Grandma and Grandpa are going away on a mission

After Grandpa Dickson passed away my parents realized that it was time to move away from Washington.  Grandma was in a good place and my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Lynn were ready and available to move in and take over her care.  

Instead of heading back to their home in Nauvoo they decided to leave the renters in that are already there and to head out on a mission.  My sister Tracy invited them to come and live with them in their home in Grantsville.  My brother-in-law is the Stake President there and was happy to get the ball rolling for them to get their mission call from there.

We loved having them around for the few months while they waited for their paperwork to all be complete and then for their call to come.  They spent Thanksgiving and Christmas around the family here in Utah.  Their call came on January 8th.  We had most of the family either there in Grantsville or on conference calls to hear the news.

(I just love that they are taking a selfie to show everyone that their call came in the mail!)

 

They were called to serve in the Maryland Baltimore Mission as Member and Leadership Support (or MLS) Missionaries!  They were to report to the MTC in Provo, Utah on February 16th 2015 and they will serve for 2 years.  Here they are on the phone with family after they opened their call. 

 After they accepted their call their mission president called them.  He asked if they would be willing to serve in the mission office instead of being MLS missionaries.  My parents were thrilled for that opportunity and I think they looked forward to serving even more after that call.

 It was so fun to get their first picture from the MTC!  After having all of their kids send out the same picture in front of this map, now it was their turn.  I have to admit that I got a bit teary eyes many times hearing about their experiences at the MTC.  What a great thing for them to get to do!

 Another fun thing happened while at the MTC.  The second week they were there they kept running into these two fine people!  My little sister Tera has her parents-in-law going on their mission as well.  Here are Elder and Sister Blackham with my parents at the MTC before leaving on their mission to London England as MLS missionaries.  We have the wonderful opportunity of living in the Blackham's home in Centerville while they are serving for the next year and a half.  It's so fun for Tera's kids to have a picture of both sets of grandparents together in the MTC!

 Saying our good-byes one last time after the MTC and before leaving for a cross-country drive.  I am so grateful for such wonderful examples of love and service that they are to me and to my kids.  The Maryland Baltimore Mission is lucky to have them!  So are we!

Christmas Eve

What do you do on the afternoon of Christmas Eve to tire out the kids?  You take them to a trampoline park, of course and play. . .

We had Dave and Julie and their girls, Lee and Tricia and their kids, and our family all playing dodge ball together.  What a riot!

Gabby climbing the rock wall with bare feet!  Ouch!

Quincy climbing too!

Everyone playing follow the leader with Lee in the lead.

Cousins are the best!

Front:  Quincy, Abby, Mia, Gabby, Peter, Corban, and McKenna

Back: Andrew, Parlee, Emi, and Lauren

We got to go to see the Williams' cousins too in Tremonton to celebrate Uncle Darin's birthday and have a fun Christmas party.  This year we did a surprise gift exchange with the kids.  It was fun!

Cambric, Tanner, Kelsey, Corban, Gabby, Cass, Maren, Quincy, Olivia, Bethany, Conner, Keaton, and in the back Jake, and Parley.

Mini Cheer Camp

The cheerleaders at my school did a mini cheer camp as a fundraiser right before the Christmas break.  I signed my girls up and they had so much fun!  They went to a few practices and then performed at a girls basketball half-time.  I didn't have a good view of Quincy so the performance pictures are mostly of Gabby.  It was sure fun to watch!  What spirit!

Family Pictures

Family Home Evening/Dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Wright.  We each had $3.00 to buy something for dinner and make it for each other.  We had quite the dinner!  It was really fun!

Tracy noticed that we all matched when we came for a visit, so she had to take some family pictures of us!

Our niece Kelsey asked us to be models for her and gave us some free pictures for our time.  They turned out really great!

Fall Weight Loss Challenge

When school started so did my Chubby Challenge.  It was a competition between friends of friends to see who could lose the most body fat percentage.  I was VERY ready to do something and the prize winnings were very tempting.  Here is my before picture and a picture of the scale.  We had to send in a scale shot each week.

 173.5 pounds to start

My helper at the start.  Bump and I would get up early and walk.  After a few weeks it was just me getting up early to walk!  :)

My sisters and cousins all doing the challenge together.  These girls really rocked the challenge and all of us placed pretty high up the charts. It was fun to do it together.  We saw each other's results here at Grandpa's funeral.
(Tera, Jana, Me, Shayla, Sherilyn, and Jamie)

Down 27 pounds in 8 weeks!!!  I lost 13.53% body fat.  I was in 2nd place from week 2 right up until the very end when people starved themselves to win.  Ticked me off really bad, but I still ended up in 4th place and won $95.00 (first place was $700).

This is what I posted on the challenge blog after the competition was over:

Wow I can't believe it's over!  This has been such a great motivation for me!  At the start of this competition I was just at the point where all of my pants were too tight and I went to the store to buy a size 14.  I was 2 pounds shy of where I was just before delivering twins!  Yikes!  It was hard to tie my shoes and shave my legs and I knew I needed to get myself back in gear.

I joined with my sisters Tera B. and Jamie S. as well as cousins Shayla D., Jana C. and Gaylene P.  Everyone did so good!  I've gotten to see their before and after pictures and they are inspiring!  Way to go girls!  Thanks for the good motivation!  Even when we traveled to Grandpa's funeral last week!

I am now comfortably in size 10 jeans (I haven't tried on anything smaller).  My energy level is up, I can keep up with my 3 kids again, and I have motivated many co-workers to be healthier throughout the weeks.

I ate low carb, ran/walked a minimum of 10,000 steps every day, drank tons of water, and didn't have any sugar or soda.

I wish I had stuck with it better.  I really fell back into old habits during the holidays, but I loved it when I was competing.  I need to do this all the time.  Oooo there are too many yummy treats in the world!  For me it is 90% diet, 10% exercise.