Family says this, just in more words.

Had to share, this totally tickled me!

Feb 2, 2010

On the road, again

One of my many fabulous cousins (on my mom's side) left for the MTC going to the Barcelona Spain Mission (she is the older sister to my cousin that got married in November). Her "farewell" was over MLK weekend and even though I wanted to go, I couldn't find a way to get away. I knew that it would be a blast and a HUGE party with family and FOOD, but just thought there was no way to go.

Then the Monday before her farewell weekend, I got a wild hare and decided to take the kids out of school on Thursday and make the drive to Las Vegas (a road trip in the new van - Coby couldn't go :( Someone has to earn the $$ to pay the bills). I did lots of laundry, packed suitcases, snax, etc. and Thursday morning we were up and on the road by 6am. Leaving in the dark made me SLEEPY and we had lots of potty stops early on in the trip (mostly because mom had to potty too), but we fell into a rhythm and 14.5 hours later we arrived in LV just in time for a YUMMY dinner!

We partied late into the night (esp. because LV is two hours behind central time), ate WAY TOO MUCH FOOD, the kids got to swim the in hot tub (too cold for the pool), played with cousins, shopped (Costco, Best Buy - all the "big city" places), and had LOTS of FUN! We enjoyed the opportunity to be with family, meet new friends, and have I mentioned the FOOD?
What a fun time, what great hosts, and it was great to hear Makayla's talk on the Atonement. What a great topic to study and teach about. She will be such an awesome missionary! Another cousin (Shayla) will be leaving for her mission to the Madrid Spain mission in March. She was there too. Since most of the cousins on my mom's side are younger than me (by 10+ years) it has been great watching them grow up and go on missions/get married! How exciting!
I also reconnected with an old friend - Colleen Peterson - while there. We share a common friend (Kathleen Briggs) who passed away after years fighting cancer. Kathleen was the most wonderful person! She was a people cheerleader and always saw the best in people! She is an amazing woman!! Colleen is awesome. She has so many talents and abilities!

The time to leave came too quickly and we were off at 4am (LV time) on Monday morning. The trip home was easier than the trip there. We made it home in about 13.75 hours, in time for a quix dinner and bed for the kids (and me, with all the partying, I was TIRED!).

It was well worth the 2 days of driving. That is one of the best parts of living in the panhandle of Texas, we are a day drive closer to family in the West. When we move again that will be one of the hard parts...

I LOVE my family!








The New Year brought change

January came (and has gone) before we knew it. The break between Cmas and New Year's evaporated and we decided it was because we were sitting in front of the TV too much, so we made a command decision and cancelled our DirecTV. I thought it would be TOO hard to keep going, but after about a week the "cravings" went away and life has continued on. We do have an antenna and get the basic channels. I have to admit that PBS is my favorite! The kid shows are great (and I usually don't have to worry about the content) and the Masterpiece Classic version of Jane Austin's Emma has been addicting! We are lucky to live in a modern age so we can access Hulu and the websites for different shows that we like to watch or have missed. Our computer is hooked up to the big TV so it's just like watching it on TV (and it's free).

At that same time we decided that we don't use our home phone enough to justify paying the bill every month, so we cancelled that too. It was thru AT&T (as WAS our internet). When Coby called to cancel it, he was told that the Internet MIGHT be down for 24 hours. Although that would put a cramp in my system, I can go 24 hours without Internet (luckily I have it on my phone). Well, after losing it EARLY on a Monday morning, I waited until Tuesday afternoon before calling AT&T since I didn't have internet yet. The very nice customer service lady told me I was on the schedule to get my internet hooked up Wednesday between 8am -8pm. Although I didn't want to wait another 24 hours I said ok. Well, at 4pm on Wednesday I STILL didn't have internet so I called AT&T again. This is when it all went bad. I talked to MULTIPLE customer service reps, supervisors, etc. and NONE of them could find an account for my internet to be hooked up and after spending WAY TOO MUCH TIME on the phone, I told them to cancel it. The final lady I talked too was so nice, but I have had bad luck with AT&T before and so it was a big decision for us to go with them again.

A couple of months before a nice lady had come to our door to introduce Clear Communications in our area. We liked her and the product, but had put $$ into a new modem, etc. for AT&T and didn't want to switch (since we should be moving soon anyway). Well, Coby was on the phone with Clear as I was dealing with AT&T and within 30 minutes of cancelling AT&T and calling Clear the sales lady was at our house and we were set up and I was back on the Internet.

AT&T is now dead to me and I LOVE that Clear was so on the ball. They are starting up in the Houston area so we hope to continue our account down there when we move. If you are looking for new Internet I HIGHLY recommend Clear. Even during the massive snow storm we had here last week we didn't have a problem with it! If you are in the market I would consider Clear!