Last Day of Seminary

At long last.  The end of seminary for the year.  It's been a good class with good teachers, Brother Hrabik and Brother Mullin.  They studied the Doctrine and Covenants and church history.

Brother Hrabik owns an entertainment business.  They do proms, school dances, he has a wedding/event center, limos, etc.  He bought this short bus, took some of the bench seats out and had it painted lime green.  He plans to sell shave ice out of it.  The last week of seminary the class loaded up and toilet papered the cars of the senior students, then went to get donuts.

(l-r: back:  Max, Kyler,  Wyatt, Brandon, Emily, Sarah, Maddy, Jenna, Travis

l-r: front:  Christine, Samantha, Raquel, Leslie, Addy, Valerie, Macy)

Under Brother Mullin's mentoring, their class won the stake Scripture Mastery Showcase!

WooHoo!  Congrats guys.  That's a years worth of studying and knowing the scriptures.

Thanks for all your time and dedication in making early morning seminary the best way to start her school day.

Impact

Christine applied for a leadership group at school earlier this year.  It was quite a process of application and interviews.  And,

SHE MADE IT!

The group is called Impact.  It is a peer assistance leadership program.  The program includes and is known for peer to peer support, community service, cross-age tutorial and teaching, new student transitions, conflict management and mediation, mentoring, alcohol, tobacco, drug, and violence prevention, and environmental awareness. Students discuss, plan, and work to find the best ways to support and assist in all of these areas. Impact students also participate in a number of community service projects.

The Impact Program is known for the development of youth leaders who outreach on their school campuses. mentoring.  The goal of the student peer leaders is to reach out to other students on their campuses to help create a positive culture, improve attendance, increase school connectedness, and promote alcohol, tobacco, other drug, and violence free lifestyles.

Orange County Superintendent of Schools, William M. Habermehl, stated, "The leadership and communication skills students learn in PAL programs provide lifelong benefits. We are proud to honor the dedicated student leaders and advisors who promote positive lifestyles and provide peer support on school campuses throughout Orange County."

CONGRATULATIONS, CHRISTINE!

She has planning and training this summer and then the first big event is freshman orientation the week school starts.

Activity Day Scavenger Hunt

These girls are so cute.  They crack me up and help keep me young.

We worked on Articles of Faith and then went on a scavenger hunt.  I had no idea how competitive 8 year old girls can be! And clever!

 Team Duffy.

We ROCK.

Team Ranck, minus someone not in the picture....

They ROCK too.

Lacrosse Banquet 2011

Tonight we went to Christine's lacrosse banquet.

It was at BJ's Restaurant again this year.

Good food and good company.

The program was nice.  I can't believe another year is done.

Christine with the two JV coaches, Flaherty and Bis.

Chris and Alex Potts.

Potts is graduating.  She was the varsity goalie and has mentored Christine the last two years.  They are good friends and teammates.  We will miss Potts, but she is staying local for college and will be back from time to time to cheer us on.

I Love This Stuff!

I have a beautiful Mexican Lace tablecloth.

I got it in Mexico when we went to pick Josh up from his mission in McAllen, Texas.

The Lobato's (the senior couple there) took us all across the border one day.  Wow.  I don't need to say too much about that, other than what a blessing it is to live in America.  Duff got some hurache sandals and I got some mexican vanilla and the tablecloth.

We used it on our table for my birthday dinner and it's been on ever since.

I took it off today to wash and discovered:  gravy, avocados, salsa, ketchup, and a host of other stains from the last two weeks menus.

Enter:  OXI-CLEAN.

I discovered this stuff last fall while visiting my mom and dad.

It is amazing.  I had seen all the commercials/infomercials about it and just thought, yeah right.  But I have to say, it does what they say it does.

Not only do I use the powder for my laundry needs and various other cleanng things, but I like the spray and stick versions too.

I keep an old ice cream bucket in the sink in my laundry room filled with some cold water and a scoop of the powdered Oxi-Clean dissolved together.  I toss my dishcloths, towels, shirts, socks, etc. into it inbetween laundry days.  When it's time to do laundry, I wash as usual.

Brilliantly white, clean, no stains left.  Colors intact.  (I do not use it on dark colored anything.)

My Mexican Lace tablecloth is gorgeous again.

Fast Sunday Dinner and Family Home Evening

Today the kids came over for our fast Sunday dinner and monthly FHE.  We had a good old fashioned roast beef spread.  Why is it that there is just nothing like it on a Sunday after church?  It just seems to make everything 'rose-colored', even the weather.

Duff gave a lesson on the Priesthood and tied it in scripturally with things that we learn about while we visit the temple.  It was very uplifting and good.

Gidget is worming her way into all of our hearts.  It's not very hard though--she's so blasted cute!

Gidget

Meet Gidget!

 Josh and Meredith got a cute little puppy today!

She is a Cockapoo.

They got her from a rescue shelter in Van Nuys this morning.

Her original name was 'Darla'. 

It was a sign!  

Meredith loves all things Gidget.

The movies, the tv series.  In some ways she is a Gidget herself--growing up surfing at the beaches. 

Gidgi-Girl already responds to her name and is in love with Mere.

They stopped here on their way home and Christine and I went with her to Petsmart to get all the necessary doggie things.  Bed, treats, collar (with bling, of course.  Duffy dogs have to have bling), leash, toys, food, dish, kennel/crate, tags, and training rewards. The gal who walked us through the store really knew her stuff and I even learned some new things.

I wonder if I'm ready for a new dog yet.  I could call it 'Moondoggie'.

You know.  Gidget's boyfried.  Hahaha!

I think this little one has stolen all of our hearts already.

Cruisin' On A Friday Night

Family IQ had a harbor cruise tonight.

We were celebrating and thanking everyone involved in with the Parent Coaching.

We left around 6pm.  It was still sunny and things looked so pretty in a different way than when we go during the holidays to see all the lights.  There was delicious mexican food, beverages, and company.  Adrianne and I took care of the galley and food while Diane made sure everyone was taken care of.  Mark took us all around the harbor during dinner and then left the bay and took us out to the open waters during the sunset..

What a difference.  You can really tell.

The seals on the buoys were adorable.

It was a pretty evening and the sunset was stunning.

Summer is almost here!

Sprinklers

Bad news.

We've been having some brown areas in the back yard grass.  I've been having to do more hand watering than usual.  Today I found out that because the grass is denser/thicker now after 17 years that I either need to put in new sod, or get new sprinkler heads that are taller.  The 2nd option is the less expensive one for now so that is the decision I went with.  The gardner was here all afternoon working on them. 

I hardly got anything else done all day.

Christine in Court

Christine got a ticket in March on her way to lacrosse practice.  She was getting off the toll road and still on the ramp was pulled over.  She was in Duff's car.  He is so good.  He always lets her drive his bmer.  She was pulled over for a toll violation because the transponder wasn't mounted on the front windshield.  They have changed the law on that and it is required to be mounted.  In fact, it has been 'lost' for several months and Duff just figured we were getting charged anyway because of 'pay by plate'.  I even told her it was okay because of my misunderstanding of 'pay by plate.' A lot of people don't like it in their windshield because of the way it looks.  But there are so many who cheat the toll road and violate the tolls so now it is a law to be mounted. 

You can 'pay by plate'.  That means the booth will read your front license plate (I thought it was the rear license plate), and charge you by your plate numbers.  But it is only for like when your transponder isn't functioning properly.  You guessed it.  No front license plate on either.  It has been explained to me that sports car owners don't like how that looks..... 

Then the tags were expired.  It needed to be smogged in order for the registration to be complete and he hadn't done that yet.

Oh and the insurance card in the glove box wasn't the current one either.

Poor Girl!  She hadn't done anything wrong, and now has this big fat ticket with a toll fine ($334) and lots to fix,and because of all of that, a court date!

We had to find a police officer to come over at 9pm last night to sign off all the 'fix-its'.  All done except for the license plate.  It is at the cabin on the wall in the game room.  For decoration.  Haha!  Duff considered not going this morning until Todd C. explained to him that she would be cited with a 'failure to appear' and have a bench warrant out for her arrest!

They were there by 7am this morning.  It all got explained and the judge was nice to her.  He granted them an extension in order to get the license plate back to California, nothing will be on her record.  No traffic school.  But Duff does have to pay the toll violation.  Ouch.

Oh, and the bummer is, Duff found the missing transponder.  It was tangled in the wires under the drivers seat!  That explains why sometimes we got charged and could hear it beep and sometimes we didn't.  The irony is that if it had beeped, Chris would have never been pulled over to begin with.  Haha!

What a day!
(today is Darla's birthday.  I am missing her.  I didn't realize how many cues during the day I took from her.  She was such a good dog.)

Hot Baked Bread

My mom has gone to making all their bread for the last several months.  She'll bake 10 loaves at a time once a week.  They use what they need and then give the rest away to neighbors and people in their ward who might need some.  That's just like them--thinking of others and doing something however small to help.

Mom has been using two new recipes that she really likes and wanted to show me.  I like the one for the white loaf bread because it is more simple than any other bread recipe I have used and you just pat it out and roll it with your hands.

 I'm always going to be glad I took this picture of her hands making bread.

They also make this Artisan bread now too.  Kristin taught them how.  See her step by step instructions here.

 It looks like this and is incredibly delicious.  The crust is crusty and the inside is dense and chewy.  I don't even have words to describe how tasty it is.  You can make this dough in 5 minutes.  YES!  I said 5 minutes.  Then you just shape it into a ball and let it rise and put it in the oven.  No tricks.  It's that easy.

I'm in trouble now!

Johnny-boy had to be helping Papa Duff on the computer.  He sat there with him dor the longest time helping him do his 'work'.

We left about 2 o'clock for the drive home.  That is a good time because you miss all the traffic on each end.  When John woke up from his nap he was confused that we weren't there.

We got home in plenty of time for Duff to help Christine get ready to go to court tomorrow morning for her ticket!  Oh, that is a whole other story!

Natalie Sworn In

Natalie was sworn in today as a lawyer.

We had to be there at 9am.  Downtown Phoenix.

Fortunately, Robert is down there quite a bit and knew how to avoid a lot of the morning traffic.

Downtown Phoenix is very beautiful.  The buildings are a combination of old and new and whoever designed the city made sure the transitions between them are smooth and compliment each other.  To my surprise, it was pretty lushly green.  The landscaping is quite smart.

This is a really big building with a large bank of stairs and railings leading up to the gold doors.

 Natalie was upstairs checking in and making sure all her paperwork was in order.

Robert and John were waiting downstairs in the lobby for us.

We had to go through very tight security.  Scanners, metal detectors, etc.

 The official program with her name.

 Entrance to the Supreme Court room.

 The courtroom is very old school and ornate.

Today the judges were 'en banc'.  That means that all of them would be sitting in today.

 The gal on Natalie's left finished law school and studied for and took the bar with a baby too.

They had a lot in common.

 Good Job, Nats!

Quite an accomplishment.

Almost done!

 The center judge was the only woman and she was in charge.  The candidates were presented to her, she congratulated them, and gave really good remarks.  If she had them written down, I would love to have them.  She charged them to be people of character and do right by others to preserve the things our founding fathers stood for and fought for and that our military continues to fight for. 

It was very moving.

 Natalie, Robert, and John.

"Yay!  My Mommy did it!"

(actually we asked him, "How big is John?  Sooo big!  It made for a good picture....)

 With Grandma and Grandpa.

They took care of John for months so she could study.

 We went to lunch after to celebrate.  Natalie wanted to go to Mimi's.

John wanted his Papa Duff to sit by his high chair.  He monitored the apple juice.

He has mastered drinking from a straw and loves it.

Target was nearby and Natalie and I popped in so she could get him some new swim suits and rash guards.  His swimming lessons start next week on Tuesday.  I picked up some flip flops, swim shoes, and navy crocs for him.  He had to sleep with them for his nap.  Haha!