YW Sabino Canyon/Olive Garden Outing

James and I had the opportunity to take some of the young women to Sabino Canyon on Saturday! We had a great day riding the tram up the mountain, enjoying the fantastic weather and fresh air.

These young women were unable to attend the extended temple trip but nonetheless definitely deserved a fun day all their own. It was a privilege for James and I to be able to spend the day with them.


We read scriptures and talked about some of the topics that were discussed during the four-day temple trip such as sacrifice, virtue, pioneers...They each added their names to our banner as a commitment to remain virtuous young women.

They each received their virtue bracelet. The color of the Young Women value, Virtue, is gold because gold is pure and refined.

We raised our banner high!

We released gold balloons as a symbol of our commitment:

Afterwards we enjoyed a delicious dinner together at Olive Garden.


It was a great day!

Mustang!

James told me on Saturday evening that he had a date scheduled for me Monday night, the evening before I went to Seattle. He told me it was because we hadn't seen each other very much lately (with my trip to Utah and my attending Time-Out for women) that we needed a date before I headed out once again.
So we drove to what I thought was dinner but when we got on the freeway I was getting a little suspicious. Soon enough we got to auto row and I contained my excitement until we pulled in and met with Tom, 'our' salesman. (I say 'our' salesman because he's sold us three of our four cars now - I can't say I'd buy a car from anyone else)

James and Tom took me to the parking lot and there sat this:

My belated birthday gift - A 2001 blue Mustang convertible GT, white top, white leather seats with a V8 engine! It has 62,000 miles - pretty good for a '01. All bought and paid for the Saturday prior. (James was busy while I was off playing in Phoenix at Time-Out for Women!) I love it! Almost made me want to cancel my trip to Washington. Right now Arizona has the best weather for a convertible.

Afterwards we went for dinner at Olive Garden and I was so excited I kept telling the wait staff "He just bought me a car!" I'm sure I sounded like a fool. Regardless, I am thankful and appreciative and excited.



Some things I've learned this past week while driving my new car: Groceries for a family of seven don't fit as well in the trunk of Mustang as they do in a mini-van. Another Mustang driver actually waved to me today - will this continue? Is there some 'mustang club' I don't know about? lol... My hair dries really fast with the top down on my way home from my early morning swimming class. My high schoolers really want to drive my car (I have not let them yet), my middle schooler got excited when I picked him up from drama saying "I was hoping you would drive this car!" I'm loving having a 6 cd player - it's all loaded up and I'm enjoying having easy access to my favorite cd's (right now that includes two Micheal Buble cd's, Wicked soundtrack, Randy Travis, The Forgotten Carols by Micheal McLean and a EFY cd).
Thanks James!!!

Washington!

I had a wonderful time in Washington!
I spent time with my amazing friends (from left) Kelly, Maria and Ann. Each time I'm around these three makes me miss them more and more:

We spent the day shopping at Gilman Village, enjoyed a yummy lunch and great conversation at Starbucks. Even the Washington state rain did not dampen our spirits (or our mood to shop)!



Kelly gave me this beautiful scarf for my birthday - I love it! (so love this lady!)


My parents do a great job decorating the outside of their home and yard for each holiday. I loved what they did for Halloween!

I got to enjoy lunch with my sweet friend Janie! Janie was a young womens president when I was newly married and I was called as a Beehive advisor and later second counselor in the YW under her. She taught me so much and is a great example to me.

I got to have dinner with this sweet young lady. It was so great to see her again!

My mom and I drove down the driveway of my parents old house. Lots of memories there.

My mom and I went to lunch at Ivar's fish and chips. How I wish we had a Ivar's in Arizona.

On my mom's birthday my mom, sister and I went to the Fifth Avenue Theater and saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. A wonderful show!
Here we are being silly:



We stopped at Starbucks for a hot apple cider following the show!


And then we went to Claim Jumpers for dinner.

My mom with her birthday cupcake! We also ordered the Claim Jumper chocolate cake and ate it later that night - yummy! It was a great day. We helped my mom pick out some new flooring, saw a great Broadway show, did a little window shopping in downtown Seattle, ate terrific food, saw the movie Julie and Julia...
The next day I left early for the airport but my mom made me homemade donut holes - one of my favorite fall treats.

My brother stopped by to chat before I went to the airport. It was great to visit with him. It was nice to get a quick picture of my sister, brother and me:

my time-out

This past Friday and Saturday I attended Time-Out for Women in Phoenix. It is an event sponsored by Deseret Book and attracted 1800 women from all over Arizona.
On Friday I went with these beautiful friends:

me, Wendi, Kristen, Stacie
When we lived in Gilbert we were all in the same ward and have remained friends through all these years.
I was especially excited about Friday night because I got to see this man:

JOHN BYTHEWAY! And we got to sit in the center section, second row! I'm sure he thought I was a total stalker, I took so many pictures of him. But yes I did listen to his fabulous message on finding joy.
Saturday Kristen couldn't join us (we missed you!) but we did have a great time. Of course I took pictures of each and every presenter - maybe I'll post them later (and maybe not?) but we DID have a wonderful time and can I say on Saturday we again got to sit in the second row - woo hoo!

I met this guy...

Kenneth Cope. His singing was amazing. I wish Molly was there to hear him, she would have loved his songs along with his testimony.

Austin

Austin had his picture taken last week for the school yearbook so afterwards I snapped a few pictures. It's hard to believe he's a senior and will be graduating this year. Go Cienega 2010!

Young Women Four-day temple trip!

We met at the church at 6 a.m. so our four-day temple trip could begin!
A quick picture of the entire group before we left:

The two vans that drove: eight people per van.
Red van code name: Cherry Tomato
White van code name: White Storm

We had a 4 p.m. appointment at the Las Vegas temple but arrived at 2:30. They were able to get us right in. I was able to be baptized also. It was an amazing experience. I have only performed baptisms for the dead once before so it was a real honor for me to be able to do that and also to perform them with the young women present.

A group photo outside the Las Vegas temple following the baptisms...

Following the Las Vegas temple we had dinner at Wendy's and then drove on to St. George.
Here is a photo of my friend Joanne and I outside the St. George temple. She recently was put in as our Laurel advisor - I am so glad she went on the trip with us!

Molly and I in front of the St. George temple:

Me with the pretty flowers:

We were able to watch the Joseph Smith movie at the St. George visitors center. It was a wonderful start to our day!
Part of our group in front of the Christus statue:

Molly and I outside the Jacob Hamblin home:

We toured the Brigham Young home:

A favorite attraction was the St. George Tabernacle - the girls just loved it! They let our group sing "I am a child of God".

Brother Johnson shared his testimony and some thoughts about baptisms with our group following our touring of the Tabernacle.
We got matching t-shirts for our group - they say "Stand Ye in Holy Places" on the front and have a picture of the St. George temple. It was nice having the shirts because it distinguished us as a group.

We performed service at the St. George Deseret Industries. They had us pull all the blue labeled clothing items from a section of the store. We got a lot done for them and it felt great to perform service:


The sweet Young Women of the Desert Willow Ward:

The women leaders/chaperones. Each of these women is just amazing. Through our combined efforts our trip was a huge success. We also had two priesthood accompany us that were just as great serving as drivers, general help and priesthood.

We got to attend a spiritual concert at the Dixie College Institute. They have only been meeting a few weeks but they were great! They let our young women choose a closing song to sing with them. Our girls choose "As sisters in Zion", the EFY version. The director actually had the music for that song and we all think it was the highlight of the concert.

The girls with Patty and Claire. These two ladies did an enormous amount of work getting the homes ready for our stay. The girls sang "I love to see the temple" and "Families can be together forever" as a simple thank you to them.

We went to pioneer park and Brother Nichols gave an outstanding talk to the girls about what guys look for in girls (and how their expectations change between the time they are 12 and the time following their missions). (Julie Nichols spoke to us the previous day on the topic sacrifice. Her talk was just as amazing. The girls (and leaders) really connected with her message.)
I followed him and spoke on the value virtue. Molly helped me by reading a quote:

Everyone signed their name of a gold banner as a symbol to the world of our commitment to remain virtuous. They also wrote their names on a gold balloon and we released them on top of the red rock.



We ended our last day with a testimony meeting. There were so many amazing experiences during this trip. I really don't think this blog post is touching on a portion of good things that occurred. It was well worth our year of preparation!