The Real Easter Message

We have 1:00 Church so we haven't been to hear the choir and sweet messages about our Savior and His Atonement yet although I am sure it will be excellent.

However I did attend the General Women's Broadcast with Jena last night at our stake center and it was a perfect way to spend the night before Easter.  First they had a choir representing over 50 different countries--that immediately made me tearful to see so many people of color in the choir and to listen to them singing together.  That is truly what Heaven will be like--all people united under their Heavenly Parents and also our Savior.

The messages centered on Christ and following his example to reach out and help and serve those around you.  "I was a Stranger and you took me in....". They talked about the over 60 million refugees throughout the world, over a half of them children and looking for ways to help them settle in a new place with a new language and new customs. They spoke of the early Saints who were comforted and fed by people living in Illinois as they were banished from Missouri and that we need to do likewise.

If you know me at all, you know that this is a message that is near to my heart.  My mind was filled of memories of the many "strangers" we have shared our lives with--both as "strangers" who lived with our family and others which we have served.  What a richness they have all brought to my life and the life of our family.  How true the message is that as we serve our own lives flourish and grow. Certainly we all yearn to be the Master's hands on earth to comfort, give aid, and love to those around us.  There was a call to action to get involved--to find our niche to help our families, our neighbors, and perhaps those across the town from us who are the strangers from a strange land.  There will be exciting times ahead for the sisters of the Church and for me.

I think what made this meeting even more sweet was just this past week, one of those I worked with at LDS Family Services came into a meeting as a foster parent of one of our young boys.  How great it was to see her and her husband.  I haven't seen her in over 7 years.  Later she wrote me a sweet note about our connections in the past.  One day we were strangers to each other and now we have a relationship which will connected us for eternities.

And that is the message of Easter--of Christ's perfect love for each of us and His willingness to suffer and surrender His Mortal life for us and then take it up again.  He was risen and He lives.  Follow Him and He will take us home to that Father who created us all.  This is my testimony this Easter day. In his name. Amen.

Happy Easter

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO OUR MYSTERIOUS NEIGHBORHOOD EASTER BUNNY! Thanks for making a stop at our house.

Early this morning as we were waking up Gary commented that he wondered with the new ward boundaries if the Easter Bunny would still be stopping by. I had to get up and go check. Happy to report he did.

 And yesterday Tosha sent these pictures from the Air Force base Easter Egg Hunt in Japan.

I love his little airplane basket.  Tosha reported that he spent the first part of the hunt watching the other kids run around and collect eggs but then he got into the idea of putting some into his own basket.

So even though he is half way across the world, it is good to know that he is having a bit of America in his life, too.  Just over a month until I get to see him and his parents in PERSON!  I am so excited.

School Project

halfway done....

Our five lesson plans....

 and the almost completed kit.

Our project is a kit to help parents of young children with disabilities to teach their children about body safety and what to do if they feel someone has been inappropriate with them.

Next we have to do a presentation to our five "fake stakeholders" to see if we can get funded.  Then the formal paper.  A month to go and then I will be done with five of my nine semesters and my first year internship at Division of Child and Family Services.

I love school and I have really enjoyed my internship but sometimes it is a lot of work!

#HappyWorldDownSyndromeDay-3.21.2016

March 21 is World Down Syndrome Day

because of the 3.21

There are 3 copies of the chromosome 21.

World wide people wear crazy sox but Jena isn't into that.

This year we had arranged with Cold Stone's for a free ice cream for a person

with Down syndrome all day.  So we went....

Her friend joined us as well

 Hugs good bye as friends head off in different direcitons.

It was a fun ice cream stop.

We headed to Centerpoint Theatre were Jena was assigned a new task for the day.  She had to take all of the white men's shirts and divide them into dress shirts and "tuck" shirts with tucks on the front.  She did a great job.  Here are some of the tuck shirts.

This is what the costume closet looks like.  This was our first time to work in this room.  Can you see Jena way down there with the white shirts?

 FINISHED!

That night we got to stay and see "Beauty and the Beast" which is one of Jena's favorite Disney musicals.  Meantime 30 miles north Gary took his mother to see Nikki, Jena's cousin, perform in her high school performance of "Cinderella".  Both were excellent.  We just wished we all could have seen both.

Still haven't made it to see "Zootopia" yet but hoping to do that soon.  We hear it is very funny.

Hey, I think that I am got up to today. Nice.  I actually fertilized the yard today with pre-emergence and it isn't April yet.  That is a great accomplishment for me.

Enjoy your Real Easter Day this week!  Happy Easter to you all.

Colds and Events...

are not the best mix.

The day after our fun Early Easter, both Jena and I started coming down with a cold.  Jena stayed home from the Church History Museum on Tuesday but I kept plugging along with cold medications day and night.  I had to because it was another crazy week.

In addition to our normal stuff, I had to attend a support group on Wednesday night in Salt Lake for a class assignment.  I attended an "Adoption and Infertility" group which was all very familiar to me even though it has been a few years.  Times might be changing in many ways but the emotions of couples dealing with infertility and looking at adoption are very stable and universal.  One couple shared they have never talked to other couples dealing with infertility and at the end the husband said that it was not at all what he thought it would be like, it was just "good" and he couldn't wait to come again.  Then I got to go home and write a 5 page paper on the experience...fortunately not that actual night....because my body crashed and I started running a fever...which cancelled my internship for the day...but not...

THE PINEWOOD DERBY FOR OUR PACK--

I was lucky, because #1 Gary was running the races so I knew things would be great no matter what I felt like and #2 because I was supposed to be in Spanish Fork for my internship all day, I was organized and had my part of things ready to go prior to Wednesday night.  So I spent the day sleeping and Gary and others set up for the big race.

We had a fun collection of cars as always and it was a great night.  Cub Scouts are great!  And I have no actual pictures but we did have some one take pictures so I will add them at a later date.  We had 20 racers total which is a nice amount.

Heads to bed again Thursday night and slept in because we kept Jena home from school on Friday as her cough was getting worse again.  I cancelled a meeting I had in Salt Lake because I didn't have enough energy to do that and to party that night

AT THE WEBER STATE-UDSF FAMILY EDUCATION NIGHT!

Luckily I just had a small part and again had gotten most of it prepared early because I knew my week was crazy.  We were treated with dinner, then the WSU students were all matched with someone with Down syndrome and they went and did social, physical and academic tasks with them while we had a parent meeting about some exciting things ahead for our students at Weber State.

 Then we all headed all to the "Motion to Music provided by a DJ".  If we call it a dance we would have to provide police protection,  We are just a small group they just told us not to call it a dance but "motion to music" so we did.

Jena dancing while Kaitlyn covered her face since I was trying to take a picture.

 And they all had fun dancing with the college students.

Happy faces of fun friends--Mariah

 And Nate......

We were cleaned up and home thanks to all of the college volunteers by 9:30.  In time, to put the final organization and pack up things for Saturday morning...and a migraine during the night likely to my poor rest with my cold and the cold medication.  Migraine medication makes driving a bit of a worry so Gary became our driver (and gave up is morning plans) and off we went to the....

THE UDSF-MARRIOTT ANNUAL EASTER EGG HUNT
..... in Salt Lake at 10:00 am.  Jena was a good sport and helped me set up the crafts which I was in charge of.

I posted this on our Facebook group and said "The calm before the storm" as a reminder of the hunt.
We had 4000 eggs which were "hid" by the hotel staff.

 They moved in the food and crafts indoor because the weather was bit chilly outside especially in the shade.  They were great hosts and people enjoyed themselves--meeting new people and visiting with old friends.

The treat and drink table

Working on crafts together...

The hunt is on.....

The reason for the party is all of these cute kids.  Many of the older kids and adults still enjoy a good Easter Egg Hunt and this is the perfect setting for one.

Captain American made a surprise visit much to the delight of many of the kids.  For some reason he was much less scary than the Easter Bunny.

We had a lip sync contest and here is a distant picture of one of our singers.

  And the Easter Bunny...Jena claims she had her picture taken with him but I didn't get a copy of that yet.

Some of the adults braved the cool breeze and did some dancing with our great DJ, Jason.  He is a dancer, singing, and funny guy and we love having him at our dances.

This baby was wore out from all of the activities and admiring she was getting so she fell asleep so she got her face painter by our amazing face painter.  We are having her every year because she is the best I have ever seen.

Staff helped us clean up and we were on our way for lunch by 12:30 which was nice and then home for a nap after all of those parties and our colds.

Sunday we were planning to attend the broadcast of the Provo City Center Temple in our Stake Center but we were still under the weather.  I know that I need to rest more with a cold but sometimes that just doesn't work out.

Jena is doing much better and resumed all activities this week.  I still have plugged ears and stuffy nose which is annoying at night but improving so hopeful will be gone soon.  It has been a week and a half.

Why can't you get a cold when you have a great book to read and nothing else to do?  That's when you should have a cold.

One last historical note:  I forgot to mention that on March 13 we had our Stake Conference and our very beloved State President was released.  I don't know much about the new ones who have been called but I think hey will do great as well.  Our past Stake presidency was so humble and real and so dedicated to the Lord and to His work.  We will miss them but look forward to the changes as well.

Early Easter

At the end of February, we realized that we needed to plan ahead to arrange work schedules for Easter.  It ended up that Scott only had one Sunday off which was March 13th.  Jessica and Elessia made arrangements with their jobs and the plan was made.

At almost the last minute, the weather was so nice that I decided I wanted to do it in Grandma Hall's back yard.  She has a beautiful lawn and our kids have had many Easter Egg Hunts there over the years and I thought it would be sweet to share that with Liam and Scarlett.  So we packed up dinner and took it all over to her house Sunday evening. (She is such a great sport with all of my ideas.) It was a great time and I was so glad that we did it there with Grandma Hall.  Jessica was almost the same age as Scarlett when she did her first Easter Egg Hunt there.

Flashback pictures from that first Easter Egg Hunt:

Here is Jessica at about 23 months old grabbing an egg from a tree in Grandma's backyard.
Aunt Charon, Jake and Jessica and I checking out the eggs from that first Easter Hunt.

No more Easter Baskets for Hall children--only the grandchildren!  The egg filled hats with the books are for Liam and Scarlett.  The baskets of eggs were the eggs that Jena was going to hid in the back yard.

 And Jena did a great job hiding the eggs in fun places for little kids to grab.  It didn't take Scarlett long to figure out to look for the colorful eggs.....

However, during the hunt, she had no idea that there was something inside of the eggs (the normal collection of chocolate and toddler yogurt bites).

Liam liked banging the eggs together and being outside.  He is an outdoor kid like his mom, Jessica and Scarlett also loves outdoors which is no surprise if you know Scott!

Scarlett loves to carry baskets around on her arm so an Easter basket was right up her alley.

Early Easter means not a green yard yet but I loved this picture of Liam on the grass with the trees and sky.

 Jena wasn't looking but I love Liam's face in this picture as well.  Look at those little dimples.

 Scarlett's China woman squat!

Egg hunting is great when people carry you from egg to egg....

although Scarlett was quite happy to do it all by herself, even when she had to reach up on her tippy toes.

It was all of adventure and we all loved walking behind Scarlett or watching Liam grab an egg.

 Of course, we needed to get the picture with the grandchildren and their aunt Jena.

 Watch the purple egg.....

 Liam reaches for it.......pauses to flash a grin at all of the crazy adults trying to get all three of these people to look in the same direction.....

And then simply puts it into his basket without Scarlett even noticing it.  We were all laughing as we watched this.  Babies are so cute!

And finally the two of them smiling and looking in the same direction.  (Oh how we miss Niki and his parents, Tosha and Austen at times like this.  Niki has a book and hat on the way to Japan but it isn't quite the same as him sitting next to his two little cousins at our Early Easter Egg Hunt.)

More pictures of grandchildren cuteness---

We finally did let Scarlett open an egg and she was thrilled to discover candy in them.  Next year she might be a much slower hunter if she decides to open eggs along the way.

It is fun to be "starting over" again with some of these fun holiday things.  I think I mentioned this before but being a parent has really been worth it now that we have Scarlett, Niki and Liam in our lives.  (And we certainly love their parents, too.)

 Thanks for sharing a fun day with us.