I love my church calling!

About 2 1/2 years ago I was stuck in a rut. I needed something new in my life; something for me to make a difference in the world. We had recently experienced our miscarriage and I was in a funk. I couldn't figure out my purpose in life. Work was okay and I enjoyed the people I worked with but I needed something more. I thought about going to school and getting a degree that I could use to help people, but I couldn't decide what that would be and I didn't want to waste time and money on something and then change my mind later. I was frustrated and confused. Finally one night I was laying in my bed with my face in my pillow asking God what he wanted me to do. I didn't get an answer right away but a few weeks later Ray and I were called into our bishop's office where he asked me to be the new Primary President. I was shocked but I accepted the calling. I love it! I don't know how much of a difference I am making but if at the end of church the children leave knowing they are loved by our Heavenly Father then I am doing okay. I love it when they sing the primary songs and learn gospel principals through them. I love it when they know the answers during lessons. I love when they can relate the scriptures to their lives. I love feeling the spirit when they are actively listening to the lessons being taught. I love watching their testimonies grow and feeling the huge spirits of these little kids. I have an amazing group of kids, teachers, counselors, and music leaders that help me love my calling. Sometimes it can be a little stressful but this calling has kept me busy and helped me fill the void that I felt before. I have been forced out of my comfort zone and learned a lot about myself in the process.
~Julie
P.S.
To learn more about our church visit lds.org or morman.org

We Are Approved!

"Ray and Julie are recommended by Utah Adoption Specialists for domestic placement of a child(ren)..."
After federal & state background checks, child abuse background check, medical reports, financial reports, questionnaires, home inspection, and more we are now approved to adopt!
Now that our home study is complete we can start creating profiles on adoption sites. Thanks to this awesome announcement, adoption.com is where we will create our first profile. Now it's time to find our baby! We know it may take some time or it may happen quickly. We understand we're not trying to just find a baby. We're searching for our baby and when it's right it will work out.
Lets do this!
~Ray & Julie~

Last Minute Adventure

In my family you need to be ready for an adventure at the drop of a hat. What usually happens is we are sitting around with nothing to do and the next thing you know we are on our way to the canyon for picnic or on a road trip to Las Vegas. You just never know what the lazy weekend will turn into. Well Saturday was this type of occasion. Ray was working and I was running some errands. I got my hair cut, prepared some things for Sunday primary etc. On my list of things to do was drop some quilting stuff off to my sister then meet up with my sister-in-law so she could hook me up with some Mary Kay makeup. Well as I was dropping off the quilt stuff to my sister they were getting ready to hike to the "Y" on the mountain in Provo. I had never done that before and it was a beautiful day so it didn't take much convincing to get me to go with them. My uncle, his 2 grand-kids, my sister, 2 nieces, my dad, his dog Penny and I hiked to the "Y". It was harder than it looks but we had a fun time. We left a mirror with someone at home so we could signal to them with the mirror we took with us. The weather was perfect and it was fun to do something with family.

I love my job!

I'm training a new person at work. Training is difficult and can seem to slow the clock down sometimes. It's also a chance to reflect on my training and how intimidated I was at being a dispatcher in the beginning. I managed restaurants for much of my life and I was pretty good at it. I didn't like it so much after a few years but I was good at it. In my mid 30's I found dispatch and it just felt right. I don't think most people understand what a 911 and police dispatcher does in the course of a day at work and frankly we make it look easy. But I will never forget my days of training; being terrified of answering that first call; being incredibly intimidated by having to talk over the police radio; and knowing that a 911 call was coming at any moment and I might be the one to make a difference between life and death on the other end of that call. It was all so daunting but I loved it. I wanted to reach the point where I was ready to put those weights on my shoulders and carry someone through disaster. As difficult as it was to absorb the impossible amount of knowledge and the endlessly evolving skills needed, I knew I had found what I should have been doing my whole life. After working a decade in the wrong places it's amazing to know I'm at the right one. Now despite the difficulties in training, it's great to see that realization in someone else that this is where they belong and the determination to master the mountain of skills and knowledge to join our ranks. I love my job!

Ray

What's Your Favorite Christmas Movie?

A week or so ago at work my co-workers and I were having a discussion on Christmas Movies and the question going around was "What is your all-time favorite Christmas movie?". I didn't have an answer. So later that night I asked Ray what his favorite is. He didn't have an answer either. So as an effort to do something "Christmassy" we set out to solve this very important mystery.
How do you figure something like this out? Well you have to watch a bunch of Christmas movies. We made a list of 16 movies then ranked them and put them in a bracket (you know like in the March Madness playoffs).

Here is our list of Christmas Movie match-ups
The Santa Clause vs Jack Frost
The Grinch vs It's a Wonderful Life
The Christmas Carol vs Babes in Toy land
Elf vs The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation vs Miracle on 34th Street
The Nightmare Before Christmas vs Holiday Inn
Santa Claus The Movie vs A Christmas Story
White Christmas vs Fred Claus

The ones in red are winners so far and will compete in the final 8.
Rules: We don't have to watch the same movie more than once unless we can't agree on the winner. The winner of each match-up is decided by the quality/ quantity of Christmas content & Christmas Spirit. (Holiday Inn is a great classic movie but The Nightmare Before Christmas was overall more Christmassy). Winners will be decided by a unanimous decision by Ray and Julie which may require a re-watch of more than one movie.

It has been fun so far and hopefully by Christmas we will know what our favorite Christmas Movie is.

National Adoption Month

Among many other things, November is National Adoption Month.
For the fourth straight year, in honor of November being National Adoption Awareness Month, Portrait of an Adoption is running a special series called 30 Adoption Portraits in 30 Days. Designed to give a voice to the many different perspectives of adoption, this series will feature guest posts by adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, waiting adoptive parents, and foster parents-turned-adoptive parents. Painful and beautiful, these stories will bring you a deeper understanding of what adoption looks like, allowing you to appreciate the many brushstrokes that comprise a family portrait. (copied from their site)http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2014-30-adoption-portraits/
I have read through a few of the stories and love this one written by an adoptee.  
http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2014/11/i-was-never-bothered-by-questions-about-my-adoption-it-was-just-my-story/
My favorite quote from her story is "Is adoption all black and white?  No.  There is so much gray.  But am I Happy? Grateful? Thankful?  Yes, I am.  Because, though many parts of adoption can be bittersweet what I have known in my life is LOVE."

I look forward to adoption being part of our child(ren)'s story. " A story I don’t ever remember not knowing"

Crazy, Busy, Fun Weekend / Halloween Parties

This is the story of Julie's crazy, busy fun weekend. In primary at church the kids have been practicing their songs and speaking parts to prepare for our sacrament meeting presentation where we show the rest of the ward what we have been learning in primary. The presentation is coming up and we have one final practice on Saturday before the main event. We decided to reward the kids with a treat of "dirt cups" (pudding with crushed Oreos and gummy worms) to celebrate getting the bugs out of the songs. So Friday night Julie and Ray made dirt cups.

Saturday morning is the final practice and decisions made for the presentation. It went pretty well and the kids enjoyed the treat. Saturday evening is the church Halloween party that we were asked to bring cut up apples as part of the dinner. Thanks to some neighbor boys for picking a big box of apples for us we didn't have to worry about getting them just cutting them. (this required some research of how to keep cut apples from turning brown. Thanks Pinterest!) We also volunteered to take a pot of chili to the party. So after the presentation practice Julie finished up some details on our Halloween costumes, made some chili, made peanut butter cookies, and started cutting apples. The trick is to put the cut apples directly into a big bowl of water with a little bit of lemon juice, when the bowl got full we put the apples into zip-lock bags and put them in the fridge. Our niece Kaitlynn was there to help and when Ray got home from work we were an apple cutting/bagging machine. 

The Halloween party was fun. Julie and Kaitlynn helped out with some games for the kids and Kaitlynn ended up with a bowl full of candy from the trick-or-treating parade. 

Sunday is the big day we have been preparing for. The kids are excited and leaders are nervous. The best parts of the presentation were that the kids wrote their own speaking parts and the special musical numbers involving sibling groups. The spirit was so strong and I was so proud of my primary kids! And because of the excitement and nervousness we decided as a presidency not to try to teach a lesson during primary and have a movie & cookie party instead (thus the peanut butter cookies mentioned earlier).

Sunday evening is the family Halloween party at Ray's parents home. Julie was asked to bring donuts, invite her sister Jennifer and Kaitlynn and plan some games. Where am I going to find time to plan games? So sometime last week Julie calls her sister, 

Julie: What are you doing Sunday evening?

Jennifer: I have to work until 6.

Julie: Dang it!

Jennifer: Why?

Julie: Because I was going to ask if you could plan some Halloween party games for Ray's family party Sunday.

Jennifer: Why is this my problem?

Julie: Well you and Kaitlynn are invited...

Jennifer: Oh! well you could have told me that first.

Julie: Right, I will still take Kaitlynn if you can't come.

Jennifer: I can see if I can change my schedule so we can go.

Julie: Yay! Thanks!

So Jennifer planned some games and changed her schedule so they could come to the party!

 

Julie as the Queen of Hearts and Ray as the Mad Hatter

Our nieces and Nephews.
A pirate, Pikachu, teenager and baby no costume, a Newsie,
 Elsa and Anna from "Frozen", a Grannie,
a Butterfly (forgot wings) and Sacajawea 

 We all had a lot of fun with the games and costumes. The indoor trick-or-treat is always a big hit at grandma's house on Halloween.
I am so glad everything turned out well and thankful for the people that helped me get my crazy, busy, fun to-do list done.