Ordination day

It's 3pm and we got out of church at 12 and I am just now realizing that we didn't take a picture with Connor on the day he was ordained a Deacon. What kind of air headed mother am I?? Bard is really truly too much to ask that you just live by me and be our official even photographer? Because I doubt you would have forgotten. It was a bit stressful, I set my alarm really early so I would get up and have everything prepared for a smooth morning and then I just kept pushing the snooze button so it was stressful getting to church, because the choir was singing. and when they sing they get to church EARLY and take all the benches and I knew Connor was not going to want to walk from the back of the building to the stand. So i was a bit of a nutcase getting everyone out. Kirk wanted to know why I was in a bad mood but asked it in such a way that i let him KNOW what was bothering me, which I regret. I know he likes to take his time and really think about the upcoming blessing and I was rushing him along at Bonnie speed. But really he should know after 17 years I get a little stressy on special days and to not take it personally right?? Right?? Anyway in our ward when a youth turns 12 they are called to the podium and given a certificate from the Bishop and asked to recite a article of faith. Connor has been working on it, but memorization is one of his weaknesses. So he memorized #1 but he was so nervous so Kirk wrote it out on a card, and the Bishop kept his scriptures open, and Connor wrote it in pen on his hand. But he said it from memory and made one mistake, he said " We believe in God the Eternal Father in His Son Jesus Christ and His son the Holy Ghost." But he caught his mistake right away and then looked down at his hand and very obviously read it from his hand. But he got it right. He says he got some teasing about it in Deacons quorum and I asked him if it matters? He got it right didn't he? And he said no it didn't matter. I say good job for thinking of a back up plan! He looked so handsome, with some typical Bonnie quirks. Celeste and I found this gorgeous suit on clearance at Nordstroms so I bought it in a rush and I saw some white tailors chalk on the cuff and asked if it would come off and the sales lady said sure just wipe it off. Well I didn't look at the suit again until 7:45 Sunday morning ( I know you raised me better than that Mom) and low and behold there are white tailor marks all over the back of the suit, both arms and the legs and do you think I could get it off??? No. I tried warm water, cold water, vibrating tooth brushes, I got online and asked Jeeves who said it should be easy, I called my friend who is a tailor and she said it should brush off. NO. I did manage to dim it a little and just hoped not everyone would pay attention. He had a gorgeous blue and yellow tie I picked out and he loved it, he hates wearing ties, but he loved this one and you could tell. SO I will take the suit to the dry cleaner this week and if the chalk does not come off, it is going back to nordstrom. Do we think I learned my lesson? lets hope so, but don't hold your breath!

New Oven

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my oven had the audacity to die on me! Which is unfortunate considering it was a very short time ago my fridge died, and now my printer is gasping for breath, not really it's dead too. Anyway back to my happy note, so my new oven came in today! Its a beautiful double of oven so whenever I cook dinner for 20 Johnston's every third Sunday I can know breathe a little easier! And what did I cook first with my new oven??? A California pizza kitchen Sicilian thin crust frozen pizza!! Yummy!!

White water rafting picture!

Flooding

We are having record flooding here in Georgia. The Chattahoochee is up between 5and 9feet depending oh the location last I heard which shut down a 6 lane freeway that Kirk needed to get to a mediation this morning. School is cancelled, but so far our water supply is good, and no loss of power. I feel very grateful that Kirk chose a house on a hill, I drove my a house just down the street from me and it was completely engulfed in water to the front porch, if it had a basement, it was flooded. We had some water come through our basement, soaked right through some of the walls, some beams are soaked and some insulation. I haven't checked the airport yet, or the roads to get to the airport to see if Mom is leaving today! I hear the worst was yesterday but still heavy rains today. Hope everyone else is well!

Campout (edited)

Matt went to a boyscout campout this weekend, he was in charge of cooking 2.5 meals and we sent along a couple kayaks and a canoe so he could earn his canoeing merit badge and his cooking merit badge. When he got home of course he was freezing wet so he went right up to the shower. When he comes down stairs he's got a towel wrapped around his waist and he says "Mom I think I have a tick". I told him to show Grandma (Parnell), who is standing beside me. He says, "umm I think it's on my pepsicle". I said wait and show it your Dad!! Grandma and I were not looking there for a tick!!
Sorry Jameson and April, I should have put the results on here! It wasn't a tick and no one had to look!

Stake conference notes

Really great stake conference today. We had a member of the 70 out, can't remember his last name except it started with a C. And when he was sitting down and someone made a joke and he didn't smile, i was like oh boy it's going to be one of those dry speakers. But he was one of the best speakers I've ever heard. He talked about the difficulty of translating the name of our church into other languages, in one they were trying to come up with latter day, and it became church of the last 24 hours. And then in the Philippines they don't have a word for saints and so for years it was translated into church of the privileged people and recently they altered it to be church of the holy people. He also told of when he was visiting a temple inItaly I think and was teaching them that the temple isn't just to be sealed, but also to be healed. One of his ending stories was he was on assignment in Fiji to call a man to be a area authority, and he looked down and saw the man had a tattoo on his hand, which is so common out there, and he got it before he was a member of the church. And this man said maybe you should buy a box of big bandaids so when you speak and tell people that we don't do tattoos or body piercing it won't look like you have one. Later he saw the man again and he had a large bandaid wrapping around his whole hand. And he said wow that's a big bandaid. And the Fiji man said I had the tattoo removed. And he asked him oh by laser? And he was told no, they don't have that on the islands, so they cut out a strip of skin that was 3 inches wide and four inches long and then pulled the remaining edges of the skin and sewed it together with a big string! And the 70 member said oh I am so sorry! And the Fiji man said don't worry about it. The next time they met he saw this long jagged scar on his hand and he again said I am so sorry for doing this to you. And the man said do not worry this is my ctr ring! And now the Lord knows where I stand, he tells me to do something and I will do it! I thought that was an amazing story, I was grateful all I had to do was pull out one extra gold hoop out of my ear!

Rainey day trampoline

Connor and Peanuts building legos

watch to the end, funny moment

Connors 12 Birthday

Sound bites from my day

Okay this morning Elle asked to watch Ratatouille, but thought it was pronounced Ratatootie. AJ comes up to dinner after jumping on the trampoline, lifts up his shirt and says, "I'm hot in both ways"!! Needless to say I'm still laughing. Then to cap it off a gentleman stopped me in the store and told me I looked like the Russian tennis player. Personally from his accent I think his school assignment was to talk to complete strangers today to work on his English, but it was nice anyway.

Elles Birthday

Well it was an interesting birthday for Elle. I got the flu shot for 3 of my kids, actually the flu mist on Friday and Elle had all the sign of flu by Sunday morning! Her favorite first place to throw up before we realize she is sick is me and my side of the bed. As she starts to feel really terrible she cuddles into me and then barfs all over me and my pillow. So that was fun, I had plans of waking her up with pumpkins pancakes and he first present of new earrings for church, but throwing up in my bed sounds almost as cool. So she threw up all morning and ran a fever but by 3 hadn't thrown up in a hour so I can some Tylenol in her and so by the time the Johnston's came for dinner she wasn't too bad. No you didn't read that wrong. I had texted everyone about 9 and cancelled dinner, had subs for my callings in church. But Kirk felt really bad leaving his family high and dry on dinner, and Elle was actually quite bummed people weren't coming over to sing happy birthday, so I relented and made dinner. Luckily it was just spaghetti, easy. Considering I spent the last week sick and still have no energy, my oven has been broken for a week, and then Elle as the cake topper it was pretty fun! She got a jewelry box, Ipod dog player thing, CD, gold earrings of animals from us, scriptures and a marking pen from mom and dad Parnell, money from mom and dad Johnston, and earrings from the Hansens and Kyle and Olivia. We had a tough time trying to convince her to take off her earrings, I think she was afraid it would hurt like having them done. We finally got one off and she was putting in a new one and couldn't quite find the back hole and it totally freaked her out. So she's got one original earring, and one lady bug. I said that is totally in style, no pressure to do the next one. Hopefully today when she is feeling better she will be willing to try again. I let her take mine out and put them in, so she's getting it.

Spoiler alert

I realize I am about to blog something most of you don't care about, but hey it's my blog. Did anyone but me make it all the way through the Terry Goodkinds series?? I did, it just started to well and then got so long and lecture-ry :) I was really pulling for a good ending, and then all of a sudden Richard solved the worlds problems in one event, series over. SO anyway he wrote a new book and it sounded modern and cool so i checked it out from the library and about 3 pages in you find out the main characters last name is Rahl, my first thought is good grief he can't even think up a new name, give it up already! About 15 pages in I got a sinking suspicion that this is not a new book it's a spin off! Remember the event that saved Richard Rahls world? The OTHER world?? That's right. About 70 pages in, you know what his two main characters are doing? They are doing what Goodkinds characters do best, lecturing! About religion and modernization, and freedom of beliefs, yadda yadda yadda. I like the idea of whats going on, but I don't know if I can take 512 pages of lectures. Sigh maybe I'll drop it in the return bin and quickly walk away. Very good thing I didn't buy it!

Reunion thoughts

So we went to a cabin in the "mountains" here in Georgia for labor day weekend with Kirks entire family. It was a gorgeous home right on a lake, with some very odd rules, we couldn't swim in the lake except for one spot, couldn't be on the lake after sunset, couldn't make noise outside after like 7:30, but it was fun nonetheless. A few highlights, the adults and 13yr olds went white water rafting, it had a few class 4 spots, the area right before where we dropped in was where the Olympics was held. At one time I guess the guide yelled "all in", but only one of us heard it so the left side riders of the boat fell on the right side, I am sporting a major bruise on my thigh and it hurts to walk a bit from Sammy falling on me, Kirk however fell on Matt which tossed him right out of the boat. Which was funny/scary. Kirk leaned out with his paddle and after a few seconds that felt like minutes we were able to catch him and get him in the boat. It took much longer to convince him that Kirk didn't push him out :) We brought in soo much food the last day was spent dividing up the extra food, it was about an hour of Susan asking people to take things, and for another hour of me trying to politely to decline, my car was stuffed to the top plus on the floor under the kids feet. I said no, over and over and tried to hide but ended back in the kitchen, after all of this of course being me I was bound to say something, umm perhaps not appropriate, you know me. So the last straw was Susan trying to get me to take a box of almost full tampons. I said no, but she she of course started talking about the value of taking this particular box of tampons, and so I said, I don't even have a uterus. At which point all conversation stopped in the kitchen, followed by Kirk, Kyle and Tiff all laughing, and Olivia and Susan looking at me like I was crazy. Needless to say someone else took the tampons.

Johnston Family Reunion 2009