Sunday

First of all... cousin Rachel and fam moved to town. She lives about 30 minutes away and I went and visited her and the kiddies last night while Nick was at work, and while I was waiting for 10PM to roll around when Nick and I would skyped with his sister Jessica in Thailand.

Second of all, my talk went great! Normally there are 3 speakers and a rest hymn for sacrament. Julia and I showed up and saw that we were the only 2 speaking. Luckily there was still that rest hymn. The Bishop must have had a lot of faith that we could take up the whole time! Julia got up and said her talk, and she talked fast and sat down. The Hark the Herold Angels Sing song was sung and I had 25 minutes to take up instead of the 15 minutes that are usually planned for.

First of all, going into this talk I had a plan of attack, so to speak. Normally I write out the whole thing word for word and look down and read the whole time. I don't like it when people do that. I have always wanted to not be fearful of public speaking and I want to be be able to speak what I know straight from my brain.

I brought some key points that I wanted to hit on and a few books to use as back up for stories, quotes and ideas. I had absolutely no idea how much time all my material would take up. None at all. I got up to speak, and the next thing I know it's time to stop! I spoke on family history and let what I know and my experiences do all the talking. I didn't even get to the extra material I brought, nor did I get to all the points I wanted to cover. Needless to say, I impressed myself with not being nervous, but excited to talk on what I know for 25 minutes.

After it was all said and done, all the family history lovers in the ward made their way through the crowd to tell me that they were glad to hear that talk. I was equally glad to talk on the subject.

Ok, so all that aside, here are some pictures from yesterday.

Baby cousin Maisy that I hung out with last night.

Lincoln and his head bruise. He was standing on the bed and I guess he thought he was a swimmer, cause he dove off it just like one. He is such a boy.

Lucy and the bubbles that don't pop.

On Saturday, we went out to eat at Wingers for the first time. It was some good eats. I had a sticky fingers rice bowl and Nick had some ribs. We watched a football game and enjoyed not cooking.  We also had a piece of pie that was an oreo crust, mint ice cream with carmel and cool whip on top. I'd go back just for that! Christmas is less than a week away!