Love!

Hi, it is a great sacrifice for me to blog right now. I jammed my pinky into a crack in the oven when I was cleaning tonight and it raised my finger nail and made it bleed under it. So it is very painful to push the shift key. Lol. The sacrifices I make for my blogging!

Are you sick of hearing about my trip yet? I'm not sick of it. In fact...did I already mention that Kristopher told me to plan my next one? Because it was so good for me?

Note to all women: If you need a therapist find one who tells you that women need girl's night out once a week, and to plan trips for yourself. It's AWESOME!

So I don't know if I shared this plan but I am going to look for some airline tickets to anywhere that are just super cheap. And I am going to go there, eat somewhere cool, stay over night, shop or see a sight, and come home. Doesn't that sound fun? I'm doing it. The plans are in the works.

Tomorrow I get to drive these two darlin's to EFY.

EFY is a church program that lasts a week. They stay overnight in dorms, go to classes, play with other kids their age, and increase their testimonies of Christ. Which is the ultimate plan. SO grateful for some wonderful circumstances that allowed Nathan this opportunity.VERY GRATEFUL!

Sky and Nate! Are the girls going to be chasing them or what! I told them both to get girl's contact info and they both just stared at me. Clueless. Baha. They are just such boys still. Even if they are both taller than their dads.

So today was the big day that Kate and Bo got to go play with cousin Sky. 

They each had several time outs for not respecting boundaries. They like to climb on people and get too close. It is honestly like I just unleashed two monkeys. Sky was sweet with them. He handled them well by giving them "challenges" to distract them. Somersaults, etc...

Sad, huh?!

Today we had a really great lesson in church. The teacher, Sherri, shared Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk.

It was a very powerful lesson. I love Sherri. I have showed you a picture of her before....Mrs Claus..

She shared this from his talk...

"We have all seen a toddler learn to walk. He takes a small step and totters. He falls. Do we scold such an attempt? Of course not. What father would punish a toddler for stumbling? We encourage, we applaud, and we praise..."

and then she talked about how when her grandson was learning to walk and would fall on his bum they would still cheer for him and encourage him and say sweet things to him...."You almost did it" "Way to go" "You were almost there".

My heart broke. Why do we not do that for each other when we falter? Why are we so quick to condemn and judge and be critical? And I am not jut talking about small falling  I am talking about the big ones too. Why are we not supportive? I think it comes down to being judgmental. One thing I am learning and becoming thankful for is that the beauty is...I am not even supposed to judge. What a gift to just be free to love! It is okay to not have to feel "your actions were wrong!" We get to side step that entire step and just love! What a relief!

Another thing I am learning is this... We are really products of our childhood. So much of our thoughts and actions are things we think and are doing because of the ways we were raised or ideas we were given as children or hurts we are still struggling through. So when people are behaving a certain way they are often just behaving that way because of side effects from childhood. Of course that is not an excuse for bad behavior. But often times bad behavior is happening because of hurt. 

Knowing that, and knowing that Christ is the judge anyway, we get the privileged of just loving each other. Yay us!

Another thing that I loved from the lesson was this quote from his talk

"But while the Atonement is meant to help us all become more like Christ, it is not meant to make us all the same. Sometimes we confuse differences in personality with sin. We can even make the mistake of thinking that because someone is different from us, it must mean they are not pleasing to God. This line of thinking leads some to believe that the Church wants to create every member from a single mold—that each one should look, feel, think, and behave like every other. This would contradict the genius of God, who created every man different from his brother, every son different from his father. Even identical twins are not identical in their personalities and spiritual identities."

I love that. Enough of casting judgment against each other. Just love. Isn't that a relief?

Also I have a desperate problem with always comparing my self to others. Do all women maybe? So one of the great quotes that Sherri shared was to stop comparing my insides to other people's outsides. Great, huh?

Okay...so on to my trip...

I have an interest in jails. I don't know why. And I hope to never be in one. I'm not that interested.  But I like the thought of Alcatraz! So fascinating. 

Because of all the time constraints we didn't do a tour but here are a few pictures. Duh nu nu nuh!

Can you imagine trying to escape from that place?

They also had a gift store devoted just to Alcatraz. I made Wendy pose with these men. Sorry Wendy.

And because one of my whole shopping quests was to buy salt and pepper shakers I was thrilled to see these little guys! I couldn't decide! Wendy said I should get both and I should have listened. But I ended up choosing the littler men. Because they have WILD beady little physco eyes.

I also have this book on my list of books to buy. (I buy them used because they are much cheaper that way) It looked really interesting.

Speaking of books... I saw this book at a store in beloved San Fran and I think I might need it also. Just cause it's fun-ny!

sea horse

octopus

crab

While shopping and walking we found a magic shop. My brother always loved magic. It was fun to see a few tricks. 

I adored Zoe's skeptical look. She is a crack up.

They bought a trick for Zoe to perform at home. She did darn good! It was fun.

I love my girls. 

And San Fran. And shopping. And street performers.