Sad Week...

This week has been a little emotional for me.  Lone Peak High School had another suicide this week and two attempted during the week.  For some reason this one really upset me.  They started out Thursday with a early morning mandatory meeting and let the staff and faculty know about the suicide.  It was a teary event.  This kid was not the typical type of kid that would commit suicide.  He was going to be receiving his Eagle this coming Sunday.  My son Jordan who was in his class at school did not know his last name but never dreamed it was the kid Terek Gagon in his class.  He did not feel he was depressed.  He said he had friends in the class and would talk to people all the time.  The entire day was dreary and students were crying and hugging each other everywhere.  It really was sad.  Our poor principal has really had a tough year this year with suicides attempts and a issue about a dress that was not appropriate for a school dance and went national.   I really felt for Ronda Bromley.  She is such a great principal and I hate that our school is getting a bad rap.  It really bothered me that students are getting to the point in their lives that they would take their own lives.  What is going on?  Too much focus on themselves and they are not able to see past today.  This particular suicide had me really bothered and wondering what we need to do to get kids to quit their stinkin thinkin... There is so much to live for.  In our country we are so blessed.  We have food on our tables, houses to live in, great people that surround us.  What would cause a boy to get to the point that he would be willing to kill himself.  My heart is crying out to his family, friends and for the youth.  After school both Jordan and I were depressed and feeling down.  Gary was not going to be home until late so I grabbed Jordan and we went shopping at Walmart just to get out of the house.  We also decided to go out to eat at Panda Express.  We just needed to get out of our sad funk.  I really hope we can avoid any future suicides at Lone Peak this year.  My heart just can't take anymore.  This is a community problem not a Lone Peak problem. 

St. George Visit with Grandkids and Farewell!

     Well this last week we enjoyed a wonderful weekend in St. George.  My aunt Marie and Frank Mathis had a farewell.  They will be serving a mission in Nauvoo.   My parents took us with them to St. George to go to the farewell and of course to visit Brandon and Becca and the grandkids.  We had such a wonderful time.  Here is a picture of my aunt and uncle Mathis.  I lived with them as a teenager in Price Utah.  They now live in St. George.  I sure love these two wonderful people. 

         The rest of the time we spent every minute that we could with Hayden and Kylie.  Gary and I got to tend them when Brandon and Becca went out to dinner and bowling.  We went on a walk with them, watched movies and read stories.

  The next day we all went hiking up Red Cliff National Park in Leeds, Utah.  Here are my favorite pictures that I took on our hike.  We sure had a fun time. 

     

President's Day Family Fun!

Well we finally got some of our family together for President's day and we decided we needed to do a small family get together.  We all met at Zuppa's for lunch at 1:00 p.m. and then we all went bowling.  It has been years since I bowled.  We had a great time.  Dallan was our overall winner of the bowling.  We had a fun time just getting together.  Happy President's day!

Valentines Weekend!

This has been a very nice week.  Gary surprised me on Friday evening with these beautiful roses and a card and a chocolate bar.  I bought Papa Murphy's pizza that night and we had planned to stay home and eat pizza and watch valentine movies.  We watched Eat, Pray, Love and Music and Lyrics.  The next day we went to Gary's dad care center and we took him with us to Walmart because he was wanting a copier.  We also had him pick out some treats.  It was such a beautiful day and it was nice for him to get out and have some fresh air.  Then Gary took me to eat dinner at Outback because we had a gift certificate from his work.  We had such a wonderful meal and time together.  Sure do love my wonderful husband GarBear! 

On Sunday Chantel, Mckay and Kendra all came over to play games.  It was fun to have them here.  Dallan and Evan are on their way home from California today.  They have been to one of Evan's converts baptism and drove down to attend.  Kendra also had went to St. George this week and she came home to spend some time with us.  I have included picture from her trip to St. George. 

Mission Farewell and Welcome Home!

        Today we went to a Mission farewell and a Welcome home.  It was great!  First we went to a Mission Farewell of Shaylee Jensen's in our own ward.  It was one of the best meeting I have been to for awhile and the spirit was so strong.  Shaylee shared a lot of great personal stories about when she lived in San Fransisco on an internship and kind of what brought her to the decision to serve a mission.  She had some very great stories and thoughts that were very inspiring.  Skyler and his new wife Cristina sang the most beautiful song "I know that my redeemer lives".  It was sang in such a spiritual and touched my soul.

          Second we went to Nicole Smith's welcome home from her mission in Romania.  She also gave a marvelous talk.  I loved hearing her stories and about all the people that she taught and got acquainted with.  It was also very touching.   She actually had the same conference talk that I had when I gave my talk a couple of weeks ago called Ponder the path of our feet by Thomas S. Monson.  I loved how she applied it to people she had taught.  Well I will end my letter with some pictures from our family dinner today.

Welcome Home Nicole

All the recently returned missionaries

Nicole with Grandma and Grandpa