Slick Stuff: I'm in Time Out!

On Thursday the 16th of October my friend, Jennifer Debenham and I(she was my good friend when we lived in Lake Forest and now she lives up here too...how lucky is that?) drove 3 hours to Portland, OR. Since there is no shopping taxes in Oregon we were hoping for some awesome hours of shopping...but because of traffic and enjoying ourselves at the most yummiest pizza place in Olympia we didn't get to Portland until after 9:00. We actually did an hour of shopping. Friday morning we rode the MAX (Portland's train system) to the convention center where we were part of Deseretbooks Life Seminar. The glorious Sheri Dew was the featured director of the event and then we enjoyed great talks from Virgina Hinckley Pearce, Wayne Boss who taught about the Principles of Power---super great! and Tom Smith who taught about how to let your experiences give you the results you want in your life. Wow! Both of these men teach companies and business how to incorporate their teachings to become more successful. They work with American Airlines, Nestle, Ihop, Pfizer, etc. etc. It was so great to learn some skills that can be applied both in the home with my family and also in a spiritual ways too.

We came back at 6:30 for the Friday night Time Out for Women. The singer/songwriter Kenneth Cope was the emcee/entertainer for the night. He was amazing. Chieko Okazai who is now in her 70's was the featured speaker. She has always been a favorite of mine ever since I can remember. Jason Deere )who is well known in the music world writing songs for Jessica Simpson and others) and also Dan Truman (who is a member of the group Diamond Rio) they performed their music from "A Nashville Tribute to Joseph" and "A Nashville Tribute to the Pioneers." They were fantastic...a bunch of rednecks singing uplifting songs about what we believe in and making us laugh and cry. I immediately bought their Cd's that same night! SO good!

Saturday morning at 8:30 we were back in our spots ready for more. We were in the presence of the "greats"...Emily Watts, Camille Fronk, Elia Gourgouris, Mary Ellen Edmunds, music by Cheri Call and lots more music by Kenneth Cope. By Saturday's session there were around 2,000 women in that huge room. There was so much energy of regular old women just hungry to be uplifted. We walked out of there elevated to a higher plane and so filled and so motivated to do better, having more understanding of our roles as moms and wives and being reminded that we are children of God too and we have much to offer the world. We were given tools of how to do all this. The only problem was that after sitting through a little over 15 hours of "upliftment" and mad note-taking I felt like I just drank from a fire hydrant. It was SO much info in such a short time. It was a huge pick-me-up that I needed that filled my bucket to overflowing. Now I just need another weekend for mediation and application. Ha! Every time I get away to do something for myself it hits me in the face that I have to do this more often. It's so hard for mom's to get away but we have to do it! We can be better moms when we miss our children and they miss us too.

We finished off our fabulous weekend enjoying Jeff's birthday present...the Celine Dion concert.

Jeff and Jim met Jenny and I at the Tacoma Dome for the concert. All I have to say is that Celine is SO talented. Her talent is real. She is so good and genuine. I'm very curious...at her age how does she have such amazingly fit and trim and shapely legs? Every outfit she put on emphasized her body making her quite a sight to behold. Her hair was thick, long and luscious...extensions perhaps? Her singing was the superb cherry on top! It was a great concert!!!

So, while I was gone to Portland Jeff really stepped it up. He was the "dad of the year" for sure. As I was leaving he said, "Don't even say 'thank you' for this because you deserve it." Ah, that was awesome! Naturally, everything ran so much smoother than it would have had I been there. Don't you hate that? No one fought. Everyone got along. Everyone did their jobs and homework and practicing. Every time I called Jeff said, "everyone is so good!" Well...what would you think? Because my bucket was filling up I wasn't even offended or misinterpreting that message. I was just grateful. Jeff proved his skills again getting Emmy ready for a birthday party....buying and wrapping a girlie present and then dressing Emmy up like Sleeping Beauty and creating a doo filled with ringlets. What a guy! and what a beauty Emmy was indeed!