Mindy's Exciting Places

So, I think Vancouver is the most exotic place I've ever visited. Canada is the furthest out of the country I've ever been. But I think the most exciting place I've been is the San Diego temple. We planned that trip for 10 years, and it was not a disappointment. That is one beautiful temple, inside and out. Some day I would like to travel, but really I get most excited about visiting people, not places.

Heidi's Exciting Places

I have two most exciting places I've visited, each for very different reasons. The first place that came to mind was the Savannah desert in Kenya on safari. It was on my birthday in 2005 that I was within inches of an adult male lion in the wild. That was heart stopping exciting! What an incredible experience. Actually, I think all of us in the jeep were more terrified of the herd of elephants than we were the lions. Those things were huge and they made our jeep driver nervous. When he got nervous, we got nervous.
The second most exciting place I've visited is the Bahamas. It is so beautiful and seemed like a dream to be snorkeling and sitting on the beach down there. Jeny, you would love it!

New Question of the Week!

What was the most exciting place you ever visited and why was it exciting?

Happy Belated Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Miles! He's 5 now! His birthday was on the 12th but I was and school and working ALL day! And then traveling and working ALL day the next day and the next and then recovering yesterday. So here we are. Happy birthday Miles! Hope you had a fun birthday! We love you!

Heidi's Classes

I honestly can't think of a class in high school that I feel has benefitted my life. I hated every minute of high school. The best years of your life?? Not a chance. I'm living those right now. I did enjoy choir, I guess. Actually, my human anatomy teacher was really great. That was an extremely difficult class for me, but I think I learned a lot and actually still remember quite a bit. I still know what a purkinje tree is. Not that it helps me in my daily life to know that, but I do.

Mindy's Catch Up

Paper's done! I can catch up now. My favorite one on one time with Dad was when I'd snuggle up with him to work on a crossword puzzle. Most of the time I wasn't really helping him, as he let me believe, but every once in a while I'd get one he didn't know, and boy did that make me feel like big stuff!

Dad, I think it's funny that of all the academic classes you took in high school, typing is the one you most appreciate now! Typing wasn't even a whole class for me. It was just a part of computer time. Funny. I do really appreciate knowing how to type though. That's the skill I learned in school that I appreciate too. I think the academic skill that I most appreciate is grammar. We all learned that from Dad too, but it makes such a difference to know how to speak and write correctly.

Mom's Catch Up

I've been trying to think of a special time with my Dad. He was gone a lot of the time. He worked out of town most of the time, from Sunday night to Fridays. When he was home he was working with all the widows in the ward. I guess the time I remember most was the time in his later years when I went with a tape recorder to talk about his life.

The teacher and class I appreciated most was my High School English teacher. Can't remember her name. I loved to read and language was important as you can imagine, when I married into Dads family. They corrected constantly. I can't imagine how it would have been iif I hadn't had that background. I also am very glad I took typing.

I want to remind everyone of the pictures being due soon to Tricia. Please get them in.

Jeny's Most Useful Class

Maybe I'm not answering this the way you want, but my most memorable/useful class was Greek History in junior high at West Jordan Junior High. Not because the class itself taught me anything super useful, but the teacher certainly did. He taught me that sometimes you just need to stop and help someone out, even if it seems like a silly little thing they could do on their own. Sometimes those perceived little helps make a big difference. I think I've mentioned the story before of this teacher taking a broken necklace from me during a test and fixing it for me. He told me to concentrate on the test and he would do what he could with the necklace. I'm sure he had better things to do. He showed me that day that my success in his class was important to him, therefore I was important to him. In a time when I thought nobody cared and I was a big nobody, he made me feel like I was somebody. It's a stupid little thing, I know, but it really had a huge impact on me. You just never know when a stupid little thing you do is going to have a huge impact and help someone. You can never help others out too much. If it's a hard thing for you to do, just try smiling at someone that looks upset. Making them smile will brighten their day just a little bit, so start there.
The end of my lecture. Now imagine me smiling at you.

Grierson Family Photos

I've been waiting for quite a while for Jeny to tell me all her favorites so I could do a post, however, she has yet to do so. Therefore I chose for her. We took these over conference weekend and I'm sad because it was raining so we had fewer spots to choose from, also there weren't very many pretty fall colors yet so that was sad too. Anyway, here are a few. (There are 3 new posts today make sure you don't miss any of them!)

New Question of the Week

OK! Not wanting to let this blog lie idle, here is my question for the month.

Of all the classes and teachers you had in high school, which do you find most useful or the one you most appreciate today.

To answer that for myself, I think that my high school typing class was the most practical for me. First there was my little portable standard typewriter. Then, it was electric typewriters -- especially at work. And, finally (at least so far) is the keyboard on my computer. I am so thankful that I learned to type. It makes it possible for me to communicate with family much more effectively than I could otherwise. And to do so many other things. Endless is the list.

Grandpa Lauritzen

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Teresa! Teresa turns 25 today! Hope you have a wonderful birthday! We love you.

The Power of Prayer

I wanted to share with everyone an experience we had this week. Alex was walking home from school with a friend a few days ago and they both decided they needed to "go". So Alex set his cello down on the sidewalk, the cello we rent from the school, and went down into the drainage ditch. While he was down there someone came driving by in a pick-up, saw the cello, and helped himself to it. Needless to say I was very angry and upset. We filed a police report but had to wait until morning to do anything else. The next day Alex asked me to call his teacher before class but I told him he was going to have to tell her himself. His teacher called me around noon and said that someone found the cello on the road about 2 miles from where Alex had stopped and called the school. How we got it back is a long story, but we got it back. The interesting thing was the conversation Alex and I had right after I told him the cello had been found.

mom- "So what do you think?"

Al- "I am so lucky!"

mom- "Really? Did you say your prayers last night?"

Al- "Yeah, and I said them this mor...Ohhhhhhhhh"

mom- "So now what do you think?"

Al- "Prayer is Awesome!"

-Amy