Thoughts From a Frazzled Mind

One day after school Shandra and I took Bubba and my nephew Corbin to lunch at Burger King.  We all had a great time, sitting on the tall chairs, sharing our french fries, and learning all about sheep and goats (of which the boys were experts thanks to their school project). About midway through lunch we noticed that several policemen were meeting at Burger King for lunch. Since the opportunity rarely becomes available, and since I wanted the boys to understand what policemen do as well as to learn to respect and not fear them, I got brave and asked if one of them would be willing to come to our table and talk to the boys.  Of course both Bubba and Corbin got extremely shy when the officer came over, but he was very kind and told them all about his duties and how it is his job to ensure that people are safe.  Then he invited another officer over to talk with us.  The second officer is a K-9 officer and he told us all about his dog and how he is a master at s...

Saturday was the annual Olsen Family Christmas party.  The Rasmussens were in charge this year, and a good time was had by all!. Dinner was a baked potato bar and salads - one of my favs! The kids ran and ran and ran - they had so much fun!  After dinner we had a game of Christmas Bingo.  Kalel got the very first Bingo - he was so excited!  He also got the third bingo.  Obviously he had a terrific card! After bingo we had a snowball fight!  It was just crazy! Kalel was a great help at putting the chairs away After the party, since the weather was still nice, Kim, Kalel, and I drove over to the Brigham City temple to see the nativity scene.  It was very simple and beautiful.  It is so wonderful to have a temple so close!

I am truly grateful for all of the many, many blessings in my life.  I am so grateful for my Savior who made it possible that I may have the opportunity to be with my son (as well as my mom and father-in-law) after this life.  I thank God every single day for my fantastic family and for my wonderful friends.  I am so thankful that I live in a country where freedoms abound - and the list goes on and on.  I try each and every day to have an "attitude of gratitude".  It is awesome that each year we have a day set aside to spend with our family and friends, giving thanks and remembering the blessings that we have - not to mention the FOOD!  I LOVE the Thanksgiving feast, and look forward to it for weeks before. That said - my Thanksgiving this year did not necessarily reflect my gratitude attitude I am afraid.  Yes, it was fantastic that we could gather together with the Olsen clan.  Tasha and Zane joined us and Zanes parents and s...

Tasha and Zane arrived the night before Thanksgiving - just in time to decorate the Christmas tree.  They were great helpers!  Of course - my other best helpers, Shandra & Kalel were there too!   Zane & Kalel had a great thing going.  Zane would attach hooks on the ornaments and then Kalel would put them on the tree.    I caused quite a traumatic event this year - I got new ornaments!   We have had the same two sets of decorations for 30 years.  We would alternate one year with homemade ornaments and then the next year we would use glass balls.  Apparently tampering with traditions is dangerous work!  It was funny to watch Tasha as she almost bit her tongue off trying not to make any negative comments about the new decorations.  Shandra on the other hand didn't even try to hold back her comments!  I chose not to let their negativity spoil our fun - and we found plenty of fun things to laugh about and ...

I can't believe how fortunate I am to have my current calling.  I am the ward choir director.  Having no formal training in music, I often wonder how I can teach the choir anything.  But, for some reason my choir likes singing with me - and I LOVE leading them! Our ward is so blessed to have Caryl Hepworth as our accompanist.  Caryl was the high school choir accompanist when I was in high school and I have always been in awe of her piano talent, and even more than that, her ability to hear what the choir is doing and make suggestions to help them sound better.  I consider it an absolute honor to be working with her and I have learned so much! Since I love music so much, I spend a lot of time searching for song arrangements that are both interesting and challenging to sing, and I pray to find music that will be appropriate for the meetings in which they will be sung.  It has been so fun to have the choir complain about the difficulty of a song and then...

So, the weather has been crazy!  Snow one day, 70 degrees the next.   One day Kalel and Kim had a fantastic time playing in the leaves.  The next day - the leaves were buried under snow! Our temple district was asked to fast last Sunday for more moisture and I believe that the Lord will hear that petition.  Since I am now working in Ogden and I HATE driving in snow I decided to do something that I have been thinking about for 3 years.  I bought myself a Subaru.  Every where I go I have heard how wonderful Subaru's are for driving in the snow.  I really didn't want to get into a car payment again, but when I found this used one for only $5200 I jumped at that chance.  Obviously it isn't a new car, it is a 2004 with 149,000 miles, but it is new to me and I am quite excited!  It has a trailer hitch and a luggage rack so we won't have to always borrow a truck if we need to haul anything.  Yesterday Kim found a small trailer tha...

OH MY GOODNESS!!! Who knew that a run could be so FUN? Saturday morning Cyn and I joined crazy girls, Heather, Jen, Jodi, and Mel in running the Color Vibe in Ogden.   Those four girls are CRAZY!  Since this was a fun run, they decided to dress up in white tutus and wear blonde wigs. Here we are, all clean and white!  The back drop of the race was beautiful with the mountains covered in the stunning colors of the autumn leaves.   We were told that white was the best color to wear to show the color.   Along the course there wear four color stations.  As we ran through the color stations, volunteers threw colored powder at us, literally covering us with color! The course took us around the campus of Weber State University.  There were no flat areas, we were either going up or down hills the entire time.  The four ballerinas took off running, of course, but Cyn and I took our time, pretty much walking most of ...