Brigam gets his Wolf Badge

So our little Brigam was a superstar getting his Wolf Badge in only 9 months. He was awarded his Wolf badge, 1 gold arrow and 3 silver arrows. I am so proud of him. He likes scouts in therory, but the day to day is torture. He wants to do his own thing, like build himself a fantastic wooden thing with nails, hinges, markers and have it count for something (what is it? I don't know). A little bit of that works, but he has to do stuff he wouldn't normally do to make that count as well. Oh well, such is the road to Eagle Scout, right?

This is him. He gives me plenty of affection, as long as there are no eyes watching. In fact, I think he told me on our little errands trip last Monday that he loved me about a gazillion times. One time he told me as I parked the car, as I took the keys out of the ignition, got out of the car and walked behind it that he loved me. That's 4 times in about 30 seconds. I have no question the boy loves me. But showing that physical affection in public is not going to happen without a lot of guilt dished out on my part. Would not kiss me on the cheek even! What a silly billy boy!

This was also the day that I lost my camera. I must have left it at the church house and someone put it into the library. It was gone for about two weeks. I was so sad, but I found it in the library before an early morning Sunday meeting. I was so very happy. This is the first time I have ever lost a camera in my life! But I did finally put all my contact info into the camera case itself. I will NOT go through that again!!! We are reunited and all is good in the photographic world.

Goodbye LOST

So last night was the final episode of one of my favorite (our favorite) shows

LOST

It's the favorite of mine, Tyler's and Jeremy's, although Mykalyn and Brigam watch it with us occasionally.

Our experience with the end of every episode is, "What the heck?! That show is so stupid! I am LOST once again." But each week we come back once again for more and more experience with all those fun characters. I am pretty glad that it did come to an end because I don't know how much longer I could have gone week after week wondering what was up with those writers and trying to figure out what was rattling around in their brains. It was kind of nice because with this show, you really had to think after the show's episode as to what really happened and the fun was to theorize on what different scenes really meant.

Who says TV has to make you brain dead? :)

Now on to the fun stuff - I can't believe that we watched for as long as we did, but on Sunday night, LOST had a 2 hour recap on the previous 6 years of viewing. Then we watched the 2 1/2 hour series finale. We had a great time though (except for when Mykalyn's foot would mysteriously angle over to Jeremy shoulder as he was sitting on the ground and then something would ensue. Complaints and babyishness to be exact.) We had a

LOST Party

Complete with Darma Initiative food. We have photos to boot!

We had Tortilla Chips and Nacho Cheese Dip

We had delicious milk chocolate bars

And Darma Initiative water

My favorite was the LOST cupcakes. They had little cute palm trees on it and Oceanic flight 815 airplanes that crash landed into the cupcake island of LOST. They were yummy and root beer flavored.

It was a surprise for the kids (Briggy knew because we stayed home from Church yesterday because he had a massive ear infection. I needed to tell him something to get the pain off his mind.) They were surprised and were appreciative. That's always a bonus.

It was fun!!!

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday to my two best friends:

First to my sweetheart -

MIKE

The love of my life, the keeper of my flame, the lighter of my torch.

and to my BBF

PAM

My best girlfriend. The one that is always there and will always be there.

Thanks for making my life a great one!

Here's wishing both of you a great day!

Elder Nelson se encuentra en México, sano y salvo!

Thanks to the internet, I sound like I have complete command of the Spanish language. But, in better news, I have found out 7 days after the fact that my boy is safe and sound in Mexico. I finally sent an email message last night to the 3 emails I had for the mission. The mission itself, President Spannaus and Sister Spannaus' emails. This morning I was rewarded with an email from President Spannaus and a couple of photos.

Dear Sister Nelson,
Sorry about not being able to keep you informed as we like. What we do every time a new missionary arrives in our mission is to send that very same day an email with a couple of pictures and a brief note to the parents so they are informed and don’t get anxious.

The problem this time was that elder Nelson has given me your email address and your husband’s but apparently with some error because it came back to me as “undeliverable”. Here I am sending the pictures again and I hope this time you get it.

About the letter you have sent about your son, yes I have received that one, thank you very much. You will receive news from Elder Nelson this coming Monday which is his p-day and it´s the day our missionaries are allowed to write to their families.

Have a great Sabbath day!

President Spannaus
Mexico Cuernavaca Mission



From: Alin Spannaus
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 4:50 PM
To: 'mikenelson@hotmail.com'
Subject: YOUR SON ARRIVAL

Dear Nelsons:

Attached you will find some pictures we took this morning that you may enjoy. Dear family, your son is in the best hands he could be, in the hands of our Savior Jesus Christ, and I will be co-worker with him in this part of the vineyard. Thank you for raising this fine young man, he will be a great missionary.

With sincere love!

Presidente Spannaus
Misión México Cuernavaca

I was so happy to hear from him. I am excited for tomorrow because it's Tyler's P-Day. I am excited to hear of his experiences a week into Mexico. I am sure that he is a little homesick so we are continually praying for his safety and peace.

He looks so grown up. He definately has the Spirit with him. You can see it in his face!!! I love my boy!

Mother's Day 2010

So I finally quit laughing long enough to write about my wonderful Mother's Day.

I had a really good Mother's Day. Mykalyn cooked breakfast for me. She really is getting to be a great little cook. I woke up to scrabbled eggs (but she made 4 and I couldn't eat them all), 2 pieces of toast and an orange Julius except we didn't have any orange juice so she made it with strawberry daiquiri mix. That was pretty good. She got me an Americana piece for the kitchen, some Linder balls and a card. The card was actually one of the ready made ones I had downstairs. It was a get well card, but she crossed out all the get well stuff and put in her own words. Cute and full of ingenuity.

Brigam made me fridge magnets at cub scouts that spell MOM or WOW depending on how you turn them. Sometimes they even spell MOW or WOM. That makes him giggle. He also drew me a couple of pictures. He is WAY into the Marines right now. So my pics were of tanks and stuff. We need to get him out of that phase. He loves looking at automatic guns on line. I think that's a little sick for an 8 year old, right? He also sang with the Primary the traditional Mother's Day songs. Well, he kind of sang, I don't know if he doesn't know the words or if he just is embarrassed about singing. He only sang a couple of words in each song. But he hugged me A LOT. I love that.

Jeremy's gift was really from the heart. Instead of handing out flowers at church this year (which I didn't miss because then I have to carry a potted flower around for two more hours and try not to get dirt on the floor), they had all the Aaronic Priesthood boys get up and share something about why they love their moms. They had known about this for a few weeks. Most of the boys just got up there and said one or two reasons. Jeremy really put his heart into it. He was funny, oh so funny. We all had many comments about to his tribute to me and his humor. In fact, one of the guys said to dad, "Your wife has a lot of women really jealous of her after that tribute." I just thought, "I deserve that awesome tribute after what I put up with for 13 years until we could each stand each other." It was really sweet and I will always remember that.

He had a list of things that he loved me for. I'll list a few here and summarize the "funny" he said with it. The first thing he mentioned was that he was grateful for my humorous personality, he said with out it he probably wouldn't be as funny as he is. He was grateful for the way he was disciplined when he was younger because he sees other little kids round now and they have no discipline and they are out of control. He loves me for making him his little brown sack lunches for school because if I didn't make him one, from lunch time on it would ruin his whole day not to have one. I drive him to school and places, most of the time. The trust I have for him and the freedom I give him. The for lessons he's taught by me. For raising him in the church, he wouldn't be who he is without that. Most of the time I stop what I am doing to help him find something, like, "did you look in the laundry room?" "No" "Go look." "What do you know, here it is." Coming to ALL his sporting events. For the advise I give him. He ended it by saying "That's a small portion of why I love my mother. I love you mom." How cool was that?

Tyler Morgan was pretty funny too when he complimented his mother for all she does, tirelessly and said, "Mom, you're a Stallion." THAT was funny and Bro. Morgan and I teased her the rest of church about that one. Things like, "Why the long face?" and "At least he didn't call you an old nag." It was good for those of us who had teenage boys to hear that. I think it was that way for others as well, but who knows. They plan on doing the same thing for the men for Father's day. Mike told me he'd help Mykie write hers. :)

It was a good Mother's Day with me not having to fix anything to eat so it all tasted SUPER good. Food always tastes better when you are the one that doesn't have to make it. The only thing that could make it better was if I was able to talk to Tyler on the phone. But he was in the MTC so that meant so phone call for me. I think that a group of young women/young men in Utah should get all their cell phones together and drop them off to the MTC for the missionaries to use on that Sunday. I need to get a hold of President Monson and let him know my super great idea. Hee, hee.

It's so nice to have one day set aside to have the kids really focus on their Mommy, but I think my kids are pretty good as it is being grateful for what I do. I'm pretty lucky to have the kids I have.

This week's funny......courtsey of Jeremy

You know how cute it is when little ones mix up words? They are talking about something, but using a different word to describe it? Like when Chloe sneezes and Brigam says, "Oh, Chole, you did a bless-you!"

Well, that is cute, but when a 15 year old does it, it becomes REALLY FUNNY! This one....iit almost made water come out of my nose at dinner I was laughing so hard.

So Mike was telling Jeremy that maybe it would be a better idea to get a job this summer that was more physical so he could still build up his muscles and earn money rather than to pay for and go to football camp.

Dad said, "Give Tate a call. Ask him how you could get a job with him driving a combine like he does."

Jeremy cocked his head to the side, gave us one of his 'I'm so smart, why aren't you' looks and said, "Dad, I don't even know how to drive a car, I am sure I won't know how to drive a concubine."

Mike and I both started laughing hystarically. Jeremy has now changed his look to

'what is wrong with you?'

to which Dad replies (while I am just about to have water squirt out of my nose) "Jeremy, you better not be driving a concubine. If you're driving a concubine, you should probably go talk to the bishop."

We had to remind Jeremy we were talking about a combine not a concubine!

Ahhhhh, dinner time entertainment. This must be why they advise us to eat dinner as a family often.

Young Women's General Conference

So Mykie and I just got back from our Utah trip. We left on Friday Morning and got back Sunday at 8pm.

We went with my Laurel advisor, DeAnn Merrill, her daughter Kari, Ami Stephens and Layna Smith. We went down to the Young Women's Conference. But just to make it clear for our Stake President (who was the only one who could get us tickets) it was NOT a church trip. It was two moms, their girls and a couple of their friends going to Utah and the YW conf. It was pretty fantastic.

We stayed at DeAnn's parents house in Sugarhouse. They were such great hosts. When we drove in that night, DeAnn's mom had a delicious dinner waiting for us. That was so sweet! Everyone had a place to sleep and the house was so welcoming.

The next morning we went shopping to the fun little scrapbook store called Pebbles in my Pocket and found some way cute stuff. then we went to the Training Table for lunch. That was yummy! You see if you order a dinner salad, then it totally counter-acts the calories from the cheese fries. Kari made a great present for the clearers of the table. This lovely little happy face.

We went to the outside mall later that day. It was a beautiful day, which is not the way it is now in Utah. We got the best days in Utah. I heard they had a "White Easter".

That evening we went to the new Deseret Book Store. That was pretty neat, we changed into our Sunday Best in their nice new bathroom. Two leaders and 5 girls, that was entertaining! We then headed over to the conference center. It was great to see so many Young Women at the conference center. The Spirit there was so great. It was so wonderful to watch the calm and hush that came over the crowd as the Prophet walked into the Conference. I wasn't watching the Prophet come in, I was watching Ami Stephen's face because she told me earlier that she had never been in the same room as the Prophet. That moment was priceless.
The Conference was great! We loved the talks and especially the one by Elder Uchtdorf who told us that we can all have our "happily ever after". That was so entertaining. I missed seeing the conference with my other girls back here in Washington, but the experience in Utah was great!

After it was over we had a once in a lifetime experience. We all got to meet Sister Elaine Dalton (Gen YW President) after stealthily sneaking through a couple of security check points and then sitting on the first row of the conference center, staring over at where she was being social with those who COULD get past that last security checkpoint and silently praying she'd come over. She finally looked our way, we waved and she headed over. WOW. Meeting her....that was a great experience. She came over and told the girls that she just felt that she needed to meet them. We told her that we came from Washington and she thanked us for coming so far. She hugged each of us, held our hands and told us special stuff. She told me "thank you" for what I do for the young women. She said that our young women need strong and virtuous women like me. Like me? That's what she said. She saw something in me. I was so overwhelmed. You could totally feel the love that radiated from her. There was no judgement, but true love radiated from her as she looked at you and spoke with you. I want to be like that when I grow up. She was so gracious.

Earlier, she told the girls in her talk at the conference that she had been given a gift. That gift was to see the girls as they truly are. What they are meant to be. And when meeting her, you really know that she was blessed with that gift. It was way cool!

The next morning we went to Music and the Spoken Word. It was pretty crowded in there. It was Palm Sunday, so I don't know if that was the reason or not, but it was crowded. We were up in the upper seating, when the announcer pointed out important folks in attendance. Among them was Sister Dalton AND President Monson and his daughter. President Monson was seated right under our tier so we didn't see him, but it was great to be in the same room as him again as he was also there at YW conference.

It was really a great trip and one that my Laurels wanted to take. I am sure that they will always have great memories of it (and photos to boot!)

Kari M took her sister's sweater with her on the trip. That made Kristin M a little like Jeremy on a bad day. When Kristin asked her mom where the sweater was, she said, "I think it went on a trip to visit grama." Which was true because all of us stayed at Kari & Kristin's grama's house. So we decided that the sweater should really visit Gramma and Utah. We took that sweater everywhere and took pictures of it's journey. It visited a metal bike stand, it had it's picture taken with a Merrell shoe advertisement, a bagpipper held it, a newly married couple at the temple held it, it took an escalator ride, it was at the conference with us in it's own chair with it's own ticket and it was in the picture with Sister Dalton. Silly girly stuff, but fun and laughter abounded!

When we got home, Kari came over and we made up a book called "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Sweater". We ended up with 14 pictures so we made one page for the photo and the second page a journaling page. Kari told me that Kristen laughed at the book. That's awesome!