Veronica's "I don't like Surprises" Birthday

When it comes to buying presents Veronica is my trickiest kid. Derrick tells me what he wants ALL THE TIME and Charlotte and Lydia want everything so I usually don't have any trouble buying presents for those three.  

But Veronica is a whole other story. If I get her a present that she doesn't care about she just ignores it.  

So over the years I've learned that it's best if I let Veronica vet her presents ahead of her birthday.  I'll show her pictures online and ask her if something is what she wants. This year I just took her with me to buy her presents. I asked her if she wanted any surprises gifts and she replied with "I don't like surprises."  So yeah, there were no surprises this year. 

On the Sunday before her birthday we baked her cake. (A chocolate cake that she'd picked out at the store.)

Then on Monday after school we frosted it together. She wanted a farm cake because she's seen pictures of the farm cake I made Charlotte back when Charlotte turned 4 and Veronica was 1.  We had a lot of fun frosting the cake together.  I think this is one of my favorite birthday traditions that we have in our family. Our cakes may not be Pinterest Perfect, but we have a lot of fun making them together. 

 Here's the finished product.  I swear I looked everywhere for Runts and couldn't find them anywhere so we ended buying some gummie candies that were fruit shaped.  Then the next week I found Runts at the store.  Oh well, these turned out well.

 We both agreed that the pig in the "mud" was one of our favorite parts of the cake.

 Veronica was so proud of her creation.

Then we went into the livingroom and Veronica helped me wrap her presents.  Yep, no surprises here. 

 When the big kids got home from school I took one of the twins to the doctor to get a little check up.  She's been complaining of stomach aches. I was 95% sure the stomach aches were anxiety.  But I wanted to go to the doctor just in case we were dealing with a physical problem. The doctor was FABULOUS with her. He agreed that it was probably anxiety. He told her lots of boys and girls her age deal with anxiety and to not feel bad or that this is somehow her fault.  He talked to her about breathing. I was so happy we went in to see him.

That night we went on a walk to the school.  The kids played on the playground and rode their bikes. Veronica showed off that her arms are strong enough to do the monkey bars again.

 When we got home we blew up balloons for Veronica's birthday. This is usually something we do after the kids are in bed.  But Veronica frequently reminded me that she didn't like surprises and so she had to help with her balloons.  So everyone helped.  This was actually really nice because the balloons were done super fast.

 Here she is waking up to her balloons in the morning.  She was a little surprised, because I'd put her presents into a group for her.  You can see her desk that she'd picked out at DI.  Her sled (that she'd helped wrap the day before.) And three presents on the desk.  One was a coloring book, and the other was a dollar store slinky.  She'd picked them out and helped wrap them.  But the third was a DVD from my mom and dad.  I'd successfully kept this one a secret from Veronica and she was VERY curious what was in the box.

 She probably would have opened the presents right away, but Brandon was at work (he works mornings).  And Derrick would be at therapy after school.  I told Veronica she would have to wait to open her presents until after dinner.  She was okay with that.

We had pizza for dinner and then she finally got to open her presents.

The DVD turned out to be all FIVE Ice Age movies.  Veronica had asked for just "The Pirate One." But when I looked them up online I saw that the whole set didn't cost that much more than just one movie. I told my parents and that's what they decided to get her. She was so excited. 

 Then we had cake. Here's Veronica dramatically blowing out her 6 candle (which she'd picked out)

 She put her whole body into it.

 The cake was very yummy (though there were some hurt feelings over who got an unfair amount of candy pumpkins.) Then the kids watched one of the movies and later went to bed. 

There was something else going on during Veronica's birthday that was unrelated to her, but was very important to me. 

Nancy Pelosi announced the Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald Trump that afternoon. Now I try to keep things non political on this blog, but  I'm no fan of Trump. Sorry if that surprises or offends you, but it's the truth. 

I'm a political junkie of sorts and love keeping up on current events. Just that morning I'd caught up on a podcast by fivethirtyeight where they talked about the Whistleblower Complaint and whether or not impeachment was likely.  The consensus at the time was that it would probably take some time before an impeachment inquiry was launched.  So imagine my surprise when I opened my phone and saw that news. 

That night I listened to another fivethirtyeight podcast about the recent changes.  (And later in the week I'd listen to others as more info came out.) 

I also spent a lot of time reading comments in the Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) Discussion Group. I've belonged to this group for maybe two years and I'm always so impressed by how articulate and polite the women in this group are. 

When we moved to Twin Falls the Idaho chapter of MWEG was looking for a co-chair. Since I have tons of free time I decided I might as well volunteer.  So I was made the co-chair.  Basically I just moderate and post in the Idaho Chapter Facebook group. 

So with all this chatter about Impeachment and a Whistle Blower going on I was able to post some relevant things in my chapter group. Honestly it was really exciting to have a small role to play in this whole thing.  And if you are curious here's MWEG's official statement regarding the Whistle blower. 

So the whole Impeachment thing might have ended up overshadowing Veronica's birthday for me, but she didn't notice and I know she had a great day.

Oh and I wrote this about her and put it on social media and I thought it was some dang good writing so I want to preserve it here:

This awesome girl is six years old today. Veronica is energetic, enthusiastic, and pretty much a force of nature. She came into this world on her own terms, and that's how she has lived her life so far. Bumps, bruises, and broken bones haven't slowed her down much. She's loud and exhausting, but that's what you get when you're raising a dynamo. Someday she's going to use all that energy to change the world.
Oh and my dad posted this picture for Veronica's birthday. He said, "Happy Birthday to our granddaughter, Veronica! Veronica looks just like Valerie, her mother, when she was growing up. I’ve included a side by side picture of mother and daughter, as a baby and as a child. Veronica is always full of surprises -- since the day she was born -- she has been surprising all of us! We think Veronica is destined for great things in the future. Those things might baffle the imagination!"

We really do look alike.  I showed Veronica the bottom picture of me and she was convinced it was of her.

On Wednesday Brandon and I had a meeting with the school for the twin with anxiety. We met with her teacher and the school counselor.  It was such a good meeting.  Her teacher is fabulous.  And the counselor is understanding.  My goal was for the twin to see that we are all in her corner and that we care about her.  I think she saw that.  Also the counselor said that she is welcome to come to his office in the morning if she is nervous about school.  She can do a little project in his room first and then go to her class.  This has already helped a lot.

After that meeting we went to the Library for their "free build" afternoon.  The girls made things with these connecty straws.

 Charlotte was so proud to stand it up. 

 Later Lydia showed me this hang glider she made from Connex.  My girls love to build.

 On Wednesday night I had Google Hangout call with my siblings. These are always so much fun.  We hadn't had a group call all summer because we were each able to get together in person with at least one sibling this summer. It was good to have us all together on a call again.  We talked about books.  Each of us listed books we remember from when we were kids, the book we are currently reading, and any favorite books we would recommend. I came up with the idea for this theme because I'd just finished reading a book about the Bernie Madoff scam, "Wizard of Lies." That Hillary had recommended. So I thought it would be fun to talk about books with all the siblings.  We ended up with a long list of books. 

Thursday was a rather light day for our family.  I babysit one of the girls in Veronica's class for a few hours a couple days a week.  She was over at our house on Thursday.  She's an only child and Veronica is the youngest so they have some things to learn about the give and take of friendship, but over all it's working out to have her over at our house.  I think I am more intentional about doing things with both girls than I would be if it was just Veronica with me every day.

On Friday Derrick discovered static electricity and had fun putting balloons on the ceiling.

 He was so proud of himself.  I was very impressed when the balloons stayed up there most of the morning.

 Friday night I'd signed up to help clean the temple. Ever since Brandon got fired I've been trying to figure out why we felt it was so important to move to Twin Falls.  It would have been a lot easier to deal with unemployment and career uncertainty if we hadn't moved to a new city and bought a house.  I still don't know exactly why we are here, but one thing I realized is that Pocatello doesn't have a temple (yet) and Twin Falls does.  So I'm trying to take advantage of having a temple near by.  When the signup sheet for the cleaning assignment went around I signed right up.

I'd helped clean the temple when we lived in Bountiful, and I kept thinking that wasn't that long ago.  But then I stopped and really thought about it.  We moved away from Bountiful at the end of 2012. That was nearly 7 years ago. And I'm pretty certain I cleaned the temple before I was pregnant with Derrick. So yeah, it's been like 8 years. 

I was assigned to clean the bathrooms near the women's dressing room. That was a good assignment.  It's always fun to clean the temple, because you aren't really cleaning.  The people in charge said "you are preventing it from getting dirty"

 My church service cleaning didn't stop on Friday night. I'd also signed us up to help clean the church on Saturday.  Brandon had to go into work to help change a gasket or something so I ended up taking all the kids to the church myself.  We sort of worked together to clean the chapel.  The kids were in charge of dusting and I vacuumed.  Then they zipped around the church and dusted pictures while I still vacuumed.

On the way home from the church we stopped at the store so we could buy some things for a picnic later in the day.  I thought we had lunch meat at home, but when we got home I realized we only had one slice. Charlotte and Lydia volunteered to walk to the store and buy lunch meat.  So I gave them a $5 bill and showed them the package of the meat we normally buy.  They happily walked to the store. They came back about 20 minutes later and were so proud of themselves.  I was pretty proud of them too.

At the same time they were gone Derrick had gone over to a neighbor boy's house to play.  They've ridden bikes together but this was the first time Derrick has been to his house.  This is new territory for all of us, so I was kind of nervous about it, but everything went well. 

When Derrick came home he and Veronica worked on their hobby/project. They love making ice and then putting the ice into ziplock bags. They take there very seriously and are always checking on the ice cube trays.

 Brandon finally came home from work and we were able to go on our adventure for Veronica's birthday. 

For months we have been talking about a trip to Bear World. First it was supposed to happen in late April, then early May, but neither of those times worked out. Then tt was supposed to happen in June. At that time the plan was to go to Bear World on a Friday and then go camping that night at the St Anthony Sand Dunes.  Well the trip was postponed again when Veronica broke her collar bone.

I sort of planned to go to Bear World over Labor Day weekend, but that plan evaporated when Brandon was fired.  I was holding out hope that we might make it work for Veronica's birthday.  All along she has been the one wanting to go to Bear World the most, but as her birthday got closer I just couldn't see how we could make it work financially.

So I proposed an alternate plan.  We couldn't make it over to Bear World or the St Anthony Sand Dunes, but we could go to the Bruneau Dunes Sand dunes which were less than 90 minutes away. Veronica was very happy with this new plan. 

Brandon showered and we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.  Then we hopped in the car and started driving.  Normally Brandon drives on our adventures, but I've told him that unless he's had a nap after work he's not allowed to drive.  He'd only gone into work at 5:00 that morning instead of the usual 1:00, but I still didn't want him driving.  That was a good call because he fell asleep within a few minutes of us getting on the Freeway.

The drive was uneventful and soon we arrived at the sand dunes.  We'd come here on our road trip in May of 2018 so we knew exactly where to go.  We have a state park pass (They are a steal at $10 for a year) so we didn't even have to pay an entrance fee.  Soon we were pulling up to the parking lot at the base of a small sand dune.  The kids grabbed their sleds and started running up the hill. This is a picture I took of the kids going up the sand dune. The dune has an incline of something like 70 degrees.  So even though this looks like a flat beach the kids are really about 30 feet above me.

 It's really hard to climb sand.  And I soon realized that my knee was not going to be happy.  So I was taking it slow.  While I was still going up, the kids started sledding down.  Here's Lydia.

 And Derrick.

 And Veronica (on her birthday sled that we bought with this trip in mind.)

 And Charlotte went so fast I could get a picture of her before she zipped by.

 I finally made it to the top and took a victory photo.

 The side of the dune that we'd been climbing was on the west side. The wind was coming from the west and we were freezing. We quickly realized that the East side of the dune was much warmer.  The sun had been shining on the sand all day so it was radiating some heat.  And there wasn't any wind.   You can see Brandon soaking up the warmth.

 Here we are together.  We didn't do much sliding we were content to just relax in the sand.

 Here are the kids getting ready to slid.  I love this picture.

 Other people put wax on their sleds to get them going faster, but we hadn't known about that.  So our sleds were a little slow.  But that was okay.  It seemed safer to have slower sleds.  As it was the kids still seemed to tumble out of their sleds a lot.

 We had a great time sledding.  When we go sledding on snow we usually last an hour before everyone gets cold.  We didn't have to worry about that with sand. The day was a little overcast, but it was never bitter cold.  The kids all took of their shoes and jackets after a few climbs up the dune.

 We played for hours.  At one point one of our green circle sleds disappeared.  I think another family took it back to their campsite on accident. We looked all over for it and didn't see it.  But about an hour later the sled reappeared at the bottom of the hill.  I think the family must have discovered it at their campsite and brought it back in the hopes that whoever it belonged to would find it.  Well we did find it because we were still there.

 Around 4:00 we jumped down the dune (walking down is more like jumping) and had a picnic lunch at a bench next to the car.  I'd made hoagie sandwiches back at the house.  The sandwiches were so good. Lydia said her's was the best and I took a picture of her enjoying it.  You can see the dune in the background.

 Here's what the landscape looked like the other direction.

 Everyone needed to go to the bathroom so we drove to the visitor center.  We'd sort of talked about trying to hike the big dune like we'd done last time we were here, but then decided to just go back to sledding.  We were going to try to stay for an astronomy show that night, so I dropped the kids and Brandon off at the base of the dune and then drove to the parking lot for the observatory.  Then I walked back to the little dune from there.

 I walked up the ridgeline which was somewhat easier than the face, but it was still strenuous.

 Here's the view of one of the bigger dunes.

 Charlotte had to go to the bathroom so I walked back to the observatory with her.  I was hoping there was a bathroom there, but I was planning to drive her to the visitor center if I needed to. Luckily there was a bathroom at the observatory.  When I got back to the dune I found Brandon asleep on the sand. I collapsed next to him Brandon I wasn't climbing the dune anymore. 

We took this picture together.  He's so good looking. Look at those eyes. 

 Lydia biffed it on the sand and ended up with a mouth full of sand.

 Veronica wanted to be buried in the sand.  We found it was best to do it sideways.

 Around 6:00 there was a noticeable temperature drop as the sun sunk lower in the sky.  Still the kids kept playing until about 6:45. Then we walked off the dune and headed toward the observatory.  There was going to be a astronomy ranger talk at 8:30 followed by telescope viewing at 9:15. 

The kids put shoes back on and then we went inside and watched some (super boring) footage of NASA on the day of the moon landing. In another room we looked at some models of rockets.  (Derrick talked for DAYS about going back and buying the Saturn V rocket model.)  By this point it was after the kids 7:30 bedtime.  Brandon and I decided that we weren't really interested in the astronomy talk and the sky was overcast anyway.  We decided it was best if we just left and went home.  We were already talking about coming back and camping here next summer so we told the kids we'd do the astronomy stuff them.  They were all fine with that. 

 Brandon had had a nap on the sand and was feeling fine to drive home.  So he drove. The kids feel asleep so fast.  Veronica complained a bit about her booster seat so I just reached back and pulled it out from under her.  As soon as it was gone she flopped over and fell asleep.

When we got home everyone got in pajamas and then fell back asleep in their beds.  Brandon and I took showers.  We both had tons of sand falling out of our clothes.  I was finding sand in random piles around the house for the next week.  But it was so worth it.

On Sunday morning the kids slept in a bit.  After they woke up they all took showers.  Lydia wanted her hair in a bun and then wanted a picture so she could see it.

 We had stake conference.  We went to the stake center and headed for the back of the cultural hall because that's where our family does best during Stake Conference.  The kids noticed there were chairs on the stage at the very back of the room so that's where we sat.  Brandon said, "I've had dreams about sitting here." The kids did really well.  Derrick actually sat in his seat and listened for about 15 minutes.  Then he needed more help to stay focused.  All the kids like playing with the This is Sand App on my phone so he played with that for a long time.  That worked great until my phone died about 10 minutes before the end of the meeting.  Derrick was really upset about that and had a pretty big melt down about it. But even with that I felt that Stake Conference was a success for us.

Back at home we had a relaxing afternoon. I found Veronica coloring at her desk.  We'd bought the desk because I wanted to make her room more fun for her.  She's often trying to get into Charlotte and Lydia's room to play with them, and they are always pushing her out. It's good she has something in her room to keep her busy. 

 On Monday Brandon and I picked up Veronica from school and then all three of us ran a bunch of errands together.  We went to the County Assessors office to sign our home owners exemption paperwork for 2020.  Then we scoped out all the other County Offices.  They are very nice looking. We also went to grocery shopping.  We bought normal groceries, but we made sure to buy lots of fun ingredients for icecream Sundays.  This was our reward for doing our Come Follow Me Scripture Reading for September.  (Can you tell we came up with the reward idea on a Fast Sunday?) 

 We put together the Sundays after dinner.  They were super yummy.

 Tuesday was the first day of October.  We celebrated by getting out our Halloween decorations and putting them up. Then Charlotte and Lydia made a Witch Costume for Antler.

 That evening we went to the Museum at the College of Southern Idaho for their Reptile Review.  But before we made it into the room where that was happening we got distracted by some of the exhibites.  They kids yelled, "It's Manny!"  Obviously, they have been bingeing Ice Age movies.

 I thought the Reptile Review would just have a few animals in cages and we'd look at them and maybe pet a few.

NOPE

The kids were able to get up close and personal with many of the reptiles.

 Like super up close.

 This was amazing.

 My kids were in heaven.  (Which is really funny because about 10 minutes before we left to come to this some of them had been very annoyed that we were leaving the house when they really just wanted to stay home and play.)

 When the reptile part of the evening was over we were able to stay and enjoy the museum exhibits for free.  Derrick liked this one about how indigenous people fished.

 Veronica found magnet tiles.

 These were ancient drills.

 We had a great time and we will go back again for sure.

I can't remember anything specific about Wednesday.  That might have been the day that I heard from my co-chair for Idado's chapter of MWEG.  She said she needed a break from social media and asked if I was fine running the chapter on my own for a bit.  And that's how I am suddenly the Chair for Idaho's Chapter of Mormen Women for Ethical Government.  I'm super thrilled about this responsibility.  Basically I'm just a glorified Facebook group admin, but there are a lot of great things in the works for all the chapters and I'm excited to be part of that.  Plus, like a said, the women involved with MWEG are so well educated and articulate. I'm honored to be able to associate and learn from them.

On Thursday I decided that I was sick of my hair and it was time for a change. I like the length and so I didn't want to do anything there.  So I decided to try to cut my bangs straight instead of side swept like usual. Somehow I was able to successfully cut my own bangs to the perfect length. I was so happy with the result I took a selfie to celebrate.  I LOVE how this picture turned out. Plus I love that you can see my book and my fireplace in the back ground  It's like I live in a real house. 

 Derrick had given up on talking about buying a Saturn V model and had moved onto talking about buying a light saber that he'd seen at the Halloween Store when he went there with his therapist. I decided that we could put together an easy Jedi costume for him and a light saber would be a good accessory.  So we all went to the Halloween Store to get the light saber.  It was kind of like the kids' first visit to a haunted house.  There were all sorts of scary things that were motion activated.  Derrick had been there a couple times already so he clapped and activated everything to scare the girls.

Then he took us to the aisle with the Star Wars still and we bought the saber.  He is quite happy with it. 

 Oh and speaking of Halloween the BEST thing has finally happened.  For year's I've been trying to interest my kids in Harry Potter. I jumped the gun though and tried to read the first book to the girls when there were a little too young.  We were in Alabama when I tried and I think they were five, but they might have been 4.  Either way it was too young.  The first chapter of the book didn't hold their attention AT ALL, and every since then they've acted like Harry Potter is the worst thing ever anytime I brought it up. 

Well this year I was determined to get them to like it. I told them we'd watch the first movie this year.  I'd always assumed I'd be a purist and have my kids read the books first and then watch the movies, but I figured maybe the movie would help them understand the book.  Well they were still pretty resistant to the idea, but Lydia finally asked, "What's Harry Potter about anyway?"

So I told her it's about a boy who goes to school to be a wizard.  That intrigued both her and Charlotte and they wanted to know more.  Then they wanted to know a little more, and before I quite knew what was happening they were both listening to Brandon read the first chapter of the first book. 

That night I picked up where he left off and we read for TWO HOURS. Charlotte and Lydia were officially hooked.  We've read a little bit every night.  It's so great to finally be reading a book I love with them.  (We had been reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and while those are fun they aren't exactly compelling.)  It's been over 10 years since I read the first Harry Potter book and I'd forgotten how fun the books are.  And actually I think this might be the first time to read the first book since the 7th book came out.  So it's interesting to read it knowing how the series ends. 

Friday was a cold cold day.  I got rained on while waiting to pick up Veronica so I was pretty content to stay inside the rest of the day.  That night we watched Christopher Robin for movie night.  We LOVED it.  We all laughed a lot during the movie. 

On Saturday we went to a Home Depot Builder Project that was held at the Twin Falls Visitor Center for reasons that I never really figured out.  I've wanted to take the kids to one of these builder events for YEARS, but it's never happened.  Well we finally had a chance to do it. 

 The kids each got an apron and a kit to build an airplane.  The project was a little tricky, but really fun.

 After the planes were together the girls all painted theirs.  Derrick didn't care about the paint.

 Here they are with their planes.  There was also some sort of Make a Wish event happening and right before I took this picture some lady handed us all Make A Wish lanyards.

 Then we came home and turned on conference.  Usually the kids are good about listening to conference while quietly playing with toys, but usually we haven't JUST handed them new toy planes.  Derrick and Veronica ran around making airplane noises for the first hour of conference. On the one hand it was great because they were playing together, but on the other hand it wasn't so great because Brandon and I could hardly hear a thing. They were setting new records for how loud they could be.

We were making a cake and I was so happy when we put it in the oven and I told the kids, "you have to be silent or else the cake will fall."  That bought us about 30 minutes of quiet time.

 After the first session was over I took Charlotte and Lydia to buy some things for their Halloween Costumes. We also bought a gift for a birthday party.  Then we came back home and they changed into their swimming suits.  I took them to the city pool and dropped them off for the party.  They had a great time.  I think if we ever do a party at a place we'll do one at the pool.

Brandon was trying to get the internet hooked up to the projector so we could watch conference in the basement and it was not as easy of a task as he thought.  He had to turn off the internet and so we were trying to get conference on our radio.  That was tricky and the signal would cut out randomly.  So when President Nelson started announcing changes to the youth programs I was worried we were going to lose the signal and not know what was going on.  But the signal stayed strong for his remark and Elder Cook's explanation.

Brandon did get everything back together. So by the time the women's session started I could watching it over the internet.  I just watched the session on my bed in my room.  I was so excited about the changes to the Young Women Program. Especially the theme.  I was so happy to hear references to Heavenly PARENTS, Jesus Christ, and Repentance. 

I was also so surprised when President Nelson started announcing temples.  I've been slowly working my way through listening to April's Conference talks.  I'd literally finished that morning my listening to President Nelson's final talk at the April Conference. In that talk he'd talked about the importance of temples and then announced new ones.

So when President Nelson started talking about temples again I thought, "hmm he's using some of the same phrases he used last year before he announced temples.  But there is no way he's going to announce new ones now.  It's Saturday night. It's the Women's Session."  But all the sudden he started announcing temples. 

I ran out of the room and yelled down into the basement where Brandon was watching a movie with the kids, "He's announcing Temples!!!!!!!" Brandon ran upstairs in time to hear the announcement of the Taylorsville Utah Temple."  Brandon is from Taylorsvill so we were both excited, but we looked at each other and said, "Where are they going to put it?"

Basically the biggest thing I learned in conference is that there isn't any session that you can skip.  Earlier I'd been thinking, "Oh they always do the sustaining of church leaders in the Saturday Afternoon Session because that takes up time in a session that no one really listens to. And then they dropped the whole rearranging the youth thing in that session.

On Sunday we were able to watch conference on the big screen because Brandon had everything working. The kids were much more mellow and listened well (or at least where quiet.)

 We left some lights on so the kids could see, so the picture was a little light, but we could see enough.

 We had an art table set up so Lydia could paint something for her Halloween Costume.  Later the kids painted other pictures here.

I was thinking that maybe all the big changes had already been announced so I took a nap during the afternoon session.  It was a great nap.  I woke up in time for the President Nelson's last talk. 

OH MY GOSH I think he enjoys trolling the whole church.  Do you think he went home and had fun scrolling through social media and reading all the speculation that he set off by teasing how special the April 2020 General Conference will be?

But in all seriousness, I'm so glad that he is our prophet.  I haven't talked much about this, but several years ago I went through what I call my "mini faith crisis."  I still went to church every week, but I had some serious doubts about my place in the church. I was frustrated with a lot of things. Over time I realized that I believed the core doctrine of the church, but that I had A LOT of problems with the culture.  I told Brandon, "I'm sticking with this church because I have faith that the culture will change.  But if nothing has changed in 20 years then I don't know if I will stick around."  It's only been about 3 of 4 years since I said that.  And pretty much all my cultural issues have been addressed.  I'm so glad that President Nelson has been able to make inspired changes. 

Well that gets us caught up on the outer happenings in our family. 

As always thanks for reading.