It's Camp Central Around Here

Worked 10-11 hours each day on Thursday and Friday.  Came home and worked on the program for church.  Worked on camp stuff for Jen and went to bed.  That pretty much wraps up Thursday and Friday.

Saturday, went to a funeral for a lady that Melon Man knew from a long time ago in a prior ward.  She was almost 99 years old.  She often joked how she didn't want to make it to 100, so I guess she just said this is it and finally moved on.  Melon Man visited with a bunch of folks he knew from his old ward.  Here he is with Del and Gene Stapley.

Oh boy, what a special woman this lady who had died was.  She had such an abundance of Christ-like love for others.  It was obvious that her 6 children, 22 grandchildren, 46 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren loved her and she loved them very much.  I was very touched by this funeral for some reason.  Maybe it's because there were so many things said that reminded me of my own mom - things like, "She was the glue that held this family together."  Man, I miss my mom.  She truly was the Super Glue that held our family together.  It's pretty much fallen apart since she died and she probably looks down on us and cries.  I don't know what to do though to fix it.  The Elmer's Wood Glue that should be holding our family together now doesn't.  Just makes me sad....

Anyhow...

So, after we got home from the funeral, Melon Man went to bed and I began working on camp stuff for Jen.  I've mentioned camp stuff a couple of times and I will show what I've been working on once everything's finished, but here's a sneak peek...

I spent the whole day working on it and it turned out so great.  Both Jen and I were amazed at how it all turned out.  Everything so far has come to me quite easily in terms of skill and creativity, along with Jen's ideas.  However, as we continued to tweak stuff, things just were not working out.  I lacked the skill and knowledge to do what I wanted to do.  When I did create something after hours and hours of trying, I wasn't real keen on it, nor was Jen.  As I had been working during the afternoon trying to make it better and fancier and what not, I kept gettting the idea in my head that the reason that it wasn't working out was because Heavenly Father was pleased with it the way it was before.  That's when I called Jen and told her it was now me who was struggling.  She then said that maybe it was because Heavenly Father was pleased with it the original way.  I thought it so odd, but cool, that we both thought the same thing.  How wondrous is His love that he gave us the Holy Ghost to bear witness to us in that way!  I am so GRATEFUL that I have had this very special opportunity to help my sister.  It was truly drawn me closer to my Father in Heaven!

I finally went to bed around 1 a.m.  Seven a.m. sure came early, but I got up and got ready for church.  Melon Man soon arrived and we were out the door at 7:44 - one minute early.  I filled in for the pianist in Primary today (two weeks earlier than normal).  I had a wonderful experience while I was in there.  As I sat there and listened to the sharing time lesson and watched the kids participate, I was so touched by the knowledge of these little children.  I was very impressed with one particular 11 year-old girl.  She is so smart.  She knew all the answers.  She gave a talk which you could tell she had prepared herself, but was written very well.  She showed the beginnings of great leadership skills.  I watched as her mom listened to her and was so pleased with what her daughter was doing.  This young mother has 5 children, her husband is the bishop, she's home alone often, yet she is instilling in her children a love for the gospel.  I was so proud of her and touched by that devotion to our Heavenly Father. 

After church, I came home and finished up the camp stuff which took me about 5 more hours, during which I watch Parenthood on nbc.com on the laptop while I worked on the main computer in the office.  I love this show!  I cry just about every time I watch it.  There are so many moments that are touching and just make me, as an adult and wannabe parent, realize what our own parents went through watching us grow up.  I can't wait for the next season to start!

Melon Man is up now and is about ready to leave for work.  I'm heading to bed since I need to be up at 3:30 or 4 a.m. tomorrow to get into work early since it's forecast week and I have a ton to do.  I leave a week from tomorrow to go to Chicago for a week.  I hope the humidity isn't too bad while I'm there and that it's actually a nice temperature.  I'm excited to get away from the heat, but I'm sure I'll probably miss a bunch of monsoon storms while I'm gone.  That's what usually happens!

I can't believe our trip to Michigan is coming up so soon!  I still have some tickets and reservations to make for some of the things we're going to do, but I'm excited to be going.  It will be here before we know it.  I'm looking forward to getting to meet Kris, Jim, and Shannon.  I'm not sure if we'll see Karen or Karol and I'm pretty sure we won't get to see Kate because she lives out of state.  Bill and Nancy will be working at the fair part of the time but hopefully they can hang out with us while we're at Kris and Jim's.  I'm looking forward to trying a pastie (pronounced pass-tea, not paste-ee) in Sault Ste Marie, going through the Soo Locks, being so close to Canada (dang that we don't have our passports yet so we could actually go across the International Bridge into Canada), trying Mackinac Island fudge, and actually staying on an island where there are no cars at all and having to walk (ugh), bike (yeah, right), or take a horse drawn taxi everywhere (that sounds good to me).  I wanted to go to Kirtland, Ohio while we're there, but it's like 6 hours roundtrip out of our way, along with the time we would spend there, so I just don't think we're going to be able to do it this time. 

Well, off to bed now and to say goodbye for the night to Melon Man....