*Monday Memos*

*MONDAY MEMOS*

   

 (If pictures are too small, just click to enlarge) 
Weekly recap of my rather crazy, insane, but fun and rewarding life!

dear monday, one of my marathon pages asked for your best finish line picture (meaning worst) and I had to add this one:

Jodi VanDenakker Wilding Didn't see the gurney behind me until after the photo was taken. But the look on my face appears I knew it was there. Or, that I was hoping for one! LOL St. George Marathon

Manage

I didn't get in much running today (at least miles) but I did a lot of running around!  I usually do!  LOL  I also deleted 5 GB's of space on my computer (mostly videos) because once again I am closing in on having zero.  Dave made some homemade applesauce again today, and it's simply amazing. That was my dinner because I am trying to lose the three pounds I gained after the cruise (not ON the cruise, but yes, after). Explain that!  It's called menopause!  Ugh!  I don't feel comfortable in my body with the extra and so it seems I am always trying to lose those same three pounds!  I wish I could just lose five and call it good, I used to could do that in a couple weeks, but it has become almost impossible since I turned 50.  So. Much. Fun.  NOT.  I met some of the Women's Forum committee members at Maurice's to try on clothes for the fashion show we are the models for.  They store manager pretty much picked out my outfits and I wasn't super thrilled with them. The only thing I really liked was the purple checked blouse and I ended up not wearing that.  ↓

I kept looking around the store and found a pretty sweater and a velour shirt to go under it and she let me wear that.  I also choose the purple hoodie, but not the scarf they paired with it.  She choose the black jacket that felt like a blanket and I loved the warmth, but not so much the look.  The above photo is what I will be modeling plus a pair of Veggo's slim cut jeans.

dear tuesday, it was pouring rain this morning!  I am a true pluviophile!  I practiced harp for an hour or more and then went on a run. I did hill repeats today. I got in five miles and about 10 repeats.  I wasn't able to run it all, but mostly.  

Loved these clouds!

My hill repeat location is no longer a quiet hill.  So many houses are going up. 

I came home and worked on a million things I'm behind on.  I got all my races/times/websites on a file so I can apply for the Phidippides award from the USATF.  I didn't think I would earn one this year, but so far I have a silver right now, but only a few points away from a Gold and so I hope if I run two turkey trots and maybe find another race between now and December 31st I will qualify. Dave had meetings and I stayed home and caught up on stuff. 

Dave was proud of this stick-contraption he made to get in his car where he locked the keys.  I felt bad telling him there was a set hid that he could have got to.  

dear wednesday, I headed to the temple for my shift.  A new lady started to replace Karen.  Her name is Laura and she is from Texas.  Me and Josh had some good laughs.  He makes it really fun.  I headed directly to my harp lesson.  I realized when I got to O town that I had forgotten my harp books!  I was going to have Dave bring them but that would have been silly and I know she has extra.  When I arrived my lesson got started way late.  Not sure why I rush.  Haha  She let me borrow her music and we worked a lot on my technique because when I videoed myself, I was not happy with how enclosed my hands looked.  I videoed Nanette in hopes I can learn better from watching hers.

I was supposed to go to Shelley's with the Sistas to see her house, but I had too much to do and so I finished some errands and then stopped in at my parents.  They are heading to CA tomorrow. Dave was off today and so I didn't stay too long.  

I read this article from President Nelson and I thought it was worthy of posting: 

Here are some of the doctrines our prophet has asked us to teach our children to better inspire home-centered gospel learning.

1. "Teach your children about the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.

2. "I plead with you to teach your children what it really means when they sing, ‘I Am a Child of God.’ They are created in His very image. And He has given them a great gift of a body, with a heart that beats, with a brain that thinks, and all of these marvelous attributes they have."

3. "Teach them to pray to Him." "Teach them to converse with their Father in Heaven."

4. "And teach them about the Savior of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us." 

5. "Help them to understand why we take the sacrament on Sundays and why the Lord came to planet earth to restore His Church again."

6. "Please teach your children about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. His Atonement is the most important event in the history of the world and the foundation of our religion. Everything else in our religion is secondary."

Carson and our face time chats.  LOL

dear thursday, I got in five miles running this morning.  I am not a fan that it's already cold!  I had to take my parents to the airport. They were a little paranoid about getting there early.  They need to travel more.  Haha I had them there an hour and 45 minutes before their plane took off.  Hmm....  Airports stress out my Dad.

I then went to Bountiful and to Station Park and did some shopping on my way home.  I had to hurry home to get dinner ready for Dave's parents.  I made Chicken Bundles for them again because they love them.  I ended up having to do donuts for dessert because I ran out of time.  Dave dropped it off and I rushed to the church for our last night of Vball. Tonight was leaders VS the girls. It was a blast.  We had a great turnout.  Andrea came for the first hour and then Karen came.  She was hilarious. Ayako was in and out the whole night because her daughter had a home game.  I let some of the girls do the scoreboard and announce things on the microphone.  They get such a kick out of that, though I'm not sure why.  Fun night.  Dave was at dart night at Troys.

dear friday, I got in 5 miles this morning but did a walk/run because the back has been giving me fits lately.  Just as I was getting home, Carson, Sky and Sarah were arriving.  Sarah brought his cool potion kit.  It was fun.  We did potions for quite a while.

Sarah had to leave and then Sky left to go to Tremonton to work.  Carson made lots of sweet pictures for Tyson as well as a glitter pinecone and he wrapped them up.  

We headed to the cemetery to deliver them.  

 We walked around and saw some interesting sights. 

We drove by the high school state playoff game to check out the score.  It was tied. We then came home and I hurried and got on my witches outfit (my new one) and then rushed to Tremonton to Witches Night Out where Sky was working his solar booth. 

He didn't quite make it!  LOL

One tired Panda.

It was pretty cool.  We saw some awesome witches.  

This ↑ was hilarious!

Carson was a panda bear and wore the mask I had because he didn't have his Spiderman costume.  But he looked adorable as a Panda!  We did the trick or treating thing and then got our picture taken.  

We hung with Sky for a bit and bought some yummy cookies and then went to the Witches Alley and Carson made potions.  He loved that!  FUN!  

Sky borrowed some of my Halloween decors.  They looked cute!

On our way home we did the Halloween Phantom because there was a couple peeps who didn't get BOO-ed yet that I thought needed to.  He was good!  He was sneaky and fast BUT the second house we did as he was sneaking up to the door - he was crunching on leaves and right when he got to the door the lady opened the door!  He was not sure what to do so just put it on her porch and ran!  LOL  She said she was sorry he caught him or something.  Not sure.  Hilarious.  I told Sky and he sent this text to me:
My Mom thought it would be a good idea to teach Carson about doorbell ditching...he got caught.  lol 
I wrote back and said that he was giving treats and so it was allowed.  He wrote back and said his text was meant to go to Sarah.  Hah
But it was good laughs!  We also ran to Troy's to take care of Zoe.  Carson was transfixed by her litter box...aka high tech kitty toilet!

We snuggled while we waited for Sky and watched Hocus Pocus. 

dear saturday, today I got out early on a run. I only got in 3 miles because I had to be to Karen's early.  As I was coming up my street, my cute neighbor Mrs. Tugaw stopped me and asked how my running was going with my back issue.  We got chatting and I finally had to tell her I had to be to Kaysville soon.  She is so sweet.  I got showered and rushed to Karen's for our GDO in Provo.  They weren't quite ready and so no biggy.  Around 10:45 we took off for Provo to Aubrey's.  Her house was adorable even though the Front Runner is her backyard.  She has it decorated so cute.  We took off for the Farmer's Market.  It was fun.  We listened to one of her friends sing for a bit and then shopped.  We bought mini Churros to share.  So good!   

Then we walked around and bought some squash and other fun things.  We then headed to Rockwell's Ice Cream and sampled lots of yummy flavors including HONEYCOMB!  Oh. My. Gosh!  Best ever!  I sure love this girls!  We have so much fun together!

We then went in to TASTE and just looked around because we wanted to eat at Carrabbas.  Fun place.  It's all about the chocolate here!

Then we walked down Center Street and went into several shops. We had a blast at a Vintage Store.  Holy!  These things were old!  Well, I guess I just said I was old because they were from the 60's! FUN!  

We then headed to Carrabbas and had lasagna and Sogno Dream Cake. The lasagna was yummy but the Dream Cake just wasn't as good as it normally is.  I felt bad I had talked it up so much!  We hit Krispy Kreme.  We decided to call this A TASTE OF PROVO because we tasted SO many things!  Haha  No donuts though because they were for Aubrey's party.  

We went back to Aub's house and chatted with Sam for a bit. He's a cute guy.  On our way home we stopped at Farmington at the Pumpkin Palooza to get Carson because he had been there all day.  Poor kid.  Both Sky and Sarah had booths.  

There was a snake show right when we got there and so I ran and found Carson. He eats up snakes.  Especially Boa Constrictors!  The lady then brought out a Python!  It was huge!  Geeze!  Karen and I signed up for a raffle to win a basket of stuff worth $100. I said to her, "Wouldn't be hilarious if we won!"  Mainly because we just ran in to grab Carson and leave.  

We grabbed Carson and headed to Karen's.  We borrowed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and then came home.  He fell asleep on the way home.  I got a call that I almost didn't answer while driving home because it was from St. George.  It was a lady telling me that I had WON THE RAFFLE BASKET!  I was so excited!  Holy cow!  How crazy is that?  Best part of it is Sky was still there and so he picked it up for me!  Yay!  They said it was worth $100, but when I added it up, it was about $60. But still!  Pretty cool!

Carson spent the night and he hung with McKay until bed time.

dear sunday, we had a Regional Conference this morning.  It was packed.  McKay, Carson and I went.  Elder Ballard spoke and did a great job.  We came home and it was so nice to have the whole day.  Bryce and Hailey were here.  I got busy getting things ready for the Halloween dinner.  I set the table and made the pudding (graveyard eyeballs) and Carson was excited for it.  

Sky and Sarah showed up a bit later.  Taylor arrived after them.  So everyone was here and I almost had it ready to go and then Bryce and Hailey had to go pick up her kids.  So, I postponed it until they could get back. I am glad I did.  It was so much fun!  Carson was so cute.  Brinlee wasn't sure what to think.  haha  And Liam just wanted food! 

 Getting a thumbs up from Carson

When I sat down, there was a penny sitting on the table.  No one admitted to putting it there.  Tyson always did love Halloween! 

The noodles were more purple than black, but I wasn't complaining!

These two had a lot of fun.  

Glad everyone could be here. I realized I haven't even done this dinner for four years!  WHAT?  I know!  I do love doing it!  It took a lot of time and cleaning up did as well, but it's worth it.  Memories were made hopefully.  Carson and Brinlee had fun playing.  I felt so squished at the table.  I really want to remodel or build because this house is not going to be big enough when the boys all have families. It's just not gonna work.  Dave doesn't seem to care, but I do.  We need a bigger gathering place.  Sigh...  Sky and fam spent the night.  I was beat.

dear random, I stole these from FB because I thought they were so cute!

I posted this blast from the past on October 28th National Chocolate Day!

HAPPY NATIONAL CHOCOLATE DAY!!!! 🍩🍪🎂🍫Halloween and National Chocolate Day makes a for some tasty costumes! Can't think of a better combo! 

#throwbacks #FBmemories #mostwonderfuldayofyear #bestholiday#greatcombination #gocelebrate #eatlotsofhalloweenchocolate

Can I get an AMEN?

The deer this year, are totally nonchalant whenever we go outside.  They just look at us and stare.  They used to take off running, but not this year. I think it's because Dave has been throwing apples to them practically every day.