Holiday and Missionary Make-up time….

February is such a special month. I’ve spent the last 11 days of it in bed sick but in spite of that I was able to get a lot of smiles out of this month of love. I wish that it was the longest month instead of the shortest…. but never mind…. I enjoy all there is about this Valentine month.

One of my favorite parts of Valentine’s day is decorating for it.

I especially enjoy setting pretty tables…

…making special food and treats and

and sharing them with friends and family.

We had a lovely Valentine’s dinner with LouAnn and Darrell. LouAnn and I both wanted to have the missionaries over for dinner that night. We decided to go together but LouAnn ended up doing 99% of the work.

She set a beautiful table , dinner was delicious… and…

…feeding the missionaries is always a joy. They bring a special feeling into the home. These young men leave their home and families at age 19 and put their lives on hold for 2 years while they go out to serve the Lord. Our grandson, Justin, is in Guatemala at this time. (If you would like to learn more about our missionary program and our beliefs click on the “I am a child of God” sign on my side bar. For some reason I could not get the hyperlink to work in this text.)

When we were visiting with Elder Peterson and Elder Linzey I remembered that I had not followed through with a promise I made them to post their pictures from New Year’s dinner for their families at home to see.

So here they are….. better late than never I guess.  I will post these New Year’s pictures and then finish up with February fun in March I guess…. do you see a pattern here????

New Year’s Day was on Sunday this year. It was a lovely day for us from morning ‘till eve.

That morning at Church our 12 year old E.J. gave his first talk in Sacrament meeting. He did a great job. He looked up several scriptures and tied them together in a well thought out and meaningful talk.  I think it is wonderful that our church gives young people the opportunity to speak to the congregation. In his first primary program when he was 3 he was too shy to say a word…. and here he was giving a whole talk with confidence. My heart swelled with joy.

That evening we had dinner together with the missionaries.

We all had a good time with Elder Peterson and Elder Linzey.

We know that it is hard for them to be away from their families during the holidays. It was fun making a special dinner for them and sharing the evening with them.

 

E.J. provided us dinner music by playing his recital piece for the Elders.  Claire sang for us. The missionaries left us a spiritual thought from the scriptures.  It was a lovely evening… and the perfect way to start our new year.

As we toasted the New Year with our eggnog…. our hearts were full of thankfulness for the many blessings we had received in 2011…. especially that we had survived our terrible car accident and we were still all together….

and…  our hearts were full of hope for the promise of 2012.

…

I am sorry that I am slow and not getting my posts done in sync with the holidays.  As I said previously, I will still be posting about Feb. in March.  Thanks for your patience with me.

I finally went to the doctor Fri. after being flat down in bed for 9 days. I felt too rotten to go before that since I knew they can’t do anything for a virus anyway. However, my doctor decided to give me strong antibiotic which seems to be helping. I wasn’t able to go to the temple this week or to church today but my throat is less sore and I’m sure I’m getting better.

Congrats to Krystyn from Really are you Serious on the birth of her precious Evelyn Claire. We are so happy that all went well.

Hugs, Grammy L

 

Sickly Sunday Smiles

My darling hubby gave me these beautiful flowers. He is not a big flower giver so they mean a lot to me........Tuesday they were my Valentine flowers......Since Thursday night they have been my Get Well Flowers. I like Valentine's better but it is nice to have them cheering up my sick room. That makes me smile.
....

I only have a sore throat, cough and ache all over.....nothing serious....I will live!!!...
...and... I can stay in my comfy bed and and rest all I need to. I don't have to take care of little children like I used to.... or go to school sick because it is too hard to prepare for a sub.
I can be sick without any outside responsibilities.
That makes me smile.
....

My next smiles come from having my new iPad. I am using it in bed. I wish I had had it all the months I was in bed after the accident....but, no matter....I have it now and I am loving it.
Smile, smile.

This iPad was also a surprise gift from John. How nice...huh!!!!

I have been lying in bed reading the scriptures,our church magazine which is called The Ensign, reading blogs and Facebook and listening to LDS Church Conference talks.

I've been playing Words with Friends (Scrabble) on Facebook. That is fun.
I'm doing all those things on my little iPad. That makes me smile.

So even on a "sickly" Sunday I have lots to smile about .

I will share more with you when I feel better.

Have a great week.

(Now I will try to publish this post from my iPad ....I hope I can.)

Hugs, Grammy L

Sunday smiles in February

 

I am in a big rush today because it is my week to have Mindy and family for dinner…. and…. I was hoping to do some visiting teaching this afternoon. I have made some valentine cup cakes I want to deliver before they get stale. 

However, I will do a quick Sunday smiles post because I have much to be thankful for and smile about.

I told you last week how excited we were to go to Las Vegas to watch Johnny compete.

Seeing him do so well made us smile but there were many other smiles we enjoyed in the brief time we were there.

We always love being with Dathan and Lynell.  They make us feel so welcome and loved. That is such a blessing to us.  .. .  smile… smile…

I can never get enough time with this dear daughter so when we are together I am always smiling

We knew that Lonica  was coming to Vegas to watch her brother compete. We surprised her by bringing her cousin Claire  from CA with us.

These girls love each other so much.

I was smiling all over just watching them enjoy their time together.

Claire is on the left…. Loni is on the right.

They scaled the rock climbing wall at the gym together.

They played in the hotel pool and acted sassy at the Harley Davidson Café where we ate.

They didn’t get much sleep…

… but ….

…they surely made the most of the time they had together

No matter what the time…. it is a happy time when these two cousins are together. Of course they both make my heart smile.

We were only together for 23 1/2 hours. (Less if you take out the time we were sleeping.)

Before we knew it, we had to say goodbye and leave.

They loaded up their car with bags and bags of the citrus fruit and

avocados Grampy brought them from his orchard. After goodbye hugs we were off.  I am always sad when I have to say goodbye but I am so glad that we got to have those few hours together.

I am very thankful that Grampy and I were able to make the trip. We didn’t think we were up to it until the very last minute when  Grampy gathered up some of his fruit, we  jumped in the car and and left.

I am thankful that we got to take Claire with us. (She only got 10 min. notice to pack and leave with us.)

My heart is full of smiles.

I can hardly wait for Valentine’s day.

I have a lot of special things coming up this week. I can’t wait to tell you about them. I hope you have a great week too.

Have a Happy Valentine’s Day knowing that you are loved .

Hugs, Grammy L

 

A lesson in courage and perseverance

I knew that I couldn’t fool you. All of you who guessed where I was over the weekend were right.    We were in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I wasn’t there to see Mitt at the Nevada Caucus. (But I wish I could have seen him. I surely hope he will be our next president.)

I wasn’t there to gamble. (I never gamble… my money is too important to me to donate it to casinos.)

I was there to see our 15 year old Johnny compete in the Black Jack National Gymnastics Championships

Our darling grandson taught me a lesson in courage and perseverance.

This was the first competition we have been able to attend since our accident last March. I got home from the Utah hospital the day before  Nationals last May. I was not able to see Johnny make the USA National team for level 9.  I was very disappointed I missed that.

This is the first year that Johnny is competing in the level 10 division. He is competing against older boys who have been in level 10 for a year or two. I was excited  to attend this meet but I was a bit nervous for Johnny.

His first event was the pommel horse. He usually nails it as seen in this picture from last year’s competition…. but not this year.

He fell off….. doing a stunt he has done a 1000 times …. he got back up and then… he fell off again.  He couldn’t believe it! My heart ached for him. What a discouraging way to start this competition!

I was afraid that this devastating failure on his first event would taint his performance in the other 5 events…. But I was wrong.

He went on to compete his best in all 5 of the other events.

His smile came back after doing a killer job on the vault…. We didn’t know it then but it turned out he got the highest score of the day on vault and won 1st place.

He ended up placing in all 5 events after falling off the pommel horse. He got 1st on vault….1st on high bar…and 3rd on floor, parallel bars and rings. (Don’t those 2 gold and 3 bronze medals around his neck look great!  He worked hard to earn them.)

He missed getting 2nd on floor by only 1/10th of a point.

He lost 2 points when he fell off of the pommel horse. That is a huge loss of points in a competition where the difference between 1st and 3rd place is often determined by fractions of a point…. But ….His high marks on the other events earned him 3rd place overall …and… helped his team come in 1st place overall.

After the competition he learned that if he had not fallen off of the pommel horse he would have come in 1st place overall….

and…. if he had only fallen off 1 time he would have come in 2nd place overall.

He was disappointed that he blew it didn’t do well on the pommel horse… but…he and we were thrilled he did so well after that. I could not be prouder of him.  I think it is amazing that he could keep his head in the game and do so well after having a horrible devastating start.

I hope that I can follow his good example. When things go wrong for me…. when I get discouraged…. when I fall off of my “pommel horse” I hope that I will remember Johnny’s  courage, perseverance and determination.

I hope that I will remember  the lesson that my sweet grandson taught me this weekend….. to keep trying ….to do my best and not give up even when it looks like the odds are against me.

There is a lot of pressure being on the level 9 USA National Gymnastic team.  Now that he has been training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado, the Olympic coaches know him and are watching him and so are all the other boys. He is expected to do well…. but now he is completing against older boys and harder competition.

His goal is to make the level 10 USA National team this year. The odds are against him since this is his first year to compete at level 10. Before this competition I didn’t think he had much of a chance of making it…… but after watching him Saturday I say……

Go Johnny go! 

Keep working hard and believing you can do it.

I’m beginning to think your dream of being on the Brazilian Olympic Gymnastics' Team is not out of reach.

Go for it Johnny….

With your talent, hard work, courage and determination the sky is the limit.

Are there “pommel horse” disappointments in your life? I think we all have them from time to time.  The next time you feel like giving up I hope that you will think of Johnny’s story and keep trying to do your best. .. who knows… you could end up on the winner’s platform too. I am hoping that I will remember his good example.

Thank you Johnny.

Hugs, Grammy