Wiggle your toes and smile...

I found this song "New Soul" by Yael Naim; it gives me happy feet and it's just fun to dance around the house to. Makes me want to paint, pick flowers, take photographs to hang all over my walls and surround myself with things I love. This crazy world is confusing sometimes, but this made me smile and wiggle my toes.

Lyrics | Yael Naim lyrics - New Soul lyrics

That's not being careful!!

Even though our vacation ran over into Monday, making it a potentially short week working this week. It has been a very LONG week so far. The boys worked a 14 hour day their first day back, and they are super busy. Which is good, but for some reason nobody is sleeping well, which is NOT good. I have no idea, but we are like zombies today walking around on no sleep for days now. Uggg.

Their second day of work this week was a little shorter, but they report just as stressful with rush, hot jobs to be completed and lots of pressure and stress to finish work for customers "waiting with bated breath" (I wondered where that saying came from and found an interesting explanation here... if you are curious and want to learn something new today... go read it and let me know your thoughts).

However, a tired worker can mean mistakes (nobody functions well without a clear rested mind), which in turn makes the days longer because you have to fix mistakes and that takes more time, and additional frustration etc. It's a horrible vicious cycle.

I had never thought of making mistakes as something I learned from along the way, and a way that I have grown. But they are something you learn from and become who you are. You can tell someone "be careful" until you are blue in the face, but at some point they learn from careless mistakes because it gives them experience. And you can really only grow and draw from your own experiences, not someone else's.

So with all that said.... I have told him a million times everyday as he leaves the house, going out into the world to "face the dragons" to BE CAREFUL!!

But he came home and showed me this and told me all about how it happened!

In great detail, with descriptions that I won't gross you out with, but include...

"...

I was Sandblasting

do you know what that is?

not the kind in the case

BIG INDUSTRIAL sandblasting Mom

(insert grunting manly descriptions of how import and manly this work is)

glanced down to examine my work

wasn't paying attention to the other end of the wand

it lanced my arm

only feeling a sting at first

then blood from every pore

the other guys said they had never seen so much blood

screaming in pain

yes, I cleaned it good

yes, I put Neosporin on it

yes, I promise to keep it clean

no, it doesn't hurt unless I touch it

DON'T TOUCH IT MOM!!

isn't it cool?

don't worry, I'm fine!!

..."

Okay, THAT'S NOT BEING CAREFUL!

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER FOR PETE'S SAKE (another silly expression I pull out now and again, that I don't know where it came from, I will have to go look that one up now too)!!

I am so grateful for the experiences I have lived through that have helped me learn.

We don't pray for them, we wouldn't wish the pain of them on others.

But I can't look back on anything painful in my life, or not one stupid mistake I have made, that I haven't learned from, or had a beautiful growing experience from.

God is good.

He loves us.

He will never leave us in our trials and gives us experience for our good.

Are we there yet?

Sunday we said our goodbyes, had a very special prayer with Jim's Mom and Dad, cried a few tears and got on the road for home.

Mom had packed us some snacks, but we knew it would be a very long day and Jacob had his heart set on one meal on the road.

Jacob and his Dad like to harass each other and tease, and it's all good (until someone gets hurt) that they have this kind of male bonding (even though I don't get it). But I figured these things need to be documented, so in the case that I completely loose my mind and have to be committed... it will be on record what drove me over the edge.

you can hear it progressively gets more tense...

I promise we did not starve the child, but I have a feeling the Lord will know just what he needs and he just might learn what that is for himself while he is serving a mission.

I wanted so badly to get a picture of Provo, UT to look at when Jacob goes into the Missionary Training Center there in Sept. But couldn't get anything but the Y on the hill above the college from the freeway. It's a neat site too, not the town, but it will have to do.

We also saw one of those windmill blades, they are soooo long, it's hard to imagine it whipping around up in the air.. and this is only half way from the center... if there are three blades they go completely another one of these in the other direction from the center. Crazy huge, they just don't look this big out in the fields from the freeway.

Yep, after he got fed, he slept quiet as a baby the rest of the way home.

We went directly to pick up our puppies and tried to sneak up on them... but Taylor peaked her head up over the fence as soon as we drove up... soon followed by Morgan as she heard the sound of the truck.

They were soooo happy to see us!

They love doggie daycare and had a blast of a time, based on how tired they were when we got home. But it's always good to get home.

Our lawn was outta control long... so we had a little catching up to do. But the boys got right on it before we finally sat down to relax from our trip.

It was a great little trip, went way too fast, but we loved spending such special time with family! That time is really priceless!

Heaven on earth...

Saturday Jim and his Dad and sister and her husband and I were able to all go to the Temple together.

We finished Leon's work and had him sealed to his parents to be together forever in heaven. It was a very special day, but not totally without opposition.

We have learned anytime time you are out to do such good, there can be great opposition. Thanks to Jim's Mom who stayed home and was able to help us finish the necessary computer work in-between to make it happen all in the same day. It was pretty important that the siblings be together and share in the experience, and even though we missed Johnna very much, she was with us in our hearts all day and Jim and Debbie couldn't wait to call her to let her know of the special time we had together in the Temple.

Jacob took the opportunity to play one more round of golf on one of the beautiful courses in St. George.

We have over 189 pictures of this golf course now... but here are just a few. If you are not a fan, you can bow out here.

This is typical Jacob... something shiney caught his eye...

I am guessing the pics of the houses were not objects he needed to avoid on the next shot... but rather he was drooling and dreaming of living in them one day.

I love that you can see the St. George Temple from this view.

Both the Temple and the golf course, a little piece of Heaven on Earth for us to enjoy the beauty and peace.

Zion National Park...

Friday morning the boys got up early to play a round of golf.

Then when they got back to the house, we went to Zion National Park.

You can drive in and park and then ride the trams into the canyon of the park, and get off at any of the 8 or 10 stops to hike around and see different points of interest within the park.

We rode the tram into the furthest point at the park and then got off and walked up one of the main paved trails, and stopped at one of the museums along the way back.  Then drove the car up and through a mile long tunnel carved into the mountain and came back home.  It was a full day for all of us.

Jacob took some of these pics with his new camera... the best ones I have to admit are his.  This gives me great hope that he will send some neat pics home while he is on his mission.

He loves his camera, and it takes great pics.

We had a really fun day with Grandma and Granpa looking at the beautiful sights.