The Latest Happenings

A few weeks ago Nate and I got fed up with the cold, stormy weather and drove down to St. George for the weekend to stay at the Hixson Hotel (Nate's parents' empty house down there).  It rained most of the time, but at least we could be outside without even a jacket on.  We ate tasty food (Larsen's frosty top diner, and Pizza Factory), ate gross food (I made two different packages of mac and cheese and both were disgusting because without visiting the store, the cooking-in-the-kitchen options are skimp), watched movies, and had our obligatory Urban Renewal shopping day.  UR is a hip consignment store with lots of classy furniture, decorations, clothes, jewelry, and shoes.  I landed a sweet pair of purple heels for only $10.  Although, I wore them to church today and decided that I'd vowed not to buy more heels for a reason. We also went to the outlets for some window shopping (because we can't even afford the outlet price). Llizi's favorite part of the trip was having an environment warm enough she doesn't have to stay on the heating pad all night and could finally run on her wheel again.  She is getting fat from never using it anymore!

Speaking of getting fat, this week I decided to start recording all the foods I have made since we got married (don't be too impressed, the list isn't that long) and rate all of them so it will be easier to decide what to make again in the future.  (That was mostly for Nate, because he gets great enjoyment out of rating things, ie.. every movie he's ever seen on IMDB, and all of his music on itunes). Nate put all our ratings into Excel and enjoyed making a graph that showed how much of each rating we had (how many 8/10 dishes we had, how many 6.5/10 meals etc.) What a dork. 

Only 2 things got 10's on my end, rhubarb pie and chicken enchiladas, which should come as no surprise.  Nate's taste doesn't always reflect my own so he lowered the average and I'm still working on making the perfect food.  If you're curious, the two outliers at the end were some cherry chocolate ice cream, and coconut chicken that went terribly wrong.

Warning- the following contains lots of Young Women lingo: 
Since I was called to be YW president in the ward in May, the usual number of YW who came consistently has been 2-3 (out of about 10 on the roll).  My counselors and I have been working hard to try to increase those numbers a little.  This past week was New Beginnings and it was rewarding to see 7 girls from our ward show up and even 3 of the parents!

We just started a YW class presidency with the Laurels, which we hadn't done before because there were hardly any girls.  I'm super excited about it though because since we called them, they have felt the responsibility of that calling and started not only coming to activities and church on Sunday, but are even planning a mutual activity to go to the local shelter and help feed the people there. The best part is they came up with the idea themselves.

Last year when we had YW in Excellence to show off Personal Progress, we had to get them all to do a value experience the week before so we would have something to show for them.  This year, they've already done a couple, and are much more excited about doing it. Even though my ward is very unique and this calling has been challenging, it's good to see some rewards.