catchng up

Okay...so i've been slacking a little. Saturday was a lot of fun....after work that is. i managed to go the whole two weeks at nordstrom without a terribly mean customer, until the last few hours of my last day. i had a woman throw jeans at me and a whole family yelling at each other and getting mad at my tie suggestions. apparently i like old men ties. hahaha. but i survived. it was our friend casey's birthday and so he and his wife invited to dinner at non other than benihana. josh was in heaven! its really good, but i always leave feeling sick. they need a half order option. after dinner we went to casey and emily's and played nerts until 1 in the morning!! i still can't believe i stayed up that late!!

sunday josh and i learned a few VERY valuable lessons, all to do with being prepared and planning ahead. josh had done the grocery shopping on saturday with a list i gave him. well, i totally forgot to put a few key ingredients to make dessert for sunday dinner like eggs and butter. and josh forgot that he promised the young men he'd bring candy bars as an incentive to pay attention to the lessons. well turns out it was fast sunday so he could get off the hook and grandma and grandpa brought a dessert even though we'd forgotten to assign it to someone!!! love how it all works out! Church was great though. at the beginning of sacrament meeting the bishop announced he wanted to meet with the following couples before third hour. of course we were one of the four couples. we were a little nervous...but we met with him and he has asked all of us if we'd participate in a new class our stake is trying to get going. we still don't totally know what it is but it is some kind of strengthening marriage class. should be fun. it's on friday nights 6-7:30 so a lot of the couples were disappointed because thats their date night, but we were just excited because now we have something free to do on date night other than falling asleep on the couch by 8 watching tv. and we'll most likely be going to golden spoon after! always a favorite.

The young women were supposed to teach primary today, so we didn't plan a lesson for the girls, but after sacrament meeting we were told they didn't need our help! our yw president wasn't there so the other counselor and i kind of paniced. we decided that insead of throwing off the whole lesson schedule we have, we'd use the 30 minutes left of 3rd hour to address some questions the yw have had. last week when i taught the lesson we were talking about resources we have that give us strength and guidance to resist temptation and hold fast to the Lord's standards. One of the examples was our patriarchal blessing. the girls had never even heard of it before. all of the girls come from part member homes, most single moms who are not active, or living with their grandparents who are. So we decided this week to teach the girls how to use the resources we have (scriptures, for strength of youth, new era, true to the faith, and lds.org) to answer the questions they have. in doing so we found out that the girls are lacking even a basic knowledge of the scripture stories. they didn't know the story of abraham and isaac, jacob (israel) and his sons, etc. that was a real eye opener to me who had 30 beehives in my class. While this is another collection of challenges in teaching this group of yw, it makes me feel a little more comfortable and also a little more nervous. i'm relieved that i might actually have some knowledge to give to them, but i'm nervous because the foundation is the most important part. they need to know the basic bible and book of mormon "stories" to better their understanding of the gospel and to better understand and creat a relationship with our Heavenly Father. It seems to me that right now they only thing these girls know about the church are the "rules" as they call them, or the standards. Wow, it seems even more overwhelming when i write it all out. luckily we have a great yw president!!!

After church grandma grandpa and auntie came over for dinner. josh made tacos, i decorated the apartment, and auntie and grandma brought the "toppings" and dessert. it was so much fun to eat and talk and catch up! it was a blast. for my birthday they both gave me halloween decorations and then last week they helped me to make a fall wreath, so our apartment it looking like a home. josh especially like the vanilla and apple cinnomon candles!

today was definitely a monday. but lucky for us, a cool monday. it was only 85 degrees! yay!!! school was great. the bully girls were a little better, aiden didn't cry all day! in after school care only two kids showed up so i got to leave early. josh picked me up, we went and paid rent, had leftover tacos then i got my haircut. i called around and finally decided hair is hair and if it looks bad it'll grow out, so i went to fantastic sams and got a pretty good color and cut job. and after some serious consideration cut my bangs short again. i'm not quite sure how i like them yet....so we'll see. i alread know they'll drive me crazy during school going into my eyes. thats life. well im off to bed. until tomorrow.