Bye Bye Calling

Its no surprise that they've decided to release me- I'm expecting twins and my husband is deployed. They were worried I had too much, or am about to have too much on my plate. Both the bishopric and the current Primary President has has me to stay around and help the new chorister get up to speed with our plans for the program and feel a bit more comfortable with her calling.
I'm a bit disappointed that I was released. I had worked everything out in preparation for these babies and had made arrangements afterwards. I had it all figured out. I won't have much of a role in the primary. I'll post anything I do have.
Good luck to all ya Primary Choristers. 

D-Backs Game

I love baseball. I love College football more, but I do love to watch baseball. My husband's first love in sports in baseball and college football second. So we're a good match in that respect. My team is the Arizona Diamondbacks. My husband's team is the Chicago White Sox. He lived in the Chicago area as a pre-teen for a few years and became attached to them as his team. Its not a big deal. He will cheer for the D-Backs whenever  they aren't playing the White Sox and I'll even cheer for the White Sox when they aren't playing the D-Backs. When do they ever play each other? Good question. Mostly only in spring training. One is a National League team the other an American League team. But on a rare occasion they will have an inter-league game during a season. This year was one of those rare blue moon occasions. We had seen it on the schedule. Arranged for that family to go with my in-laws. Then my husband was offered the job that sent him to the Middle East. My in-laws and I decided to still make this our seasonal game. My husband would have been happy the White Sox won the game. I lost in two ways. Not only did my team not win, but my toddler, who last year did so well at the game, just lost it right before the 7th inning stretch. So we went home early (although after seeing the final score, I don't feel as bad). Another reason it was bad, was all the walking and sitting without being able to put my feet up made me swell so bad. I was still swollen at church the next morning. I did enjoy myself. But seeing all the food I couldn't eat- gestational diabetes, was really torturous. There are so many things available (everywhere even the ball park) that caters to gluten in-tolerances (wheat allergies), but nothing for diabetics. Aren't there more diabetics in this country than wheat allergies? Oh wait we treat most diabetics with insulin shots and those of us that are dealing with it by diet only are just out of luck. Back to the game, I don't regret going. I did enjoy myself, I would do it again.

I made this design for a shirt for Al to ware to the game. I was so proud of it. But because of the mail not being delivered because of the post office being closed, because of the wildfire, it wasn't delivered in time for us to ware it to the game. Rushing to get it together I bought a t-shirt at Walmart and some iron on paper and printed and ironed. It didn't even last the game. Sure enough the wonderful looking original was in the mail box when we were allowed back home.

Swimming Lessons

 

Al picking up rings, lft- Miss Britney teacher

Last summer we did swimming lesson through the city. I felt they helped little Al so much in getting comfortable being in the water. He had so much fun. So this summer I made sure I got him into a session. I felt like this year would be more important not just because he needed to re-get-use -to the water but because him motor skills are becoming stronger and I thought he'd be ready to learn more basics this year. Which he did. Its a mama and me swim class. There were two of us in the class who had toddlers there and were expecting. Selfishly I enjoyed class because it gave me a change to enjoy the less weight of the babies on my body. Al seemed to enjoy the class too. Although he would refuse to do something when the teacher asked him to do it. It wasn't a matter that he couldn't do it, just that he didn't want to do it when asked. Grr, stubborn kid, I wonder where he gets it (mmmm). 

I would love to do another session of swim lessons. But we'll see if we can fit it into our family craziness going on this summer.

Too Close to Home

Most of you have heard about the Wildfires that have plauged Arizona. The Wallow fire has made headlines all over the world for being the larges wildfire in Arizona history. When you hear about disasters in the news they rarely affect you personally.

Sunday afternoon, a few hours after the fire started

The Wallow fire isn't the only fire burning in Arizona. In Southern Arizona we have two wildfires burning, the Horseshoe Two fire and the Monument fire. The Horseshoe fire has been burning for a few months now. Not threatening many homes or structures. The Monument fire started Sunday June 12th. It started on the Arizona/ Mexico boarder, just a few miles from my home. That first night it almost looked like they were going to keep it under control. I woke up Monday morning with a faint smell of smoke in my home, it alarmed me and then I remembered the wildfire. As the week progress the fire came closer and closer destroying 40 homes on the way toward my house and raging over the mountains. Wen. night I had a number of friends given mandatory evacuations. I offered my guest room to one of them, her response was that they were going to go all the way to town and not take the chance of needing to be evacuated again. That was a fair point. With the way the fire was moving, it looked like my neighborhood was going to be evacuated too. I am grateful I already had plans to go up to see my family in Phoenix. Because of the preparations I needed to make so that if we were unable to come home I had the important stuff (ie: documents, photos, computers, guns), it took me a few extra hours to leave the house on Thursday. Thursday morning while I was getting ready to go, our neighborhood was put on pre-evacuation status. My neighbor's son asked when that would mean we'd have to go. I explained that our friends were where evacuated on Wen. were put on Evacuation status Monday night. So it could mean anything, a few days from now or as little as a few hours. I left for Phoenix around 2pm, at 4:30 my neighborhood was put under mandatory evacuation. When I say that I'm grateful, I'm grateful that was already where my mindset was. Sure it took me longer than planed to pack up my family for what was going to be a simple trip up to Mesa. But in my state, expecting twins and having a toddler with my husband deployed, if that hadn't been the plan I think it would have been too much stress for me.

fire moving closer, was in Miller Canyon

The whole time I was in Mesa I couldn't keep myself off the computer. There was a community facebook page started called "Monument Fire az" that I was on all the time. That along with the city of Sierra Vista web site, and the SV Herald's site. It was so addictive, and it was so scary as that fire crept closer and closer to my home. I hadn't taken much with us. Only what we needed and what I felt we couldn't have replaced by our insurance. Reports of more homes and structures gone. Photos emerged on facebook where the smoke engulfing our neighborhood. I knew the firefighters were doing everything they could to save homes. It was out of my hands and I just had to trust Heavenly Father that He knows what will be best for our family and what we can handle.  

the smoke is over my neighborhood

In the end our home was one of the lucky ones, no homes in our neighborhood were lost. It is sad and scary to see how close around our neighborhood the fire came. We came home yesterday (Saturday). The power had been out in our house for days. So we had to throw away everything in our freezers and fridge. But at least we still have a home. Our home didn't smell as much like smoke as some of our friends and neighbors have reported. 

across the HWY from our neighborhood

I am grateful to be home and for those who are fighting fires so that we didn't loose our home and that so many of the homes in our community were saved. I am grateful that it is behind us now. A scary time in a quite town. We have friends that were not as lucky. There are over 60 homes in our community gone. Also there are two restaurants (in an area with 3 restaurants and a post office), that are gone, some of the walls barely remain. All in all its sad to see the damage.  It will be a long time before our community recovers. I was all just too close to home.


One last thing I have a great ward and support system around here. Half my ward called me or came by before or after the evacuation to make sure I was okay. I had 2 of my husband's former co-workers contact to me to see how I was. I had multiple messages on facebook from family and friends worried about our situation. I felt very watched over.

Teaching: My Country 'tis of Thee

Our ward's 4th of July pancake breakfast consists of a program before breakfast. Every year the primary children's part of it feels like a disaster for me. I already blogged about that so I'm moving on.
We are suppose to preform two songs: "My Flag, My Flag" and "My Country 'tis of Thee". I made new visuals using coloring pages off the internet and Photoshop for "My Flag, My Flag" and if you want to download them, you click on each one and save as to your own computer.
This morning I decided that I better make new visuals for "My Country 'tis of Thee" because I can't find my old visuals I used last year. Since I put in the effort I thought I share them with you too. None of the photos are church copyright approved so on pictures. They are all just from the internet. I do my pages in black and white so they cost less to print, you can color them yourself, and my printer is on the fritz when it comes to color. Hope these help someone. Thanks for stopping by.

ASL for Stand for the Right

I haven't had a camera that could record video in a while. Now that I have a new one I thought I would film it for  anyone who still cared.
I have the chorus for "If I listen with my Heart" up on YouTube



And the song "Stand for the Right"

As always my disclaimer is that I am not a professional nor an amatory interpretor. I have never taken a class in ASL. I learn from actual interpretors, parents of deaf children, ASL books, and the internet. I create simplified ASL using a sign here or there to help the children remember the words, in contrast to just making up an action to a phrase. I hope this helps those out there who would like to teach actual signs to their Primary age children. Thanks  

Teaching: My Flag, My Flag

Our Ward's annual Fourth of July Pancake Breakfast always features the primary children singing a few Patriotic songs. Finding the time to teach them, not to mention wondering who is going to be there that holiday morning is stressful. Last year the Senior primary learned the songs really well, Junior not so much. But the JR kids get to hold the flags and look cute so I wasn't too worried. Except that morning the only children there on time (because we were first) was families with only JR primary children, I had ONE SR primary child. GRRR, its one part of my calling I wish I could ignore.
Any last year I created hand draw really badly done visuals for My Flag, My Flag. This year I decided to make something using Photoshop that I wouldn't feel stupid for passing on to the next chorister, and I could use next year if they don't release me.
Since I went to all the effort I thought I'd share them with all ya'll.
Most of the pictures I downloaded off the site color me good - a free site for downloading coloring pages. I wanted to make sure I gave their site credit, and let you know these are not from the church.

I you need to do some patriotic songs I hope these help you. Thanks for stopping by.

Teaching: Fourth Article of Faith

For June, our song choice is the 4th Article of Faith. Between adding in an extra song, being out of town for summer stuff, being due in Aug/Sep, and trying to teach all the songs before the end of July, we knew we wanted  to make this as simple as possible for us and the children. I still haven't taught the 3rd verse to Praise to the Man. I was all prepared to do it last Sunday, but when it came down to it the children weren't ready. I'm beginning to think that maybe we'll just skip it and only do the first verse.
For the Fourth Article of Faith I typed out the whole thing, with each principle or ordinance on its own page. Then glued a picture from the Friend Coloring pages

Used this one, cut apart, for baptism and for the Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost

used this one for Repentance 

I used another picture of Jesus, but this is the only one currently in the Friend.