A Pre-Halloween Weekend

I'm sorry that I have missed so many days! I am choosing to forgive myself, however, because I feel like I'm doing the best that I can. I'm not perfect, but I am striving.

I applied for another job. An elementary teacher job with Gorman Learning Center. It is part-time, Monday through Friday. I think it will still allow me to drop off my kids at school and pick them up afterwards as well. A perfect solution! I really hope and pray that, if it's meant to be, I will get the job. I don't need to have a credential for the job because I'm not assigning grades. It really does sound perfect!

General Conference was a few weeks ago and it was wonderful, as always. I tried something new this year. I bought the kids about 12 different gifts (crafts, etc.) that I let them open up throughout conference, about 2 gifts per session. It worked great! It kept them busy and it helped them stay focused. It gave them something to look forward to. The talks were all wonderful. I am nearly finished re-reading them again. What a magnificent blessing we have to listen to a living prophet of God and apostles twice a year. Not only that, but their words are recorded so that we can read them again and again. We are so lucky. So blessed.

My Grandpa Turley passed away last Sunday, October 10th. He was 90 years old, just a few months away from turning 91. I had a few days of sadness, but I'm not sad anymore. I'm happy for him and imagining the joyous reunion that he is having right now with my Grandma Turley, his parents, his brothers, and all of this other family members. I imagine he also saw my Mom, which I am slightly jealous of. Life is so strange sometimes. It truly does seem like it goes by in the blink of an eye at times. One day you're here, the next day you're not. Well, you are still here, but in another realm.

Here are the last few pictures I was able to take with my Grandpa Turley. This was in the Summer of 2018, pre-covid times.

This was the very last photo I took with Grandpa. Fortunately, I was able to visit him in July when we went to Utah. It was a great visit and I am grateful that I was able to see him one last time in this life. Until we meet again, Grandpa!

Friday night we drove down to Buena Vista so spend the night in a hotel by Knots Berry Farm so that we could get there bright and early when it first opened up. It ended up being a real-life Halloween horror night!

The hotel had 2 conjoining rooms, with 3 queen beds and a little couch that Mason slept on. We went to sleep around 10:00. At around 12:30, I heard a loud noise outside and I opened my eyes and looked at the window and saw the silhouette of a man standing in front of our window and it looked like he was going to step inside! I couldn't help myself, I screamed really loudly and then all of the kids and Jon started screaming. The shadow ran away. Lizzie, who was sharing a bed with Caitlyn, jumped across the room and clung to Jon. Finally we settled down and made sure everything was locked (the door wasn't locked properly!). I could not fall asleep because I was traumatized. Around 1:30 I was starting to relax when there was another loud noise and we heard the cops on a megaphone right outside of our room telling someone to "Stop and stand still!"! I was so on edge that I was terrified again and screamed! The girls started screaming and Lizzie and Caitlyn were bawling. The boys were oblivious. I got into bed with the girls and we tried to settle down but they were so upset. We could not settle down. They had to go to the bathroom so we all went in together because they were terrified. We realized when the bathroom door was closed that it was quiet in there and we felt safe. So we decided to pull all of our bedding and pillows into the bathtub and try to sleep there. We set it all up, closed the bathroom door, and listened to relaxing music. We mostly laughed and felt extremely uncomfortable. After an hour and a half, we decided that we were finally calmed down enough to go back to our bed. We didn't want to use the dirty bathroom blankets, so we stole the blanket off of Bryce! We put a sheet on him and he didn't even notice, ha ha.

The next morning we went outside and saw a flower pot that had been tipped over outside of our room. Also, we surprisingly noticed that the window to our room was not double paned, like the other windows. We were able to open up the window completely from the outside! There was no screen or way to lock the window! Jon complained at the front desk and told them what happened. They wrote up a report and said they were going to watch the surveillance videos. 🤷🏻‍♀️ . The girls were so terrified that we all slept in the same bed last night as well. We feel better today, thank goodness!

Anyway, life is going well. I am still Young Women President. Can't believe it has been a year. Not sure how long I will have this calling, but I will enjoy it for as long as they will allow me to serve. We have had a lot of fun activities and spiritual experiences lately. I love the young women and am so very proud of them. How blessed I am to have the opportunity to spend so much time among such choice spirits.

Silly William!

Knots Berry Farm fun!

Hanging out in the hotel bathroom with the girls in the middle of the night because we were terrified!

I am experimenting with the scroll saw. I want to make a nativity set for the YW for Christmas. I need a lot of practice...it will be a while before I perfect it. It's actually a lot of fun!

One of our YW/YM activities was "flour tag". It was messy! It was chaos! But...I think they had fun.

Lizzie and Bryce have become best friends recently. Not sure what changed, but I think they genuinely enjoy being with each other. It makes my heart happy.

William is my little cuddle bug. Oh my goodness. He gives the best hugs and snuggles and he tells me he loves me "so much" every single day. I don't know what I would do without his little chunky face.

Another scroll saw experimenting...

Kids school pictures!

We went to the Rosamond Pumpkin Patch on October 5th (Jon's birthday). The older two kids think they are too old for these types of things, so we took the younger three and watched them enjoy themselves.

Bryce got braces! He is still the best looking kid in 7th grade!

Jon turned 39 on October 5th! I made him his traditional white sheet cake with fresh whipping cream, strawberries, and almonds.

General Conference fun!

Lizzie made this scratch art masterpiece -- I love it!

I want to etch this scene and these memories in my heart forever.

It truly doesn't get any better than this!

I tried making pumpkin steel cut oats in the crockpot. It was amazing!

The General Conference Holiday gifts/treats. I think I ruined my kids, ha ha. They truly think that General Conference is a holiday. They refer to it as "General Conference Halloween-Easter".