Our McCall Weekened

On Thursday, Mark and I drove up to McCall Idaho. We spent Thursday night there by ourselves and then on Friday, Mom, Shelby and her friend Emily came up. We played pool and ping pong. Can you believe Mark has never played ping pong before? We grew up playing ping pong in Grandma and Grandpa Neilson's basement.

We Are Finally Done...

Mom and I finally finished the Humanitarian School Bags for our ward. Of course while we were making them, Mom's Surger broke, I sewed all 4 sides of the bag and Mom sewed the handles on wrong. But we finsihed them and they turned out very nice.

The Temple

Last night Mom, Dad and I went to our Ward Temple Night. (Mark is still sick) I was so excited to go last night and to be in the Temple with our ward. I thought it was going to be packed with people but it wasn't. Not including the 3 of us, there was 5 people from our ward. I was just really surprised that there wasn't more. But it was another great experience at the Temple.

Afterwards we went to dinner with our Bishop and his wife, and Brother and Sister Ormsby. We went to the Cheese Cake Factory. I had never been there before it was delicious.

It's Markel Palooza

Today is Mark's 25th Birthday. As we like to call it Markel Palooza. For those of you who don't know about the name Markel, I will tell you. While we were dating, Shelby made the name up. She took Rachel and Mark and created Markel. It has stuck ever since. Even Dad calls him Markel. We are just a family of nick names.

You can't start your birthday without a present. Mom gave Mark a wheely duffel bag. It's huge. It will work for our trips back to Vancouver.

Mom and I took Mark to Red Lobster for lunch.

He loves Red Lobster!!!

SMILE!!!

After we had lunch we did some shopping.

Mark bought a UCLA T shirt.

Actually I believe Loreen bought it for him

because she gave him money for his birthday.

I made Enchilladas for dinner.

Shelby gave Mark the DVD of

Jurassic Park 3.

( We love Jurassic Park)

I gave Mark some new Nike Running Shoes

Mom and Dad gave him a $15 Itunes Gift Card

Mom and Dad gave Mark a Lap Desk.

Its to put on our laps while we are using

our new computer

I gave him a I Home alarm clock/stereo for his I touch

Mom, Mark and Shelby

with all of his gifts

Shelby and Markel

Shelby and I made Mark an upside down pineapple

cake. We had never made a cake from scratch.

And if I do say so myself it was pretty darn good.

As you may notice there are matches in his cake.

I forgot to get candles, so we used what we had.

We sang really fast so the cake wouldn't catch on fire.

I HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT BIRTHDAY BABY!!! LOVE YOU LOTS!!

MTV Video Music Awards

What Kanye West did to Taylor Swift was horrible. Going up on stage, taking the microphone from her and saying that Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies" is the best Music Video. Poor Taylor Swift, she didn't know what to do. But she came back and performed "You Belong with Me" with so much positive energy. I love her and everytime Kanye West was nominated I booed the TV.

But the best part of the MVA was the tribtue to Michael Jackson. The performance at the beginning with Janet Jackson was very touching.

And another great thing was the extended trailer of New Moon. I am so excited.

Time Out For Women

Time Out For Women was wonderful. I loved it. I was alittle worried at first because I didn't know what to expect. Was it going to be like Conference? NO! We all "WooHoo" and clapped and cheered. Last night we were there from 6:45 -9:30. We are were priveleged to hear from Sister Chieko Okazaki. She was the 1st Counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency from 1990-1997. She is 82 years old and a great speaker. She spoke on "What is a correct Principles?", "How do you teach correct Principles?" and "How do you let them govern themselves?"

Then Hilary Weeks performed for us. I have to say I had never heard of her before but she is amazing. She writes her music and plays the piano. She would sing a few songs in between speakers and then she spoke telling us about her music and how it comes to her.

Then we heard from Mark Mabry. He is a photographer. He did a slide show on his work, "The Reflections of Christ." It was amazing. When he was speaking he was alittle distracted because his wife is in AZ having contractions. So she was due any minute. But he told us how he came to his project and how he became a better person for it.

Today we were there from 9:00 to 3:45. Cherie Call was our Musical Presenter today. We have heard of her she does a lot of EFY songs. She played the piano and the guitar. So just like Hilary Weeks she song in between speakers and then told us of how she came up with her songs. Shelby and I bought 2 of her cds and she auto graphed them for us. She is very kind and down to earth.

Emily Watts was such a fun speaker to listen too. She spoke on personnal appearance and how kids "ripen" at different paces.

Micheal Wilcox was very interesting. He was very scriptual and doctrinal. Everything he said was connected to a scripture. I wish I could know my scriptures that well.

Wendy Ulrich was my favorite speaker. She talked about the difference between a sin and a weakness. Sins are a delibrate error that we know is wrong. A weakness is emotion, inadequcy, illness or temptation. Did Jesus have sins? No he is perfect. Does he have weaknesses? Yes because he has a body. I ended up buying her book and she signed it for me.

Emily Freeman was our last speaker and spoke on the loaves and fishes story. Related to Abundance. And abundance equals miracles.

I am so glad we were able to go. It was a great experience. And us girls got to bond.

Time Out For Women

This evening at The Grove in down town Boise, Mom, Shelby and I will be attending Time Out For Women. We have never been before but we are so excited. It is tonight from 6:30 to 9:30 and tomorrow from 9 - 4. I cannot wait to attend, to learn new things and to "take a time out."

Family Pictionary

Monday night, we had a Family BBQ. We are tired of hamburgers and hot dogs so we grilled shish kabobs. We had shrimp, scallops, chicken, beef, peppers, onions and of course grilled pineapple.

Humanitarian Project

Mom and I helping our ward by sewing together school bags. We have a bunch of fabric that mom is cutting out, surging together, then I am sewing them together with handles. Grandma Marge would be so proud, I remember how to use a sewing machine. We have set up shop in the guest bedroom downsatirs since there isn't a bed in there.