Errand of Angels

I was so excited for Errand of Angels to come out on DVD. I wanted to see it when it was out in theaters, but I was never able to go. Well, I got a hold of the DVD before it was released and I LOVED IT.

It was written by two missionaries on my mission. I served a lot with Vuissa, but the President Johnson's daughter-in-law that helped write it served after I left. Vuissa was the only Elder that retaliated to my practice jokes and always found a way to get even.

My most memorable prank was putting a giant fish in his toilet while he was at Zone Conference. He was Assistant to the President at the time and the whole office staff said that the whole office smelled like dead fish by the time he came home. That was in retaliation to him putting a pig head in the box of stuff he transported for me to my next apartment.

Now before you start thinking that I was a terrible missionary or that I was mean, you have to watch Errand of Angels. It summed up my mission so well. The practical jokes were what kept me from going crazy.

I loved my mission. I am glad I went. But it was hard. We had awesome days like in the movie. We had really sucky days like in the movie. I had great companions and I had some not so great companions.

My homecoming was the day after I came home from my mission and I have to say that I was not ready to talk about it. I just wanted to talk about all the wonderful miracles, but I hadn't yet processed all that I had just experienced. My talk was five minutes. I literally spoke for five minutes and then sat down. I wish that I could do that day over, but that was 13 years ago. Even though I didn't have the same experiences as in this movie, it gives people a little bit of an understanding of what my mission was like, what the people were like, and how a mission really changed me.

Thanksgiving

My family (meaning my mom, dad and my siblings) have Thanksgiving together every other year. The off year we are supposed to have Thanksgiving with Don's family. Yeah, what do we do when it is the Don's family's turn? Well, since Don's is an orphan and his two brothers he grew up with live out of state, we improvise.

This year we had Thanksgiving with Dex and Robin's family. They brought a lot of the food and we cleaned our house. I thought it was a fair trade.

I really enjoyed spending the holiday with them. I am thankful for my brother Dex. He has such a gentle and loving demeanour. He is selfless in so many ways. He has wonderful children. It was a great day.

Can the tooth fairy help me?

I just want to complain about my teeth. There are some people that are blessed with good teeth no matter how they treat them and there are those that are blessed with bad teeth no matter how they treat them. You can guess which category I belong in.

I remember going to the dentist when I was little. The dentist found green something in my brother's teeth. He actually had to scrap it off. But did he have a single cavity? No. My brother didn't even start brushing his teeth until he was about sixteen. When he did finally get a cavity as an adult he almost had the family fast for him, he was so scared.

I always had my dentist appointment the same time as my brother and I was always the one with the cavities. I brushed, flossed, and even rinsed with fluoride. But I have always had bad teeth. Well all I can say is, "It sucks!" Don is amazed at how many root canals I have had and am yet to have.

In January I had yet another root canal, a cavity filled and another tooth pulled that had a root canal ten years ago and had since died. Then my $1600 dental limit set by my insurance had been used up. So that meant no dental work for the rest of the year. At the time I still needed another root canal, but decided I would just eat around the tooth that hurt.

Fast forward to today. I have managed to eat round my hurt tooth and my missing tooth (wow, I sound like trailer trash) since January. But today I just hurt the one tooth that was getting me through. It really bummed me out. Meanwhile, Don has had like two cavities since we have been married.

Yes Ma'am

I started teaching at a charter school in North Salt Lake last Monday. I am training to take over a classroom in a month. I can't wait. It has been a surreal experience. I have to be trained because this school has it's own way of teaching and its own discipline system. Once I have learned it all and they believe I am a good fit, I will take over teaching a second grade classroom. I am pretty excited.

They have all these attention getters to get the student's attention. The one that cracks me up the most is when the teacher says "attention", the children do a little elbow knock on the desk and then they fold their arms. They respond by saying, "Yes Ma'am". I tried it for the first time on Friday and I have to say it was kinda cool having all the children call me ma'am and instantly quiet.

It is going to be hard teaching full-time. But I have really come to see the truth of the scripture in the Book of Mormon when the Nephites were prisoners and the rulers were placing heavy burdens on all the Nephites. In the scripture the Lord promises to make their burdens light.

Don can be home with Zander and Dresden for all but three hours I am gone. Debbie is watching them the other three hours. The teacher that I am replacing is leaving most of all her stuff because she is moving out of state. Last but not least, I am finally feeling healthy enough to be able to work all day. So I am really feeling blessed.

Sticks and Stones...

Zander broke his arm a week ago today. Ky and Zander were stacking up cushions and falling down to the ground when they toppled over. On one of the trips down, Ky landed on Zander and broke his arm. It was one of those breaks that was obvious is was broken.

We went to the hospital to get a cast. Did you know that they don't put on the regular casts right away? They put on a temporary cast till the swelling goes down. A week later is when they put on the real cast. His bones were overlapping and the doctor kept pulling his arm trying to get the bones back in place. Finally they sedated him after several attempts to put it back in place after just numbing the area where it was broken.

Yesterday Don made an appointment to get a cast put on. I kept asking Don if the appointment was with an orthopedic surgeon. He assured me that I was going to the right doctor. Well, after one hour of waiting, the doctor came in and told us that she was a regular doctor and that we needed to go to an orthopedic surgeon. Yeah- thanks Don.

Debbie figured I would struggle with four kids at the doctors office and ended up coming to make sure we were okay and bring M&Ms. (She's taken, she is my only sister and I won't trade her.) It was a good thing because I almost lost it when I found out that I had waited for an hour with four busy children just to find out that I was at the wrong doctor.

Don took Zander in today and he is sporting a red cast. He hasn't figured out that it can be used as a weapon yet. I keep reminding the kids that it wouldn't be a good idea to show him.

Holiday Boutique

So about a month ago Lindsey and Lorinda came to my house to tell me about their next adventure. They talked about a Holiday Boutique with 7 different vendors. It sounded fun because most of the vendors are my neighbors. Then Lorinda told me it was going to be at my house. So I guess it is at my house. I am selling all my Creative Memories supplies for 30% off (Or for what I paid for it). I am also selling the Big Foot Calendars Don and I created. So if you want to hang out with the gals, eat, and get away from the kids, come. You can bring your kids, you'll just get away from them by having time play with my kids. I really hope you come. Let me know if you need my address.

November 15th
From 2:00PM-6:00PM
Everyone is invited

Halloween

I just had to show our pics from Halloween. Kyath was batman. Porter was a fireman. Zander was Spiderman. Dresden was a cow. Oh and Don was a gangster. I just kept telling myself that soon Ky was going to be too cool to dress-up and I just enjoyed watching him with his little Batman mask with floppy ears.

Potty Training in a day and other myths

I have been avoiding potty training Zander. He is three in a half and I could let him stay in diapers for another 6 months or so. But Don decided he wasn't going to change those diapers anymore and put Zander in underwear last Monday.

It has been a week and we are still changing him out of wet clothes all day and throwing more than out share of underwear away when they are nasty. He does go potty in the potty, but he is far from being trained. I am having a hard time keeping up on his laundry and I know we still have at least a week to go before he has this potty training thing under control.

Every time we start potty training I think of the book that I have and have read, "Potty Training in One Day." Yeah, nice. It seems to really work for me and my family.

Wait a minute

I took an old hard drive and pretty much got my computer going until I can afford to buy a new one. I am still on pentium 4. Now the 150 Gig hard drive has been replaced with a 9 Gig hard drive. Desperate times, desperate times. Anyways, so in the month that I was band from blogging and facebook I came to realize that I am addicted to blogging. I went absolutely crazy. I have a need to know that there are other mothers out there going through the exact same thing I am going through. I need to see that there are other people that understand. But I think more than that I just need to keep up on what all of you are doing.

Miss you

My hard drive crashed a couple of weeks ago. I still have my work computer but Blogs and Facebook are blocked. So I had to slip over to the library just to check on you and to say "hi". I hope to get my computer up and running so I can catch up on everyone.

Miss you

My hard drive died a couple of weeks ago. I still have my work computer and can read my e-mail. But Facebook and all blogs are blocked. I miss all of you and I miss reading your blogs. I came to the library just to check on everyone and say "hi". I hope to get my computer up and running soon.