Today is a sunny day after snowing for 2 days again.  It is cold though as it is 29 out side.  Our Bishop's family came after church to clean our driveway before we realized that they were there.  Said they needed a service project.  It snowed about 4 inches last night.

Some of the snow is melting

Even though Monday was a holiday we were surprised when the Northridge Learning Academy called and wanted to know if I would be able to come in and talk to them about writing some curriculum for them.  I was able to get the job and now have five books to write on marketing.  It is a good thing that I have a Subject Matter Expert living with me to help me write them.

Monday I also went to Kirsten's to help her figure out a pattern layout for a dress she is making for Taylor.  Taylor was feeling pretty good and we played a game of Candyland and some dice game she had so she would not have to sit on Kirsten's lap while she was cutting and pinning.

Larry went to an interview with Primerica.  He said they would hire him but it was strait commission and he would have to get his insurance license and security and exchange commission license and that is not what he is looking for.

Such a sunny day but about 20 degrees

Monday night we worked on some of Larry's Family History for Family Home Evening.  We are finding that there is a lot of information that Judy has that is not on the new Family Tree at Family Search so we have our work cut out for us.

Tuesday we both spent the day networking and applying for other jobs.  We have some good possibilities in the works but it takes a long time to get answers sometimes.  We watched a webinar from the University of Utah last week that helped us learn how to use linked in and other social networking sites for helping in our job search and that has been helpful.  And of course we teach the career workshop at LDS Employment so we have been teaching techniques for getting employment for a year.  In fact we had to teach the workshop that evening.

Wednesday Maren called and we had a good talk.  She is enjoying being in Young Women's in her ward and she always has some fun things to tell me about her kids.  I have also learned to pace while I talk on the phone at home and I got 40 minutes of walking in that day for Weight Watcher's points!

We worked again on job searching and networking but in the afternoon I went to Kirsten's to tend Taylor while she went visiting teaching.  Taylor fell asleep while I was there and so it was an easy job.

Our Clear Driveway

Kyle had to go driving that afternoon also.  He will get his license on the coming Tuesday if he passes the test.  He is excited because he will probably get his license before many of his friends who have been in a competition to be first.

We taught our career workshop class again on Wednesday.  We have a good group.  There is a man in there that is sold on RootsMagic for family History.  He says that you can upload things to FamilySearch Family Tree with it but I don't believe him from what I learned in my mission for Familysearch so he is going to spend some time with us showing us why we should update to RootsMagic 6.

Thursday we worked at LDS Employment with our mission.  It is always a good experience to try to help those who are out of work
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Sarah, Lauren, Steven, Larry and Leslie Jenkins at
Bacon Park Family Reunion 1986

Thursday night we collapsed and enjoyed a TV marathon of detective TV shows while I cleaned out a box of things from my office that needed to be organized.  I found some old pictures of a reunion we had at Bacon Park by Roosevelt, Utah when our children where smaller.  I also found some pictures of the trip we took to Yellowstone the year before Maren was born.  There were also some birth and marriage certificates for some of my ancestors and a lot of other things that I needed to organize plus a big pile of trash.

John, Cory, Corrinne,, Kirsten, Craig, Kathy
Bacon Park Reunion

We decided on Thursday to go to the temple on Friday.  We wanted to go to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple but when it was snowing in the morning we decided to go to Salt Lake City and then maybe the snow would quit as the radio station was telling us.  We had agreed to meet Mom for lunch at the Senior Citizen's luncheon at 12:00 p.m.  When I got into the dressing room I had no dress to do endowments.  After going out to talk to the women helpers about what to do and communicating across the barriers to the men's dressing room with the help of the women helpers we decided to do initiatory work because it would not take as long and it did not require a dress.  It was a good experience doing initiatory and the snow did slow for the afternoon.

We made it to Mom's just in time to go with her to play bingo which is earlier before the lunch.  Larry found out they have pool on Friday's there and the lunch while being 18 weight watcher's points was delicious.  Therefore Larry thought we ought to go again next week.  We even won prizes in bingo.  So we are planning on going to help Mom again on Friday and enjoying the luncheon.

Back: John, BJ, Nathan, Erick, June
Front: Kirsten
Yellowstone 1987

We spent the rest of the afternoon helping Mom at the house.  It is always fun to spend the time with her and learn from her.

Back :Nathan, BJ, Jacob, June
Front:  Erick, Kirsten
Yellowstone Summer 1987

Saturday morning we did not have to teach a class at the Family Search Center so we did not have to be there until 10:00 a.m.  I was glad that we did not have to go to Mom's on Saturday.  It was a beautiful snowy day but it was really snowing.  We did not have any patrons at the Center but I was able to teach one of the consultants that comes on the 4th Saturday how to recover his username and password for his LDS Account and show him the training's for learning how to use Family Tree.  I was able to look up references for a class I have to teach on notes in Family Tree and Larry was working on his family history.

Erick and Heather looking at old photos

I felt really awful when I got home.  We ate and I tried to do some things and I just could not get feeling better.  I finally laid down and slept for 3 hours.  I do not know what Larry was doing during that time but I know I had more clothes in my closet this morning.  I woke up and tried to do some of the work on looking for jobs and did not feel good.  I spent sometime praying to Heavenly Father about my frustrations and later felt some peace about things that had been confusing me.  I got up and was able to work and worked for about 2 hours.  Larry made a wonderful dinner and that made me feel better also.  I think it was my Fibromyalgia.

Last night I took the new phone I got from insurance on Wednesday up to the Mall to get Verizon to help me set it up.  I spent the rest of the evening and sometime today working on downloading my apps.  It will be nice to have a phone that is not broken but it is always a challenge to reset the phone with what you use.

Ryker loves Grandma's Computer especially the
Yappy puppy on Blue Mountain

Today was a wonderful smorgasbord of teaching at church.  Sacrament Meeting was about Tithing and it's blessings.  Sunday School was about Faith and Repentance and we had a special women's meeting from the Bishop for all the women helping us to understand how the Atonement can help us overcome the feelings of discouragement and depression that many women feel because they are not perfect. Larry taught the High Priest lesson from talks from the October Conference.

Erick and Heather came over for dinner in the afternoon.  We had a good time looking at the old pictures and Ryker had to view all the e-cards on Blue Mountain.com.  He loves watching them and we always have to start with yappy birthday.  Erick also showed me how to do use Google Sites so I can make a website for my portfolio for job hunting.

Well I have learned how to get my scanned older pictures into this blog so I am feeling good and need to finish for the time.

Well it has been about 3 weeks since I last blogged.  So much for my resolution to blog daily.  I am not even getting it done weekly lately.

Brinlie

After much prayer and fasting and talking about it with Larry I decided to ask to be released from my Family Search Support Mission.  I loved it but I need to get a job so we will have some money to pay for the house and other debts that we cannot afford.  I have been trying to spend most of the day looking for a job each day but there are always things that interfere.  I have 3 jobs that I have applied for so far and I have tried to spend some time networking also trying to find out who are the hiring managers on these jobs.

Ellie with Gauge in the background

I also need to make a portfolio of my work so I am going to have to make we a website with my stuff on it.  That is a little daunting to say the least but I am learning that I have to bite the bullet and get working on these things if I want the job.

We had fun with Maren and Landon for the last week of January that they were here. All of the family here got together for January Birthday's on the 28th of January.  We had hamburgers and Hot Dogs with all the trimmings and of course cake and ice cream.  Maren's kids all got colds so the next weekend Larry and I had colds.  We stayed home from church for the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of February but that worked out good and we ended up not having it for more than a week.

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  Max and Gauge

Brinlie's art work

On the 28th and 29th we worked on Brinlie's 7 year old quilt that I make with the kids.  She chose a Rapunzel fabric that was pink, green, purple and gold.  She chose a pink back and we tied it with yellow.  For once I was able to match the pattern on the top so it looked better.  Brinlie seemed to like it despite the fact she was not feeling super.

Maren, Gauge and Max

Taylor went in for a Heart Cath on the 5th of February and ended up having her surgery two days later when her oxygen would not go up and her blood was anemic.  She was originally scheduled for 5th of March so it was a surprise to all of us.  She did pretty good on her recovery until she was diagnosed with RSV on the 11th.  They thought she had probably had it for 2-3 days before they finally did some tests to see why she was throwing up and congested.  They put her in quarantine for two days and then they let her come home on Wednesday the 13th. She looked really good that day but she has had up and down days since then, but that is to be expected with major surgery.          

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    Isaac at Golden Corral with the staff singing to him for
    his birthday

  

  Nathan with Maggie

 Nathan and Sara are having challenges right now with their marriage.  He has moved to St. Louis, Missouri looking for work and has Maggie with him.  Sara is still working in San Antonio area and has the boys with her and they are still in school.  If Nathan can get a job there then Sara said that they would move there to Missouri close to her dad.

Taylor on Friday after Surgery

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Jeff and Michelle's great Aunt Betty had a stroke and a heart attack Saturday morning.  She was still alive the last I heard but she is not doing well at all.  Michelle and Daniel were thinking of flying down but were not able to get a flight.

Taylor on Friday

Larry is still working on cleaning up the house.  He has now gone to the bookshelf downstairs looking for things he can get rid of.  I thought it was funny because he took one of the fire extinguisher lamps downstairs when we first got married and brought one of his upstairs.  And it has been that way for several year.  This week he decided that it looked funny so he brought the fire extinguisher upstairs again because it matched better and took the other one downstairs with the lamp he had that matched it. It does look very nice and he has worked very hard to get things working well.  He has also hung up plaques and vinyl signs that I have put off hanging for years.  He is very motivated lately.  I should have had him retire sooner.

We are still doing weight watcher's.  Larry has lost 36 lbs and I have lost 21lbs.  We do great when we are home because we just don't keep desserts in the house.  But we had two chances to eat out this week and I did not do very well at planning ahead.  We took Kyle out to dinner this week for his birthday and we used the gift card Maren and Landon gave us for Christmas to Buffalo Wild Wings for an early Valentines dinner last Saturday.      

Taylor the day she came home from the hospital

We also went to the movie, "Les Miserables" on Saturday with some tickets that someone gave us that got lost and Larry found them in cleaning.  It was a wonderful movie.  I have seen several stage plays of the musical but the story did not come through as clearly as in the movie.  I came home feeling like I had had a spiritual experience.  It is such a good story.  It is hard to see movies anymore that have an uplifting feeling.

I am still teaching Family Tree classes at the Family Search Center here in Kaysville.  I teach them on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. and then Larry and I work at the Center until 12:00 p.m.  Then we go down to help Mom with whatever she wants help with.  It is hard to get her to let us do somethings because she doesn't feel like doing it so she doesn't want us to do it.

Isaac had his birthday this week on Saturday.  It looks like he went to Golden Corral for his birthday.

Maren and her family were pleasantly surprised with snow this weekend.  A rare occurance in North Carolina.  From the pictures it looks like they had fun.

• • Well, we have read scriptures and said prayers and I am about finished with this so I suppose it is time to close and go to bed.  Have to get up early to take the truck to Kirsen's so John can work on it and I am going to help her with patterns for a dress for Taylor.  Larry has a job interview for tomorrow so wish him luck!

    
    

    

    Snow in North Carolina this week!!
    Gauge, Brinlie, and Ellie with Mr. Snowman

    

    Ellie in her layers!

  

  Ellie, Brinlie and Guage playing with their friends in first snow
  in North Carolina since they moved there.
  

  • Maren said, "The kids got themselves ready to play in it I was absolutely dying when I was pulling off clothes when they were done. Gauge simply threw on a hoodie hat and gloves while the girls each had at least 5 pairs of pants 5 or more shirts ellie even had on a nightgown...lol it was priceless and they were soaked to the bone! Good memories happening."

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