As Sisters In Zion

With General Conferences quickly coming, the "Henderson" women had the great opportunity of going to the General Relief Society meeting up at the conference center. It was really fun to get all the girls together. Emily was the one who got the tickets and planned the whole thing. (Many thanks to her!) So we all piled into the suburban, picked Marthe up at Ikea, and joined the thousands of other women who were trying to find a parking spot in Salt Lake. To make the adventure even more exciting, it was pouring down rain. It looked more like a Umbrella Convention was going on than a General Relief Society meeting. I never realized how many people own yellow polka dot umbrellas. I guess I'm more of a hood kind of girl. I haven't paid too much attention to umbrella fashion.The meeting was SO wonderful. Yeah for being a women in the latter-days! Yeah for caring about family! Yeah for Visiting Teaching! Yeah for giving service! Yeah for just being happy...because that's what women of God are.

Train Ride

Devin and I have the wonderful callings of being in the Young Men and Young Women organizations in our ward. This works out great. Devin works with the deacons and I work with the beehives. The best part of this is that once a month we get to hang out together because of the combined mutual activity. Last month we went to this new trampoline place called Jump On It. It was totally one of those crazy places my Dad and his brothers would have thought up. Who gets the idea to fill a warehouse up with wall to wall trampolines? Oh, and for fun, why don't we put a bunch of dodge balls in there so people can try to hit each other as they are bouncing around on the trampolines. It was a really fun activity. I think the deacons like me because they kept trying to hit me as hard as they could. That's what 12 year old boys do if they like you right? Either that or they were trying to get me back for hitting them. :)

Enough with the trampoline adventure, you all want to read about a train ride. This month's mutual activity took us to an amazing house in Lindon. There is this guy who has a really big house, lots of land, lots of toys, oh and a train that runs all over his property and a few of the surrounding houses too. Now this is not a little woosie train. It is actually big enough for 20 people to ride on it at once. There is about a mile of track that winds all over the place. My brother Peter would just die over this train. Apparently this guy went up to his wife one day and said, "I'm going to sell our cabin." "Why?" asked his wife. "Cause I want to build a really cool train." That tells you how much it must have cost. It was really cool!

The train was not the only cool thing at this house. There are several houses that share a yard, I guess they are all this guy's kids. There are batting cages, sand volleyball, a trampoline, a swimming pool with a slide (which one of the the girls decided it would be fun to slide down fully clothed) and my favorite....an indoor soccer court. We spent most of the evening there. Young Men vs. Young Women. I don't know who came out with the most bruises, and we actually lost count of the score. But overall it was SOOOO much fun. We all agreed over the next few days that we used all sorts of muscles that are not used for NORMAL every day activities.

Budgeting Battles

Money is the root of all evil, but it is a necessary element in life. We have decided lately that we really want to live on a budget. With the help of the One for the Money pamphlet, (and two incomes) we feel like we have gotten our finances in control. Now that things are in control, we have decided it is time not only to make up a budget, but to live by it. The Henderson family has a trend going . . . budgeting. Lately it seems like the topic. "How much do you spend on food, how do you stretch your money?" So this month not only did we re-vamp our budget, but we committed to live by it. Grocery shopping has been the true eye-opening experience. We have split our grocery list into three parts: Have To's (Things that we have to have to make dinner this week. Coupons (Things that we could buy that we have coupons for.) And Other Stuff (Things that we could use but don't absolutely need at the moment.) So we get the have-to's first, then pick and choose off of the other two parts of our list while trying not to go over our budgeted amount. I am happy to report that we are doing pretty go so far this month. We actually are eating better because we sit down once a week, plan out our meals, and buy what we need for them. Devin cooked his first roast this week, which was SOOOOOO good.

So long story short. If you've never read the One for the Money pamphlet read it! Apply it! Set up a budget and try to live by it. It really makes shopping a more exciting adventure. Yesterday at Costco we were holding our breath. When the guy told us our total I actually said "YES! We didn't go over!" He kind of looked at me weird. But I was way excited that we are doing it. And so can you!

Cat Walk

This last week at school we had the annual Cat Walk fund-raiser. Each student gets people to pledge money for how many laps they will walk during the hour long Cat Walk. There are prizes for who collects the most money, who walks the most laps etc. Being the competitive type I told my nephew Brent, who is in first grade that I would pay him $1 for each lap. The day of Cat Walk several teachers and I had talked about running the whole time to see if we could run the most laps. After we ran a few laps I saw my nephew Brent. He was plugging along. I decided that more than running the most laps, I wanted to get Brent to run a lot. So I dropped out of the teacher-runner pack and grabbed Brent's hand and we ran 15 laps together. Each lap is 1/4 a mile. So 15 laps=3.75 miles. Not bad for a 6 year-old. We had lots of fun.

Oh Good, I'm Not Lost

Even though my brothers don't believe me, I really think running is fun. Each year I love running races. This year has not been the best year for me and races. From dental surgery, to knee problems, to other "misfortunes" I have not been able to run some of my favorite races this year.

I am happy to report that this past weekend I was able to run the Utah Relay Marathon. (Even though I had a pretty nasty cold. Try running and not being able to breath through your nose sometime. It is quite the adventure. It changes up what would be a nice normal run. You know, keeps it exciting.) There were five of us from Westmore who ran the race. It was so great! We didn't break any world records, but we had a wonderful time. They changed the course this year so that was fun too. A kind of cool thing that happened was that Devin came up to take pictures of our team. Part of the way into the race one of the guys in charge asked Devin if he'd take pictures of everything and e-mail them to him. So needless to say, my husband had a great time taking pictures of not only his favorite team running, but every team running. (Go to www.baldwinmedia.com/relaymarathon2007 to see his great pictures. Or you can go to www.baldwinmedia.com/relaymarathon2007westmore to see just our team's pictures.)

One other thought on the race. I unfortunately forgot my ipod so I had 5.2 miles to think about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The course went mostly along the Jordan River which was beautiful, and even though there were way too many people running with big scary dogs I still ended up having a pretty good thought.

This race was very small. There were only 38 teams, which means that there were only 38 people running the race at a given time. Now compared to some of the big races that I have run, it just is weird to not be running in a big pack of people. And with the race being on an unfamiliar course I was a little concerned that without a pack of people to follow, I might get lost. This is the type of race that you might see a few people the whole time you are out because the runners get so spread out. So here is my thought...

I think sometimes we are traveling in the path of life and we don't see anyone else on the path. We question, "Am I going in the right direction? Where is everybody?" Then every once and a while we see someone up ahead or someone even comes up on us from behind, or there is an arrow pointing which way we should go. The relief comes. "Oh good I'm not lost! I am on the right path."

It makes me grateful for people who are examples on the path. People who are holding up their light so that I know I'm headed in the right direction. I am also grateful for markers or arrows along the path that help me know that I am still going the right way and that I am not lost. Arrows like Scripture Study, Family Home Evening, Prayer, Going to the Temple, Regular Church Attendance, and so many more things! It's nice to know that we are not alone on the path home to our Heavenly Father. And it is comforting to know that even if we feel alone at times, that He will always send markers or other people to help us know that we are still the right track.

Rubber Ducks and A Happy Marriage

Devin and I are pretty convinced that we have just about the most perfect marriage ever. We love each other tons, we don't fight, and we are more in love each day. So what is our secret to this huge amount of joy? It's as easy as two rubber ducks. Actually it is two rubber ducks. I'm sure you're confused so I'll explain.

This summer my nephew Paul had a birthday party. Everyone was given a little rubber duck with their name on it as a party favor. Devin and I brought ours home and well...we're not quite sure who started it, but someone started hiding the ducks in random places in our house. Now it is one of our favorite games. The ducks have been all sorts of places. Anywhere from the washing machine, to school, to the mailbox. Our creativity is the only thing holding the ducks back.

So you might be wondering what this ridiculous game has to do with a happy marriage. The ducks are the means for making the other person smile. It has become our daily quest to find the best hiding spot, not to be the best, but because we know it is going to make the the other person smile when they find the ducks. That is the key. Each day we try to find little ways to make each other smile. Who would have thought that something free could bring us so much happiness.

With that thought I have an invitation for all married and single people out there reading our blog. Find some way each day to make someone else smile. It doesn't have to cost anything. In fact if it doesn't cost anything you can do it more often. Not only does it make someone else smile, but it is a guaranteed way of bringing instant happiness to your own life.