I AM Christ

A friend sent this beautiful video this week. It brought tears to my eyes. I thought of my little grandma, Georgia Beatty, who turned 97 on February 22nd. Her life has been incredibly blessed, but also very difficult. She offers inspiration to all who know her.

Happy 13th Birthday Melissa!

Melissa decided to invite three friends (Megan, Shayla, and Aislin) to go to the snow on Saturday to celebrate her 13th birthday. The weather was perfect, and Dad even talked me into going, too! He got me on the sled with him, although I screamed to entire way down. :) At the end of the day, Melissa told us that she had a great day! We love you Melissa! See two videos below.

Melissa, Ryan, Shayla, Megan, and Aislin Tubing in the Snow!

The kids had a blast linking tubes together and taking a train down the hill!

Ryan, Melissa, and Dad sledding down the hill!

Sacrifice Brings Forth the Blessings of Heaven...

Here's an excerpt from today's email from Jordan:

So this week we are doing something different. Our zone is struggling with getting people to church, so we had to do something. I prayed about it, and while sitting in bed on Sunday night at about 12, I thought of this line in one of the hymns we sing, “Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven...” Our zone is working really hard, but we were still having a hard time getting people to church. Well, my idea was this: For this whole week we are going to sacrifice all of our lunch hours in the whole zone. Not fasting, but just not taking the time out of our day for lunch. Now we started on Monday and from the get-go, the blessings have flown. There have been teams that usually struggle that have been doing really well. We have found a great African family who is now coming to church. All kinds of blessings are being seen. Each morning we send out an answer phone message to the zone informing them of all the blessings received the last day. It’s great! The zone’s all fired up. Really, it’s great how Heavenly Father works; we relied on Him and he has blessed us because of it.

Happy 17th Birthday Janae! You are beautiful inside and out...

When Curt and I were young parents, and we were having baby after baby, people used to warn us, "Oh, they're cute as babies, but just you WAIT till they're teenagers!" Yes, I'll admit, we've had our moments, but overall I've been pleasantly surprised by the adolescent years. Teenagers and young adults are a blast! Their energy is infectious, and they are just plain fun to watch. I've thoroughly enjoyed having teenagers. Last night, the group shown above came over after Young Womens to celebrate Janae's birthday. They were definitely high energy; between that and American Idol blasting from the family room, no one could hear a thing. But I loved it! And I hope they'll come again soon :) Happy Birthday, Janae! We love you!

Playing in the San Francisco Bay!

Fun Times in San Francisco

Last Wednesday we went with Aunt Khristine and her gang (minus Rich, Darn!) to San Francisco for a fun day at the Exploratorium. When we finished, we drove across the street to the San Francisco Bay and let the kids run and play on the beach. As we were leaving, Curt suggested we park the van and walk out to the first pier of the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun was setting and the lights were beginning to flicker on all over the city. What a gorgeous sight!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures:


The kids had an absolute blast. They were extremely enthusiastic as they ran from exhibit to exhibit.


Aren't cousins the best! We are missing four of the bunch (Tyler, Whitney, Jordan, and Spencer). They always have a great time together.


Julia providing a classic teenage snapshot!


Jacob, Katie, Julia, and Janae on the Golden Gate Bridge.


Adam, Joshua, and Ryan on looking over the railing! Scary!


Curt enjoyed the exhibits, too.


Cousins are friends for life :)



Siblings, too!

Ten Things I Miss About My Mom...

Five years ago today, my mother passed away after battling lung cancer. Before my mother died I had never had anyone really close to me pass away. I'll admit that you never stop missing the person, and those feelings don't diminish as the years pass. Five years have passed, but I think about her all the time and wonder how she's doing, wherever she is. Here are ten things I miss the most about her:

1. I miss the daily phone calls, just to say she was checking on us. Almost everyday, the phone would ring around 10am and it would be my mom just calling to see how things were going.
2. I miss stopping by Rich and Mom's house to see what new project they were working on, or how their yard was shaping up. I've never known two harder working individuals, nor two people more suited for each other.
3. I miss telling her all about the things the kids are doing. She was never too busy to talk about her beloved grandchildren. Sometimes we talked about the same things over and over, but she didn't care.
4. I miss sharing events with her such as holidays, weddings, new babies, etc. She loved holidays and always went crazy decorating and preparing.
5. I miss her fun birthday traditions with her grandchildren. Shopping trips and birthday dinners at Round Table Pizza.
6. I miss road-trips with all the kids in the Suburban to see Khristine and her family. Those were such fun times. We started at 4am and arrived in S. Cal. by noon!
7. I miss special days to the movies or whatever fun event she planned. She always did something special with the grandchildren to celebrate HER birthday.
8. I miss watching her caring relationship with Darlin and Papa and how good she was to her parents. It nearly broke their hearts to lose her.
9. I miss taking the kids up to visit her in the library at Chico State. Many times we'd surprise her and show up unannounced. She loved those visits.
10. I miss how everything smelled really good; her car, her house, and especially HER! For the first year after she was gone, I would find something of hers around my house, and I would hold it up to my nose and smell her. That was so neat. She always smelled so good! I really miss that smell.

I do know one thing, though. I KNOW I will see her again. And I look forward to that joyous reunion in the future.

Excerpts from Elder Keables' recent letter...

Another transfer has come and gone and Jordan is still in the Leeds area. At the end of this transfer, he will have been in one area for 9 months. He did get a new companion, Elder Read and he is doing very well. He is thoroughly enjoying serving the people of England. Since there is large university in Leeds, he says he meets people from all over the world. Here is an excerpt from this week's letter. As always, he finds ways to make life fun!

"Well Elder Read is a good guy, I love being his companion. No, we didn’t know each other at BYU, but we know some of the same people, which is fun. I can already tell that this will be one of my favorite transfers. We just have so much fun together. The other day I zip-tied his arm to one of his belt loops, and we were out knocking doors so we had nothing to cut it with, so he just walked around with his left arm at his side for about 3 hours. Haha, it was pretty funny. He had a good laugh. In the end, he was pretty happy to get it off.
Also, while knocking the other day I had a pretty crazy experience. I knocked on this door and I said, “Hi, I’m Elder Keables and this is my friend Elder Read and………blah, blah, blah.” Well when I had finished my little speech, I noticed she was looking at my name badge. She said, “You’re the first person that I have met with the same last name as me.” I was shocked! “Your surname is Keables?” I said. And she said yes, and spelled the exact same, too. She was the first one I’ve met! Her full name was Rebecca Keables. I asked if she had any relatives in America and she said that she didn’t know. I set up an appointment for us to come back, but she had to cancel it, so I haven’t been able to meet with her since, but I thought that was really weird. We probably do have some kind of relatives in England. I think you should look in to that and let me know."