blessings...

On Friday I picked up the kids early from school and we drove to LA and met Jared at the Temple apartments. (He was already in LA for meetings with work) I got to go to a temple session that night and Jared went the next morning. The kids always love it when we take them to the temple and especially when we stay in the apartments there. while Jared was in the temple we walked around the temple grounds and got a few pictures. the kids favorite tree.

I thought Kaden was too cute, standing there saying cheese...

on Saturday Jared had a regional Priesthood meeting in Ventura with Elder Bednar, only Bishops and stake Presidents were invited, lucky Jared. I on the other hand was planning to take the kids to the Santa Monica Beach... but after quite a bit of less than nice children, decided I wouldn't torture myself or reward bad behavior, so we headed home... one of the kids that really wanted to go to the beach cried nearly the entire way home. Then I got pulled over coming down the grapevine by the rudest highway patrolman ever, and of course he gave me a big fat ticket.... oh I was not happy. I couldn't figure it out, here I was trying to just have a nice weekend, go to the temple, and what happens, my kids act worse than ever, can't go to the beach, Jared gets to go enjoy an afternoon with an apostle of Christ.... and I get to listen to crying kids and fighting most of the way home and to top it off I get a ticket from Mr. Rude. Oh I just can't even explain how upset I was about the whole situation... then I go to get the mail, and one of my neighbors, said, "wow, it is just so neat you have 5 kids, I always wanted a lot of kids, but only had 2. you look so great! you are just so blessed!" .... wow, talk about having your prayers answered through someone else... all I could think was "thank you Heavenly Father, I needed that!" so I decided to stop my pity party and realize how blessed I really am, and go have my own Elder Bednar party... watch some of his recent talks, and it was awesome, Jared came home and it was great to hear him talk about getting to meet Elder Bednar and listening to an Apostle of the Lord speak for 4 hours!