Happy Birthday Andy!

We had a lot of fun celebrating Andy this past week. Last Friday I took him to Dave and Busters and we felt like little kids again (tired greying little kids, but still, it was fun). Tuesday we got to do some online gaming with family, which is Andy’s favorite thing to do, so for him it was the perfect birthday! He got a “tree of life” lighter, a tiny powerful flashlight, some thinking putty, and some new beats pros headphones. I think he bought himself a few video games too ;).

We continued celebrations on Thursday by attending the traveling broadway cast for “My Fair Lady.” Though, Andy and I both agreed it was probably more for me, he couldn’t really understand the cockney British accent, so when she finally learned how to talk correctly he enjoyed it more. He just didn’t really understand what was going on. It was really well done, but not exactly like the movie I grew up on (with Audrey Hepburn). They added in some cross dressing men in the “Take me to the church on Time” and at the ending Eliza storms off when Professor Higgins asks where his dang slippers are, which seemed to make the play feel more incomplete to me. I thought the cross-dressing men were more distracting than entertaining and they were pretty crude– tea-bagging the “Da” and straddling him, etc. Not even the “lovely ladies” did anything that crass. It was sad to me that such an innocent play had been “updated” to our day’s morals. But other than that it was well done and their voices were very pleasant to listen to. We ran into Andy’s old boss- Dr. Coole and his wife and another Cardiothoracic surgeon and his wife as well ask Max’s former reading teacher, Ms. Shoenholz- who we hold dear to our hearts as she truly helped Max catch up in reading and helped build his confidence and love for reading.

Saturday evening we spent the evening with some friends in our neighborhood. We at food, had good laughs and played games. They all attend our church and three of the four families are in our ward. I saw one of them at church today and said, “I am so tired!” He replied, “Me too, but it was so worth it.” It’s so nice to have such good friends to make memories with and have good laughs. I really enjoyed celebrating Andy and I’m so grateful that he is the father of our children and my best friend. We love spending time together and seriously have so much fun.

Aside from partying all week, Harvey got croup in the middle of the night Thursday night. I spent all Friday morning at the ER where he got to be treated by Dr. Jackson. They fixed him up and he was doing much better by that evening. The poor kid ran to the car afterwards and fell flat on his face, leaving a nice big ol’ goose egg above his right eye. It was just adding insult to injury, poor kid.

Today in church was “Fast and testimony meeting.” I’ll be honest, most of the time I feel the spirit, but don’t remember much of what I hear, but today there was a testimony that really spoke to my heart. Sister Pemberton, our relief society president talked about her kindergarteners (she teaches at our kids’ school). She said that the first few weeks of school bring a lot of tears because a lot of the students don’t even know their alphabet or how to write their names, so she wrote a saying on her wall that says, “Mistakes are for learning.” Sometimes I tend to be overly focused on pointing out things we can fix as a family, individually, including myself. This can be discouraging because in our culture it sometimes feels like when we make mistakes we are failures or we’ll never measure up, and often we get distorted thinking that one failure or mistake erases any good we do or outweighs the good we do. But instead, it is an opportunity for learning. That is literally the purpose of this life, to try a little better each and every day and when we make a mistake, we should look at is an opportunity to reach the greater potential the Lord knows we can make. That ultimately, when we make and learn from a mistake, we are fulfilling our destiny for this life. Another sister talked about how she notices when she looses the attitude of gratitude, that things in her life start to fall apart. I have to say when I show gratitude to my spouse, my children, and my Father in Heaven that not only do my family’s behaviors improve (and mine as well), but it seems easier to notice all the good in my life. I think these two approaches balance each other out and I think make us better people as we slowly work towards our ultimate goal. This week I’m going to focus on having that attitude of gratitude with those who are present in my life. I challenge you to do the same. I wish you well! Love you all.