Matt/Matthew

This is Matt.  Matt is married to my youngest sister, Jenilee.  He's in the Army and they used to live in Hawaii but now they live about 45 minutes south of my house (which is even more awesome than Hawaii.  Yes, I really mean that.)

Matt is a wonderful husband to my sister and a fantastic father to their four children. Matt and Jenilee are one of those rare couples who truly love spending time together and really are each other's best friend.  Matt is hilarious, smart and kind.

This is Matthew.  He's Jen and Matt's second child and oldest son and he turned 12 last week.  He's getting so grown up that he asked for clothes for his birthday. 

Matthew is super smart, loves to read, is the ASB president at his school and has a solo in his upcoming school play. He is a sweet boy and I absolutely adore spending time with him.


I drove down to their neck of the woods last week for Matthew's birthday dinner at Red Robin.  This is why their living here rather than Hawaii is way better because I could jump in the car on a whim to go see them.  I'm so grateful they're close!

Jen and Nathan

Natalie & the birthday boy

Natalie, Matthew, Nathan and McKenzie

On Sunday, we drove down to their house to attend church with them.  When a boy turns 12 in our church, it's a big deal because he is given the Aaronic Priesthood.  This ordination was even more special because we worried for awhile that it might not happen.  As I mentioned before, Matt is in the Army and he had his third deployment coming up.  For several weeks, we worried that Matt would deploy days before Matthew's 12th birthday.  My family prayed hard that somehow, some way, Matt would be able to stay home until March 15 and Heavenly Father answered our prayers.  Matt ordained Matthew a Deacon on Sunday and he left for a far away land two days later.

Sunday was wonderful and lovely.  Matt's parents and his brother and family were there as well as my mom, the Kings and me.  After church, we went back to Jen's for a yummy dinner.  After a fun day together, we said goodbye to Matt and I had to practically run out of the house before I started bawling.  I'm such a baby about goodbyes! Ugh. Thankfully, this deployment is relatively short and we should have Matty home by Christmas.

I'm grateful for family. I know I'm supposed to be in the family I'm in and I'm thankful to know that we are sealed together forever.

Time for a random list...

• I woke up to snow again today.  I think that's three times in the last week?  It seriously makes me laugh out loud when I go outside and find snow.  In March.  In Western Washington. It's not been bad enough to wreak havoc on the roads - just enough to make everything pretty and white.
• I got my new iPad.  It's lovely.  I also got the red smart cover.  Big surprise if you know me at all.
• I have a new found love of Instagram.  I'm ohstop1.  Follow me if you don't already and tell me your name if I don't already follow you. It's just fun.
• My upstairs neighbor got a dog.  So annoying. I'm beyond tired of condo living.
• I have a new mascara that I am loving - it's called "They're Real" and it's made by Benefit. I first heard about it on this fabulous blog and decided to make the switch from the mascara I've been using for the last 20 years (no, not the same tube - that would be disgusting.)  I love this mascara because it's long wearing but not waterproof so easier to remove at night.  I also love that it makes even those short little lashes in the corners of your eyes look longer.

• Six plus weeks without Diet Coke. Who'd have ever thought?
• I have tickets to see the amazing and fabulous Kristin Chenoweth in concert in a couple of months.  I cannot wait. I'm going with Lynda and Tyler and Jeni who will be celebrating their 14th anniversary the night of the concert.  I seriously cannot believe that 1. I've known them that long and 2. that they're old enough to be married that long.
• I haven't read any of The Hunger Games books but I think I still want to see the movie.  I want to read the books but I just can't seem to make time for reading right now. However, I just learned that I can borrow the book for free on my Kindle because I have Amazon Prime.  I heart Amazon Prime.  
• Speaking of books, my mom just read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and it is now one of her all time favorite books.  If you're a reader, maybe you should give it a whirl.
• And if you'd like to read a simply amazing testament to the power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon, please go to my friend Michelle's blog and read about her brilliant son Stefan and the ACT.  Michelle and her husband are raising truly incredible children.

Catch-up post #5

I went to Yakima!  Ben's high school varsity team made it to the state playoffs so Lonnie, Ben and I drove a couple of hours east to watch them play.  Cindy recently started a new job so she didn't get to go with us so it was just me and the boys (scary, I know.)

There was a lot of snow on the pass but the roads were clear.

  

Ben stayed awake exactly 17 minutes of the car ride, I think.

We went to Miner's and Ben did his best to put away a double Miner's burger.

Lindbergh won their first game (yay!) and we had to wait until 9 PM the next night for their next game.  We went shopping to kill some time and while we were at the mall, someone stole my iPad and jewelry out of the car.  I was super sad.  Beyond sad.  Thankfully, I either left my car unlocked or they had some other way to open it without breaking any glass or anything.  It would have been a huge pain to have to get that fixed (gotta look at the bright side.)  I'm also thankful we didn't have anything else of value go missing and I'm especially grateful I was wearing my Tiffany key necklace so it wasn't in the bag of  jewelry that was taken. 

But seriously! Why do people have to be such jerks???  Sheesh.  Get a dang job and buy your own stuff and quit stealing from people!

We had gotten to the stadium to watch one of the other games when I realized my stuff was gone and I made the boys go inside so I could cry alone.  They got tired of waiting for me so they came back to the car, told me jokes to make me smile and then took me to Sonic.  Now, if you remember, I'm off DC so I got a yummy raspberry limeade to help ease my pain.  So dang good.

Ah...Sonic. 

The basketball team lost their next two games so they ended up taking 5th in state, which is awesome.  Even though I lost three pairs of earrings, two necklaces and, sigh, my iPad, I really did have a great time. And yes, I've ordered the new iPad but that's another post for another day.

Catch-up post #4

I gave up Diet Coke.

Yes, it's true.  I haven't had a sip of the sweet nectar since February 6th.  It started out as a little competition (with no official bet or stated reward) but I'm still going, which is just shocking to me.

Why am I shocked?  Well, I love the stuff.  I don't drink it every day.  I don't even keep any in my house. But I drank it a lot, by my own standards, and probably by others'.

I'm a fan of the fountain variety so I miss that the most and I HAVE been drinking a ton more water, which I know is a good thing.  But I haven't noticed any physical changes since I've stopped drinking it.  I sleep the same.  I had a mild headache on the second day but nothing since.  Other than that, there is no real change except for one big thing.

I miss it like crazy.

Isn't that weird?  I just love it THAT much so maybe it's a good thing I'm not drinking it?  Who knows.  And I don't know how long I'll go without it.  I'm really just taking it a day at a time (haha.)

So like I said, I'm in sort of a non-competition with a friend of mine.  In fact, I came home one night and found this waiting for me on my porch.

Seriously?  How rude is that**?  And yes, it's still in my fridge, thank you very much.  I also have like 9 bottles people have given me in my desk drawer at work (what can I say, people show their love by giving me Diet Coke!)  But having it all around doesn't tempt me at all, which is weird. But yeah, I still miss it a lot.  Have I mentioned that already?

**Okay, fine.  Full disclosure. I might have left a Big Gulp (festooned with ribbons, no less) at the home of my non-competitor...but, really, it was all in fun.  Seriously.  Maybe it wasn't even DC in the cup - maybe it was root beer.  Yeah, root beer.  I wouldn't purposely try to tempt someone else like that.  Honest!

Catch-up post #3

Part of the reason why I've not been blogging is we have entered into a SUPER busy time of year for stake youth activities.  It seriously amazes me how much we have going on all at once - but it's also wonderful too.  I adore my calling and I'm trying to savor every moment - even when it exhausts me - because I know it won't be mine forever.

Steve, Gary and Meg setting up before the crowds arrived

We have multi-stake activities throughout the year with three other nearby stakes.  Ours is a "Best of EFY." We have two CES speakers come to town and it's an incredible event.  We average around 450-500 youth and we start with a one hour session for the Deacons and Beehives.  Then we take a break and we feed the speakers and other stake leaders a nice lunch.  

The stake YM and YW presidences were talking about the lunch tables and how we should decorate and during our meeting, I mentioned we could get some pansies to use as centerpieces.  Well, the stake YM presidency didn't love the idea of a pansy on the table so the president offered to make a NW themed table for us.  Well, here is what he came up with:

Darling Rebecca helped set the tables and assemble the centerpieces which was a whole lot of fishing gear.  We laughed a lot when we saw what our stake YM president had come up with for the tables but I loved that the women didn't have to come up with the table decor and it really was a great conversation starter.

Our stake YM president is a great cook and he brings his BBQ up to the church and he made the most incredible salmon and roasted red potatoes.  I made Caesar salad and then an awesome dessert that I found online: chocolate chip lava cookies.  The thing I loved about this recipe is that it was quick (one hour max start to finish), easy, delicious, and very guy-friendly.  I highly recommend you make these sometime.

The lovely ladies I serve with:  Meesa, Meg and Christi

After the lunch, the 14-18 year old youth begin to arrive.  They listened to the first speaker and then we fed all 450+ of them a dinner of pizza, veggies and cookies.  After dinner, they listened to the second speaker and then we host a dance.  I was sick all day with a bad cold so everyone let me take it easy and I got to hang out in coat check most of the night.  

We had a great time and we leaders went home exhausted but it was totally worth it.  We were sad to find out that CES will no longer send us speakers so we have to come up with a new activity for next year (our stake has been doing this for years!) I'm sure we'll figure something out but I'm disappointed that the kids around here who can't afford to go to EFY will no longer be able to hear speakers of that caliber without having to travel or pay a lot of money.

Catch-up post #2

We had a fun open house for Dallin who recently left for his mission in South America. We made tons of good food and a nice crowd showed up to wish an exceptional young man well as he ventures off on this exciting new adventure.  As I mentioned before, I adore this boy (and his entire family) and I'm so proud of him.  

After the open house, I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend his setting apart.  Here's a pic of all of us after Dallin's blessing.  His grandma, seated below, was my "mom" at my first ever youth conference - one of those scary wilderness ones.  I've loved her since I was 14 and it's so great that I've been able to become close to her children and grandchildren too.

I love this family!

Greg, Dallin, Aaron (nice blond hair, no?) and Sterling

Including so you can see my crying eyes AND messed up hair. LOL. But look at Dallin's face - pure joy!

Catch-up post #1

I fell off the blogging wagon - and hard.  So since I know you've all been missing me like crazy, I'll catch you up on what exciting things I've been up to.  

First, I went to my niece Makenna's basketball game.  It was SO fun to watch plus I got to hang out with Jax, Rylee and Carsen too.  This is Makenna's first basketball experience and she's doing great.

Kenna loves basketball - and she wears Jordan's!

Carsen and Jax - they kind of love getting their picture taken.

Rylee = adorable

Kenna and her beloved Justice water bottle

I love that I have family close by and I can go to stuff like this. I also love that I get to see them on Sunday's as our wards overlap.  It's good for my soul to walk by a classroom and get a hug and a kiss from one of these sweet kids.  I love being an auntie!