Youth Conference

This weekend I had the privilege of going to youth conference with the North Las Vegas Stake. I don't know how I got so luck to go, but I am sure grateful that I had the opportunity.

We meet at the stake center on Friday at 5am. Yes that is right I spent my first official day of summer getting up earlier then I do for work. We finally left around 6:30am. There were about 200 youth from the 12 wards in the stake. Our ward had 6 girls and 4 boys attend. Hopefully more of our youth participate next year. Our youth and the leaders filled up 5 charter buses. We were on bus #3 (ie bus awesome) with the Craig Ranch ward. They had some great youth on the bus that I enjoyed getting to know.

After a quick lunch in Beaver we continued straight on to Lagoon. We arrived around 3:30 Utah time. We stayed at Lagoon until closing (11pm). This gave us plenty of time to ride the rides we really wanted to get on and some we thought we would ride just for the heck of it. I got to ride Wicked twice. That ride is awesome I encourage everyone to ride it at least once. At Lagoon I had the opportunity to ride a few rides with the youth and get to know them better. I find teenagers very entertaining. Most of the day I spent with the other leaders from our ward. I was the only "single" sister from our ward so I want to thank them for letting me tag along and be the 5th sometimes 7th wheel.

I thought the stake leaders were quite clever. They had rooms at two hotels, one for the boys and one for the girls. Only the leaders knew where the two hotels were. Very smart!

As I was alone this weekend (Neal had to work and stay home to take care of the kids)I shared my hotel room with a stranger. This was very odd. Sister Brown was my roommate. She was a very kind woman. I'm sure I froze her that night, but I can't sleep when I'm hot. So thank you Sis. Brown for putting up with the cold, you were very gracious.

Saturday morning after the continental breakfast we re-loaded the buses and headed to temple square. At temple square we broke up into our individual wards. We had about 2-3 hours to see what we wanted to see before we met back up for lunch. Our ward choose to first take a tour of the conference center. I felt the spirit as soon as I walked in the building. It was beautiful and amazing. I had never been there before. The artwork was inspiring. I could have spent the whole day in there just savoring the beauty and feeling the spirit.

After the conference center we walked over to the church history museum. Most of the displays were about the pioneers and early settlers. It reminded me of the sacrifices that they made and the blessing that I receive today because of what they endured. Two things that really stood out in my mind were the hand cart and the wagon. I didn't spend much time contemplating the hand cart. Probably because I couldn't even come close to comprehending fitting all of my stuff as well as my families in the cart, let alone pulling it across the country. I spent some more time on the wagon. I could wrap my head around it a little better. I asked one of the young woman if she could even fit her room in it. Her response was "NO". We then went on to discuss the modern things that we have today that we would miss. Hers was her flat iron, mine was air conditioning. How spoiled we are. I'm sure if we had to do the same thing today there would be much murmuring and little singing of "All is Well".

After lunch our ward went to the visitors center on temple square. I, however, went and sat in the Joseph Smith memorial building and visited with Jenny Hodson. Jenny a good friend of mine moved from our ward up to Ogden UT about a year ago. She drove down from Ogden to visit. It was great to see her and her cute daughter, Emma.

Our final event before loading the buses to head home was viewing the Joseph Smith movie in the Legacy theater. I had seen the movie before and wasn't all that impressed. I thought it was good, but not nearly as moving as Legacy & the Testament. However, after a second viewing I have changed my first impression. I do believe it has a lot to do with me and how strongly I was feeling the spirit that day. I loved the movie. I cried like a baby. I am so unbelievable grateful for the sacrifices the Joseph and his family made in order to restore the gospel to the earth. I am grateful for the faith of the early saints who endured more pain and suffering than I can even begin to comprehend.

The bus ride home seemed to take forever. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was exhausted and the bit of sleep I got wasn't cutting it. I wanted my bed. We did finally get home about midnight. I crawled into bed about 12:40. Trying to sleep on a bus will certainly make you thankful for your own bed.

Sunday was the final day of youth conference. There was a special testimony meeting for the youth. It was a two hour meeting. I was worried about the length, but it went pretty fast. The testimonies were very touching. We have great youth in the North Las Vegas stake. I am very blessed to have the opportunity to serve with the youth. They are amazing and they teach something me every time I am with them. It seemed that the most of the youth were very touched by the Joseph Smith movie.

During their testamonies a lot of the youth brought up their favorite part of the movie. This got me thinking about the different parts and what they meant to me. There is one part/character who really stands out in my mind. He didn't play a large roll, in fact, I don't think he even had a name. He was the blacksmith. He came to Kirtland a widower with 3 children and nothing else. The members built him a house and he found a new bride. Throughout the movie he started to doubt Joseph. He even admitted to knowing that Joseph was being led to a trap, in which Joesph ended up in Liberty jail. Then when they were in Navou (SP?) the first summer his only living child was dying. He carried the boy to Joseph Smith, who healed the boy. At this point Joseph goes on to heal countless others. However, it is not this fact that plays on my mind, even though it was great. The blacksmith had doubts. He wasn't the most faithful or obedient. He placed distance between himself and the Lord. But, as soon as he humbled himself and let go of his pride the Lord was there. The Lord is always there, just waiting for us to ask or knock. He never leaves us! It is us that distances ourselves from the Lord for whatever reason (usually a stupid one). However, I have learned & it was reiterated in the movie that the Lord is always there for us. That no matter what it is never too late to change and return to Him.

I didn't share my testimony at the meeting, yesterday. I felt the time was for the kids. However, if I had that is what I would have shared. I had to stop myself from going up but I had to get my thought out somehow. I hope I didn't bore you too much.

P.S. If you ever have the opportunity to serve in the young women's/men's program and youth conference comes around make sure you don't miss out on the opportunity to be part of it. It will strength your testimony and faith in a bright future.

Test of Faith

I was off yesterday. It was great, but a tease, since I had to work today and tomorrow. I used my day off very productively. Among one of the things I did was pay this months bills. I hat paying bills but I love being able to pay bills online. I'm able to set up all the payments for the month at one time. I also have some bills that get paid automatically. This really helps cut down the time I have to spend doing something I don't really enjoy, so that I have more time to do the things I do enjoy (that list is long).
Anyway back to giving away my hard earned money to other people. When I went online and saw our bank balance I was shocked. I shouldn't have been surprised. In the last week and a half we bought a dog (not cheap), paid to get our sick one fixed (even less cheap) and paid our mortgage (paid way more than what it's worth). Needless to say our money had been depleted and there were still many more bills to pay. I told myself it would be okay. I was getting paid tomorrow and more money would be coming in throughout the month, so I scheduled all of the payments for the month.
I know I did things backwards;pay tithing first then pay the bills. Someday I will get that right. I also have a bad habit of letting multiple deposits add up before I write out the tithing check. Part of the reason I think I do this is because Neal is paid weekly and I am paid twice a month. I need to at least write the checks when I get paid. Saving up a months worth of tithing just makes it harder when I have to part with that large of a sum of money. I did better the last two times. I just need to keep working on it.
During the bill paying project the desk usually gets cleaned or seriously straightened up. This time my cleaning up revealed a tithing envelope that was sealed. Dang it, the last tithing check never got turned in! So now I not only have one tithing check to turn in but two (gulp), for not small amounts. I have paid the bills, written out tithing checks and still need to buy food and gas this month.
WOW this is going to take some serious faith. I have been in situations similar to this before. In those situations I chose to eat instead of pay my tithing. However, I have learned since that time that I was doing it backwards. The correct order is pay tithing then eat. We have received assistance with food from the church before, when Neal was out of work, so I know we wont go hungry. Also, I wont be working so I will use less gas. We can do this.
I'm on the edge and I'm taking my leap of faith...
I am sure glad to know that we have the Lord as a safety net!

JJ came home on Saturday. Sorry it to took so long to update, things have been busy. He is doing well. He is acting a lot like his old self. I can tell he feels much better. In fact he feels so well he has been trying to over due it. He has a very large cone on his head and lots of stitches on his belly. He will get his stitches out this Sat. and will get to ditch the cone. The poor thing can't get through the dog door.
On another note. I added three posts the same day opps. To much to say all at once. Anyway didn't want you to miss all the great things I had to say (lol) so I thought I would let you know to keep scrolling down.

Angel update

JJ's surgery went well and he is recovering. Come to find out JJ had two stones in his bladder. They are going to test the stone and do a urine culture so that we get him on the right food and antibiotic so that this doesn't happen again. He will be at the vets until at least Friday. In the meantime they are going to be pumping him full of fluids to flush his system out.
I can't wait to see my angel.

YES! I DID IT...


Back in January I blogged about my weight. If you forgot or didn't read it I'll recap. I had lost 46 lbs. Then over a period of time I continued to regain my weight. At the first of January when I weighed in at Weight Watchers I discovered that I had regained 23 lbs. I couldn't believe that I had regained half of what I had lost. Needless to say I was very upset. I decided to refocus on my weight loss (ie stop messing around.)

Yesterday I went to Weight Watchers, as I do every week, to weigh in. It is with great pleasure, jubilation, joy, glee, {insert your own happy adjective} that I announce I am back down 46 lbs. I accomplished the amazing feet of loosing 23 lbs in 5 months.

I have also lost another 10% of my weight. This makes it my 2nd 10% for the second time. I don't ever plan on doing it a third time. When I get to my 3rd 10% (only one time) I will be about the same weight as when Neal & I got married. {huge smile}

"I made a present for you mom"

Awwww what a sweet little girl. It is not hard to love her, esp when she does such cute things. In the little time that we have had her she has brought many smiles to out faces.

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And then I come home to his mess. How such a sweet little girl can make such a big mess is mind boggling.

Yes that is what you think it is.
Another angle

I wanted to make sure you didn't miss anything.

It a shame I can't add a scratch-n-sniff sticker so you could get the full effect.

She pees on the pee pad, but poops on the floor. (sigh) I can deal with this. However, her stepping in the poop is going to push me over the edge. She doesn't just step in it once, but over and over all day long. If this keeps up I might have to just leave her in her kennel all day long. I really don't want to have to do this. She stepped in the poop so much is was "painted" into the tile. It probably took me nearly an hour to clean up. First I put Lillee in the sink to wash her dirty feet and bottom.

I then put gloves on and took a brillo pad to the offensive floor. After I got what a could with the pad I took the hand vac to the floor to suck up the dried up pieces (gross). The next step was Simple Green to clean the floor. Finally I used bleach to disinfect the floor and kill the smell. All of this time Lillee was dancing around my feet trying to get me to pay attention to her and JJ was sitting on the coach being sick.

Lillee is lucky she is so cute and silly. I know things will get better when I'm able to work more with her during the summer. Things HAVE to get better or else....

My Angel

Saturday was a great day. We brought our new little girl, Lillee, home from the pet store.

Sunday was a terrible day. After the boys came in from their morning "potty" I was on the floor giving them loves. I don't want them to think that they are being replaced by Lillee. While I was down on their level I noticed that JJ (my oldest) had blood on the top of his back paw. I am ashamed to admit that my first thought was that he had snapped at Lillee and drew blood. Actually that might have been better than what actually happened. I then noticed that JJ also had blood on the hair around his pee pee. This really concerned me and I started to cry. I took JJ to Neal to show him. Just in case I was hallucinating, but I wasn't.

I decided that if there is a webMD for humans maybe I could find the equivalent for dogs, so I took out my computer & searched the web. I googled "what it means when dogs pee blood". One sight I looked at was yahoo questions. It is where people post a question and other people answer. Well someone else had wondered the same thing. The responses varied from possible urinary tract infection to take the dog to the vet now!

I thought to myself "its Sunday the vet wont be open", but I called anyway just to check. Surprise my vet office is open 7 days a week from like 7am-8pm. This is awesome, cuts way back on emergency vet charges. Now those of you who know me well know that I do my best to keep the Sabbath day holy and for me a big part of that is not making other people work. However, my concern my little angle dog trumped my desire to not make others work.

After updating the vet on what the problem was she said she wanted to do an exam, I can't remember what it was called. The exam consisted of an ultrasound up poor JJ's bum. From the ultrasound we learned that JJ has a very large stone in his bladder. I would say the stone was about 1/8 the size of his entire bladder.

The Dr. said the surgery was the best option. I asked her how much surgery would cost. Now keep in mind when I get his teeth cleaned they put him out so its like minor surgery and his has also had one other surgery when he had a lump on his eye. So I'm thinking maybe around $500. Her response....$1,500. My jaw hit the floor and I started crying, again. I just bought a dog yesterday and she wasn't cheap. I just knew there was no way that Neal was going to agree to spending that much money. I asked her if there was any way to break the stone up. She said they could analyze the urine and see if they could tell what the stone was made up of and we could try a special diet. She then said that the chances of that working were slim and the best thing to do was surgery.

As I was driving home the thought occurred to me that I didn't want to trade my boy for a girl. That was not my intention in getting another dog. Lillee is not to replace but to enhance. The words "not fair" also came to mind. Like life is ever fair.

I was quite surprised when I realized that Neal is willing to spend that much for JJ. I know some of you are thinking that we are crazy. I have a question for you...Would you spend $1,500 on your child's medical bills? Or would you just make them suffer, develop an infection and possible die? I realize that some people don't understand how a dog can be a child, but our dogs are, so please try not to judge us too harshly.

In order to help with this new expense all summer plans have been canceled :-( We were going to go to a hotel for four nights this summer. The hotel is in Vegas, but it didn't matter we were going to "get away" and relax. Neal canceled the reservation yesterday. My annual trip to UT has also been canceled (sniff sniff). Oh, the things we do for our children. Instead of my summer being full of travel and fun it is going to be filled with training a puppy, taking care of a sick dogie & making sure the other one doesn't feel left out.

I had my heart set on the new diet and lots a prayer to get rid of the stone. However, that idea was crushed yesterday. When i got home from work instead of being greeted at the door by my two very excited boys I was greeted by one excited boy while the other one continued to bark from the front room. This is not typical behavior. I rushed to the front room with many different wild scenarios going through my head. What I found was JJ sitting on the couch & Lillee still in her pen which was a mess (see future post for that story & pics). JJ looked fine. I called him over to me and he came. However, when I picked him up he was acting strange. After cleaning up before mention mess I was spending time with the dogs when I noticed that JJ was drooling. My dogs don't droll! However, JJ had been drooling on and off since Sunday. JJ was also acting very lethargic. I could tell he wasn't feeling well.

The Dr. had called the house and left a message that they had the results in. As my worry about JJ's behavior increase I decided to call the vet to find out what had been learned. No much was learned, they were not able to get any helpful information from the urine analysis. I got some more information about what could happen to JJ if his problem wasn't handled. We also discussed the diet option, which again she said the chances of it working were slim. I told her that we had decided we would do the surgery. She asked when we wanted to have it done. I told her I wanted to wait until I was done with work so I could be home to take care of him, which is in two weeks.

That plan changed when Neal came home from work. As usual the boys ran to the door barking to greet Neal when he came in. Lillee, learning from the boys, followed. She then returned to me, I am the mom after all. She stepped on my feet, which is typical. But yuck her feet were wet. Dang it, she peed on the floor again?! I go to find the spot, so I can clean it up. I put paper on the wet stuff to soak it up. When I picked up the paper I realized that the wetness was not pee but silyva. I'm sure you can imagine how I discovered this as I picked the paper up off the floor. JJ had thrown up a puddle of saliva. Crap, crap & double crap.

Another call to the vet. She's busy. Wait for call back. Still waiting. I get impatient and call again. Dr. Stewart wants me to bring him in now, if possible. Off we go to the vet, for the third day in a row. Dr. Stewart did another ultrasound to see if his bladder was being backed up by the stone. All is clear, however, his lining is even thicker than two days ago. She informs me that this means the stone has been irritating him. My poor baby has been in some major pain, and this is all happening with him on pain killers and anti inflammatories. Because his bladder wasn't being blocked she decided the surgery could wait for tomorrow. They were going to do pre-surgery blood work to make sure nothing else was wrong. If they found something else the vet would call me that night. This time luck was on our side, I didn't receive a call.

JJ is having his surgery as I type this post. He will be staying at the vets for a minimum of three days while he starts his recovery. When he comes home he will have a cone on his head and will have to take it easy. This is why I wanted to be home with him. I mostly worry about him jumping up on the coach. Next week I have to work Mon, Wed and Thur, so I asked my boss if I could bring him into work with me, after all the kids will be gone. More luck, she said yes.

So for now I wait & pray for the call from the vet that everything went well. And then I'll wait again for the call telling me he can come home. (I hate waiting)

I call JJ my angel for two reasons. First, is because his is probably one the most well behaved and obedient dogs ever. Second, because on many occasions he has been the angel God has sent to me in times of darkness and despair. JJ is one of my greatest blessings and I love him dearly. I pray that Heavenly Father lets me keep him for many many many more years.

I may now be poor (no money) but I am still rich in blessing.