Touchstone Tuesday

Another turtle!

This little guy came from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

It is interesting that once you start traveling the Caribbean

and Mexico you notice that all the souvenirs

are all about the same.

This wasn't true in Cabo.

There were some really unique things there.

This touchstone is about 2 inches in length.

This turtle is all stone.

The guy I bought this from told me that all of the 

raw materials on this turtle came from Mexico.

Why is this important to me?

There are a lot of little nik-naks that you buy,

 thinking that you have something from the region,

and then you flip them over and what does it say?

"Made in China"  UGGGGG!

As far as I know, this was made in MEXICO!

Pretty little guy!  

Better late than never!

A month ago to the day was my birthday.

Below is what my dad 

handcrafted

and installed for me

for my birthday.

I am  so excited to get all of this jewelry 

out of their boxes

out of a drawer

and in the open where I could remember what I have!

THANKS DAD!

I LOVE IT!

Man Cave upside down

Is there such a thing as a 

"Woman Cave"?  

Each time one of the kids leave the roost,

we have figured out some other way to use "their" space.

None of them could move back.

There just isn't room!

This was Chancy's choice of paint color for his room.

Which is now fully and completely MY room.

I liked the blue and so decided to keep it . . . 

BUT

it didn't matter how much light I turned on in this blue room,

I just couldn't get enough light in there,

and it made me feel

BLUE.

I've been waiting for an opportunity to repaint the room.

My opportunity arose this week

as McKay is gone for the week to EFY,

and his room was available for me to fill with MY furniture.

Here is the result:

My HAPPY room!

Let there be light!

Before:

Awwwww . . . . after:

One thing I was disgusted with however,

is that NEW over $30 a gallon paint/primer paint.

It DID NOT WORK very well

with the dark paint I was covering.

This took me THREE coats to finish

and I still can see tinges of blue coming through . . . . 

I am pleased with the final result!

My "Woman Cave."

Found a peanut

Wow!

Has this summer been busy . . . . . 

so much to do, so much to see, so much to think about!

The biggest news of all 

is that Lincoln and I will be grandparents

early next year.

Some people like to keep this news under a lid

until the first trimester is safely past,

but my son (Justin) never does things as one might think.

And since it is all over Facebook . . . . 

why not paste it on my blog?

Here is the little "peanut," due 24th of  February 2013.

As stated above

Justin never does things as one might think.

On one of his first Christmas's

as a wee boy,

he got several toy trucks as gifts.

What did he do?

He turned them all over and spun their wheels.

He would lay by those trucks for hours

watching those wheels spin.

NOT WHAT I EXPECTED!

and so this big news is the same.

The cart is a little before the horse 

on this announcement (peanut!)

but I'm choosing to be excited!

After all . . . . . 

I'm going to be a 

GRANDMA!

My week . . . an epic tale

Last week I spent the week in the great outdoors.

At girl's camp.

Unplugged from society,

except for a cell phone,

that the leaders were privileged to keep with them!

This should have been called Girl's RESORT,

as I would never have dreamed a camp like this was possible.

In my small town we did pretty primitive camps.

This camp was NOT primitive!!!

We have some wonderful girls in our ward.

18 of them total!

They made this camp such a wonderful experience 

for each other.

And for myself (as assistant camp director)

and our camp director.

Black-eyed  Susan's . . . . Marylands state flower.

(we were in Virginia!!!)

My favorite day was Tuesday. 

A VERY nice day weather wise.

I stayed with the 3rd-year girls

as they worked their way through a COPE course.

It is a problem solving course,

where each adventure gets bigger and bigger as they develop 

their team/trust skills.

We got to do quite a few challenges as our girls were quite fast at figuring them out!

They made this a-frame "walk" down a field and back.

This is one of our 4th year girls on their final challenge.  

I loved that our girls all had matching shirts and I could look out over the course 

and see who was doing what.

After climbing this post, she sat on it.

and then stood on it . . . . 

then jumped out to the trapeze which was out of reach!!!

This was our (3rd-year girls) last challenge.

We climbed the post 

and then made our way to the other post.

Here I am climbing the post.

Leaders weren't supposed to participate

and I wasn't anticipating doing it,

but we had time after the girls were finished

and so our COPE leader

looked at me and asked if I wanted to give it a try!

I handed my camera over to one of the girls and . . . . 

Here I am climbing the post!

At the top . . . . . 

And getting ready to "repel" down to the ground . . . . . 

I don't think I would have done this as a young girl.

I was always a "scaredy cat"!!!!

I'm getting more brave with age!

Safely on the ground again!!!

The next day we had boating,

BB Guns and Archery.

I got to supervise boating.

Kayaking and paddle boats!

The lake (pond!!!) was almost filled with lily pads that were in bloom.

A flower from a lily pad . . . . 

that the girls were not supposed to pick!!!!

OH WELL . . . . they are beautiful.

(note to Ceci . . . . see what you missed!!

your leader is in the background of this pic)

It was my birthday on Thursday.

I had tears in my eyes when I saw what they had done for me.

What sweeties these young women are!

(along with our YW leaders which made it possible!)

Side note:  Lincoln made sure I had a cot and air mattress

to sleep on . . . I slept well!

They gave me the first birthday cake I've had in YEARS!

It has been tradition for me to have watermelon for my cake 

for the last umpteen years!

We got to swim everyday for a 2 hour period. 

A POOL?

AT CAMP?

See what I mean about "girl's resort?"

We ate in a dining hall.

There were a couple of things I'd never had before.

One was sausage on a stick wrapped in pancake batter.

It looked like a corn dog.

The craft section was a popular place to be.

We tie-dyed tee-shirts.

Guess who put her glove on the

WRONG HAND!

Yes me!

So smart, I am!!

I had this hand most of the week!

Our dutch-oven creation.

Pineapple-upside down cake.

So YUMMY!

Everyday we had a chance to sing camp songs

and meet together for kangaroo court and fun.

There was also lots of opportunity for spiritual growth,

we had an area seventy come to speak.

There were 4 stakes and probably 600 girls at camp.

Every day had a "golden hour."

(which was a fireside/devotional)

Our last day was well into the 100's in temp and was very uncomfortable.

It breaks a person down . . . . and I did break.  UGGG!

We also had a major storm come through the camp.

We had an hour warning to break down camp and secure everything

and hunker down in the very scuzzy latrines,

which were a comfort in the storm.

We prayed, sang, some cried from fear,

but we made it through!

Millions of people were affected by the storm . . . . 

including my family at home.  

They had a short power outage 

and spent the night in the basement.

Lincoln had our yard cleaned up by the time I got home.

We had a large branch down . . . . 

It seems like we are constantly cleaning up after storms!

Some people in our area will be out of power all through this week.

The storm was a faith builder for our girls.

Here I am with our fearless leader . . . . . 

by the end of camp I didn't care about makeup,

contacts, hair, mosquito bites

deodorant . . . . or anything.

One of the girls went without showering the WHOLE week!  

YIKES!

(I did have to remove a tick from my calf.   

I believe it is my first ever tick, FUN TIMES)

Overall, we had a Greeeaaat time!