What the......?!? What?

Guess who's the new Young Women's President in our ward???

(I'll give you a hint: It's not the little guy in the green vest.)

Oh, how quickly I advanced from "Personal Progress Leader" (which I was told would only be something I needed to do "once a month," but really turned out to be more) to "Laurel Advisor" and "Personal Progress Leader," which basically just added teaching a lesson ever Sunday except the first Sunday of the month to my list of duties to the Head Honcho, "President."

I don't feel ready for the responsibility and have NO experience being in a Young Women presidency, but somehow felt that this calling was coming, like the looming thunderstorms we've been having here for days-on-end. My mom warned me about this. "Don't do too good of a job, or they'll call you to be President," she said. I couldn't help it. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not going to do a half-effort job, even if it means throwing something amazing together at the last minute, or thinking of a fantastic idea for a great lesson the morning-of, in the shower. So, I don't know how I'll do with this new adventure, but I'm ready for the challenge....until I'm not....and then, I know I have some fantastic counselors to rely on!

So, for those of you who have been there, done that...OR are grateful it's not you this time.....I think some "Congratu-dolences" are in order.

(I also willingly accept all ideas/advice you don't mind me stealing.")

9 Years Strong

Nine years ago at this time in the morning (5:00 a.m.), I was also up too early. Nine years ago, it was not from a combination of the beeping from a dead fire alarm and a (nearly) two-year-old boy was crying over a sore bum from sitting in a poopy diaper; I couldn't sleep because I was so excited about it being my wedding day! Nine years ago, I made the most important decision of my life in marrying Stephen, and my life has been amazing because of it....not perfect, by any means, but pretty, darn close.

But......


Would you believe it almost didn't happen? See, Stephen and I broke up twice in 1999...once because he wasn't ready to be more than "just friends" and once because I wasn't 100% sure I was ready to be somebody's wife. We both realized the errors of our ways and the rest, as they say, is history!


Where we are and what we are doing now is nowhere near where we would have imagined we would be nine years ago, but even when plans fell through or life's challenges crept in our path, I have always been able to count on a few things......Stephen's love and our faith. How blessed I am to be married to my perfect match, my best friend.

While I was Posting...

Here's what was happening while I was writing the post about Kyle in a box. (I knew it was too quiet upstairs, so I decided to take the camera with me to capture the mayhem and foolishness that was going on while I was busy with something other than keeping an eye on the little man of our house.)


I hope he didn't eat too much. It's non-toxic, right?


The whole third floor of our home smells baby powder fresh now, so maybe I can get away with a few extra days of not having to clean!

Kyle in a Box

Need I say more???

Young Women Graduation Party

The Young Women and leaders got together last night for a party to celebrate the end of school, graduation for our seniors, and to have a farewell party for Michelle, who is moving to Idaho in June.


We had some pizza, chips and salsa, salad, brownies, and other party food.

We chilled and swam and had a great time! (It's amazing the weather cooperated, since it had been raining on-and-off ALL DAY LONG!!)

Now that school is almost out, it's time to ring in the summer!!!

Another Jungle Give-Away

My friend, Shannan, at The Johnson's Jungle, is celebrating Father's Day with a fantastic give-away.

Check it out, but not TOO many of you.....you'll mess up my odds of winning! :)

Swimming in the Rain

I noticed how warm and sunny it was outside this morning while I was vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen, so I decided to take Kyle swimming. I left the cleaning to be finished later and we both got dressed and sunscreened up, packed up our towels and floaties, and walked out to the pool. Not 3 minutes after we stepped in the water, the weather changed and a thunderstorm rolled in! I could see blue skies off in the distance, so we ran under the covered patio to wait out the passing storm.


Kyle had a blast running out into the rain, squealing when the cool drops fell over him, and zooming back into the protection of an roof overhead.


Almost as quickly as the storm came in, the skies cleared up again. We were able to head back into the pool and spend over an hour splashing and swimming before the rain came again and we had to head home for lunch.


(Sorry the pictures aren't the best quality. I only had my ghetto, piece of crap cell phone on which to capture them, but it's better than nothing.)

Lunch with the Missionaries

We try to feed the ward missionaries at least once a month. There's a new rule here, though, that they can't be in our house from 5 pm to 9 pm unless we have a non-member there for them to teach, so we decided to have Elder Paulos and Elder Zinn over for lunch today.


It also worked out that they came over in the afternoon because it started pouring rain outside while they were here, making it practically impossible for them to ride their bikes around. With the extra time they were stuck inside because of the weather, Stephen got to talk about his mission, pull out his "butt pack," and tell crazy Ecuadorian stories. One of the Elders even got to give us some service by offering to try to fix Stephen's laptop, which is currently out-of-commission. Yes, it's a PC.

The Elders also shared a nice little message with us about the power of prayer and asked if we would participate in what their mission president is calling "Mighty Prayer," which is a time set-aside for members and missionaries to pray at the same time of day, altogether, no matter where, for the people of this area. It's a great lesson in unity and an experiment in faith. It will be great to try, especially since we've been working on teaching Kyle to pray.

Resting on the Job

Even when there's work to be done, Kyle's found a way to stay relaxed.


This week's favorite toy is the V-Tech laptop, which has a really loud monkey voice asking questions and providing never-ending letter and number challenges. Kyle has played it so much lately that he had to invent a way to play while he rests. He hasn't quite mastered getting all the answers correct on his own, but he loves our help in finding the right letters and numbers to all the questions. I probably need to spread out a blanket and pillow next to him, ready and waiting for when I need to take a break!

Windows of Heaven

Wow, are we blessed! Life isn't perfect and we have plenty of challenges, but the Lord knows us and what we need.


A few weeks ago, we had a lesson at church that focused on tithes and offerings. Of course, we read Malachi 3:10:

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. "

I have always loved this scripture and have a great testimony of tithing, but a few things stuck out to me in this lesson that may not have be apparent before.

First, "prove me now herewith." The Lord is bound to bless us when we do what He says, but many times the blessings come after our faith is tried. We have to prove that we will do our part, sometimes without knowing what the blessings will be but showing that our faith is strong enough to follow His commandments and know that He will take care of the rest. He's asking us to prove it to ourselves, to experiment upon His words, to put our faith to the test. Our family has been hit with a few financial trials in the past few months, including having a $30,000 student loan (the one we planned on living on while in school) fall through. We honestly didn't know how we were going to make it through, but we plowed ahead, paying our tithes and offerings, and going about life in the best way we knew how. Sure, we were worried, I more than Stephen, but it was an amazing test of faith.

Second, "there shall not be room enough to receive it." I know we are blessed, sometimes so much that we're not even able to focus on all of the blessings. Maybe that's part of there not being room enough to receive it; our brains can't wrap around that large of an amount. There are also blessings we aren't even aware we are receiving. Last semester, after losing the $30,000, Stephen received 2 scholarships, and an additional small loan from the school. We also got a $7,000 tax refund. We only expected the cash we had at the time to last us until the end of June, but we haven't even had to touch it yet. On Friday, we got a letter saying Stephen had been chosen for another $3,000 scholarship. The blessings truly are pouring out, and I know they are coming from the windows of heaven.

Happy Memorial Day

And I'm proud to be an American,

where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

~Lee Greenwood

Kyle was quite proud to be an American today and ready to pose for the camera. He wanted to take a picture, so I told him to sit down and this is what he did:

What a little stud!

God Bless the U.S.A!

Closet Clean-Up

Up until now, there has been one spot in our house without any type of organization....the downstairs closet. It's basically been an overgrown junk-drawer, full of baby stuff, boxes and other moving supplies, games, food storage, and the vacuum. In other words....a BIG MESS!!



I was determined to get it cleaned up in order to make a space for our hurricane season emergency essentials, so yesterday I bought a shelf and got busy with the task. The only hang-up was having to go back to the store for another shelf, a replacement for the one I bought that was bent out of shape when I got it out of the package.

After pulling all the junk out of the closet, moving the boxes to the garage, placing the baby stuff in the back corner, getting the second shelf put together and in, and organizing our games and food storage, the closet clean-up was complete.



The vacuum fits in so much easier now, and we even have extra space for more water and food. I guess we better get busy on filling up those shelves!

Confucius Say...

"Your winsome smile will be your sure protection."

We picked up some Panda Express the other night and enjoyed reading our fortunes. The smile one was an extra, so I thought I'd throw that in, but here's what each of our futures hold:

Stephen: "Elegant surroundings will soon be yours." How soon is "soon?" I can't wait for elegant surroundings to be his because that means I will (hopefully) get to enjoy them, too.

Mel: "Your labors will bear many rewards." I am planning on organizing the downstairs closet in preparation for holding our hurricane season emergency essentials. Or...I guess it could just be the everyday "labors" of being a mom. Who knows?

Kyle: "Put up with small annoyances to gain great results." He does get easily annoyed and frustrated. If he could start putting up with the small things, it would result in a very happy mommy.

How fun that we can see glimpses of our futures with these "fortunes." The best reward of all was that our Panda feast kept on giving...dinner, lunch for Stephen, and 2 day's lunches for Mel and Kyle! What fortune!

Rain Day

A few raindrops weren't going to stop us from our to-do list for today. We had to go to the post office and the grocery store, even though it was pouring down outside. Once we got home, we were able to have some fun playing in the rain outside.


When it got too wet to be running around outside, we watched the rain from the balcony.


There's no sunshine today, but a rain day can be just as much fun!

Cruise Wear

Someone who loves me went to Cayman Islands and got me this t-shirt:

(Thanks, Grandma!!!)

I tried to hop in the car and thank her personally, but didn't even make it past the door!!! I guess a blog post will just have to do!

(Also, check out the matching yellow havaianas from Uncle Bando and Aunt Julia. I'm so stylin'!!!)

Milestones

600 posts.

22 months.

2 proud parents.

1 happy boy.

What can I say? I like to blog. It's fun for me to get on and reminisce and I'm happy that so many loved ones can keep up with us, too. I hope to keep up with my daily posts, no matter what life throws our way!

It just so happens that I also get to recognize another milestone today, Aunt Liz's birthday!!! Happy Birthday, Liz. We hope you're having a fantastic day. Sorry we couldn't be there to celebrate with you, but we did our own partying--Miami Style--by squeezing in one more morning at the pool before taking Amber to the airport.

By the way, The Cooper Inn has a vacancy if anyone wants to book a Florida get-away!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Showers and thundershowers likely. High 83F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. What would you do if that was the weather forecast for tomorrow?

Last night we decided to roll the dice and prove the weatherman wrong by heading out to the beach today, despite the stormy predictions. What do you know? It ended up to be a pretty good day.

The waves were amazing!!! We all splashed and played and tried to avoid getting knocked down. Kyle couldn't get enough. He especially enjoyed playing with his dad in the sand.


I think Amber made the most of the last day of her vacation. She got in one last sunburn, did a little shopping, and ate some fresh seafood. The rain stayed away just long enough for us to enjoy a full day of fun at the beach!

Shopping and Swimming

The rainy season is here, and we've see a little bit of rain every day since Amber's vacation began. Today was no different, but we didn't let it spoil our plans of going shopping and to the pool. We headed up to The Swap Shop in Ft. Lauderdale to see if we could find any treasures and then went to Sawgrass Mills Mall, to check out the deals in the outlet shops.

After some great shopping, we just wanted to relax by the pool and had just enough time to do so before another few rain clouds blew in!

Sunday Fun

Church was fun this morning. Kyle was a rascal at first and had to be taken out, kicking and screaming, three times, but he shaped up and ended up having a great time in nursery....new bruise on his face from falling into the corner of a table and all. Amber got to go to Young Women's with me to hear my lesson, which just so happened to have a story about girls that had been friends for 15 years. Plus, we had chocolate!

After church, Amber and I spent some time out in the sun while Kyle took a nap and Stephen studied. Then, we had a yummy dinner and played some games. Good times.

By the way, here's a wonderful Amberism for the day:

"Do you know what fixes hot? Cold." (I guess she's already learned that Florida is hot and has the solution. Perhaps we should pass this on to the global warming specialists!)

Key Biscayne

When you live in Miami and someone comes to visit, you just have to take them to the beach, so even though I have been threatened by a boycott of my blog if I post more beach pictures, that's a risk I'm just going to have to take. (Sorry, Chrystal.) I do live in Miami, ya know? What else are we gonna do???

It's fun to drive down to Key Biscayne, over the bridge and past the cruise ships and multi-million-dollar homes and yachts. We decided to head to Bill Baggs State Park to hang out on the beach and climb to the top of the lighthouse, the oldest standing structure in South Florida.


Stephen was nice enough to be on "baby duty" for the day, so these 2 hotties could soak in some sun.


Kyle had a great time. Here he is, thinking about what he could do next.

"Hmmmmm...."

"...I'll dig in the sand and fill up this pail...."

"....and dump it all over myself!"

"Doesn't that sound like fun?"

The trek to the top of the lighthouse is not for toddlers, so Stephen volunteered to stay with Kyle while Amber and I made the climb.

It was fun to look out at water in all directions from the island. We could see South Beach and the rest of the keys.


We could also see Stephen and Kyle down on the beach. (They are on a blue blanket next to a hot pink float near the middle of the picture.)

Minus the five-minute downpour when we first got to the beach and a little bit of wind, it was a near-perfect day at the beach.


Since Kyle fell asleep the minute we started the car, we also took Amber sight-seeing down through South Beach, the Art Deco District, and past Star Island. We're still without a star sighting, but Amber's not giving up hope....