Poetry Month

I just learned that April is Poetry Month!  I've been collecting poems for about four years now so I have lots of favorites.  Since I've been working in the funeral business I have a lot of funeral poems.  And even more recently I started collecting Dr. Seuss quotes.

My two favorite poems are written by my Grandpa Tilton:  "Bubble Jum" and "Lamentation of a Squirt Gun."  They are both long so I'll spear you but let me know if you're curious.  

I would like to share this one with you.  It's called "A Smile for You" but I don't know the author.

Smiling is infectious, you can catch it like the flu, 

When someone smiled at me today I started smiling too. 

I passed around the corner and someone saw me grin.  

When he smiled I realized I'd passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile, then I realized its worth,

A single smile, just like mine, could travel around the earth.

So, if you feel a smile begin, don't leave it undetected.

Let's start an epidemic quick and get the wold infected.  

1st Beach Trip of the Season

   

I LOVE THE BEACH!  When I got off of  work Saturday, I had a voice message from Angie saying that she, Seth, JD, Trek and Breeanne were at the beach if we wanted to join them.  So we did.  We also added Rachel and Brandon to the group.  We stopped for Jack in the Box on the way and got to Twin Lakes Beach at about 6:30.  Sam and I went down to the water and got our legs wets.  Then we had fun roasting marshmallows and hanging out.  Sam's favorite part was burning things (something he has in common with my family).  My favorite part was being with famiy.  I even got to hold little JD!  

We finally remembered to take the camera and we took a lot of pictures before it ran out of batteries before the sun even set.  Here is a little sample.  There are more on Facebook and scrapbooking all 50 will be my project for this week.  

 

Easter Weekend

Another great weekend started Friday night with Sam cooking. I got home around 5 and he had already started. When he told me he was making cookie dough for dessert I got very excited (cookie dough is my favorite, better than cookies... unless they are right out of the oven). He made very yummy chicken marinated in a maple syrup gaze. The cookie dough was as great as anticipated and we ate it until we couldn't eat any more. We finished our date night by watching A League of Their Own (a very good baseball movie).

Saturday morning we did laundry and baked the rest of the cookie dough. The cookies turned out really good! We took them over to my parents' house where we spent the rest of the day. Mom helped me with some family history and I worked on that until the rest of the family started arriving around 3. Sam went out and helped Uncle Eric and Aunt April with the BBQ and I helped Mom get things ready inside. All the food was as great as always and everyone had fun. The kids even had an Easter egg hunt! After the family party, some of Rachel and Brandon's friends came and we played Missionary Impossible (it's a very cheesy card game that only Mormons would think is fun).

Sunday was great too. In sacrament meeting, the choir sang a few songs mixed in with great talks about the Savior and His atonement and resurrection. One of the songs involved the primary kids "singing" the chorus! It was so great to think about the Savior and all he did for me, his life and example, his sacrifice, death, and resurrection! It's what I should have in mind every day but I'm grateful for this holiday to remind me.

After church, we went to the Wallingers' for dinner. Robert's cooking is never short of amazing and I ate way too much pasta, chicken, potatoes, crab, and bread. And on top of that, we had brownies and ice cream for dessert. The time spent with family was even better than the food (and if you know Rob's cooking, you know that's pretty darn good). We all had fun hunting for our egg and just spending the day together.

I'm so grateful for the weekend of fun and family. I love all my family so much and missed the ones who weren't there. I hope everyone had a great Easter and take this opportunity to think of the Savior now and throughout the year.

(Sorry, we forgot the camera again.)

Weekend Fun

This weekend, Kyle and Suzanne were in town for Greg and Gabi's wedding.  They got in late Thursday night so I only saw them briefly.  Friday night, Sam and I had my siblings and some cousins and friends over for dinner and to play the wii!  After spending an hour or so baking four pizzas, my siblings were a little late but we had lots of food and fun.  Liz, Seth, Angie, and JD came a little latter, followed by Toni.  We had a lot of fun eating mints and bowling on the wii.  A few of us even hula hooped!

Saturday was a big day!  I got to my parents house around 8:30 to get ready for Suzanne's baby shower.  It was a little crazy at times to get everything cooked and set up buy by 10 we were ready to roll when guests started arriving.  We had plenty of food and fun games. There was almost 15 people there.  I think everyone had a lot of fun and Suzanne got away with some really good stuff for future Miss Hansen!  

Saturday afternoon, was spent just hanging out with family and relaxing.  We went to dinner at some little place Kyle knew of that made cheese stakes.  I ordered the chicken cheese stake and it was really good but really big (Sam finished it off the next day for lunch).  

Then we went to Greg and Gabi's wedding reception.  It was so good to see them.  They were so happy.  I'm so glad to have them as friends and to see them happy.  It was also good to see some old friends we hadn't seen for a while.  Getting married and leaving town kind of makes it easy to loose touch with people.  I guess that's really what blogs and facebook are for.  Maybe I should stop bowling so much and start talking with some old friends.  

Sunday, Sam and I went to his parents house for family dinner.  We had really good stakes and potatoes.  Andrew is getting so big, walking everywhere.  And Terry is getting really good on his bike.  It was great to see everyone an just hang out together.  We even remembered the asparagus to take to the Wallingers!  

I love having a nice weekend to spend with family and relax.  

Road Trip!

This past weekend my cousin Olin got married in the San Diego Temple. S0, we took this wonderful opportunity to take a road trip. We left Friday after I worked for a few hours, stopping to pick up Trek and Jeremy along the way. Driving with three boys for seven hours wasn't exactly my idea of exciting. The mostly talked about cars, trucks, and, well, cars. Of course Trek set up his ham radio so there was a little command center in the back seat for a good part of the trip. Luckily we had beautiful weather and only hit moderate traffic in L.A. We got to the hotel in Carlsbad at about nine or ten and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with my family at the hotel.

Saturday was a blast. The wedding wasn't until two in the afternoon so we spent the morning at the Wild Animal Park! First we went on a tram ride around the park and saw really cool animals and pretty scenery. Then we spent another couple hours walking around and seeing the other animals. I think my favorite were the strange monkey things hanging out on an island and the lions.

    

After changing quickly at the hotel, we headed for the temple. This was my first trip to the S.D. temple and it is as beautiful as people say (though I still think the Sacramento Temple is even more amazing, but I might be biased). The sealing was great. We even had a little earthquake in the middle of it! Olin and Jentry looked so beautiful and totally happy. I had to hold back tears more than once. It made me remember our wedding day and all the mushy feelings that went along with it.

   

Then, we went back to the hotel to try to take a nap but as soon as I laid down I wasn't tiered any more so I just chatted with Kyle, Suzanne and Sam (we were all sharing a room and it was a lot of fun!). Going the the reception was a lot of fun. Mom had directions but we were following behind in our car. Well, Dad got a little lost. . . or was it one of his famous "short cuts". . . I'm not really sure. But we made it only a little late. The reception was beautiful. There was good dinner food as well as a candy table! Olin sang Jentry a song he wrote and the couple had there first dance and the father-daughter dance. You could just see how happy they are!

We left the reception a little early to visit Chad, a cousin on my mom's side that we hadn't seen in at least ten years. It was great to see him again and meet his cute wife and three cute kids (number four is on the way). It was a long day so we were happy to get back to the hotel and get some sleep.

Sunday morning we left at about nine. We traded Trek and Jeremy for Brandon so we could stop by Jenna's, another friend, in Yorba Linda. It was good to see here and visit for about an hour. She even made us sack lunches to take on our way, it saved us about half an hour. The trip home we didn't hit any traffic! but we did hit rain. Just after the grape vine it started misting and was raining pretty heavily by the time we got into Gilroy.

One of my favorite parts of the trip, was when Suzanne asked me to throw her a baby shower! She isn't due until July 4th but they will be in town the end of next month so we're planning it for then. I am so excited and already have lots of fun ideas. If anyone has any ideas or baby shower favorites, let me know.

I am so glad we had the chance to get away for a little bit and to support Olin and Jentry on this great occasion.