Tut tut, it looks like (a lot of) rain!

 The rain started a little before 5:00 pm, and 40 mins later, it was still coming down by the bucketful.  (My windshield wipers were one full speed when I was driving.  That is how hard it was coming down!) Trev was at soccer practice, Kristin was at the river, and I had just come home from buying Duke Corn!  YUM!!  

Our gutters were clogged with leaves and not draining properly, so John donned his rain jacket, climbed on a ladder, and took them to task. There were A LOT of leaves in each one!  No challenge for John though.  He had them cleaned out before the really hard rain stopped, which was close to an hour later.  It continued to rain for a while longer, but with much less force.

Trev called about 1/2 hour before his practice was supposed to end to say they cancelled.  Not to be stopped by a "little" rain, and never one to miss an opportunity to be a goof ball, Trev seized the moment and went strolling in our flooded driveway after he got home!  He made a fine Christopher Robin if I may say so myself with his huge soccer ball umbrella and my very pretty rainboots!!  

It is a moment like this that I will miss when he's old enough that he stops doing silly little things.  (Maybe I'll luck out, and he'll be one of those boys who still retains a little goofiness with him no matter how old he is!)  Speaking of which, did I mention that the soccer practice he was at was for the high school?  Yes, my baby will start his freshman in high school on Wednesday, and plays on the JV soccer team!  Where have the last 14 years gone?  Its bad enough that Kristin will be a Jr., is playing Varsity soccer and drives herself everywhere she needs/wants to go!!!  Yes, this mama is seeing her empty nest future!  What a thought that is!!!

(I know the picture is a little fuzzy, but I didn't realize it until the storm was over, and the photo op was gone.  The skinny picture is the corner of our yard.  That poor eunonymus gets flooded out every time someone washes a car, or there is a big rainstorm.  It is a dwarf compared to the others in the row.  I'm pretty convinced that it takes all its energy to recover from its near drowning experiences and doesn't have any energy left to grow!)

Did you feel the winds of change blow through?

A few weeks ago I ended my blog post with a little foreshadowing...remember, the winds of change?

Well, they have blown through and after the storm, it ends up I am an Early Morning Seminary Teacher!!  What??  Yep, its true.  I will take off my Relief Society counselor hat, and change it for a dress/skirt every morning, and a class of sleepy, yet really good Juniors in high school.

To say this will be an adventure is an understatement.  Seminary is a huge calling.  A lesson almost every day there is school means every day or night before school, I will be planning, or hopefully, fine-tuning a lesson.  I have always looked at the Seminary teachers with a little bit of awe.  Their knowledge of the scriptures is so good our Sunday School teacher often consults one of them when there is a tricky concept/question.  This particularly happens when we are discussing the Old Testament.  Let me just say, she will have to skip right past me for any sort of clarification!!  Especially when it is the OT.  That course of study is not until next year, and even then, I will not be in any position to clarify anything, I guarantee it.

This year, I am grateful it is Church History and Doctrine and Covenants.  And I'm grateful I have the Jr. class.  Kristin will be one of my students, as well as her friends, who are all really nice teenagers.  I will enjoy teaching them.  We studied Church History my first year of Seminary, wayyyyy back when, and I remember I loved it!!  I particularly remember loving my teacher, although, I couldn't tell you her name.  I don't remember loving the other years I went as much as that Freshman year.  (Not even my Sophomore year when the guy I crushed on right after we moved to Amarillo came every morning to pick me up.:)

I have thought about why I am getting this calling and all I can come up with is that one of my children was in a class who was particularly hard on teachers.  Seminary and Sunday School in particular.  I think they had a different teacher every year for Seminary, and although the majority of those teachers were good at their callings (I'm not going to lie, one teacher didn't prepare lessons and that was not good), that group of kids did not give them their attention, and for the most part were pretty disrespectful!  Is there really such a thing as Karma?  If so, this may be a good example of it.  I will be atoning for the sins of my daughter's class.  Come to think of it, two of the teachers I will be teaching with had kids in my daughter's class.  Its all beginning to come together.  (You may think I'm exaggerating, but I distinctly remember the girls taking cookies to their Sunday School teacher one day after church because she left the class in tears!!  I rest my case!)  I hope my class is more gentle with me!!  Maybe if I do it more than one year, it will cover a multitude of transgressions by said class!!  :)

But Karma or no, my new adventure begins Septermber 2nd, bright and early.  Its a new dawn and a new day!  I will just have to take a deep breath and jump right in.

It seems that I am not capable of much more than a photo re-cap these days, but here we go again.  A few photos that are a little slice of life these days...

We are sad to see the Papworth's move to Rexburg.  They have been in our ward for about 10 years, and we love them.  Bro. Papworth gave Ashley, Chelsie and Allison their Patriarchial Blessings.  Moving is the best thing for them, so their parting is bittersweet.

This is the label on the back of my shower gel.  If  a person has issues with Gluten, does it really matter if something you put on the outside of your body is Gluten Free?  After I was done scratching my head on that one, I had to just chuckle.

I was cleaning out a box the other day and I ran across this postcard.  Yes, it is an actual postcard, addressed and mailed to someone.  (See below) As a child, seeing the "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW" tag caused me some serious worry.  What if it accidentally fell off my pillow while I was sleeping, or came off the mattress while I was putting on the fitted sheet?  Well, now I know what would have happened!  :)  I'm glad I never had to receive a postcard like this one!  This will make me smile for a very long time!!!
(Note - I think I must have been a young adult before I read the tag really carefully and realized what it was saying.)

The other side of the above postcard.  Check out that postmark!!  1969??  Crazy. The recipient was my in-laws' neighbor until about 5 years ago.  How in the heck did it end up in a box in our house with children's board books in it?  A great mystery!!

Kristin's "award" from camp.  Amber would be proud to know Kristin received this.

Speaking of Sister Rietz, she ended up getting about 3 stitches in her leg after slicing it open on the sprocket of her bike.  She was thrilled that Sister Moon got to put in one of the stitches.  Apparently, it is the only one that stayed in.  The wound ended up getting infected, and warrented another visit to the Dr.  She loves her mission, and loves Hesperia, the area she is serving in!!!

Kristin and I went to Spokane for one night last week while the boys were at Scout Camp.  All along the way, the wheat fields were either being harvested, or very close to being ready to harvest.  John spent his summer, 30 years ago, in a combine (not a John Deere, but a Gleaner).  He loved doing it.  In fact, he did it the following 2 summers as well.  How do I remember it was 30 years ago?  It was 1984, the summer we got married.  How has it been 30 years???

We took a little detour home, and found Trader Joes!!  Just walking in that store is a happy experience.  Although I really don't know why that is.  We just love that store.  Maybe its because we know we'll walk back out with these tasty little Pretzel Slims in our grocery bag!  :)  Not pictured is some really chewy Pugliese bread that called to us when we walked through the bakery department.

This was a fortune I got about 1 1/2 years ago.  I was amazed to pull it out of my fortune cookie , because I was just starting a pretty overwhelming project involving organizing my digital photographs, and I didn't feel any of the things that I was supposed to prove!  I taped it to my sewing machine so I am reminded of my potential, because, in all seriousness, its good to be reminded of such things.  This fortune has been on my mind lately because I used it as a jumping off point for my Relief Society lesson yesterday.


And finally, two quotes that have been rattling around in my head because I also used them in my lesson.
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”
– Lao-Tzu

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."  - Voltaire