meme

I've been song tagged by Merrianne.

The guideline for this meme is to list the 7 songs I'm listening to this summer. (I'm listening to a lot more than these 7 though.)

1)Michael Buble "Call me Irresponsible"

2)Alicia Keyes "No one"

3)Seal "Amazing"

4)Lara Fabian - I love all the songs on this CD

5)Maroon 5 "Makes me wonder"

6)Earth wind and fire "Let's Groove"

7)Tower of Power "What is Hip?"

Last year James and I went to The Tower of Power concert in the zoo. They were really good.(They had Pink Martini and Etta James last year too, but we missed them.)


James is listening to music he recorded and mixed himself when he was a DJ. He has lots of his own music and music his DJ friends recorded. He loves "House" music.

SLC

I found out today that James and I are going to Salt Lake. James is going to be busy, so I'll probably be left alone part of the day. Besides bringing a great big book, what else is there to do?

the beach

I love going to the beach. I am lucky I don't live that far from it. I haven't been this summer though, which is really kind of silly since we only live half an hour away. A fun thing to do at the beach is camp, it's less dirty, but when you get home, it seems you're still dusting sand off your derriere (and everything you took with you) a week later.

One summer when I was eighteen and my sister was nineteen, we invited two of our friends (they were sisters too) to go camping at the beach with us. I remember my oldest brother was trying to spoil our fun and he told my Dad that us girls shouldn't be allowed to go by ourselves, luckily my Dad disagreed with him. My Dad just gave us some rules to follow to keep us safe. So my sister and I packed up our car, I brought a couple of books that I found in my mom's bookcase, and we went to pick up our friends to drive to the beach. We set everything up fairly easily. About that time, it became dark. So we ate and I brought out one of my mom's books, which was a collection of classic short stories. I began reading the book out loud and we enjoyed it so much that we took turns reading. What better stories to read than Edgar Allan Poe around a campfire? That night it rained lightly and I got up early. I wanted to show my girls' camp prowess of getting the fire started. Unfortunately, we left the wood out in the open and it was wet. I tried for an hour to get the fire started and a guy in his mid-twenties walked by and saw what I was doing. He walked by an hour later and saw I was still working on the wet firewood and having no luck. He stopped and asked if I needed help and I told him I didn't think I'd ever get a fire going because the wood was wet. He left and came back with some of his dry wood and started my fire for me. The girls came out of the tent an hour later and I told them I how I started this nice roaring fire just for them. They all laughed at me and said they heard a man start the fire and they asked me if I acted helpless in my little white nighty. (I was wearing sweats, not a nighty, in case you're wondering!) So much for my girls' camp prowess! We had all ages of men in the campground walk by our setup, smile, and wave. They were probably all doing their duty to make sure we were safe and had what we needed, after all isn't it just men who like to camp and drag the women in their lives out to wallow in the dirt? We had a great weekend, in fact it was fabulous. We made sand turtles and castles on the beach. We waved to cute guys and giggled, we laid in the sand and talked about the cutest boys we knew, we saw a skywriter in a plane and we teased each other about who we thought would write each others names up there, and we fell asleep on the sand and sunburnt ourselves to a crisp. We can't forget the classics that we read to each other in the evening.

We always meant to do it again, but we never did. My sister got married the next summer, our friends went off to college, my family moved, and I went to beauty school. I actually never saw those girls again, but hope they remember our campout with fond memories. Maybe they'll teach their daughters to cover the wood at night in case of rain and if all else fails, put on a white nighty and act like a helpless girl!

callings

Is it weird to be told over the pulpit that you've been released from your calling? That's what happened to me on Sunday. I was released from my Primary teaching calling in Sacrament meeting. I thought it was a bit weird, but granted... there have been a lot of families moving out of our ward and moving to the suburbs. It seems all the kids have left too. We only have three classes in Primary left. (We do have lots of nursery age children.) I haven't had a class to teach for months. (I have two girls, one hardly ever comes because her parents are divorcing and she spends weekends with her Mom. The other girl comes every other weekend because her parents are divorced too, but wants to go to the older class because her friend is in there.) They rearranged the Primary and three of us teachers were released. One teacher was put into Young Womens' and the other teacher was put into teaching a Sunday School class. I wasn't given a calling and all I could think of was SWEET! I hope they forget about me for awhile because I'd like to fellowship the new family from Burundi and I'm going to go on vacation... with my Mom, and a brother or two... it will be crazy, fun, and exciting. James is going to go on his own vacation, he's excited about taking his kids camping, I'm glad because that's one less camping trip for me to go on while they go sleep in the dirt... I actually don't mind camping, especially at the beach. I just don't like to have to clean up the mess when we get home.... no fun!

visitors

James has been going with the missionaries to help fellowship and work with a family the missionaries contacted a week ago. The family is from Burundi. (I know I wouldn't have known where it was either, but I took a class on African refugees and was required to know the Countries of Africa.) It's to the left of Tanzania. So this man had to escape from Africa and has lived most of his life in refugee camps because his father was rich and had a nice piece of land. He married a woman from a different tribe. His father was killed and his land was taken. He was sent to live with relatives but they wouldn't take him because he looks like the other tribe. He went to go live with his father's tribe but they wouldn't take him either because he looks like his mother's tribe. Both tribes wanted to kill him because they saw their enemy in him. He married and they have three children. Finally he was granted asylum and came to the lovely United States. He just finished his CNA classes and is waiting to take the test next month. His wife works in a hotel chain. He is the only one that speaks English well.

So, the missionaries gave him a Book of Mormon in Swahili and he's been reading it voraciously. He's requested that the Elders come three times a week to help him understand. Yesterday he brought his children to church. (His wife couldn't come because she had to work.) He is a very gentle man and soft spoken. His kids are on the rambunctious side, but they're sweet too. We had a linger longer and I was happy to see his children running around and playing in the cultural hall with the other kids. I think that's how they'll learn English better. I was glad they weren't shy.

I'm hoping to gather clothes for the children because they only have what has been given them from the Salvation Army. The clothes are nice and clean but they only have one pair of pants each. The little girl was dressed in boy clothes that were too big for her because she doesn't have a dress or any girl clothing. All of them need clothes and shoes. The problem is I don't know their sizes and I don't have children to compare them with, so I don't know how to tell what sizes they take.

Any way to tell? The oldest boy is 12, the next boy is 8, and the little girl is 5.

I'm going to talk to the Relief Society President and see if we can't coordinate something with the Relief Society to get them the things they need.... they don't even have sheets for their beds. Since my ward is so tiny, I'm also wondering if there is another way to get them the things they need?

Any ideas?

This is me today... very sleepy

We've had a long day, but it was good. I'll post about it tomorrow. Now I must go rest my eyes. I hope everyone had a good Sabbath day today as well.

giving a talk

I'm giving a talk tomorrow in church. I'm supposed to include the faith of our forefathers of the Revolution. I'm going to talk about John Adams. Go see my brother's commentary. I'm also supposed to include the faith of our fathers on the Pioneer Trek. So I'm going to use an ancestor of mine. Her name was Ruth Perkins Mathews. She was my Great Great Grandmother.

When Ruth was 18 years old, she sailed for America from Liverpool, England on the 21 June 1867 on the ship “Manhattan”. She was in a company of 480 Saints under the direction of Archibald Hill. Coming over on the boat many of the Saints were ill with cholera and Ruth told of her two young friends, Mary Ann Ellis and her sister, who cheered the sick with their sweet voices singing the Church hymns.

The company arrived in New York, July 4 then on to North Platte, a station on the Union Pacific, 391 miles from Omaha. From there they traveled by ox team in the company of Leonard C. Rice, leaving there August 8 and arriving in Salt Lake City on 5October 1867.

The trip across the dusty plains and Rocky Mountains was hot and tiresome. Although Ruth was far from her native land and family, she had courage, strength of character, and a strong desire to help others. In the same company was a Mrs. Dyer who had a young baby. Mrs. Dyer’s health was not very good because of the many hardships she had gone through. Ruth, seeing the need of help for the mother and child, carried the baby, Alfred Dyer, on her back part of the way across the plains. Upon Ruth’s arrival in Salt Lake City, she worked in private homes helping with housework.

Later, she married Joseph Davis Mathews in the Salt lake Endowment House. She had 16 children. Half of them lived to adulthood.



Have a fun Saturday...

Frank Caliendo

My family loves Frank Caliendo. They keep telling me how funny he is. I first heard about him from my brother. He told me he did a great John Madden impersonation. Then I was told he does great Bill Walton and Charles Barkley impersonations. Then my mom started getting in on the action and told me how much she likes Frank Caliendo because he makes her laugh so hard. So I went on a quest to figure out who this Frank Caliendo guy is. I like to laugh, so off I went...
I like this clip because the lady laughs so hard that she almost wets herself.

Then my husband's boys told me Frank Caliendo does dish tv commercials too. They said Paus-ay, the entire time they were here and cracked up about it.


There are many many more of these on youtube. I was laughing my head off by the time I finished watching them. I hope you laugh too.