Sunday, January 16, 2011

Pets

My family growing up had very unusual pets. We had a sweet little dutch rabbit named Hoppy. 


Here is my brother Doug with Hoppy.
  Hoppy stay in the house and used a liter box, but always enjoyed a romp outside!  She was so soft and cuddly.  

We also had ducks.  First was a little domestic duckling named Yankee Doodle, I believe she was an Easter present.  She turned into a beautiful white duck who quacked and quacked.  Thus, the name Yankee Doodle I guess.  Then we were adopted by a mallard, who came out of nowhere.  We named that duck Uncle Sam.  So, we had Sammy and Yankee.  I have to say that ducks are very messy and probably not good pets.  But, we did enjoy them! 

This post was written for Slice of Life.  Please join us here and share a slice of your life.


Saturday, January 15, 2011

April Showers

I know it's only January, but our April showers were daughter April and her family showering us with laughter and smiles. They were not able to visit over the Christmas holidays. But, were down here visiting for the last week and a half. We had fun together. Here are some pictures and video!


Sweet little Corbin, loves his Mommy. He was only happy when she was around. I loved hearing his giggle when they played peek-a-boo!


At first it looks like no one is pushing Corbin. Big brother Thomas to the rescue.



April with her embroidery from Grandma Virginia


April and Matteo with more fun aprons!


Feeding Ducks at the Oceano Lagoon


It seems there were more pigeons and sea gulls than ducks.



The ever adorable face of Thomas!




Playing "Wild Footsie's" with Grandpa



Enjoying our backyard swing.



 
Yummy Popsicle

Sunday, January 9, 2011

New Beginnings

They say that "Today is the first day of the rest of your life".   If that is true, at age fifty-eight I certainly have had lots of New Beginnings.


There are three new beginnings that changed my life forever. Getting married, having my first child, and joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.


For this weeks Slice of Life I want to write about my New Beginning...joining the Church.


I remember as a little girl, I would lay in bed at night and try to figure out life. It seemed to me we needed a purpose to being here on earth.  I wondered where I came from, why I was here on earth and where was I going when my life ended.  It seemed there was a circle of sorts.  I felt like I would be going back to where I came from.  My family never attended any church together. So, I went to different churches with different friends throughout my young life. hoping to find the answer with religion. 


It wasn't until as an adult and at the invitation of my sister-in-law, Laurel, that Mike and I both met with the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ.  Everything they taught made sense to me, especially when they were teaching the Plan of Salvation.  I learned I was a daughter of Heavenly Father and lived with Him before coming to earth.  I did have a purpose on earth to learn and grow and I could return to Heavenly Father again.  We began reading the Book of Mormon and prayed to know if we should join the Church. It just felt right, I had a peaceful feeling in my heart, and have never looked back.  The changes we had to make for this new beginning have been a great blessing in our lives.


It's funny but I used to get mad at Mike for teasing me about making a good Mormon ( a nick name given to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) because I didn't smoke or drink alcohol or coffee. Latter-day Saints are taught these items are bad for your body.  So, that wasn't a hard thing for me to change.  The hardest thing for our family with this new beginning was paying tithing.  Paying ten percent of our income to the Church would be hard because we were literally living pay check to pay check.  However, there are great blessings associated with paying tithing, this is what it says in the Old Testament.


Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
MALACHI 3:10

Who wouldn't love to have the windows heaven pour out a blessing on their life?  Our missionaries told us not to take their word regarding tithing.  They told us to try it out for ourselves.  It takes faith to tithe not money. So we decided to just jump in and paid that first ten percent not knowing how we would get to the end of the month with enough money to pay our bills.  Then it happened!  We unexpectedly received a check in the mail that was for reimbursements for a travel expense Mike had taken for a job interview.  He had been told at the time that there was no way he would be reimbursed, but miraculously we held this check in our hand that would help us get through to the end of the month.  It happened two more times like that,  getting unexpected checks. I was amazed that paying tithing really worked!  We were hooked. Now, we have been paying tithing for almost 33 years and have definitely seen the the windows of heaven pour blessings on our family.  

Notice I didn't say things are perfect.  We have definitely had our share of challenges. Our New Beginning taught us that we have a purpose on earth,  we have our Savior, Jesus Christ as our wonderful exemplar to show us how to live. And that helps motivate us to work through our challenges.


This was written for Slice of Life.  Please join us here and share a Slice of your Life.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Invite

It's a New Year! 2011! The start of a New Year is a great time for reflection and looking ahead. I'm not really fond of setting New Years Resolutions so this year I'm doing something different. I'm going to have a focus word. After much thought, the word is:

INVITE

Now isn't that an inviting word?? It has many ramifications. And two different roles. I need to do some inviting. However, I am also the invitee!

Here are some of the invitations I WILL BE accepting with more determination this year. They are found in the scriptures.


"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Matthew 11:28

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."
Moroni 10:32

"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."
2 Nephi 31:20

The Lord is there willing and waiting for me to "come unto Him". When I am burdened by something He will make my way light, if only I turn to him. He has invited me to a feast. A feast upon His words. I am going to striving to spend more personal time doing just that.


And the inviting that I need to do should be simple. I, well, actually we, want to just invite more people to our home. We have not been good about that, and it needs to change. I think that what happened was, that we were rejected a few times, then I think pride just got in the way. I didn't want to be rejected again, and I want things to be perfect so I stress out, so then I just don't bother. Oh, well there are tons of excuses and none of them good. So, beware neighbors and friends, you just may get an invite for dinner or a game! Hopefully, we will get to know more people this way.

And hopefully 2011 will be a year of growth!!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Winter Fun

This weeks Slice of Life is about Winter Fun!

Winter???  What's winter??  We seem to skip winter here on the Central Coast.  We do however have a rainy season.  That is when we aren't in a drought. 

When I was a little girl I lived in New Hampshire and enjoyed the snow. I remember one cold snowy winter school morning, my older brother Doug and had to trudge down our long driveway to wait for the school bus.  We couldn't resist and started playing in the snow and got our clothes really wet.  We went back in to change to dry clothes for school and missed the bus!  Our Dad had to come home from work to drive us to school and we were in big trouble! 

Here, where we live in California we don't see snow.  When the snow levels are low enough the closest snow is a couple of hours away at Mount Abel.  Once we went for a day to play in the snow.  We brought back two of our huge ice chests filled with snow.  The next day we brought out those ice chests and had fun with snow ball fights on our green front lawn.  We had some interesting looks from the passerby's on the street!!  But, it was a lot of fun and a cherished memory!! 
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