Gwen finally arrives!

Sarah wanted a doll that is a character on her favorite video game. The only problem was...they don't make this character as a doll.

But never fear, my mother - who can make anything - came to the rescue! She made the doll from just a picture.

The only trick is the face, which is a Japanese kind of looking face, so Sarah is going to trace it on the doll with a tracing pencil and then fill it in with marker because one talent my mother, nor I, inherited is the ability to draw!

Luckily Sarah and Erik both did inherit it from somebody's genes in our family. They're both really good at drawing and painting!

My AZ Champs

Erik and Lars won 2nd place in their divisions in the Arizona Jiu Jitsu Open yesterday. I was very proud of them both!

Lynda is going to "law school"

This is a picture of ASU's law school where I am going to class on Tuesday/Thursday from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. for family law, and 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. for employment law. I need 10 classes to graduate, so maybe next May, I'll be done. Three classes are requireds and the rest are of my own choosing. No homework other than reading the material beforehand, and only one test. Pass/fail and no thesis. Can't beat that!

Right across the street from the law school is my church's institute building where students can go for recreation and study, as well as attend the church services on Sunday. If you take a study class there, you can park in their lot for free!. Right now, I'm parking off campus at the light rail train station and taking the train in. It's only one stop away, so just about 10 minutes of extra time to catch the train and walk to the building.

New Beginnings

Last night was New Beginnings for Sarah at church. Since she turned 12 in January, she gets to go to the Young Womens (12-18) classes at church now, and to their activities on Wednesday nights. New Beginnings is the official welcome event to the new girls coming in. They had it at the Brown's house, which is a beautiful "mansion" as Sarah called it. This is the program and a calendar of the year's events, along with a small bouquet for each new girl. The program was just beautiful! Each youth gave a short talk and turned on a lamp that was decorated with the words of all the Young Women's virtues until the whole room was bright, as in let your light shine.

The highlight of the evening for Sarah was the refreshments, which included a chocolate fountain!

Galaxie Found

I was driving to the grocery store about 5:30 p.m. last night when I saw this dog on the main road running loose. I was worried it was going to be hit by a car. I stopped and asked the people that were in the neighborhood nearby if they knew the dog, but no one did. She had a green collar on, but no tag. So I decided to bring her home and would call the shelter in the morning to tell them I had found her. It was a rough night as Dominoe didn't take well to her being in the house so they would get in barking fights about once an hour all night long. If I left either of them outside, then he or she would whine and keep me AND the neighbors up. I went to church this morning and then came home to start the process of finding her owners. I created a flyer that I was going to post, but before I did that, I tried to call the animal shelter. There was only an automated line that said that they didn't take found dogs on weekends, only adoptions were open on weekends. I was going to take her to a vet to have her scanned for a tag, but I didn't want to do an emergency place on the weekend and it cost us a ton of money. I took a chance and looked on pets911.com because I had posted a found dog ad on there. I searched the lost dog ads and low and behold, there was a picture of Galaxie. (Sarah had already named her angel). I'm not sure why they hadn't noticed my ad on the same website though. Galaxie/Angel was really sweet. I should have insisted they take Dominoe instead!

I called the number and her owner was so happy. I had actually caught them at the shelter looking for her. They had two daughters alittle older than my kids who were so happy. They stopped on the way to our house and bought these flowers and a sweet card with a dog on it. They said the dog had gotten out of the yard about 5 minutes before they got home, I guess according to the neighbors. They looked until it was dark last night and they posted flyers and went to the shelter twice today already.

All is well that ends well!

Sarah's Birthday

Sarah decided she wanted to have some friends go rollerskating to celebrate her birthday.

Pictured are David, Jacob, Sean, Erik, Heather, Sarah, Kabrina and Chelsea.

We went back to our house and had cake, which Sarah mixed, baked and decorated herself.

Sarah got lots of great gifts including gift cards to Target and Toys 'r Us, I-tunes, Webkinx, jewelry, DVD's, Crayola Glow in the Dark, cash, and Ipod and an Ipod radio.



A neat thing Sarah got was this medal nameplate that her Young Women's leader made for her. The bead colors coordinate with values that the church promotes like faith, integrity, and virtue. It's fairly large so I think I'll hang it in her room. I just thought it was cool!

New Year's Eve!

Erik spent New Year's Eve at his first church dance for kids 14-18. Our bishop (minister) was a supervisor, so he took these pictures. Erik is dancing with a girl named Kendall.

Erik didn't want to go to the dance and begged me not to make him, but I made him anyway. When he got home, he was pumped and said he was really glad he went, and thinks he wants to go again next time they have a dance...

This is Erik and the bishop's son Caldwell, who is a junior in high school. He's a good kid that Erik looks up to.

Lars, Sarah and I stayed home and hung outside with the neighbors around the firepit. We managed to stay up to midnight and watch the ball drop in New York.

Lars was off this week, and I've been off since Wednesday. It's been much more productive without being sick. I took down the Christmas stuff today and am painting the family room.

Here's to a better 09 than 08 was. Happy New Year!