Parties, Power kicks, and Priesthood Leaders

There's nothing like a party in the park on a wonderful spring weekend to lift your spirits. The kids had so much fun, I hated that we had to leave in just an hour to run to soccer.Poor Sam is on the worst team this year. They only have 8 kids and that makes it hard for them to compete with the other teams that all have 11. They also have little, slow kids. Sam doesn't look so little compared to all of them and he runs faster than all of them. Of course he can keep up with the biggest kids even on the other team. They just smash him down a little too often. He was on the ground more than anything this last game. The weather was hot and he had to play the whole game. I was so proud of him. He came off at the end and showed us his battle wounds. I figured there would be more than he had. The funny thing was, the other coach actually talked to the ref about our kids pushing her kids too much. I had to be the loud mom at that point and point out that my kid had been on the ground half the game.

Sam's team is a lot like the teams Emma is playing. I now feel a lot more sympathy for their side. Again the coach had to make them stop scoring when they got up 5-0. It's not my favorite, because they don't get to play at the level they are used to, but it really helps them practice their balls skills as they just play keep-away.

This weekend Elder Ballard came and did a special fireside for the military folks. Rob was out of town and Dwyne (my friend's husband) didn't want to go, because he was sure some monkey would show up in their uniform (which they did), So Sara and I went on a date to see him. There was a lot of thank you for your service and "when I served" things, but Elder Ballard gave a wonderful talk. He hit hard on the sins of pornography and actually commanded as an Apostle of the Lord, those who had a problem with it to repent. It was very powerful. He also invoked a special blessing on the military members and their families that they would have peace. He reminded us that this is exactly what the world was to be like in the last days and gave us lots of scriptures to read at home. He also talked about the current financial crisis and stated that this country is a resilient country and that they would come out of this financial crisis, but that some of the members who had over-extended themselves, because they hadn't listened to the prophets and apostles close enough would have a hard time for a while.

Funny thing #1: Sara said she liked to guess who was enlisted and who was an officer and wanted to know what I thought, so we played the game for awhile, until the Stake president got up and announced the program, with the closing song being, "We are all enlisted"!

Funny thing #2: We missed our exit and got turned going West. We tried to get off at the next exit and turn around and ended up all the way in Arlington. Some people helped up get re-turned around, but didn't help very much because we up all the way west in Tyson's corner. We did a lot of driving that night! These are the days you need GPS or at least a cell phone between the two of you. We had neither!