Happy Birthday Queen Victoria

I should probably do a little surfing and try to figure out why it is we celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday still.

Nonetheless, happy Victoria Day!!

We've had a great weekend. Friday Allen had to do some appointments in Lethbridge so he took the kids along with him (which means I was left all alone at home....ahh! Blessed peace!) They had a great time too. They played a while in Raymond with Allen's parents, then also went to my parents. My mom was gone out of town but my dad was there and he took them swimming at his hotel. Afterwards they came home and ordered pizza for dinner and just got to play and watch TV. They had a great time.

Saturday was not too exciting. Sunday was our regular church day - but we also had fun having a pot luck with some friends. On Sunday a friend in our ward invited us and some other families
over for a pot luck of sorts. We all brought our own meat to BBQ and
a salad to share. I also brought dessert. We ate and then we had a
FHE. Each family was also supposed to bring a little FHE lesson. We
each took turns giving our mini lesson...well, ours was mini - the
rest were a little longer! Peirce has learned the story of Jonah and
the Whale and the past few weeks for FHE he likes to get the puppets
out again and have us listen to the story again. I figured a new
audience was a great chance to do it again! It is so cute to have him
tell the story. He doesn't say his r's very well, so there's
that...plus he has a few of the details wrong. He'll say Jonah got
swallowed and he was in there for 3 days, uhm, 3 weeks, uhm 3 years
(days and weeks and years are a concept he doesn't quite get
yet...they're all in interchangable). My favorite part is when he
tells how the whale puked up Jonah. It must have been pretty yucky
actually to have the whale do that!

Anyway, it was cute to listen to him tell the story. He felt quite
proud of himself to do the lesson for our family's contribution.

It was nice to see what everyone else did too. One family read a
story from the New Era, another had a story with puppets that they
read, and another had a lesson with scripture to look up, and another
just talked about gratitude and had every family share something
they're grateful for, and another read something from a book about/by
President Hinckley about FHE and we discussed what he read.

It was really great. It was kind of long for the little kids - but I
think there was enough variety in the people presenting that they
were able to stick with it. I enjoyed seeing all the different types
of lessons.

Most of all, it was fun to visit with the people they had invited. We
decided afterwards that we're going to start doing that again. We
kind of get away from doing it in the winter but in the summer when
kids can play and eat outside I'm a little more interested in having
families over. :0) We also are going to see if we can get people
together at a park and have a pot luck there.

I actually set a goal for myself at the beginning of this year that
we'd not just have FHE each week - but we'd have a lesson. We were
pretty good at doing something each week - but sometimes it was
something on the fly - or we'd play a game or do some sort of
activity. Truthfully, we don't have a problem doing stuff together as
a family and so I felt like it was important for us to make sure we
tried to lengthen our stride a little by making our FHE a lesson most
often than not.

Today I took the kids swimming at Churchill pool. It's a nice pool to go to because they have a tank that they can move the bottom. Sometimes it's a dive tank, sometimes it's a wading pool. Today it was just over a meter deep - just perfect for kids. Jill and Peirce had a great time. I was amazed at how Jill just giggles the whole time. She squirts you and giggles. She gathers up water toys and giggles. She gets a noodle and giggles. She rides on the boats they have...and she giggles. She plays with Peirce and she giggles. She gets in the hot tub and giggles. It was a lot of fun...although swimming sure does wear me out. I don't know why everyone else didn't want to go to bed at 5:30 - but I sure did!

...now I have an appointment with the TV...time for the season finale of 24!!