A season to give

Our young men and women completed a very special service project last night. As a group we collected warm clothing; coats, hats scarves and gloves and traveled down to the area of town where many men and women live on the streets. We made arrangements to meet at the Salvation Army with a representative of their shelter. Before leaving Richard Fonbuena, an LVPD officer spoke to the kids about sticking together and told the boys that they had to stick by the girls. The kids chuckled a bit, but Rich then went on to tell them that they were in fact going to be serving this night in a very dangerous area. When we arrived at Owens and Main we were honestly surprised to see scores of homeless men and women and many young children as well. We set up our items and before a half hour had passed, we were practically out of items. We brought along a stack of pass along cards to give to the eager hands of those people in need. It was a very emotional experience for me and I do believe for many of the youth it was an enlightening evening. For many, myself included, the reality of the difference between wants and needs was clearly illustrated.
As I looked on, a larger man approached our tables searching for a coat. He quietly picked through the things but found nothing that would fit his large stature. Without so much as a second thought, and without saying a word to anyone, I watched as Doug took off his coat, his one winter coat that he asked for last Christmas, and handed it to the homeless man. With gratitude, the man took the coat and shook Doug's hand.
Wow. I love him.

Music Memory Monday. Okay so it's Tuesday, so shoot me.


This song is probably not too well known by many of you. It does not even bring me back to my preteen days when I was crazy for David Cassidy aka Keith Partridge. No, instead it takes me back to 1991. I was a senior in college ready to graduate. My parents had long since started to winter down in Naples, Florida by the time I was ready to do my student teaching so I figured I had the perfect set up; my folks house all to myself, student teaching in my hometown and sleeping in my own comfy bed, free of charge. How could I go wrong. The situation only got better when my pal Mary Jo got assigned to teach in the classroom next to mine. Not only that my cooperating teaching was a good friend of one of my brothers. Sweet!
Anyhow all through that fall, Mary Jo and I plugged along at Union Street school teaching grade 3 to a group of kids I had grown up babysitting. I loved it.
Meanwhile Mary Jo and I were still a couple of crazy kids, having fun. Many nights that fall she stayed at my house with me and and we would stay up all night long laughing and dreaming about the perfect lives we were going to lead. More often though, on our marathon nights we would go out and do drive bys. Nooooo not that kind! We would get my dad's big car out of the garage, so as not be noticed by anyone, and drive past her guy's place! Mary Jo was crazy about, mad over, just plain obsessed with a boy from one town over and oh the fun we had stalking him. Cmon girls, you all know you did the drive by. Is he home? Is he awake? Oh my gosh did he and all of his friends just catch me and my friends casually driving by his apartment in our pajamas at 1 in the morning?
Anyhow Matt's apartment was always alive. he worked by day at the hospital as an XRay technician, but by night he was a musician rocking out with his band. Not only did we drive by his place we just happened to make it our business to arrive at everyone of his shows. "Oh wow, we didn't know you were playing her tonight." I know, lame. Now I almost forgot to mention that Matt had a girlfriend. Stop frowning. He wasn't married and Mary Jo was too crazy about him for him to never know about it, so another friend told him to take Mary Jo out. He did and the girlfriend got wind of it. Oh the fireworks. Now when we were stalking Matt, we were being stalked by the ex. Quite the show!
Everything sett;ed down by Christmas time just as we wound up or student teaching careers. On our last day, Matt came in and brought his guitar. The three of us sang for all of my and Mary Jo's students. You guessed it. We sang the Partridge family Christmas song.

So you may be wondering what happened to Mary Jo and Matt. Well, 17 years later they are still married with 3 cute kids. Living just one town over from where we student taught and stalked Matt in our free time. Mary Jo never used her teaching degree, well unless you count teaching her own cuties. As for Matt, you won't find him at the clubs at night rocking out. But he still strums a tune or two for Mary Jo.

Christmas card preview

Our family

Thanks Theresa!

I love our little happy family!

Girls night

Tonight Millie had a few friends spend the night. We made some holiday treats and then decided to go out to the Town Square and look at the the lights and window shop. The girls had great fun at the Sephora store trying on all of the make up. The night ended with watching What Not to Wear. The plan was to stay up all night. You can see how well they did!

Turkey day/ Part one

Football...Joey's true favorite.

We miss Hannah

The lunch bunch just isn't the same with out you!

We hope you are having fun in Oregon.

Look at theses faces.

Have a great trip, but hurry back! We miss you! I miss you! Hardly anyone likes to talk about books with me!!!!!!!

ah Weekend

So while the rest of the country was focused on the small stuff, like who the next president of the United States would be, my family, those in middle school in particular, were campaigning for MUCH mores serious elections. The Lied Middle School student government officers. Youngest daughter threw her name in the ring along with 4 others at her school to be the school historian. Well after a few weeks of speech making and poster hanging, the ballots were in. Millie came out victorious! We celebrated Friday night by, going to the theater. the Cheyenne HS play that is. Many of the youth in our ward were performing. They did my dad's all time favorite, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Doug and the boys were down at Loyola this weekend for the Top 200 lacrosse weekend. Joe's coaches were, get this, the head coach of Yale and the head coach from Towson. I know, right. he was so excited to be amongst these folks. He took a hard hit during his first game but was iced up and went back out to play. You should see the bruises. I swear, between Joe and Bret and their collective lacrosse endeavors, one could think Doug and I were beating the boys!

Jenna spent the weekend with her mother so that left just Millie and I to hang out and get things done. Again, I was delighted and saddened by the quiet of my house. Delighted because I was able to get soooooo much done, but saddened by the prospect of such a quiet home in the not so distant future. I do miss all the kids and their pals when they are gone!