Flooding

Kirky and Brittany, Shylee, and Asher came to visit this weekend.  Kirklan and Jake went snowmobiling.  I was showing Brittany the house and discovered that the basement was flooded!  It has been warm here and the snow started melting.  We were quick to put Brittany and Kirklan to work  ;) .  It is a good thing I had to show off my cool food storage area or else we would not have noticed all the water in the basement.  We were able to build a small dike out of snow and divert the main stream of run off away from the house.

Quilts for Haiti

As a Relief Society we tied 2 quilts for the people in Haiti.  Myra did the hardest part and already had the quilt tops sewed together.  I was able to share the experience of ___________.  I am so grateful to be able to help.  I feel for the people in Haiti.  I cannot even imagine the sorrow of lost ones and hardship of living in a destroyed city.

KidsEmail.org on the Radio

Wow!

These are my AMAZING Walgreens deals.

After sales, coupons, & register rewards this is what I paid for each item:

• Progresso soup cans ............. 98 cents each


• Lindsay Olives ...................... 50 cents each


• Mabelline make up remover..........$1.99 each  (this is a great deal for me because I usually buy this at Walmart for $4.23 a bottle)


• Huggies diapers for a baby shower ...................3.99 for a jumbo 50 pack.  This makes it 13 cents a diaper


• 3 Musketeer candy bar ...........................49 cents each.  I had to buy them to get my coupon ratio up.


• Fantastik Cleaner........................$1.75 each.  I will then turn in a rebate and get $5 back!  So in essence 3 Fantastic only cost me 25 cents after rebate!


• Kotex pads-- 22-24 count ................................. 50 cents each.  (or  2 cents a pad)


• Venus 5  blade razors-- 3 count ............... $2.99.  Plus this enabled me to use a coupon for free Olay body wash priced at $7.99.

• Nabisco cookies ............. FREE!  They were on sale for .99 cents and I used a $1 off coupon on each box and got them for free.

• I had a coupon for free Olay body wash when I bout Venus razors.


• Q-Tips...............$2

I spent roughly 40.75 (before taxes).

* I will get $5 back from the Johnson & Johnson rebate

* I still have a $6 Register Reward to use

These are rough prices I would have paid before sales, coupons, and register rewards:

15.....soup

12 .....kotex pads

9...... diapers

4.....cookies

4......olives

7.50.............Fantastic

2.25.............candy bars

20 ..................maybelline

18 ...............razors

16............free olay body wash

Without coupons this would have cost:

127.75

I SAVED $87!

Substituting in Arbon

• I substituted the big room at Arbon Elementary.  Fun times!  I loved it.


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• The kids are well behaved and so sweet.  My biggest behavior problem was trying to tone down the onslaught of stories each of them wanted to share with me.  It was interesting to see how a 3 grade classroom is run.  I love catching a glimpse of how Jake grew up.


• This is the class I substituted.  The two boys, Lawrence and Ethan are in the 3rd grade.  Maria, the girl in red, is in the 4th grade.  Shay Ward and Katie Ward are cousins and are in the 5th grade.




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• Of course, a small two-room school, like Arbon does not have a traditional lunch room with lunch ladies.  Most days the kids bring their own lunches.  However, once a week the kids get hot lunch.  A child's parent will bring the hot stuff from home to the school.  Then the parents and teachers act as lunch ladies serving up the good stuff.  The kids love to have their parents at school and are so proud of what their mom makes.

Time Out for Women

Another Oler Girls Night Out!

We attended the Time Out for Women in Ogden.  The theme this year is Infinite Hope.  An appropriate topic for these troubling times, eh.  I LOVED it.  I totally recommend going to Time Out for Women rather than Women's Week at BYU.  Some advantages of Time Out for Women: 1. All speakers are AMAZING professional speakers.  2. All classes are in one big auditorium, you don't have to miss speakers, or debate who you want to go to, or wait early in line to make it to the speaker you want, and no endless walking between sessions (this is especially bad if it is raining).

• I was so excited to hear from Shawni & Linda EYRE.  I adore this family.  I follow Shawni's blog regularly.  Her blog is a great place to get ideas for a strong family. Like this and this.  I admire the Eyre family and all of the things they have accomplished.  Shawni is much better at writing than she is at speaking.  She wrote this the day before she spoke.  I don't blame her I would be scared silly to speak with the greats like John Bytheway and 1,700 people is a rather large crowd.


• My favorite speakers were John Bytheway and Mariama Kallon.  I like John Bytheway because he is a great speaker and his talks are filled with depth.  He quotes scripture and prophets and poems and cites everything all while making it fun and funny.  Mariama Kallon grew up in war-torn Sierra Leone.  She shares her conversion to the gospel while running from blood thirsty rebels who killed her parents and siblings.  It is amazing that she is so happy and hopeful considering her awful past.  Very humbling.  She also showed us her most treasured possession: a used hygiene kit given to her in Sierra when she was running for her life.  She shared the kit with 20 other women.  Her little sister had a school kit that she shared with all the kids at her school.  The kids broke the pencil several times until it was a small stub that we would have thrown away long before it got that small.  Her story has strengthened my testimony of contributing to these kits.  To hear firsthand how they are truly blessing others in such need is also very humbling.  This is the kind of thing that makes me want to sell my house and give all the money to charity.  We are so blessed!


• One of the speakers shared a story about how she came close to losing her baby at 18 weeks.  She described everything perfectly and through a lot of miracles she ended up carrying the baby full term.  This of course hit very close to my heart except my story didn't end happy.  I tried so hard to keep it in but I ended up crying and had to escape to the bathroom.  How sad for us.  :(


• I love spending time with my sisters.  Our group consisted of Kesa, Sherika, Alicia, and me.  Mom was on her camper trip with dad in Arizona and Brittany and Brittany couldn't make it.