Weekend Goals

I'm hoping to have a pretty relaxing uneventful weekend. After a long work week nothing sounds better. I do however have a few goals for the weekend.

On Sunday I'll be watching the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics and catching PBS's Masterpiece. They are showing 39 Steps. Rupert Penry-Jones from Persuasion (my favorite Austen movie) is the main character. Some people have been teasing me about this for quite some time because they knew I've been counting down to this show. If Captain Wentworth had a dual with Mr. Darcy, I'm sorry but Wentworth would totally win. So make sure you check out the show. It's set in World War II so no tight pants and cravats in case that helps in convincing your husband to change the channel to PBS. You can find more info and online viewing here.

The other thing I'm hoping to accomplish this weekend is to plant some seeds. I've wanted to do this for several years due to how big my yard is and the price of perennials. Also I think Logan will love playing in the dirt. I'm dying to plant some California Poppies. I love their color and how bright and happy they look. Our neighbor across the street have some and they are gorgeous and I'm always jealous I don't have any in my yard. Last week I did a little bit of yard work and it was so nice. Kind of odd since Tad was up skiing.

Hope everyone else has a nice relaxing weekend.

New Beginnings

This year for New Beginnings we wanted to give the girls lots of ideas for the Personal Progress (PP) projects because when YW in Excellence comes around we never have projects to showcase. Even though we did this for New Beginnings it would work well as just a regular activity. We did the usual stuff you do at New Beginnings then we gave them a cover sheet to a booklet that has hundreds of ideas for PP projects. I don't have a photo of the booklet but I have the file in .pdf format. That booklet is seriously what took forever in planning this activity. I searched the web for projects, compiled them, sorted by each value and then weeded out the duplicates. Time consuming but now all the work is done for you. I'd attach the file to the blog but not sure how to do that. Just leave your email if I don't have it and I'll forward it to you.

Here was the candy buffet that turned more into the junk food buffet. I've wanted to create one of these for the longest time. The girls and dads loved this. Brittany and her mom were lifesavers and set it all up for me so I could work on setting up my rooms. They were the best and I didn't have to worry about a thing.

I collected food for each color of the YW values.

I get to work with the most amazing women in young women. They were so nice when I came up with this idea and knew it would take a lot of work from every one and there wasn't a single complaint. Each leader took a value and they were in charge of decorating a room containing items that value color and displaying value projects for that value. Then as the girls rotated to each room they would get the page for their booklet that was that value color and contained the project ideas. The leader would be in that room and just explain what that value means and give ideas for some of the projects.

I had two rooms - knowledge and divine nature. Knowledge was really easy and I had tons of projects to show for that one.

Then since I couldn't be in two places at once I quickly recorded my message for divine nature and ran that on the laptop for the girls to watch when they got to that room. Divine nature was a little harder to come up with projects. I made a cute bird garland that I didn't get a good picture of.

Here was the Good Works room that Maureen did. She went all out and this is just half of her room decorated. Our church is really old and her room just worked perfect because it has those 70s yellow accordion doors in there that just matched her value perfectly.

Nan our brand new secretary had the value virtue. I was amazed with what she came up with since she just got thrown into YW and I'm sure isn't used to my craziness yet.

We also passed out sheets for the girls to fill out for a project they would work on this year. We are still working on collecting them. It had the goal broken out in steps so we can help motivate and encourage that YW during the year to work on her project and she'll have something to display in November.

The Big 3-0

Today was my 30th birthday and I had a big roller skating 80's party at Xanadu Skating Center. It was so much fun. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to cancel it because I was so embarrassed to be having a skating party for my 30th. I'm really glad I didn't. It was so much fun. It was also fun to see everyone who showed up. I made this totally narly (or atrocious) backdrop so we'd have some sweet 80s photos.

The star and heart sunglasses were a hit. I wish I'd bought more so all the kids could have one.

Morgan was my little skating buddy for the night. We went around and around the rink. If you want a cardio and strength training workout forget the circuit training just bring an elementary kid rollerskating with you and you've got it made.

Also I'm sure you want to see my sweet leg warmers that my mom made me so here is a shot of that. Logan loved skating and would say "wee" the whole way around.

Thanks everyone who showed up, I know I had a fun time and hope you did too.

I've got the fever . . .

. . . Olympic fever. The month of January our family got to see so many amazing events leading up to the Olympics. While I'm still sad we don't have any World Cup races here (especially since who knows how my two favorite skiers are going to do in the Olympics due to injuries). So here is a recap of all the fun we had in January.

A month ago the Dew Tour was in town at Snowbasin. I went up Friday night and saw Dashboard Confessional with Tad. It was very cold and the music needed to be louder. I think we had more fun watching people fall on this piece of ice. We’re shallow like that. Saturday I went up to watch the skiers in the halfpipe. They were amazing. My mother-in-law was also with me.
I didn’t get any cool shots of the concert or skiing but Katie’s cousin Bryce did. Click here and here to see them.

That night Tad and I went up to Deer Valley for the mogul skiing finals. I’ve decided that moguls will be an annual tradition for our family.

The next day Logan and I went up to Snowbasin again to watch the skier Slopestyle. Logan loved it – riding a bus, riding the chairlift, playing in the snow and watching people ski. He was only sad he didn’t get to ski. We did get our picture with the yeti and all the ski bunnies thought Logan was so cute.

Click here to watch a video of the guy I thought did the most amazing run, Ian Cosco. I know he didn’t win but doing a back flip off of a rail is amazing in my book and he’s the only one that did.

Fast forward to the next weekend, this was the last qualifying race for the US Snowbird team at PCMR. Oh I got a nice powder day in with my in-laws at Deer Valley and that was tons of fun, then fed the missionaries then headed up Parleys to go see the 30 Seconds to Mars concert. I didn’t think we’d make it because I-80 was horrible. On the way home parts were a complete white out. I was very glad we got home in one piece even if it was 12:45. I’ll admit I only liked one song before this concert but now I’m a full blown 30STM fan. I’d insert a picture of me, Tad and Brandi but the photo hasn’t been approved by Brandi yet.

After the concert they made the announcement of the US Snowboarding team. This picture is really crappy but I had to put it in because there is a very similar one in Sports Illustrated and I felt cool that I was there.

Then the next weekend I went skiing with Brandi at PCMR. This was the first time I’ve ever gone skiing and I was the guide. It was a lot of fun and we got to ski a few runs with the hottest instructor at PCMR (he may not have the hottest accent but he’s the cutest).

Tonight is the opening ceremonies for the Olympics and I can not wait. It’s been a tough week hearing about injuries to my two favorites but yesterday was a little better. Didier Cuche (Swiss skier) broke his thumb a couple weeks ago but he had the fastest training run yesterday. Lindsey Vonn while still really sore was able to do a free ski run. So I’m sending out healing vibes to those two. Also I’m excited to see Torah Bright, Ted Ligety, Maria Riesch, Aksel Lund Svindal, Benjamin Raich, Louie Vito, Shannon Bahrke, Julia Mancuso, Steve Nyman, Heather McPhie, Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark, and Hannah Teter. I’ll be eating Canadian bacon pizza (since the Olympics are in Canada) and having some Swiss cheese since my favorite skier is from Switzerland (Go Cuche!) What events/athletes are you looking forward to watching?

Warning and Challenge

Warning! Starting Monday I’m going to be back. I’ve had a ton of big projects I’ve been working on and seriously since October I’ve been counting down till February 4th because then all my big projects I was taking one would be over. I also have the most amazing husband, friends and work with the most amazing women in YW. So a full week of blogging next week.

In the meantime there is a big game on Sunday. Also my 3 weeks of Biggest Loser competition ends Sunday before the game so I’ll be pigging out. Don’t worry I’ll start again Monday. One thing that will definitely be on the menu is this queso that Brittany made that is A-mazing!!! Here is the link. Hostess with the Mostess had some great ideas for the menu too. I was checking out this Chocolate Peanut Pretzel Pizza.

This weekend I’m also hoping to make some dang cute Valentine’s décor. There are so many cute ideas out there. I love what Heidi Swapp was making the other night. I haven’t watched the video yet but I saw all the projects. Check that out here.

Also I have a challenge out there for anyone who is up for it. I was looking at my layouts and I really don’t have one about my husband. I have tons of Logan and some with Tad and Logan but my challenge is to make a layout (or if you don’t scrapbook write a journal entry) about someone you love. If you aren’t married maybe do it about a sibling or your parent(s) or just someone that means a lot to you that you don’t usually focus on. Then on Valentine’s Day post the layout on your blog. I think this will be fun.