Updates for the week

So the last post I had talked about us going to CPR training and I was hoping to post some great pictures of Miriam and the training dolls.  Well she did not let me take pictures of her and the dolls so I have no pictures.

This week is the FSA Colorado Conference and Miriam and I are so excited to go.  As always we hope that our families would be available to join us at the conference but as of now we have no family joining this time.  We are going to go to the Friday evening get together and dinner for adoptive couples.

Last year we went and had so much fun (even with all the crying) that we could not pass up the chance to go again.

We both are so excited that we both almost want to skip the work week and just go to the conference.

Miriam and I had the chance to go to Michael's home on Saturday and hold the little girl and she is so cute and we both would love to take her home with us (and I am sure when she is crying that her parents would not mind us taking her) but I know that her mom and dad would be so board without her.

As for the week we only have to get past the week to the weekend to enjoy the conference.

Training this evening

To improve ourselves Miriam and I have almost every year have done our CPR and First Aid training so that we can be available to help if needed.  Miriam gets the opportunity to take all kinds of this stuff and training because I always want to be well rounded (not round well).  So this evening we have to update our CPR certification.  It is not our favorite to be that intimate with a plastic Annie or Baby Annie doll but we do it for safety.  So I am going to try to get pictures of us "sucking face" this evening and post them out for everyone to laugh at.

Posting again

I felt that today I again needed to post something on the our missing leaves blog.  So this is today's topic:  I have my ham radio licence and I have been listening to all the chatting about the events in Japan.  First I need to say our prayers are with the people of Japan.  Second I want to say why do people see things like this so differently from the rest of the group.  So I am hearing one of the men on the radio talk about it and he says that he has been listening to a local talk radio host talking about this and he keeps bringing up the fact that we are not seeing people looting in Japan, and we just have the Denver Broncos win and we get riots and looting in the streets of Denver.  So this makes me think that we need to examine our ways of thinking, we have had so many days of big snow in the mountains so this summer we are sure to see flooding and issues like that.  So for traditional thinking in this way we would then have people running to the streets and causing all kinds of trouble.  So my question is why must we be this way.  We are all children of our Heavenly Father so why do some make it bad for others, and are we all pre-destine to be that way or can we use our free agency and change what or who we are?  I feel that each of us can change who and what we are and that we can exercise our free agency and become more like our Father In Heaven.  So why choose his path and become a better person over choosing to go the other way?  That is the question that I am asking everyone following the blog let me know, I know what I feel but lets see what others think?

People's Children At Church

So it has long been my short fall that I am nothing more that a big kid at best.  This being said I love to play with toys, color on the program, and eat snacks like the other children at church.  So like many Sunday's I wage a war to make sure that I get some families with kids around me during our sacrament meeting.  This Sunday ended up being a little tough because we did not get to sit real close to toys, snacks, and crayons so I was a little on the outs with myself.  I have tried for may years to get Miriam to bring those items for me but she tells me that I have to wait until I have a child of my own.  (and no it does not count if I have someone at church loan me their child for the Sunday)  So it is even more important to adopt a child soon so that we can bring the fun to church.  Hahahaha

My current calling is in the High Priest Group (I am the first assistant) and this calling is wonderful but for many Sundays I need to be in the room to teach, conduct, and to participate.  But it just so happened to work out this Sunday for the best.  Miriam works as a Primary worker in the Nursery and she is part of a team teaching group for the children.  Her co-teacher was out sick so they were looking to get someone to help Miriam and well you got it I ended up being the sub.  So I went to Nursery, this again plays right in to my church plan.  The children were playing with toys and I found some balls in the bottom of the toy bucket, I began to get all the children up and taking turns shooting from one side of the room to the other to try to make baskets in the bucket.  This was great some of them were crying for their parents and others were fighting over other toys and when they began to take turns throwing the ball it all fell in line and everyone was smiling and taking turns.  (Miriam was a little worried because the donated toy balls were a wiffle ball and a tennis ball both not very soft but we managed to do this without anyone getting hurt.)  Now I have a good excuse to go to the dollar store and buy some soft sponge balls for the kids to play with.


The long and short of this story is I am a big KID and love to play and have fun with the best of them.

Movie

I am looking forward to this evening with my wife, we have been running like two crazy people and this weekend it the only one we have for the next few that have nothing for us to do.  (We always have something fun going on but this weekend is all my time.)  So I am going to take my wonderful wife to the movies and to dinner for a date.  I was looking over the movies that are available and Mars Needs Moms looks good, along with Rango, and for the non-cartoon Just Go With It.  We most likely will end up at one of the cartoons because we both like the simple and they have good ratings (G, and PG) so they are more safe then the others.  The best part of seeing a movie is watching Miriam's face during the movie.  She has a face that tells her emotions so well that you know how or what she if feeling just by the look on her face.  Plus when we go to the movies she gets her favorite snack a pretzel with cheese to dip it in.  She has such little fingers and it is funny to watch her pull it apart and dip it in the cheese.  I know that I am the only person in the world that would find that so cute but she is my love and I enjoy every little thing about her.

Today at work I am dealing with an issue with one of our outside vendors and it is funny to talk with the people on the other end of the phone and you can just hear the pain in their voices about dealing with us.  We work with them and have called them about 20 times today and it is an issue on their side but they do not know how to fix it so they are just tired of us calling.  I have been in that type of situation before so I feel for them.  Good news is that it is FRIDAY!!!

It is hard to think that just a little while ago we were having snow and today about 60 degrees.  You just have to love Colorado weather.

Last thing today is I want to express my feeling about the earth quake in Japan.  I pray for the people of Japan and pray for them and to those that have lost loved ones please remember that in this time of hurt that your Father in Heaven love all of you and even when we do not understand why things happen he will always be mindful of our needs.  My prayers are with all of them and hope that their needs will be taken care of in the days that come.

What a weekend

This was one crazy weekend...
My one and only sister whom I love very much had been dating a young man who is in all respects a great man.  The only problem is you can only date so long before you need to take that next step.  So after much pushing and poking, and giving a hard time the two of them did it... They got married, it happened in one long but eventful weekend.  My brother - in - law is one of a kind and I know that he has a pure heart.  I see how he make my sister feel and how he takes care of her, and it make me very happy to see her so happy.  Seeing them both so happy is what life is all about.
As part of the fun we had a family get together on Friday night so that all the members of the family could meet the soon to be in - law family.  It was a little funny, when we all went to eat my family all crowded around the table to eat (you can thank my mother for training us that we are to eat at the table and no place else), and his family stood around the island in the kitchen and talked and ate.  It was not like we wanted to keep each family separate from each other but it was how we have been raised.
This aside the families came together on Saturday and put on a great reception party, the location that the party was at was a great location and the weather held out well.  We even had some surprise drop in's from our extended families from Utah.

Now to have fun, when we were at the party it was interesting to see who did and did not get up and dance.  Because I played DJ I picked the music and it was fun to see what songs got people on the dance floor and what songs drove them off.

Songs that had them dancing:
YMCA
She Thinks My Tractor is Sexy
Anything from Lady GAGA

Songs requested but did not get then up on the dance floor:
Elvis - Any
Big Green Tractor
Cotton Eye Joe

I am interested in any suggestions for the next wedding what songs would you like to hear at a wedding?

My Happy - Sad Week (WE NEED A CHILD)

This week is both happy and sad for me in many ways.  First I am so happy to say that on Friday February 11^th Miriam and I will be celebrating our 16^th wedding anniversary.  Time sure does fly when you’re having fun.  It seem as it was just yesterday that we were at the temple waiting for the wedding to happen.  But even better for me she has put up with all my silly silly ways for all these years.  Many people have had us tell the story of our wedding day and some of the crazy stuff but with the cold snap in the weather I felt so much like the day 16 years ago I wanted to share with anyone who is up for a long story. 

We were getting ready for our wedding in February and this says to most of the people who live in Colorado that February = SNOW well it sure did and it snowed good.  That week of our wedding it seemed to snow every day.  Best yet the day before our wedding it came down hard and left many people stranded in their cars and on busses around the city.  At the time I was driving a wonderful 1978 Ford Pinto (had a hard time getting traction in the snow even with great tires) and ended up getting stuck in a snow bank.  I was picked up by my father and we went home leaving the Pinto at the parking lot that it was stuck in.  As days go it was not much fun but the feeling of excitement was flowing in my heart knowing that in a few hours I would be marred to Miriam.  I called her and told her about how I was stuck and that my father was able to get me, she continued to get ready for the next day’s events.  Later that evening I was getting all my stuff together so that the next morning would be smooth at the wedding.  When I remembered that I had forgotten the wedding license in the Pinto.  So after having a conversation (one sided on his side and loud) with my father about going to get the license we headed out to get it in the blizzard.  During our trek my father’s two way radio was going off about busses that were stuck and other fun caused by the weather making him remember that he had forgot to bring home the slide projector so that at the reception we could project slides from his work.  So we made our way over to his work to pick it up good thing we were already out for my forgetfulness (hahah looks like it runs in the family.)  Our small adventure ended up taking several hours and by the time we managed to get home it was very late so we went right to bed.  The next morning was early and because of all the snow we needed to get an early start over to the temple.  When we arrived we were about the first ones in the parking lot but that was good so that we had plenty of time to get ready.  I went in and changed my clothing and was ready for the wedding to start (this is when it gets good do not give up on my story yet) but a small problem I was without a bride.  After several minutes one of the brothers helping with the wedding stepped over to me and said “Brother Staples, the wedding is to start did you bring the bride?”  Well at that minute my already throbbing chest dropped to my knees.  I responded with “My Bride, we live in different areas and she was going to come up with her family…..I, I, I, do not know where she is”… At this point I was sure that I was being stood up at the alter because when I call her house I was not getting an answer and they were very late.  Remember this is before cell phones were around for everyone so I had no way of just calling her on her phone.  At that point they could see that I was beginning to get real worried so they had me sit down and wait a little longer.  About the time I was about to get real panicked in to the front doors my bride walks with her mother in tow behind talking a mile a minute about not being ready.  I went over and asked what was going on (I am sure that at that minute I must have not had any color in my face because Miriam gave me the look like she was seeing the dead) and Miriam rolled her eyes and said that “Mom was not ready so we had to wait” now to a man that was sure that he was being left behind by the woman he loved this was a minute that I felt many feelings that we will not discuss today.  I said that I was grateful that she was ready now and that she should take her mother back and get ready because we were already late.  At the time I did not quite understand the situation but now after being in the family this many years I understand how it is that my then future and now only Mother-in-law was not ready.  I have grown to love my Mother-in-law and now see her need to make sure that everything is perfect, this is who she is and who she raised my wife to be so I am blessed for her methods.  The wedding was amazing and the fun was only beginning, I have had 16 years of fun so far and I cannot wait to see what happens in the future. 

To my bride, wife, and only:

    I would be nothing without you, I take every breath in amazement that you with your wonderful spirit picked me to be your husband.  Every day you have the chance to choose me or not to choose me and yet every day you pick me.  THANK YOU!   To you and all your special ways from taking care of our home, to being the best wife anyone could ever have or want you are truly special.  When you work on your crafts my heart is happy, when you play a game, my heart is happy, when you are even just in the same room my heart is happy, you make my heart happy.  You are a chosen daughter of your heavenly father and carry within your little body an enormous spirit that has the tenderness of a saint built in to it.  That spirit is what keeps me in love with you and know that you will be the most wonderful wife for time and all eternity.  I want you to know that every day when it is time to come home from work to be with you I get so excited that it is as if I am on my way to pick you up for our very first date, you make my heart flutter in excitement and joy and I am as a love sick puppy when I see you.  (I need to stop all the mushy stuff or everyone reading will be sick)

Last thing for this post is WE NEED A CHILD… My wife the woman of my dreams will be the best mother but in order to be a mother we need a child.  So this year is our year we are going to do everything we can to make this happen so if you are reading this we need your help please spread the word, tell everyone do not let Miriam’s mothering skills go another minute without a child to be a mother to.  Pass it on.

MIRIAM I LOVE YOU FOREVER