Beautiful Angela

This is my niece, Angela, who was baptized while I was in New Mexico. Her mom made this dress for her.

1 Hotel Room, 1 Tent and 1 Guest Room

Wow, I had quite the week last week! I left last Monday for a work trip to Vernal. My friend Barbara came with me which made the ride much more fun. While I worked on Tuesday, she was able to go to the temple and relax. Working for the state, I often have to travel to different youth facilities and spend time at them. In Vernal, we have the Split Mountain Youth Center that serves as a detention center, observation and assessment center, youth services, and a shelter. It is a newer facility and much nicer than some of our older buildings. I was able to meet 3 girls who are in the facility in different sections and leaned some good things about the work the counselors are doing there.

After a day's work in Vernal, we drove to our ward's girls camp near Kamas. When I was growing up, we only had stake camps, so this was my first experience with a ward camp. Barbara and I stopped and bought ice cream in Heber and you would have thought we showed up with a million dollars for each of the girls. They came running fast! I really enjoyed getting to know the girls in our ward better. They are all amazing and have so much strength that gets them through the diffiuclties of adolescents. I had a great time up there, we stayed until Wedensday night and then drove back down to Sandy.

First thing Thursday morning, I jumped back into the car and headed for New Mexico. Barbara was going to come, but was called back into work, so it was just Bailey and me. Well, Bailey gets car sick I quickly learned. I felt so bad for him, he was miserable the whole way. I stopped in Price and bought some dramamine, when he was finally able to get some in that stayed in, he did much better. it made for a long trip.
We stayed at my brother Justin's house. He has 2 little boys, Brent and Logan, and 2 dogs, Brutus and Sox. I wasn't sure how Bailey would do with the dogs, he's not around other dogs often. They all got along great! Between running around with the other dogs and being chased by Brent and Logan, he was exhausted at the end of each day.
My sister-in-law Ruth and I took Brent and Logan to the zoo. I soon realized that I had forgotten my camera on this trip. I wish I would have had it, there were so many cute picture moments!
The reason for my trip down this time was to go to my niece, Angela's, baptism. She was baptized on Saturday afternoon. My sister-in-law Becky is the best seamstress in the world, I learend this quickly as we were roommates in college. She made a beautiful dress for Angela to wear. My nephew Greg gave the talk on baptism and I was able to talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It is so great to see my nieces and nephews make such important decisions in their lives.
Bailey and I drove back yesterday. I gave him dramamine before we left Justin's house, but he still got a little sick. I think he's still feeling the affects of it today as he has been knocked out all morning and would usually be up running around. I had such a great time visiting family and being back in New Mexico. I love it there and a part of my heart will always remain in the Land of Enchantment!

Back Home

Well, baby and mom got to go home yesterday. I stole some pictures off of my sister's blog of baby Chase with each of his siblings.....

This is the new big sister, Sonora, holding Chase.

This is the happiest big brother, Caden, who has wanted a little brother forever!

And this is the best mother's helper anyone could ask for, Sarah, who is such a great big sister!

Baby Chase

Little baby Chase went to the doctors today for his check up. He's got really bad Jondus and has to spend the next couple of days back in the hospital. I can't imagine how hard this must be on my sister and her family.

Here are a couple of his cute pictures.

My Newest Nephew is Here!

Yeah!!!! My sister had her baby yesterday! Chase James Tilton was born at 4:40 PM (3:40 my time) in Dallas, Texas. He is 7 lbs and 19 1/4 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing fine. My mom is out staying with Megan's other 3 kids and I'm sure is spoiling them a ton. I'm still waiting for pictures, but when I get them, you know I'll be posing some!

The End of Another Week

This week, returning to work, seemed like it was never going to end! It was a pretty busy week! I spent Tuesday afternoon/evening up at Strawberry Reservoir with some girls in JJS Custody. It was beautiful up there! Thursday I spent running around Provo for work. The Governor made an announcement that is going to change things drastically for me. He is now making state offices open four days a week for 10 hours as opposed to five days for 8 hours. I'm tyring to get my schedule to work out with my job at LDS Family Services where I work part-time.
My little garden is growing. Yesterday my first tomato started growing :) Hopefully I'll get more than one by the time the summer is over.
I am looking forward to this next week. On Tuesday I'll be getting my 8th nephew for a total of 15 nieces/nephews. My sister will be having her 4th baby. As of now, his name is Chase James Tilton.
The greatest part of the week comes as the result of my wonderful neighbors! Matt climbed up on my roof once again to fix some more thing on my swamp cooler, and now, my house is cooler! Thanks Matt & Shawnee!

Great Week

This week has been a lot of fun. My dad flew out from New York to visit for a few days and I have really enjoyed him being here. I've also really enjoyed not spending much time at work! I could get use to this fast! He and I had talked back in December about him coming to help me fix up a few things on my house, so I guess it's not much of a vacation for him. Sure is nice to be able to be treated like "daddy's little girl" no matter how old I am! Last night we went with some good friends to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, one of my most favorite places to eat! It was a first time there for everyone but me, and I'm pretty sure everyone will go back. If you haven't eaten there, you should! Of course you get so full on the giant portions of food that you have to order the cheesecake to go. Dad and I had ours at lunch today, yummy!
Bailey has been fun to watch with my dad. Last night I guess I wasn't giving him enough attention at bedtime, so he went to my dad's room and started scratching on the door to try and get him to come out and play. It was cute! I get 2 more days with my dad and then he has to go back to New York and I'll be sad! I sure am glad that I've been able to have this time though!
Oh, and Brenna - that last post was meant to be laughed at. That's what I had to do or I would have probably cried!

Now What??

Oh, my! The weather here in Utah went from 60 to 90 overnight. I have never really had experience with a swamp cooler before and that is what I have now. My neighbors have been very kind in trying to teach me how to use it. Today when I got home from work, and the cooler had been on all day, it was still very hot inside. I had some new filters to be put in and Matt, my neighbor, was very kind and offered to get on the roof and replace them for me. Well, if it was only that easy.... First I learned that I didn't understand the way the two knobs for the hose worked. Then, after Matt had changed the filters and was now down trying to explain this to me, I felt some sprinkles on my head. The sky was blue as blue can be, and I was a little perplexed by the water I was feeling. When I looked up, I had a new fountain shooting off of my roof down into my back yard. Matt, very kindly, climbed back up to find that there was a leak in the hose that runs to the swamp cooler. After getting some duct tape from another neighbor who was out working in her yard, I attempted to throw it up to Matt on the top of my 2 story house so he could try to stop the leak. Yeah, those of you who know my throwing skills are already saying "oh, no" Yeah, I threw it right into the window of my guest bedroom and broke the window into pieces. Upon my second attempt, I threw it over my head somehow and it landed back in the neighbor's back yard behind me. Finally on the third attempt, it managed to make it up without hitting anything. I think that Matt, and all the other neigbors in my ward, are happy that I work on Wednesday nights and can't play on the ward softball team.

After all of that, the duct tape didn't work so I went to Wal-Mart to get a new hose. I had to go to the store already, so it wasn't a big deal. So, after returning a few items at Lowes, I went next door to wal-mart. Guess what, they were out of the swamp cooler hoses, which meant that I was going to have to go back to Lowes. I got all the other things I needed and found a line. They were all very long. After standing there for about 10 minutes I realized I was in a 20 item or less line. I counted and had 22 things so I figured no big deal. Well, apparently it was a big deal. The cashier made a rude comment about it being a 10 item line and I informed her nicely that it was actually a 20 item lane and that I was only over by a small amount. She then proceeded to count the items. I am usually one to stay pretty even tempered, but after waiting in line forever, I couldn't keep my mouth shut and said "you're not serioulsy going to make a big deal out of this are you." To which she replied, "I'm not making a big deal out of this mam." Those were the last words spoken. Of course I thought of many more things to say, but used better judgement and took my things and left and went back to the very friendly cashier at Lowes. Hopefully the excitiement for the day is OVER!!

Another Busy Week

I keep thinking things will slow down, but they never do! Yesterday, even though it was work, I had a great afternoon/evening. The state has a cabin at Strawberry Reservoir that is used in the summer as a work camp and the youth do work for the Forest Service to work off restitution hours. This week we have girls up there that I do addictions group with weekly in another program. So, yesterday I went up there to do the group. It was a beautiful drive and I had a good evening there. The trees up at the top of the summit were just starting to get their leaves. On my way home I saw a moose walking along the field on the side of the road (thankfully not in the road). I am looking forward to a summer camping trip!