Quotes of the Week

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but must be felt with the heart." 

-- Helen Keller 

"Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street."  

-- Zig Ziglar 

"Gray skies are just clouds passing over."  

-- Duke Ellington 

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."  

-- Maria Robinson 

March Madness Interrupted

Family dinner Sunday. Look how cute the hostess is holding baby Madison.

Nani got a chance at holding the baby girl.

 Of course Maggie was anxious for her turn.

 Dad was wearing the lei he got from his recent trip to Hawaii.

Samantha doesn't look like such a little baby now with Madison half her size.

Look who decided to show up this month...Ben Thomas!! What a treat!! He is usually hanging out in Provo and doesn't make the trek up. This time he was in town.

He had been in town all weekend. Getting his car inspected (and then fixed because it failed) and going to a job interview were his main reasons. He just decided to stay an extra couple of days so he could enjoy the many games of March Madness with his dad.

After our soup dinner, Spencer was very eager for the candle-topped desserts to appear. After all, March is his birth month and he was anxious to get sung to and to blow out his candles. Rachel took good care of him while they were waiting.

Eli is making his move to try and get closer to the frosting on the brownies.

All the children migrated toward the the end of the table where the action would be.

Eli wanted his chance at the lighter.

Carson is pretty intent on blowing out Spencer's candles.

Next it was Wes's turn to light the candles for his mom. Happy birthday to the other March birthdays who were not there: Hailey, Abe and Zack. 

Take a last look at Ben. He quickly got a brownie to go so he and Glen could leave as quickly as possible to get home to watch March Madness games. Sheesh!! When will this madness ever end??!!??

Caroline ate her brownie in the kitchen all by herself. She had decorated herself all up with the headband and necklaces she found in the toy box.

It was a great night for Glen to leave early. I stayed for a long time after most everyone had left so I could look at the pictures Nani and Dad took of their trip to Hawaii. The scenery looked so beautiful and they (along with Mom) had a great time on their trip. ALOHA!!!

Four Golden Children

Rebecca seems to be coping with four little darling Golden children quite well. She has made it out of the house with all of them on several occasions.

This particular day the children were having an especially good time while they were here. They loved it when I pulled out some party horns. They blew with all their might, but could never get a sound out of them.

Synchronization of their party horns.

Spencer got a kick out of his strawberry nose.

Brooke gave herself marshmallow spots.

Cute kids. Fun day at their grandma's house.

Quotes of the Week

"Confidence sells -- people believe in those who believe in themselves. No one wants to be stuck in a room with other people who feel like they don't deserve to be there. Stop wondering if you're good enough. Know you are, and start acting like it."  

-- Simon Black 

"You must believe that your past is not your future. You are not stuck or defined by tradition and you don't have to listen to what others tell you to do. Focus on the bright things, the ones that bring a smile to your face. Find that passion and focus."  

-- Gayle Carson 

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." 

-- Bernard M. Baruch 

Birds of a Feather

We had a really fun adult dinner at the church last month. Clever theme "Birds of a Feather." This post is dedicated to my sister Nani because she loves decorations and I thought she would enjoy seeing how this party was decorated.

In the hallway as we walked in was a welcome birdhouse and a table set up for us to get our name tags.

Kathy Jacketta is so kindly doing our name tags. Which bird name tag we chose decided which table we would sit at for the opening salad course of the meal.

The tables were all decorated so cute and so unique from each other. The peacocks on the food table made for a very beautiful, impressive, eye-catching centerpiece. A woman in our ward works for O.C. Tanner and these were used as a display in their store.

There were tables in all four corners for water pitchers.

All the organizations were given assignments for decorating the tables in the bird theme. Jamie Jensen took care of the YW table decorations and I helped her by setting our table.

Don't know who did this table. After the salad course, they used the birds on the name tags to determine which table you needed to go to next for the soup part of the meal.

Primary decorated this table. The primary presidency all wore incredibly long fake eyelashes and their faces were all made up to look like beautiful birds.

Of course there had to be a decoration for the partition.

Don't know who did this table.

Or this table. When we finished with soup, again we were instructed to stand up and move to a different table with all different people to have dessert.

A corner water table.

This long-legged bird table was done by the elders quorum.

YM were in charge of this table.

Corner water table.

Ward missionaries decorated this table.

This is the bishopric's table. Turkey pictures of Bishop Cowley...

 counselor Gordon Pope...

executive secretary Scott McNair and counselor Larry Fisher were on the centerpiece.

It was a very clever and cute way to have a mix and mingle kind of dinner party.

Let the March Mad/Sadness Begin (Glen's Clever Title)

We were counting down the days...until the big event...when we could escape reality for a week.

Don't we look giddy with excitement? Well, one of us looks a little dreamy, but the other one of us looks excited about it!

March Madness was upon us and we were on our way to Las Vegas to watch nonstop basketball games.

Before making me sit through trillions of ball games, Glen so kindly consented to sit through a movie with me. We watched Monuments Men and almost had the theater all to ourselves.

Talk about being giddy with excitement. Glen got all giddy when he saw the stairs leading up to the arena where the games were about to be played.

Let the girls' games begin!!

 And let BYU win!! Hurrah!!

Not very many people were there to watch the two girls' games in the afternoon. I entertained myself by reading that very thick book (and a couple of other not-so-thick books throughout the week) when BYU wasn't playing.

Glen was even found seeking game diversions on his phone during the slow times of the basketball games.

In between the two afternoon session games and the two evening session games we would be out walking the long hallways to get the blood circulating from all that sitting.

Between sessions we would hurry off to a buffet and try to get back before the first evening session game began. We have our regular buffets we always go to, but this year Glen surprised me by having us eat at the buffet in the Paris Hotel. It was set up like we were sitting outside in a French village. I loved the atmosphere of it all!!

Back for the men's games. BYU won!!!!

Look at me being so happy when I could find a buffet with sorbet for me to eat for dessert.

We watched games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Then we had a much-enjoyed day of rest from going to the games and from wearing our game-day apparel.

We found a Las Vegas Ward to attend church. We ate our one meal of the day at the Wynn buffet. Glen has a new calorie counting app on his phone, so he now religiously enters all the food he's about to eat into his phone to see where he stands and how much more food he can eat for his allotment of calories for the day.

Yes--I was a happy diner because they had sorbet.

Glen used the coupons the hotel gave us for free popcorn which he ate while we watched a couple of movies in our room. Can't be Sunday for him without eating popcorn. Such a nice, relaxing day. Loved it!!!!

Then it was back to the games Monday and Tuesday.

We got stopped in the long hallway by a sports blogger from Deseret News. He was interviewing fans from the various teams. I guess Glen wasn't a big enough sports fan because his name didn't make it into the newspaper. Shucks!

It finally got down to Tournament Tuesday when the two final games were being played. It was pretty awesome to see BYU on both sides of the tournament board.

Glen's goal for the week was for both BYU teams to dominate over Gonzaga. Too bad that didn't happen. Boo hoo!

My goal for the week (besides reading as many books as possible) was to never have to sit in our actual assigned seats in the green seats area. They were hard seats. I wanted to stay on the 6-inches of cushion seats and my goal was achieved. Success!

We ate our last buffet at the Bellagio. I thought Glen's plate looked very colorful--bright green veggies and all that bright red bloody meat.

Instead of ending on a losing note, I'll end on a beautiful note. We walked through the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens--my favorite thing to do at the Bellagio. The display was one we'd seen before of a butterfly garden theme. The picture, though, was different. It is always amazing how they imitate a work of art by using flowers and plants as the medium to create something so lovely and interesting to look at.

After a week of being so relaxed and removed from the usual cares of the world, it was hard to want to come back home. 

Generally the thoughts of watching 18 games in such a relatively short period of time would actually make me go mad. But, in this case, I was so ready for a break and enjoyed so much not having anybody or anything needing my attention. It was awesome!! Sign me up for next year!! 

March Madness here we come again, and again and again!!