melnik and family

I haven't seen Melanie and her family for almost a whole year. So today was filled with happy anticipation all day long.

One thing I love about when grandkids are visiting are the sights and sounds that I don't normally see and hear.


The boys enjoy playing duets, normally Elliot plays and turns the pages which is quite a stretch!

Truman has redecorated the dining room,
moving the chair to face out the window, which is a whole lot more interesting I suppose!

book club

I love my book club group. I wasn't feeling very well tonight, and so I wasn't that enthusiastic about the evening. Then everyone came and all of sudden the time had gone by quickly. We had a good chat and there are always a few laughs...they are good people and they are good to me and they are good for me!

This is what we are reading next month.

YW herb night

We decided to have an herbal beauty night. Here are some of the young women steaming their faces with lemon and lavendar. It felt great!

We also made lotion, which I do not recommend.

And finished the evening consuming delicous herb muffins!

sabbath keeping

I read this book today by a Presbyterian minister and found it interesting. It is a quick read with a little sabbath history that I enjoyed.

called to serve

One Million Missionaries

They are a symbol of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, clean-cut suit-clad young men on bikes or on foot going door to door with a gospel message. Mormon missionaries have fanned across the globe since the earliest days of the Church and in the process have reached a major milestone. It is reliably estimated that a million missionaries have served since the organization of the Church.

In 1830, the year Joseph Smith organized the church, there were only 16 missionaries called. Now, 177 years later, some 53,000 missionaries — young men, young women and senior couples — currently serve in nearly 350 missions throughout the world.

Tonight we had our Elders over for dinner. Keep up the good work Elders. It is a beautiful message!!!

youth conference

Thursday the youth from 7 stakes did service projects in the central Florida area. Our stake did a cleanup at Lake Louisa State Park. Really, one of the few good things about the water being lower than it has been in 100 years (according to the park ranger) is that a lot of trash in the lakes is now available. We had 110 youth plus adults. We worked for about an hour and a half. That is alot of cleanup and it looked great. Afterwards the kids played in the water and then we went to members homes to shower and change for games, dinner and a dance that night.
On Friday, we went to UCF. After check-in and room assignments, we had lunch and played games, including water games on the field. Then it was time to get ready for dinner, the keynote speaker and huge dance as now all 7 stakes were together.

On Saturday, after breakfast and getting our groups to class all the YW went to a nearby ward to receive training from Sister Dalton. The picture was actually taken on Friday night at the dance. I did ask her if she was willing to be on my blog. The training was inspiring. I hope that I will be diligent in following through with some of the good ideas that she suggested.

Sister Dalton takes notes at every church meeting she attends. As she is listening sometimes she has a prompting and she writes those down too and then puts a box around them. When she does her personal planning, of course, she refers to her notes.

An interesting fact about her...When she was introduced to us, we were told that she had completed 18 marathons. Later, she told us not to give her too much credit for that because she had five boys. Apparently they were all runners. She said that while they were running was the best time to talk with them!

The testimony meeting I attended at the end of youth conference was fabulous. President Allan Pratt presided. He told the youth that they had 60-90 seconds each to bear their testimonies and to please share their feelings about the gospel rather than their roommates. He had a timer at the back that kept them in the window he suggested. Many wonderful testimones were shared. I thought it was interesting today because my girls said that the best part of youth conference was the testimony meeting. Although they were in different meeting. Actually there were 8 testimony meetings held on campus to accomodate all of the kids. What an incredible experience.

austen survey

personality test

I'm a Mandarin!

You're an intellectual, and you've worked hard to get where you are now. You're a strong believer in education, and you think many of the world's problems could be solved if people were more informed and more rational. You have no tolerance for sloppy or lazy thinking. It frustrates you when people who are ignorant or dishonest rise to positions of power. You believe that people can make a difference in the world, and you're determined to try.

Talent: 38%
Lifer: 36%
Mandarin: 56%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

father's day

It's father's day, and I want to write a little bit about my father.

My favorite memories growing up are sitting around the dinner table. My dad always told stories about what he did at work that day. My dad was an attorney and there were an incredible number of crazy people and crazy stories and my dad had new ones for us all the time. I couldn't wait for him to launch into a story of which he was always the star and saved the day. I loved the twinkle in his eye, and we hung on his every word. I thought all dads told stories at dinner. When I was much, much older I felt special and lucky because I had a dad who did.

When I was a teenager, my dad had a huge lawsuit about a kid who got hit by a train. I worked all summer typing for him hour after hour. I saw how hard my dad worked that summer and every summer as I always worked at his office. I regret that I never saw him in court. It never occured to me to ask to go. But I believe he was formidable.

I am sad that he was on the wrong side at the end of his life. I hope that he has gotten himself sorted out.

a personal payday

kids college

Our local community college hosts a program for the elementary school kids every summer. I think they do an awesome job. Kids from the high school come and help out to earn community service hours. This year is Brianna's fourth time attending. Yesterday, Doug and I went and watched the drama performance. Unfortunately, the pictures we took were all out of focus, but Brianna did a terrrific job on her solo parts!

happy birthday to me! again!

Tricia Desourdy, Mary Gronlund, me, Debbie Clayton, Melody Shipley, Roxanne Ingalls. (Thanks to Mo for taking the picture!)Today Mary planned a surprise luncheon for me at Tricia Desourdy's house. She knocked herself out. We had chicken caeser wraps, pasta salad, fruit and homemade apple pie! Very yummy. They sang, "Cut the Cake", which was very brave and a little funny since none of them know it. And we took this cute picture to remember the day! Thank you so much dear friends!

Locks of Love

Ten years ago a woman in Lake Worth, Florida founded a not-for-profit organization called Locks of Love. Its goal was to help every financially disadvantaged child suffering from long-term hair loss. Locks of Love now has recipients in all 50 states. Today...Brianna helped.













And she has a cute new haircut too!

bat...chapter two

Tonight Doug went off to meetings and I went to ward council. When I got home after 10.00 Brianna and her friend Natalie were still awake and all the lights in the house were on so I figured something must be going on. Sure enough...they had cornered a bat under the piano. Now I had a dilemma. I didn't know what to do, but I knew that I didn't want the bat there!


I called my local "Batbusters", the Ingalls. Roxanne and her able assistant Mo were at my door in minutes. Thanks to the fact that they finally moved! Roxanne figured out how to get the bat out. And what a surprise! It was an itty bitty baby bat!!! It was about the size of a 50 cent piece.What do we do with an itty bitty baby bat? After quite the deliberation we called for online bat support via Melanie. Melanie walked us through the steps of getting a shoebox, mashing a banana, filling a plasic lid with water, microwaving a dry dishcloth and putting the whole thing as close the the mother bat as possible.


You might remember from the blog yesterday...we decided to stick it all in the fireplace. On the off chance that the mother bat did appear for the rescue mission, we then sealed the fireplace with plastic wrap to keep mom and baby somewhere out of the house.

Let me just pause here to say that I thought the chances of the mother bat rescuing this baby were remote at best! And the baby seemed very near it's last breath in any scenario. We turned out the lights, wished the bat good luck and went to bed.

However!!!! Roxanne returned today, performed a thorough search and declared the bat officially rescued.

What a good mother bat!

my bat dream

Last night I had one of those dreams where everything is crazy. Brianna was running around the house with three friends looking for a bat. And I was driving around town looking for my husband. Oh wait...it wasn't a dream...

Doug went off to the school board meeting at 6.00, and he told me he expected to be finished by 6.30. The Ingalls invited Brianna (and Natalie who is staying with us) and I to dinner. After dinner we decided to play games. I was going to drop Brianna and Natalie off at the house so that they could get to bed and pick up Doug. But when I arrived home at 8.30 Doug still wasn't here.

At 9.30 the Ingalls came and picked me up. I left a note for Doug to come over when he got home. At about 11.30 Brianna called.
"Mom, there is a bat in the purple bedroom!"

Roxanna, Mo, Christian and I jumped in the car. On the way to the house, we decided that Mo and Christian could take care of the bat capture, and Roxanne and I would go to the school board offices to see if the meeting was still going on...

There were no cars at the school board offices, so we carried on to the stake offices...so we carried on to Howey in the Hills where they run teacher inservices etc. We called home. They hadn't found the bat, and we hadn't found Doug.

As it turned out, we arrived home sometime around midnight shortly after Doug, who had been at the school board meeting over by the Courthouse. Yeah...I didn't think to look there. But the bat was still missing.

Mo and Christian got on the computer while we were out and did a bat lineup to see if the girls could identify the culprit. Unfortunately, they chose the bat that only lives in New Zealand, seriously diminishing their credibility.

However!
This afternoon Doug and I heard strange squeaking sounds coming from the chimney. And the flue was open...AHAAAAAAH!
I just hope that the bat caught the rat that Doug saw in the hallway late last night and that the bat family was enjoying a fine meal.

Stellaluna...the way out is up!

home again

It was back to St. Simons Island as a midway stop on the way home. I had a wonderful time on our trip! I hope we have the opportunity to do it again. I appreciate a great Bishop who encouraged us to take this trip. I am thankful for all the prayers that kept us safe. And I am especially grateful for the terrific girls who made every day a pleasure.

flatewater kayaking and a temple trip

We headed out this morning to the Catawba River where we enjoyed the beautiful day as we learned to kayak.

We enjoyed getting to know some of the kids in the Weddington Ward as we traveled to the Columbia Temple in South Carolina.

Biltmore Estate

Today we drove to Ashevill to the Biltmore Estate. We learned that these amazing four acres of floor space were designed not as a museum but as a family home and country retreat. To this day, it is still the largest privately owned home in America.

it's my birthday

The Seguine clan woke me up this morning and I enjoyed doing the morning school run with them. I returned to find the the sleepy YW had been up and at it decorating the kitchen and my bedroom with streamers and balloons and hearts. They had all written me very special notes. (Check back after the trip, as I will scan them in.) Much to my surprise and delight both Corky and Carter also made cards! Tricia made pancakes and we were off to the sale at Nordys.

This afternoon we took a quick trip to downtown Charlotte
where we went to a museum called The Light Factory.
We saw a couple of exhibits and then had a quick overview of photography. Then we went to the darkroom and made photographic plates. Our guide was very impressed with the girls on two counts. She was amazed at how creative they all were and she was delighted at how supportive they were to one another sharing what they liked about what the other had done. It was a great experience.

Then it was back to the pool and Tricia and I did a late night shop at Nordys AGAIN after that. At 10.15pm when I was sitting in the shoe department waiting for Tricia to pay for her purchases, one of the associates asked me if I would like to be escorted out!

When we got home the YW were waiting with hot razzleberry pie. It was a wonderful birthday from start to finish.

my funny names/ sephora

This morning at breakfast with my three early riser grandkids, Carter asked me, "Nana, what do the giwls call you?" I realize right away that THIS is going to be a moment to remember. I answered, "Sister Carter". They all burst into fits of laughter as Carter repeats in disbelief, "Sister Cawtew!?" They think it is so funny that they are calling me something to do with his name and still can't quite figure out why. The followup at dinner tonight was just as funny to him when we were saying words that started with D. I said, "Debbie". He thought that was hysterical. Tricia asked him if he knew anyone named Debbie and he looked at her like she was a little crazy and said no. She then said that Nana's name is Debbie. "Dubbie", he repeated. Teeeheeeeheeeee!


This morning we went grocery shopping and then to the mall. The girls all had their makeup done at Sephora. They were gorgeous!

We shopped for a couple of hours and then came home and went to the pool. They took a number of trips down the giant water slide and tubed in the lazy river and played with the kids.

On the road with my YW

Check out the cute purple shirts that they all made that said " 2 North Carolina".



So I was really nervous to take a road trip since I am not a "driver", in spite of which, plans were made and dates were set. Today was THE DAY.

The girls arrived, without too much luggage, as requested at 7.30. They wore matching t-shirts that were decorated and read "2 North Carolina". We drove for three hours and then turned off the I-95 to take a side trip to St. Simons Island. We ate lunch under a big tree near the beach and then boarded the trolley for an hour and a half tour. The scenery was spectacular, the houses were gorgeous and the guide was interesting. We learned about the wildlife and the people that have lived there in the past and that live there now. I liked hearing about when she was a child and rode the loggerhead turtles back to the beach after they had laid their eggs.

We went to a local church that four presidents of the US have visited including the senior Bush's. The day they came to church over 1000 people showed up to attend services. The preacher went in and told the Bush's that he didn't know what to do. President Bush said to go outside and invite in the people that he recognized whhich he did. I think someday it is going to be like that for each of us.

While we were driving we started talking about Josie Boatwright. The girls were really hopeful that she would attend our upcoming multi-stake youth conference. They decided to call her. After they talked with Josie, I talked with her mom and Josie called her dad right then to try and get permission to go. Her mom said that Josie would call back when she had an answer. Quite a long time went by. Sarah asked if we could say a prayer for Josie, which we did. Not too long later, Josie called, very excited, that her dad had said yes.

Later when we were eating dinner, each of the girls had an apple. They were playing the game where you twist the stem and say the alphabet and then you have to name someone with that name to marry. One of the girls got an L. We were trying to think of boys names that start with L. We thought of a few but the answer was always, "he is not a church boy". Finally, we thought of a "church boy" whose name starts with L. I have to confess that I said, maybe she needed another apple. But the thing that was so awesome was that that boy was clearly preferable to any non-church boy L. And...I got in trouble for my comment! These girls are soooo nice. I love being with them.

After we arrived tonight, we played the Wii for a couple of hours and went to bed with thankful hearts for the blessings of the day and the adventures awaiting!