Church

Today we had a great Ward Conference at church.  The best part was that all three girls sang in the choir and it was beautiful!  🙂  The meetings went well and we learned a bunch…  The theme of our Stake this year is “I am a Mormon,” which we are all excited about, especially with everything that’s going on.  Many people ask lots of questions.  Many of us got theme wristbands to wear and I think that will generate even more questions.  We were all challenged to create profiles on mormon.org (http://mormon.org/people/) which we are excited to do.

Today one of our friends was baptized and it was a really cool experience.  Our whole family went and  had a great experience with him.  He is an ex-Marine and he and his wife moved into the Ward a few months ago.  They just had a baby and are a great couple.  We wish them the best of luck and are very excited for them!

Tonight we had our Ward Adult Christmas Party.  It was a ton of fun.  It was held at the White Eagle Owners Club which was very nice because the place came pre-decorated!  🙂  All we had to do was set up the tables and decorate them.  The food was wonderful (especially the desserts), and we had a great time chatting with everyone that came…

All the tables looked amazing as well.  We then had a white elephant gift exchange that was pretty funny.  Some of the gifts were actually really nice (not what I would consider as a white elephant).  🙂  Any gift could be taken from another up to 3 times and then upon the third steal, the gift became theirs.  We ended up getting a couple of exercise DVDs that no one decided they wanted to take from us.  🙂

This morning, the Primary held it’s Christmas Breakfast for all the kids.  Angela and I took Kirstyn, Zach, and Ben and we had a great time.  I had to leave with Kirstyn part way through to take her up to her EEP program and then I came back.  The boys had a great time and they sang the Little Drummer Boy song for all the adults there.  Santa Claus then came and the boys were really excited!

It’s funny to hear how their lists change every time you or anyone else asks them!

Today was the second half (general session) of Stake Conference so we got everyone packed up and left 2 hours early to drive down to Joliet to get a good, soft seat (which we did).  I used my iPad to keep Ben occupied, and again, it proved worth its weight in gold!  Ben was very quiet we never had to take him out once!  Yea!!!!  🙂  It did make Zach a little jealous that Ben got to play and he didn’t, however, but he’ll live.  🙂

Tonight we had our 2012 planning meeting with the youth presidencies in our ward.  As a member of the Bishopric, it is always fun to attend these, especially this year, when Sarah, Brittany, and Kirstyn are all in the presidency of their classes.  The youth pounded out a great schedule of activities for the year and decided who would be in charge of each activity.  It was kind-of weird for Sarah, because she was helping plan activities for the fall of 2012 that she would never see due to her going off to college!  😐

Today, our Ward had a service event at Feed My Starving Children.  The youth decided they wanted to head this up, so most of the participants were youth.  We had a great time and packed enough food to feed 53 kids for a year (I think).  It’s always a good feeling to go there and help out.  We also made sure that they had hung our Mormon Helping Hands shirt we gave them during our last visit on the wall of the warehouse along side all the other shirts (including the Grant Thornton shirt we gave them when we did an activity there).  🙂

Today was Zach’s last football game.  He was sad that the season was over.  We as the coaches are kind of relieved but we will really miss the kids.  It’s been a fun season!

Tonight we had our Ward’s Trunk-or-Treat activity.  Everyone got dressed up in their costumes and we went to eat some food, enjoy our friends, and let the kids get some candy.  Angela, the boys, and I were pirates.  Kirstyn was a flapper girl from the 20’s, and Sarah and Brittany were princesses.

The dinner went very well and there was a ton of food to be eaten.  We filled right up and then the kids went upstairs to go through the Young Men’s Haunted Hallway.  The Young Men did a GREAT job with it and the kids loved it.  The only issue was that one of the young men left the smoke machine on for too long, and it set off the fire alarm in the building.  We finally were able to figure out how to turn it off, but the system is monitored, so it triggered a 3-alarm fire alert!  😐  The police arrived first and I told them it was a smoke machine, so he hurried and called off the “other” two fire trucks that were on their way.  One truck came and they inspected the building just in case.  We told the firemen they looked great in their Halloween costumes and offered them candy.  They got a laugh out of that.  🙂  Whew!  The kids all loved the sirens and the truck coming into the parking lot!  That’s a first!

After getting a bunch of candy, we helped clean up a bit and then came home.  Angela and I are tired, but the boys are wired due to all the sugar!  😐

Today was session #2 of the Bishop’s Storehouse Open House.  Sarah and Kirstyn went up and helped Angela with the event and they had a great time!  We had our neighbors come and they enjoyed it as well.

I brought up Brittany and the boys later on and we did a session.  Nothing got broken or messed up which made us very happy!  🙂

Overall, the 2-day event was very successful!  There were a ton of people that came up for the public open house and really enjoyed it.  It seemed as though the tours never stopped.  The boys particularly loved the refreshments!  🙂  When Angela came home, she gave a huge sigh of relief.  She had put tons of hours into working on this and it’s nice that it was a  huge success and that it’s finally over!  🙂