Primary Revisited

I'm just going to post really quickly.  I'm feeling better about Primary now - probably because I haven't had to do Sharing Time this month!!  I think I have been holding myself to a bit of an unrealistic standard.  It helps that the other Sharing Times I've seen haven't been super spectacular either.  I'll keep trying to do fun things that keep the kids attention, but maybe I won't be so disappointed when a few kids look bored.  Thanks for the encouragement everyone!

Primary

I was in the Young Women's organization for 4 years (pretty much the whole time we've been in this ward.)  Now, I'm in Primary!  I was called as the 1st Counselor a bit over a month ago.  This is proving to be pretty foreign water for me.  The only time I really feel like I know what I'm doing is when I go in to help in the nursery.  Our president has been gone for the last couple of Sundays and the 2nd Counselor has been home with a sick kid - so it's just me and the Secretary winging it each week.  Hopefully I'll feel better with the President back, but it sure seems to be taking us a while to figure out what we're doing.  The hard part for me has been teaching Sharing Time.  I know, it's only 15 minutes.  I just want to be good at it - but I'm not there yet.  Coming up with creative and fun ways to teach the children isn't as easy as it seems like it should be.

We combined junior and senior Primary (at least for now) to streamline things a bit.  I like having the 3rd hour to help out where I'm needed, or to meet with the other presidency members to plan things out.  But I'm sure I could reach the children a little more if they were split.  But then it might just be more stressful for me to plan two different lessons and have to do it twice during church.  I wish I had been able to observe some sharing times from the previous presidency to use that as a gauge of how I'm doing.

Abby and Sophie haven't complained that it's been more boring than usual - so that could be a good sign.  Or maybe they're sparing my feelings.  Sometimes they are nice that way.  :)

Anyway, I needed to vent a little.  I guess I've been on autopilot in Young Women's since it's been my calling for the last 7 out of 10 years or something.  I probably need this challenge so I can grow in different ways than I have before.  I just hope the growing pains aren't too bad and the primary kids don't suffer them with me!

Happy Halloween!

Another Halloween has come and gone and we have gobs of candy on our hands!  The kids had a blast, I got a little bit of exercise in while walking around the neighborhood, and we got in our dressing up fix for a little while.  There isn't a whole lot to say, so I'll just post some pictures.  I didn't dress up this year since I didn't really have any reason to.  Maybe next year there will be some awesome party or something.  :)

Tom's team dressed up as the Village People and won for best costumes

I think these are all reused costumes this year - it makes things much easier!!

Tom's pumpkin was pretty cool this year and he won for best pumpkin at work

Our pumpkins - pretty much all done by Tom

Sophie's pre-school class did a little performance 

Sophie liked parading around the school as Mariposa

Autumn Drive

We went for a Sunday afternoon drive along the Alpine loop yesterday.  The colors were amazing!  I've never driven the entire Alpine loop (we went up American Fork canyon and back down through Provo canyon).  I'm also not usually a big fan of looking at leaves change colors - probably because it means Summer is done and another cold Winter is on its way.  But I enjoyed seeing the vibrant colors through the canyon, maybe I'll change my mind about looking at leaves.  The kids did remarkably well considering it took us over an hour to do the drive.

 

We got out of the car for a little while to reward the kids for sitting so well

Sophie is usually willing to be in my pictures

Abby was upset about something and wouldn't make a cute face for me.

Neat caterpillar on the bridge

Mexico!!

Tom and I went on a Mexican Riviera cruise for our 10th Anniversary.  It was tons of fun, and really nice to escape responsibility for a week.  It also helped me to really appreciate my beautiful children when I came back.  (And also appreciate all the people that helped take care of them when I was gone!)  I'm not sure if I want to go through a play by play here on the blog - so I'll probably just post a bunch of pictures.  Mexico had some gorgeous scenery - we went to Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta.  Cabo had beautiful beaches and Puerto Vallarta had lush jungle foliage.  The ship was a floating city and had everything we really needed - a spa, several pools & jacuzzis, a water slide, a comedy club, a fancy restaurant, a gigantic buffet, 24 hour pizza station, 24 hour room service, miniature golf course, all you can eat ice cream cones, awesome Asian lounge singers, towel animals with our turn-down service, cheesy "Vegas style" shows.  It was pretty sweet.  Did I mention the food was pretty amazing? We had some of the best desserts ever!  I even tried escargot - and it didn't taste gross, just creeped me out.

These next pictures are from Cabo San Lucas:

Glass blowing factory - it was pretty cool

Downtown San Jose

Mission in San Jose

Port in Cabo

Gorgeous beach!

Tom and I near the gorgeous beach

Sea lion rock by the arch

Famous? Cabo Arch

Tom getting sick on our crappy little glass bottom boat

Sea lion hanging out on the rocks

On the tender boat back to the ship

These are from Puerto Vallarta:

Church we couldn't look through because they were having Mass

So green!

The scenery was amazing

Hanging out in the flea market - it was SO hot!

Us at the tequila factory along the tour

Hanging out by a random river

Our tour group

And most of the other pictures are towel animals.  My favorite!!

Tom eating frog legs!

The pizza was awesome

Fish Lake Campout

We went camping in August with Tom's family down by Fish Lake.  His family used to camp by Fish Lake every summer when he was a kid, so it brought back some memories for them to be there.  We don't camp very often and hadn't used our tent for at least 5 years, but we were ready for a little adventure!  We brought four air mattresses and discovered this was NOT the way to go.  One of them lost air too quickly, and one of them was much too tall for the tent and took up too much space.  It was also lots colder at night than anticipated (low 50s) and I was really cold.  Thankfully, the kids were plenty toasty in their beds.  It was an adventure, and I'll try to be better prepared if there is ever a next time!  We might just have to invest in a little camper trailer if this becomes a regular thing.  :)

The kids painted their own t-shirts

I'm pretty sure Steve makes the best worst faces ever

 Tom's dad led us on the unmarked trail of doom through stinging nettle and thick shrubbery to go to a spring infested with deer flies just waiting to bite us.  Abby slipped and stepped in the boggy mud and got her shoe all gross.  

Here's the spring we hiked to.  Not worth it!! 

Don't see a pathway?  That's cause there wasn't one!!

A rare smile from Sophie on this expedition - the deer flies made her TOTALLY paranoid! 

Grandpa told the grandkids why this spot is called "Umbrella Hole".  It's a funny story.

Alice was decked out in her finest necklaces for our excursion.

Tom taught Abby how to fish

She even caught one!!

Fish lake had some really nice views