AZ Day Six

Homemade Oreos! Yummy!! Lilly smooshed hers and was interested in mine. I was happy to let her snitch as much frosting as she wanted!

AZ Day Five

Lilly and I took off to the park for some morning fun. One little problem: I think she took a small little nap in the swing which may have effected her no nap of the day. OOPPS :)

AZ Day Four

We enjoyed some yummy popsicles. Actually Lilly thought they were yummy my cherry one tasted a little too much like cough syrup. I ate orange after this and later in the week we stopped by Trader Joe's and got some delicious lime popsicles Dreyers comes close but they really don't get better than Trader Joe's.

Doesn't this picture just make you smile??

AZ Day Three

After church Lilly and I decided to make some sugar cookies. She'll be doing this by herself in no time.

She was a great stirrer and of course the perfect taste tester.

This picture is my favorite! She's pretty proud of herself and what do you think about her tie? You can't tell that this little one loves her daddy at all can you?

This is what I got to do while the batter chilled. Too cute! So soft and little and so new!

Then we rolled out the dough. Notice that Lilly wasn't too interested in getting hers flat more about getting enough dough in her mouth:)

We didn't get a good picture of it but at this point she was eating it off of her rolling pin. I think I may do that the next time I have dough that is sticking to my rolling pin.

Another great picture. I'm pretty sure we're getting a big cheese picture because she was concerned about getting back to her dough eating.

Thanks Lilly for making cookies with me!!

Off to the Races

Here is a video of the great sport of Ostrich racing. Have you ever seen something so ridiculous in all of your life. It is quite the amusing thing to watch!

AZ Day Two

I love the Sun!! It was quite rejuvenating to get some extra vitamin D in March. On my second day in AZ Jonathan, Lilly and I headed to the Ostrich festival. It was something else!!! I would say I'd plan my visits around this every year but there is March Madness to consider and that is a story to tell on a different day.

Lilly and I were really excited for the races to begin!!

Here we are headed to find us an ostrich burger. It wasn't anything to write home about but I can now say I've eaten something I'd never tried before.

Lilly got a pony ride and I'm seriously considering investing in one of these so I can see that look of pleasure on her face every time she comes to Utah to visit me. Maybe I'll just try really hard to make friends with some people that have a pony - I think that would work perfectly for all involved!

We walked around the little petting zoo. I have no desire to pet farm animals unless I'm on a farm but it's great fun for the millions of kids. Plus the festival was making a fortune off of selling feed to all the parents to give to the millions of kids. I think much more ended up on the ground than ever ended up getting fed to the animals. I heard a lady say that at night they let all the animals out of their pens to eat everything off the floor. What they should have done was sweep up all the food scattered on the floor and resell it the next day.

On our way out we passed a booth selling these. Lilly was tired and ready for a nap and I said, "Ooo look over there! Lilly do you want wings." Of course she did and I'm pretty sure I got a steal of a deal. Look how stinkin cute these are!! Should have gotten the lady's name and number who makes them.

Just a Few #4

Here is post number four of why I love being an Aunt - Jonathan and Annie had a new little baby on March 10. I was very excited that my spring break from graduate classes was around her due date. I booked a flight for a fun 10 days in AZ and crossed my fingers that Ivy would arrive in time for me to meet her. She came two days before I flew down to see them which ment that they came home from the hospital just before I got there. A soon as Lilly got fully functioning from her nap we went to the park to play. What a little sweetheart!!!

And look at this sweet new one!! Oh! how I love to cuddle a new born! I was so excited that Annie and Jonathan let me share in this fun new time with them. I also loved playing with Lilly and as you'll see we had some fun days!

And look at this little thumb sucker - only 3 days old and I think it's about the cutest thing ever!!

I love all my nieces and count down the days until I can see them each again and have some more fun!

Just a Few #3

I get songs like this sung to me over the phone when I'm having a long day. Pretty much puts me in a good mood no matter what!!

Just a Few Reasons #2

There is ALWAYS someone who is ready to make cookies! Liz and Ruffin dropped Gracee off while they went to an evening conference. We made some delicious snickerdoodles. Being an Aunt if Fun STUFF!!

You can tell that Emme had had one pretty spectacular day!

Just a few reasons Part #1

There is a lot about my life that makes me love the road I've been given to travel. There is so much that is good! Here are a few reasons I'm glad I'm me!

I get to be an Aunt! It's the best title I own! Little Miss Emme spent the night and next day with me a couple of weeks ago and here are a few reasons why being an Aunt is so wonderful!

Someone to watch and enjoy a movie with. We watched "A Little Princess" and both of us enjoyed the movie.

The next morning Emme let me sleep in until 8 and then said very firmly, "Aunt Ollie it is morning time! GET UP!" We made yummy muffins for breakfast! Emme was in heaven because she got to dump all the ingredients in by herself. (Usually she has to take turns with Gracee.)

She put in all the cupcake papers... She's a great little helper!

We played a fun round of a very hungry caterpillar while we waited for the muffins to cook. This is a great game because there is no strategy and I usually loose which means the little one I'm playing with is very happy that they won.

Emme and I were both SO excited to eat our yummy work!

We devoured them!!

These photos are really funny because it was a little cold and Emme really didn't want to slide down any of the slides. She played for about 4 minutes and then I said "Do you want to go?" She insisted that she hadn't done everything yet and I said, "OK go down the slide then." She looked at me took my hand and said, "Let's go home and play a game."

And look at the yummy lunch I made! Ramen noodles... She thought they were pretty great so as long as I can get away with it I'm going to.

What I've Been Up To!

This is just a small taste of what I've been up to. I fly home on Tuesday and have several posts to catch up on but for now here is a sweet little picture of me having a great time!

Got me thinking...

My roommate posted a story on her blog and it reminded me of this story by Hugh B. Brown. I was first introduced to this story on my mission. My great friend Alan sent it to me in one of his letters of encouragement. I remember thinking how true this is. Sometimes I feel like I have been cut down when I've been making so much progress but more often I wonder what's really going on in my life? The thing that I really like about this is the message that: The Lord knows who He wants me to be. He can see the end from the beginning and if I will trust in Him I will not be disappointed. So for all of your enjoyment here is the story.

The Currant Bush

by Elder Hugh B. Brown
of the Council of the Twelve

You sometimes wonder whether the Lord really knows what he ought to do with you. You sometimes wonder if you know better than he does about what you ought to do and ought to become. I am wondering if I may tell you a story that I have told quite often in the Church. It is a story that is older than you are. It’s a piece out of my own life, and I’ve told it in many stakes and missions. It has to do with an incident in my life when God showed me that he knew best.

I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’ ”

Time passed. Years passed, and I found myself in England. I was in command of a cavalry unit in the Canadian Army. I had made rather rapid progress as far as promotions are concerned, and I held the rank of field officer in the British Canadian Army. And I was proud of my position. And there was an opportunity for me to become a general. I had taken all the examinations. I had the seniority. There was just one man between me and that which for ten years I had hoped to get, the office of general in the British Army. I swelled up with pride. And this one man became a casualty, and I received a telegram from London. It said: “Be in my office tomorrow morning at 10:00,” signed by General Turner in charge of all Canadian forces. I called in my valet, my personal servant. I told him to polish my buttons, to brush my hat and my boots, and to make me look like a general because that is what I was going to be. He did the best he could with what he had to work on, and I went up to London. I walked smartly into the office of the General, and I saluted him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of a salute a senior officer usually gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He said, “Sit down, Brown.” Then he said, “I’m sorry I cannot make the appointment. You are entitled to it. You have passed all the examinations. You have the seniority. You’ve been a good officer, but I can’t make the appointment. You are to return to Canada and become a training officer and a transport officer. Someone else will be made a general.” That for which I had been hoping and praying for ten years suddenly slipped out of my fingers.

Then he went into the other room to answer the telephone, and I took a soldier’s privilege of looking on his desk. I saw my personal history sheet. Right across the bottom of it in bold, block-type letters was written, “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.” We were not very well liked in those days. When I saw that, I knew why I had not been appointed. I already held the highest rank of any Mormon in the British Army. He came back and said, “That’s all, Brown.” I saluted him again, but not quite as smartly. I saluted out of duty and went out. I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles away, with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure. You will be called a coward when you get home. You raised all those Mormon boys to join the army, then you sneak off home.” I knew what I was going to get, and when I got to my tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.

And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness. While kneeling there I heard a song being sung in an adjoining tent. A number of Mormon boys met regularly every Tuesday night. I usually met with them. We would sit on the floor and have a Mutual Improvement Association. As I was kneeling there, praying for forgiveness, I heard their voices singing:

“It may not be on the mountain height
Or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle’s front
My Lord will have need of me;
But if, by a still, small voice he calls
To paths that I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:
I’ll go where you want me to go.”
(Hymns, no. 75.)

I arose from my knees a humble man. And now, almost fifty years later, I look up to him and say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.” I see now that it was wise that I should not become a general at that time, because if I had I would have been senior officer of all western Canada, with a lifelong, handsome salary, a place to live, and a pension when I’m no good any longer, but I would have raised my six daughters and two sons in army barracks. They would no doubt have married out of the Church, and I think I would not have amounted to anything. I haven’t amounted to very much as it is, but I have done better than I would have done if the Lord had let me go the way I wanted to go.

I wanted to tell you that oft-repeated story because there are many of you who are going to have some very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried to prove what you are made of. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, “God is the gardener here. He knows what he wants you to be.” Submit yourselves to his will. Be worthy of his blessings, and you will get his blessings.

March 1-6th

Monday

I debated posting either of these pictures there's not much to tell about them really. This is what I look like right before I dye my hair- my hair could be pretty wild if I wanted it to be. And the second picture of me is when I was all done with the hard part and waiting for my hair to process. Someday when I'm really old I'll let my hair go completely white and not worry about dyeing it but for now I go through this process every 3-4 weeks.

Tuesday

At school I belong to the School Advisory Committee. We have a meeting on the morning of the first Wednesday of every month. A few months ago I decided to take muffins to share. Mostly I love a warm fresh muffin but I only want a couple so if I take them to my meeting I have others who will help me eat them. This month I decided to make blueberry muffins. They were yummy -even though I didn't use the right recipe from my mom.

Wednesday

So it's a little obvious with this picture that I am lacking in my life of picture worthy events. This is my water bottle that I absolutely love. I try to drink about two of these a day and it is a LONG day at work when I forget it at home.

Thursday

After work on Thursday I went out to dinner with some friends from work. This is Judy our school's previous secretary. She is wonderful and we all miss her. It was fun to get together with her and catch up.

Friday

Preston, Tricia, and I were going to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie but by the time we got to the theater all of the good seats were gone and when I say good I mean all but the first three rows. We decided this wasn't a movie we would enjoy up close so we settled for a yummy dinner at the California pizza factory.

Saturday

I live with great roommates a fact which I am grateful for daily! Julie brought me this yummy cookie to celebrate going off track. I could eat one of these a day. I love them! I told her she couldn't make a habit of it because I have no self control!