MY PARENTS ARE HOME!!!!

My parents are finally home, well not home, but back. They have been serving the last 3 years as mission presidents in the Mexico Tuxtla Guitierrez mission. They got the surprise call over 3 1/2 years ago when living in San Antonio Texas. My dad was a professor at the extension of Texas A&M and my mom was working in the school district's administrative offices. They left everything, sold their house, their cars and headed out to serve. I didn't think that I would ever survive them being gone for 3 years and now they are home. They had some incredible experiences and worked incredibly hard. They and their missionaries survived the 2 worst natural disasters to ever have hit the area. I know that we had an incredible time the 2 times that we went to visit them. They worked in a beautiful part of the world with beautiful people as well. I know my parents were well loved by all of their missionaries too. On their trip home they had a layover in Mexico City and had 15 of their returned missionaries come meet them at the airport. At the Salt Lake City airport yesterday they had 12 of the returned missionaries as well as all of my brothers and sisters waiting for them to greet them.
(I wanted to be there SO bad but I will see them at my brother's wedding next month!)
My parents have always set a wonderful example for me and I couldn't be prouder of them! Way to go Mom and Dad!

Crazy Puerto Rican Libraries!

I really miss the public libraries in the states so I was so excited when my friend Lucy said that a library had opened here in Ponce. By the way, Ponce is the 2nd largest city in all of Puerto Rico and they just got a library! Besides the fact that there was a security guard at the front door everything else seemed pretty normal. It was set up really cute and the librarian had story time with them and then had them color a picture about the story etc. The kids had a great time and they picked out their books to check out and we go to the counter and the lady looked at us like we were crazy. They don't let you check out books at the library! My boys were pretty disappointed (nothing a trip to McDonalds could not fix) but I left shocked. I guess I still have quite a lot to learn about living here! Which by the way I am going to start blogging about all the crazy stuff here. I think some things are really interesting, if not comical, so I thought you might be interested too!

So bad- but try it!

I have been feeling so guilty about this that I have to get this out in the open. Well I try not to have sweets and stuff in the house because I eat them, and eat them until they are gone. No self control. The result of this however is having to take drastic measures when I get a craving for sweets, especially chocolate. So it is late at night, watching So You Think You Can Dance, the boys are finally asleep, hubbie is out of town and the cravings start. (No- not pregnant just love sweets!)
So I rummage everywhere and curse myself for not having anything sweeter than peanut butter in the house. Finally I remember that my wonderful friend Collette had sent me a big box of chocolate chips (hard to come by in Puerto Rico) last Fall and that somewhere in the back of my freezer there was an almost empty bag of chocolate chips left. I found the bag and sure enough there were at least 30 chocolate chips left in that bag. Not enough to make a dessert or anything but I thought I surely could come up with something. So I whipped out the bread and peanut butter and sprinkled the chocolate chips on it and made myself a big old peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwich.
It is embarrassing to admit how much I enjoyed it. However I do believe that I am on to something. Try it and tell me if I am crazy!

You got the wrong baby!

So Jake has been in San Juan (2 hours away) for most of the week and I am about to put my 3 boys up on EBay. Last night I had thought that my sweet but very naughty Tommy was being awfully quiet but I ignored the feeling that he was probably into mischief and went on enjoying the silence (kickback to my Depeche Mode days!)
Anyways, Luke, (my 4 yr old) comes running in and screams "Mom- you got the wrong baby! This one does horrible things!"
Tommy had gotten Luke's favorite Cars book and ripped out all the pages.
Somedays I have to agree with Luke- maybe I did get the wrong baby, but I love him anyways!

Promise not to skip over the woman speakers in conference ever again!

So I don't know about any of you but whenever it is general conference time and a sister speaker gets up, we always jump up and run to the bathroom, or put something in the oven or whatever, so that we can be back in time for the next talk. Well I vow to never skip a sister again! About 2 weeks ago we found out that the General Young Womens President, Sister Dalton was coming to Puerto Rico to talk to the young woman of our stake. Puerto Ricans love gringos almost as much as they love themselves. And if these gringos come from Utah- well all the more celebrated they are! So you can imagine everyone's excitement. Sister Dalton was at our stake center all day and did 3 different sessions. She first met with the class presidents. Then she had a training with the ward presidencies, and then later that night she had a fireside with all young women and their leaders.
Can I just say how impressed I was? This woman is an angel. She was the kind of person that you meet and instantly love. She radiated light and was so down to earth. She hugged everyone she saw and when I spoke with her she made me feel like she had been my beloved beehive advisor from a long time ago and wanted to catch up on my life and see what I had been up to. Of course she had a translator so that everyone else could understand what she was saying but I loved hearing her first hand. She is definitely an inspired leader and I can't wait to hear her again! Here are a couple of pictures of Sister Dalton with a few of our young women.