Primary August 2009

In April of 2009 I was called as Rivervalley Ward's Primary President. Below is a picture of one of our activities entitled, "A Journey to the Temple." These are some of the approx. 130 children that are in Primary. At the time of this picture, 28 of them were in Nursery, 18 of which have moved up into Sunbeams this January! One of those being Jackson (who is the youngest Sunbeam in Primary). It is honestly so fun to be able to be in Primary and watch Jackson with his class. He is such a good boy! His first week, I was doing sharing-time, and he was sitting on the front row, so I got to see him right up front getting so excited about everything. He especially loves music time! He loves to participate and do all the actions. Thankfully he knows a lot of the songs already and loves learning the new ones. As soon as he saw other children getting up to hold this poster or that object for music, he got right up off his chair and put his hands out for something to hold, and it was so adorable that the music teacher had to give him something. It honestly made my heart melt. He also managed to find me at the back of the Primary room before I went up to teach, and he waved at me so proud to be in Primary and so excited! Joe was helping me that Sunday as well, so he was also able to poke his head in to see how Jackson's first Sunday was in Primary, and he said he got glossy-eyed watching him. It's so fun to see your child's "firsts" ...but so hard to admit that they are growing up way too fast!

At any rate, I love serving in Primary as the President. I will admit it has its challenges (large Primary, no-budget, not enough space, not enough time), but I have learned so much from this calling. I have learned how to serve more willingly; I have learned how to balance my time better and not procrastinate the things that need my attention now; I have learned how leadership works (and am still learning); I am learning what it means to be really tired! Mostly, I am learning to appreciate the love that Heavenly Father has for His children, and I love that I get to be a part of the process of their growth. They are such wonderful children! I only hope I can be the kind of example that they can look up to.

Cuba!

The day after we celebrated Noah's Birthday, we left the kids with the Rob and Colette and flew to Cuba with some of our dear friends, Alysha and Jimmy Sladek for a week! It was so fun to have a get-away! I was seven weeks pregnant while on this trip, so I was a little nervous that I would be nauseous the whole time, but thankfully the nausea waited until the plane ride home (where I was seconds away from barfing on the plane! A VERY close call). I was still a little queasy in the mornings and I had to take it pretty easy on our trip with swimming and how much sun I got, but it was still such a blast! Some of my highlights were snorkelling out by the reef! It was so beautiful and we saw so many cool looking fish and HUGE starfish even bigger than my face! Playing beach volleyball with the crew, driving into town to check out the rest of Cuba (which was actually kind of depressing, but still a good experience), and the trying-so-hard entertainment. It was pretty comical most nights because of how not-that-great it was, but still fun to dress up and go out each night. The not-so-great highlights were the food. Sadly, the food was honestly awful! The only thing that tasted alright were their burgers, and even then, they were pretty sub-par. But we didn't let that ruin anything. To be honest, it was just SO nice just to get away and do something out of the ordinary, and it was so super fun to do it with another couple. My idea of a great holiday is a tropical get-away, lazing on the beach, reading a book, swimming, eating awesome food (maybe next time), and touring the surroundings. Cuba is a beautiful place!

Yes, those are lines from the tanning bed! Haha!

Here we are at our first restaurant SO ready to eat, ...only to be disappointed. Sorry Cuba, but the food was nasty!

Our first night of evening entertainment. (And this is even before Michael Jackson passed away! I love the association with Americans and Michael Jackson. I guess all tourists love Michael? Why not!)

We rented a car to check out the sites, ...and these were pretty much all the sites we got. Sad, sad, poor people. What an eye-opener.

One of our date nights! There was live music and we went dancing. Okay, ...so I made Joe ask me to dance (and more than once). It was so fun! I think the last time we danced was at our Wedding reception, so this was really fun for me and super romantic!

Noah's first Birthday!

We celebrated Noah's first Birthday with the Burnhams in LaCombe with a BBQ, family, cake and presents. It was fun times! We had to hold Noah back from touching the candle, because as we all know, he is fearless. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet. As per tradition in my family growing up, my Mom would make us a mini-cake and let us go at it with our bare hands, so we are carrying that tradition on in my family now. However, Noah didn't much like getting his hands so sticky! He preferred a fork. Silly boy!

You can't really tell from this pic, but this is SOME murky water!!

The Birthday Boys!