Another Succesful Women's Conference

Grace Merkley teaching her class on Keeping Fit Spiritually at our Women's Conference yesterday. All the classes were great - I visited each one for about 15 minutes. We had a great selection. The biggest complaint was that you had to choose only 2 out of 4!!

And we had a great turnout - over 175 sisters came!! As usual, I noticed who wasn't there - and then thought, "Gee, it's a good thing they didn't come - we ran out of food as it was!!" (there was enough bread and fruit, but the salad disappeared quickly!)

My presidency came through like champs - and we had some excellent helpers too. We've started having a Women's Conference Committee - started it last year - and it's been a real boon. Too bad I didn't get a shot of Amy Gray - she is my creative genius - not sure what I would do without all of the great women in my presidency!

Grandma Terrill, Ellie, Grandma Mary and Mary came too - and my old pal Sandi did a wonderful job of singing and speaking and generally inspiring all of us.

We get better and better every year - and the turnout improves too - hmm - what shall we do next year??

(I'm open to suggestions and recommendations - just call or email me!!)

A dozen years for Ara Grace!!

How can this beautiful ballerina be 12 already!!

She made me a grandma, and some happy kids aunts

and uncles!


She captured our hearts from the get go!

And just kept getting cuter and cuter!

And charmed us all!

My goodness but she grew and grew,

until we had a young lady on our hands!!

But she can still be "just a kid!!"

We love you Ara!!

This and That

This weekend is liable to be full of picture-worthy events, so I'd better catch up on last weekend!!

Dinner at Harry and Dawn's and some Light Saber play for Noah!! Can't tell if that's Porter or Harry at his side.

Holly R. and Kate were in town - Eve loved squiring her around and "mothering" her!! And she's a cute little girl.

It's always fun to visit with Holly!

And tonight was a baby shower for Nadinna - thrown by the stellar hostess Margaret!! Lots of good eats and good company.

Baby is due February 12th, but Nadinna is ready now! (spoken like a true pregnant woman!)

Women's conference is on the horizon, Ara's birthday, a visit from our friends from Chile, Greg's birthday - maybe a medical update or two on my aching knees!!

The fun never stops does it??

Passionate Relationship

These pix crack me up. These two love each other to death, but also appear to have some heated moments.

Time Traveler

So, I am busy getting ready for the Women's Conference on Saturday. Our keynote speaker is Sandi Jensen Griffiths - formerly the Sandi of Sandi and Salli who performed on the Lawrence Welk Show for many years. Sandi, who was Sandy when I knew her as a girl, was a member of Program Bureau at BYU - the forerunner to Young Ambassadors.

Sandi and I go way back, as they say, and I have the photograph to prove it. She is the girl on the left - and I am the girl on the right. (At least as you are facing the photograph.) In between, starting next to Sandi, is Mar Del Oviatt Andersen - a former roommate who shopped at Bullocks and wore gloves every Sunday - I coveted many items in her wardrobe, Judy Funk - whose good looks and mature figure I coveted as a young lass and whose whereabouts I know not, and Kristen Paulsen - whose mother had 9 children, and my mother stayed home on Mother's Day one year so that Sister Paulsen could get the Mother With the Most Children Award - and someone's grandmother was visiting and she had 11 children, so took the prize from Sister Paulsen. (I'm not all that sure that Sister Paulsen cared as much as my mother did!) I don't think I coveted anything Kristen had or did - but I did like her - we picked her up each morning for Seminary one year, and she was quite companionable at 6 a.m.

This photo is from 1958 - so I was 13. It was taken in the patio of the Van Nuys Stake Center. It was a Beehive class photo. My skirt was blue corduroy with white trim down the panels. I wanted a genuine poodle skirt, but my mother said they were impractical - since they had to be dry-cleaned. So she made this for me instead. I don't think I appreciated it.

You will notice Sandi's saddle shoes - my mother wouldn't let me get those either - said they were too hard to keep looking nice when you polished them - and everyone polished their shoes back then - so I coveted Sandi's shoes too.

Oh the vices of a 13 year old girl!

Ida in January.

Queen for a Day!!

Here's to our lovely Hester - Queen for a Day!!

With her loyal subject and fellow princess!!

Hester has always been a big part of our lives - and aren't we glad!! She is a wonderful young woman - and we are happy to celebrate the day of her birth!!

You go girl!!

Tomorrow - for sure!!

How often do you come home from school or work or whatever you were doing and say to yourself, "Tonight I'm going to finish my Christmas cards, pay the bills, do my visiting teaching, read the Ensign, call my mother, update my blog, ad infinitum?"

I do this a lot. But the evening usually goes by and the designated task does not always get done - or even started for that matter. The phone rings, someone comes over, the people in your house have other plans, you get distracted, you pick up a book or a magazine or the newspaper - and before you know it, it's 10:30 and you're not even going to get to bed at a decent hour for heaven's sake!

Certain undone tasks make me feel guilty - if they are out of sight, I often forget all about them. The squeaky wheel truly does get the grease!

One such undone task was the apron I started for Ara last year at her Grandma's Birthday Sleepover. We went to Joann's and bought material and a pattern for a vintage style apron. We came home and cut it out together. Then Bruce came to pick her up - and I blithely said, "I'll sew it up tonight and mail it off to you this week!"

Why do I ever think that will even happen??

I had not forgotten it - I kept putting it in visible places in my sewing/laundry room - but that didn't do the trick.

What finally did the trick was having the girls here this weekend and telling them I would get it done before Ara's birthday this year!

The above photo is said apron - and I finished it tonight. And will mail it tomorrow a.m. for sure - working across the street from the post office will help.

It really didn't take a year to finish - it took a year to get started!

Eliza had a plaque in her room for years - I think I even gave it to her - it said,

"BEGIN, THE REST IS EASY"

I think it's true!

A day in history

At Clifton Middle School, the students gathered in their Study Hall classrooms at 8:35 a.m. to watch the Inauguration. I pushed the tables to one side and set up the chairs in rows to accommodate the 20 kids I have in Study Hall. I made them put their backpacks on the other side of the room so that there would be no distractions. I did a little bit of editorializing and explaining while it was going on - they are all 6th graders and one didn't even know what a cello was! But we mostly just watched and listened.

I'm not sure how much they grasped, but during the other periods of the day, I did some editorializing with my other students to see how much they had truly understood. For starters I told them that President Obama was talking to them when he talked about taking responsibility and being accountable. Told them that he expected them to be good students and to try their best. And I also told them they had to do their part to take care of the environment.

What impressed me was the way they responded - I think they really believe he was talking to them - and I think he was - and so I'm going to hammer away at that idea.

Can't hurt.

And I very much enjoyed the whole thing - I was a bit annoyed by the two phone calls that interrupted me - the only way to get through to my room during school hours is to call from a phone in another classroom - why weren't these folks watching too?? And I did get someone at my door. Didn't they know I wanted to concentrate??

Loved the music - and Aretha's hat! And wasn't that clarinetist just fine?? And how can you go wrong with Aaron Copland??

And the Inaugural Address was well-written and moving. The language was lofty but to the point, poetic but understandable, and learned but not pedantic. I love language that is well-wrought and well-spoken!

Speaking of well-wrought - I enjoyed the poem too. I printed out copies and plan to go over it with my students.

All in all, a good day!

Girls having fun - the last day!

It's something of a Terrill tradition to clean up the playhouse - and call it fun! Years ago when the Kerksieks were here for part of a summer, the girls couldn't wait to get out each morning and work on spiffing up the playhouse. Mandy was a fan of cleaning up the playhouse too. I think Andrew and Noah made it their business to mess it up with their make believe - but that is what it was built for - and besides, if no one messed it up, how would the girls get to clean it up?

Whenever Dad threatens to tear it down because no one really plays in it on a regular basis - and really no one ever has - I tell him he'll make a whole generation of grandchildren rather unhappy.

Rather than ever play in it, the little kids have mostly cleaned it out - it is a catchall - and they seem to take great joy and satisfaction in doing so.

The current generation is no exception - and we have converted the Ogilvie girls to the joy of working on the playhouse - when the Bolander girls come for the weekend, they usually ask three things: Can we go over to Eve's? Do we have chocolate milk? Are the Ogilvies in town?

As you can see, today was no exception either! There were 10 young ladies (and three little guys - Porter, Harry and Landon Butler) having a fine time under somewhat overcast skies - which actually made it more pleasant - especially since it wasn't cold - several worked in shorts and barefeet!! (Only in SoCal in January!!)

I'm not sure what T.M. stands for, but the residents of T.M. are all signed in here!

After a do-it-yourself kind of lunch on the patio, most of the kids were drawn in to watch the perennial fave, Annie. Then it was time for the Ogilvies to go home to get ready for their piano lessons (the Butlers were with them - Trista was tending them for Karly), Harry and Porter to go home for naps, and Dad to get back to work.

Bonny had called that she was on her way, so the girls entertained themselves with a game of Jenga. Ara and Ella were pretty good at it - Eve, Esme, and Annika gave up pretty quickly.

The girls had chosen from the Grandma's Treasure Box, so Noah helped the girls learn how to play Jacks, since Annika had chosen that. I didn't do too badly showing them either.

The girls packed up, beds were dismantled, laundry was done, Bonny came - and it's kind of quiet around here now.

But like Dad said after dinner, "Looks like it was a pretty successful weekend." So happy memories will sustain us till the next Grandma/Grandpa's Sleepover comes around.

More fun - but not just the girls!!

Another "restful" Sunday comes to a close. The day was a bit hectic right from the start when Harry F. had to stay longer at work to finish a case he started before his shift ended. So we needed to pick up Dawn and kids - but we all know about car seats and the law, so it took two shifts to get to church - good thing I have my collection of car seats!

This is the end of the day - waiting for dinner to be ready. The kids enjoyed being with one another.

After lunch, Ara showed us her architectural and engineering skills when she constructed a super "Marble Works" course - and we had fun sending the marbles through.

Ella was busy in the kitchen with me - juicing our bounty of lemons and

making Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies - what else??

We had a "girls' table" at dinner to handle the "overflow!!"

This shot of Porter, Harry and Annika playing horseshoes in the backyard - at 6 p.m. - barefoot and not cold - is designed to make you wish you were here in truly sunny SoCal. Some of us locals are actually getting tired of the warm, balmy days - when will we ever get to wear our sweaters!!??

Ara and Anna tackled the infamous wooden puzzle from David's uncle - they solved it though.

Porter has discovered Noah's action figures - and is in "hog heaven" as we say.

Dessert time - German chocolate cake or pumpkin cookies - how about a little of both?

Dawn's always busy taking care of the kidlets - especially when I was having a committee meeting in the living room!!

Esme and Annika opted for a sleepover with Eve, so Dad, Ara, Ella and I enjoyed Second Hand Lions to wrap up the day.

The Ogilvies are coming in the morning - looks like the weekend will go out in a blaze of glory - fun, fun, fun!!

We love holiday weekends!

Day 2 of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!!"

After some whole wheat waffles with jam , we all got ready and headed over to pick up Eve for our morning activity.

Santa brought Eve a spiffy tool that puts beads in your hair - so Dawn did everyone's hair. Eve and Dawn have some of the best "hair" ideas!

Miss Ella shows off her new "do!"

Eve and Esme happily pose.

Annika was pretty excited about the whole thing. Apparently she doesn't like anyone touching her hair, but she wanted it this time!

Next stop was Lakeshore for the weekly craft activity there. Ella was a good sport and helped Annika.

Next stop - MacDonald's - for lunch and the latest toy!

Some afternoon fun time was spent on the computer,

putting together puzzles,

watching Harry Potter,

and once Ara joined us - after two winning All Star games - ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

While I fixed dinner, Ara and Ella helped me put together invites for the upcoming Women's Conference. Noah joined us for dinner, but I guess I was too busy working - or eating - to snap a photo - but you all know what he looks like!

Of course, some computer clowning was in the works - here we are at Yosemite!!

Here I am, demonstrating my super powers as I constructed some new pillow cases for the girls - which aren't done yet!

So while the folks finish up Harry Potter, I will wind up my blogging efforts and go work on the pillow cases. Photos will undoubtedly follow.