tagged!

Dani 'tagged' me and i promptly ignored it.

then mom and candice did theirs... and after reading the three- i decided to quit being such a stooge and to make myself think this out:

3 joys: people working together- giving their hearts to a common goal/cause; being in nature with my camera; my children.

3 fears: participating in a triathlon; ruining something that is priceless; dad and mom being chased by a bear.

3 goals: to raise my children in love and faith; to improve upon my talents and passions; to get to the most amazing places on the earth with my camera.

3 current obsessions/collections: i love reading to the point that it takes over my life; learning everything i can about photo taking and photoshop; living life to the fullest.

3 random surprising facts about yourself: i don't know about three of these- but this single one will cause a stir...: i was asked out by four different black men in the past 2-3 weeks- and i accepted one. we went to dinner at a very nice seafood/steak restaurant and had a great time!

tag 3: i won't send this one on- you can thank me later!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Grandpa- Happy Birthday! it was wonderful seeing you at the reunion- and spending time with you! Big Hugs and we love you!

Happy Birthday Candice!!!

and as soon as i get my pics loaded from the other comp- i'm posting. hope your day is fabulous! love you tons sis!

a bit on emma

Emily has kind of been on the back burner during tay's important goings on! i decided that i must catch you up a bit regarding her before i move into more of taylor...
em played soccer at the end of the school year- and then she also attended a week of soccer camp- which she very much enjoyed. She talks of running in CC for a year and then trying out for the marcus soccer team. it's an incredible program. the boys and girls took state- and have several times in the past few years. and then our marcus boys took nationals. the school is a good one- and can you believe the opportunities!?! i can't wait to see how the band and drumline do this year!
em's been helping at the summer camps and she has been a better helper than ever before. mom filled in a bit when she was here- and she can tell you that while it's a fun thing to be doing- it is also exhausting- so good help is VERY important to me! :)
anyway- em's just been to young woman's camp. and she had a wonderful time. i wasn't there this year- but hope to get some copies of pictures that were taken.
hope the summer's lots of fun where ever you are!!!

give me your poor, your lost animals, and lost children...

before i launch into the story of the evening- i need to do two things:

1. Dad... Happy Father's Day! with everything that happened during mom's visit- i didn't get to do say it with a pic (on the old comp) and blog flare...but!!! i love you tons and miss you terribly! i haven't heard a word about the latest test- so keep me in the 'know'- k? (and following this post i am going to catch up on the fam's blogs- it's just possible that you have already shared. :)

2. Mom... what a trouper you are! leaving your torn up home, dad and his test, just to wander into my home- saving puppies and playing nurse to my possible salmonella poisoning. i walked into walmart tonight and saw dunkin' donuts and nearly burst into tears that you never got your breakfast there! i'm sorry that things were as they were. very. sorry. :(

mom- thanks so much for all of it- and i love and appreciate you tons!

give me your poor:

after a shoot at elm fork, i left with howard following behind in his car to find something to eat. the place where we were headed was close by but was also closed when we got there. as i was slowing down to discover this, a woman in a pink suit stuck out her thumb to hitch a ride.

normally i wouldn't have stopped- but howard was behind me and so i rolled the window down and asked where she was headed.

long story short (maybe) she was headed to a church (car in shop) to ask for help paying her hotel bill (getting paid on tues) and was in this predicament because of a bad divorce.

she was hungry (hadn't eaten in two days) so i ran her through jack in the box for a combo.

second stop was a church that turned out to be spanish speaking.

third stop was a church (mind you this was a sunday) that had a youth group and youth pastor- but no one else. after it became clear to me that she wouldn't be getting any help, i pulled him aside and said- 'really, i'm just looking for the movie ending here. what am i supposed to do now?'

meanwhile she meandered around eating her fries and shake.

in the end, she asked for money (she got her meal and the change for a $20.00) from me and a $20. from Howard and then asked to be dropped off at the bus stop (which i realized could have happened to begin with). and she wanted the receipt for the food (which i figured a day later was probably to return the untouched hamburger).

notable: she said the Lord's Prayer over her meal and then said her own prayer. she repeatedly said, 'God bless you' and waved goodbye until i drove out of sight.

we all know that i have no idea if she spoke one word of truth to me.

give me your... lost animals...! the night mom flew in, and after the baptism we attended for a teen in our ward, and while we were trying to get a meal for the day- a cute puppy landed in our laps.

i scooped her up and directly drove around to try to find his owner.

no luck.

found the police and asked for shelter info- it was the w/e- no luck.

asked the police if he would take him- no luck.

drove to petco and begged a puppy sitter while i ran em and mom across the street to get food (this could be the 'tired and hungry' part), then returned to plop $45. on the counter to help a puppy survive the w/e at our home.

she didn't sleep- i didn't either- but next morning the happy owner and the happy puppy reunited.

that evening...:

the salmonella poisoning hit.

taylor's graduation day and i'm sicker than sick. but i peeled myself off my pillow and went. my next post will be about taylor and his graduation! (are you still with me? even i am getting bored at this point!!!)

tonight i was four houses away from being home when i spotted a baby walking on the sidewalk. i looked around and saw no parent- so i pulled over. (yes, this is the lost children part)

at this point i still couldn't spot anyone missing a child so i held the child and called 911.

the officer insisted that i stick around even if the parent appeared so we walked up and down the sidewalk looking for a mommy or daddy or a police car.

they all appeared at once.

i hope that was a happy ending- it's hard to know the circumstances!

but (seriously) i'm thinking about not going anywhere for days to avoid any more of rhonda trying to save the world.

after all- i'm not tall and green and standing in a bay. lol....

p.s. check out the pics below- our new puppy!

meet our newest family member!

i'm calling our new puppy 'lovey' until we can all agree on a name...!

she's a purebred catahoula/heeler mix.

don't you just love the red on her eyebrows and cheeks?!?

we expect for her to grow to be about 35 lbs.

see that cute little face? she just wet on my carpet!

Taylor's Seminary Graduation

Yea!!! Taylor received his four year certificate, graduating from seminary last night. Tay was asked to speak at the graduation- and i have copied his talk here for you to read if you want to.

he received many compliments on his talk- seems taylor speaks to people in a way that he comes across as real and reaches the listener in some way. i was so proud of him! (as dad calls it- 'righteous pride' :)

i was asked to take the official photos- the ones that will be submitted by our areas press representative- so i've included a few for you to see. the PR mentioned that Taylor would be quoted and so she wanted his picture for the paper as well.

FYI... the ceremony was for all the graduating youth in our stake. the pictures only reflect Taylor's high school- three other high schools were a part of it as well.

and a sidenote...: our stake was recently a part of a tri-stake conference that ended up creating a fourth stake. when this happened, Gary R*** became our new stake president. some of you will recall that i was his sister's roomie at BYU and dated Gary a bit back then.

to update you further, Taylor and Julia broke up a few weeks back. I believe that this time it is a keeper. Tay has begun talking with a girl in our stake- her name is Jennifer R***. to be clear, yes, Gary's daughter.

it was Gary that asked Tay to speak at the graduation- and i told him that's only the beginning if he's going to date the stake president's daughter... he he he.

********

"Hello my name is Taylor B*** and I am from the F M 3rd ward for those of you who do not know me. I was asked to talk about my experiences with seminary and asked to specifically speak to those of you who have not yet graduated. I would like to discuss what is unique about the educational setting that Seminary uses and why I think these things are crucial to a sound understanding of the gospel and being a prepared missionary.

At the end of this last year of seminary I had to make up something like thirty or forty days to graduate. It was also necessary that I have nearly 100% attendance for about a month and a half. I tried to look at the situation as an opportunity to immerse myself in seminary and see if I could gain something from giving the class an earnest effort. I noticed several things as I put thought and energy into the class and spent time outside the class working on make-up. The first thing that changed was that Seminary ceased to be a burden. I enjoyed my time there. Also I became aware of some things that it has to offer that I had never noticed before.

The first thing I would tell you is that Seminary widens your knowledge base that you can draw upon when opportunities to discuss religion come up. When I have been on splits with the missionaries teaching investigators, they use scripture to teach constantly. This is necessary because the investigators do not yet have a testimony of our church and need something concrete to draw initial faith from. The missionaries use several references, mostly from the Bible, to introduce the gospel. Nearly all of them are scripture masteries. If it were not for seminary, I am sure I would have been overwhelmed with feelings of inadequate knowledge of the Bible. However, I know most of the scriptures they used and feel confident that with the Lord’s help I will be able to increase my knowledge until it is a sufficient base for the mission field. Seminary is very much geared to provide the knowledge and spirit that are crucial to missionary work. I bear testimony that if you put your time into Seminary all four years and learn the scripture masteries and read the works of scripture then you will have an excellent knowledge base for the mission field or for post high school life. I could not believe how the scriptures I learned in senior year were the exact ones that the missionaries invariably use.

It has been my experience that Seminary is one of those critical commitments you can make to the Lord that will keep you strong in testimony. To those who will commit to serving a mission it is a great proving ground for learning part of the daily life of a missionary. If you can consistently commit to an hour of scripture study in the morning now then it follows that you should be able to in the mission field. In my opinion learning to be attentive in early morning study is a skill that has to be practiced like playing the piano or running track. Sacrificing time and energy and working hard are also skills to be practiced. These are all things you can do in Seminary if you desire to. Those who have done it know that it can sometimes take incredible self-mastery to focus and attempt to learn. I imagine it is the same on a mission and if you have already developed these skills then it will be one less thing to adjust to in the field.

Another thing I attribute to Seminary is that it can enhance scriptural knowledge in ways that Sunday school and personal study do not necessarily offer. An entire year is spent in a classroom setting studying a specific work of scripture. This institution of the church gives five times the amount of time available to Sunday school and ten or twenty more insightful people. This is unique because seminary can ably teach the context of the scriptures regardless of how relatively important or exciting the passage is. Instead of only reading the passages that are relevant to a certain lesson you get to know the entire stories. This wider view learning approach enables the students to learn things that only time and effort will teach. Also, the more difficult stretches to understand in the Bible are taught. I think that learning Isaiah was meant to be a group effort. Some passages in scripture are just not easily decipherable and Seminary is the perfect tool to learn context and see the bigger picture.

Four years is a long time. Sometimes it is difficult to see graduation from freshman and sophomore year. The Lord loves those who are long-suffering and I promise there are blessings for those who will take it seriously and seek to take what they can from it. In closing I would like to say thank you to all of my seminary teachers and all of my classmates for making the experience a good one. I know that we will be prepared for what will happen in our lives because of our commitment. "

***at this point taylor shared his testimony and concluded his talk***