Fun Family Weekend

It was a rather hectic end to the week last week, so I haven't been able to write in a while. I will try to catch up on some of the events from the past week.

First, work last week turned out to be one of the most hectic weeks that I've had in a long time. The managers from Singapore were in Fort Collins for the first part of the week and then Cisco was here on Thursday night for dinner and then all day Friday. Friday we just crazy - I had on-site customers, 2 calls with other customers and then eInfoChips came on campus as well for a meeting. I barely made it out in time for my fun date with Amy. We had Sushi for dinner and then we enjoyed "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit". It was definitely a great movie, but it wasn't the best that I've seen.

On Saturday, we had a pretty good day. We all slept in, enjoyed biscuits and gravy for breakfast, then we took care of some chores around the house. At around 11am, I was able to take Alyssa out on a date to do some shopping in Loveland for new basketball shoes and some clothes before having lunch at the Bent Fork. Here's a photo of our great outing (don't you love the big gap in my teeth):

She really opened up with me though. I was able to learn the following:

• She really does like Connor and she thinks he's the type of boy she wants to marry.
• She also likes Will, but he's a little "crazy"
• She realizes that Connor is 5 years older than her, but that's okay - a girl can still dream...
• She accidentally feel asleep with Connor coming home from skiing a few weeks ago and she let me know that she really liked that experience.
• She does not like ANY of the boys in her grade (too immature)

It was really an awesome experience with her and I hope that I can get her to open up to me like that every month! I would also really like to start PPI's with the kids as an opportunity to get to know them better. I learned a lot from this date with Alyssa - probably much more than she did..

Saturday night was "Standard's Night" for the youth at the Stake Center. Our ward put on a skit about Entertainment & Media. I think we did a good job given that we had to insert new people and many of the youth that were supposed to be there couldn't come.

Sunday was a great day, but it was VERY long. I started with PEC at 9am and didn't finish until the end of Scout Committee meeting at 9:30pm. There was a 2.5 hour break in between church and BYC, which was really nice. I was able to watch some of the Denver Bronco's playoff game - they won and they're on their way to the Super Bowl in 2 weeks! All of the meetings went really well and I'm so glad that I was able to make it through the day. To maginify your calling as the YM president definitely takes time and energy (a lot more than I though initially, for sure!)

Today was an incredible day! I played basketball in the morning, went to work for a couple of hours, then I met up with the family and we enjoyed an awesome day at the zoo. Here's a great family photo (minus the man behind the camera!)

I love how Jantzen is reading his map. He really loves to have a map with him when we go. The weather was pretty warm today, the animals were moving around and we just really had a great time. It was crowded, but not too much. We avoided spending too much money and we just had a great time.

For FHE tonight, we went to the Greene's house and I had the lesson - it was a way to combine FHE with home teaching and it was a blast. Sam even had a friend over and he participated in the lesson. I taught about three things:

• I showed President Uchtdorf's video on not living below our priviledges. This is the story about the man who doesn't realize that the food on the cruise was free until the last day.
• I taught about the 1st presidency message, which teaches about the importance of starting "NOW" to make positive changes in our lives.
• I used a candle as an object lesson of trials and experiences in our life being equivalent to dipping a the string in wax (once for every experience). It is hard at the time, but as we have more experiences and trials, our candle (and light) becomes larger and stronger

Anyway, I thougth it went well. It is definitely time for bed!!

 

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