Sapoi / Enosa Wedding

February 26, 2011 was a great day for Tautala Enosa, her children and the whole ward. It's the day that they were made a whole family with Tuitalau Sapoi. What a cute family they make! 

Richard hadn't planned on being the photographer but I had him bring the camera in... just in case. There was a friend there taking video but it turned out something didn't work. Richard's pictures turned out to be the only ones they had. We were so happy to have captured these moments for them and they were thrilled to have it all documented. After 11+ years, I think Tala would want proof of her marriage!

MTC Drop

Back in the day, when you took a missionary to the MTC everybody went in through the big lobby they have and into a large auditorium style room. If you were early, you had time to chat before the meeting started. Then, there was a lot of speaking going on and a video. The meeting lasted about an hour. I did this kind of missionary drop off a few times with nephews and nieces who left on missions. It's all different now.

We heard all about the new MTC drop off system and I envisioned something akin to dropping off a person at the airport. There are the similarities, you drive up, pull up to the curb, drop the person off and then leave. The airport could learn a thing or two from the MTC though. The differences are these, first off they mail you information on showing up and what time you're to be there. (If the airport did it like this, they might not have such crowds and long lines.) A-D this time, E-G that time, and so on. Our time was 1:15. They also mail you an auto pass to put on the dashboard as you're allowed only one vehicle so if you have a lot of family that want to go, better rent a big van!

As you drive in, there are volunteers in yellow vests or jackets to show you what to do and where to go. There was a first one asking us if we were dropping off a missionary and directing us to follow these two up ahead. There was one for each lane and they seemed to be directing all traffic to the left. As we drove along there were volunteers in their yellow jackets every few car lengths to tell you to keep going or to pull up to the curb. There were sign posts all along the curb, a generous car length apart, numbered 1 - 22 or so. Our post was #9.

Here is where it gets back to being like the airport... everyone jumps out, pulls out the luggage, hugs the traveler (missionary) goodbye and the traveler goes into the building and the driver and any other passengers hop back in the car and leave. But unlike the airport, there are a bunch of young men along the entire length of curb all dressed up so fine who wave and are welcoming and ready to help. One of them will even help your traveler/missionary get to the correct place inside the building and helps him carry his luggage... free!

I Want To Be A Missionary

It's official. Just a few minutes before these photos James was set apart to be a missionary in the Korea Busan Mission. Elder Moseley with President Metcalf.
Elder Moseley with Grandma & Grandpa Moseley
Elder Moseley with sisters Hillary and Sonia.

Roxanne had to work at her fabulous new job at VECC.
Elder Moseley with me and Richard.

Early Christmas

December 13, 2009 was a very busy day for the Moseley clan. The day began with everyone stopping by with soups to plug in and keep warm during church. That Sunday was the day James gave his 'farewell' talk in Sacrament Meeting. Extended family and several friends came to the meeting and later, to our home to visit and enjoy all the fabulous soup.

Once we were down to just our zany family, we began the celebrations. While we gathered, everyone stopped for some more soup and cookies. This day was Hillary's birthday (29th I'm sure!) as well as Grandma and Grandpa Moseley's wedding anniversary. They bugged out right after church tho. Since our Christmas party was on her birthday this year, most of Hillary's birthday and Christmas gifts were combined. We got her a nursing manual... maybe I should have checked it out for age appropriateness. For her Christmas, we gave Hillary and Marc some food storage that they get to pick out themselves (ok, it was a gift card to Smith's grocery store).

The girls all received lots of things they loved, including the quilts I made for Natasha and Emma. (We gave Samantha and Adelyn shoes... they get quilts next year.) One of Samantha's favorite gifts was a box full of Nerf type guns. I remember one of Sonia's favorite toys being a He-Man action figure when she was little.

Shawn received a nice bicycle lock from James and Sonia is always happy with anything from Vickie's (Victoria's Secret).

James received a few things to help him as a missionary. The turban on his head is really one of the plain shirts for P-day/exercise wear. His favorite gift was probably the Ipod speaker dock Hillary got him and hopefully one day he'll appreciate the condensed family history book he received.

Richard received some much needed slippers and this cool gun/rifle cleaning kit. I've never seen one as nice as this with it's case and all and I'm sure all the weapons need a good cleaning.

James is good. He was making bread one day (which made Hillary totally jealous that her little brother could make bread) and I was mentioning how I needed a new good rolling pin because although still functional, mine had its handles falling off. He remembered and scouted out a new one for me for Christmas so here I am being goofy and acting like I'm some bad dude spinning the thing on my knee. Whaa-shaaw!

We've been trying to find a good time to get everyone together for a family photo for awhile now and it just wasn't happening. Thanks to Sonia, we did get this family photo on our Christmas day but not before the kids had their silly stunt photos!

We all had a very Merry Christmas day and hope that all our of family and friends had a Merry Christmas too... whatever day they celebrated it on. After all, we should really have that Christmas spirit every day of the year.

Halloween 2009

Here are some pictures of my little (and big) goblins. It's getting to be the tradition to come to Grammie's for dinner and then go to the Trunk or Treat at Grammie's ward cuz it's earlier than the others. The rest of the family is also closely located so it's easy to drop in on the relatives and show off the fun costumes everyone has. Hurray for Halloween!

I Love The Temple!

On October 17th, we went with James to the temple to take out his own endowments. He absolutely loved it and ever since has gone to the temple every day possible and has been to six of the 14 temples in Utah. Some are pretty far away but mostly he loves going to the Salt Lake Temple. He says he prefers the live session but I wonder if it isn't getting 'roped' into multiple sealing sessions. Last Saturday he spent 3 hours helping out at the Salt Lake Temple and loved every minute.Jamie came with us, taking the opportunity to go to the temple so she played taxi for grandma and grandpa. It was fun to have her along. We all went to dinner afterwards at the Village Inn across the street from the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. One of our friends is manager there and he enjoyed seeing our family... especially IN his restaurant!

Just a few days later, Richard needed to make a trip to St. George for work. James rode along and they went to the St. George temple. They were going to go to the Manti temple on the way back but discovered it was closed for cleaning. They went to the Mount Timpanogos temple instead.

They also went to the main cemetery in St George and found Paul's grave. Grandma and Grandpa have plots right by their son.

My Stripling Warrior

My friend, Donna, sent me a link to some new posters (http://www.realheroposters.com/) of Book of Mormon heroes and it reminded me of so long ago when I hung up the pictures of Captain Moroni and the 2000 Stripling Warriors in James' room with an accompanying scripture (Alma 48:17). Posters have come and gone (like Green Day and skater stuff) but these have stayed.

Then today we got this picture in the mail from the branch along with a form letter of info. (Your heart kind of jumps when you get an envelope with the return address of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!) The letter led me to graduation info (October 9th, just like James said) and generally telling families what time church is for the soldiers and stuff like that so you kind of feel like you know what's going on . Today was James' 1st day of actual training and as excited as he's been to start training, he's more excited to be done with it and go on a mission. He has been able to call home a few times and tell us how wonderful it is to use the Priesthood. Needless to say, I'm one proud mamma!

Elder Moseley

We had planned a family party for yesterday to celebrate a few birthdays. We always have dinner, presents, cake and ice cream and a whole lot of fun (as seen below in pictures). Saturday I went shopping for the dinner items I needed and came back to a message from the stake executive secretary. He'd called for my husband who was working late but I had this feeling I should call him back so I did. To my surprise, he said that our son James' paper to receive the Melchizedek priesthood was going before the High Council in the morning and that if he was approved, he would meet with the stake president and most likely be ordained that next day. I didn't think this would happen until October and with such short notice, it was a blessing that everyone was coming already! James was approved, the meeting with the stake president went well (he even said he'd 'push the button' on the mission papers) and the ordination time was set. The wonderful High Councilor assigned to see this was done agreed to come back at 5pm to do the ordination. I just had to tell our family members who were already coming at 5pm to meet at our stake center instead of at our house. What a crazy wonderful weekend!

Everyone enjoyed the salsa and chips I put out as an appetizer. Thanks cousin Joann for such yummy salsa!!

You can see how much fun we have... it's all over Adelyn's dress!

It's rare to get our precious grandparents out for these family parties. It's just too much commotion for them but they do love the kids.

Ward Camp 2009

To prepare for ward camp, I went and purchased a new bottle of OFF. With the mosquitos being worse this year, and our camp being near a river, I certainly wasn't going without the bug spray. I also purchased a new tube of sunscreen and one of those bottles of spray sunscreen. I'm totally sold on those now. They are way easier than trying to find every nook and cranny in your skin. Not one of us had any sunburns at all... not even a pink spot.

Camp was nice as usual. You get to visit with people who aren't trying to get to class, get home, or whatever like on Sunday. One cute little boy got scared of all the aliens flying around. I think someone spoiled it and told him they were just big moths. I'm glad dad captured a picture of Dalton with his 'alien'.

The Primary President is married to the Activities Committee Chair... a position she held with him (as co-chair) until her calling to Primary (then as a counselor). She's really fun and has a lot of crazy activities and games up her sleeve. She got all the youth involved in this game where you mound up a bunch of flour and then put a quarter on top. The object of the game is to slice away some of the flour without letting the quarter drop down into the flour. If the quarter does fall, you have to fish it out with your teeth, thus making the player get a face and mouth full of flour. I couldn't believe the youth went for this but they were all pretty good sports and it ended in a flour fight. Everyone but James was covered in flour. James kicked butt in this game and never had the quarter fall on his turn. He was delighted with his skill and watching everyone else have to do the face plant!

After breakfast the next morning, all the youth played frisbee and tossed a football around... both at the same time. James and I are of the same mind and we get up, get packed and ready to go before breakfast. We left camp fairly early to we could stop by my quilt class so I could show off my block and get my next one. I haven't been in 4 months now. Maybe next time I'll be able to stay for the class.

Thursday was our dress rehearsal downtown at the conference center with everyone doing everything. It was a long night but so fun. I lobbied for an assistant and won so sent her around taking pictures for me after our other duties were done. These are at our stake center where the kids put on their costumes. A few announcements and we were ready to head out for our practice. Aren't these costumes fun?

Here is James in all his Scottsman glory. He's quite at ease in the kilt. Heather also got a more serious photo of him but this one is so fun.This little gal is one of our german maids. Isn't she cute and sweet looking? Yah, she's really Miss Attitude! LOL You can see the Scottish lasses and a couple Scottish lads in the background.

These young men are in our choir for the celebration. The cute young fellow in front is our Bishop's son. He's so awesome.

Tonight is the big performance. It's going to be really fun. Everyone enjoyed the rehearsals and did so well we could have called it good. There are a couple more things that they didn't quite have ready for the video screens. Even the rehearsal brought the Spirit in so strong... can hardly wait for tonight!

Dress Rehearsal

I might actually have time to breathe today. Yesterday was a killer marathon day of all kinds of awesome things to do. I started the day taking James to Taylorsville High School for his annual Salina Leadership Camp. On this overnight trip he helped train the leaders for next year. His heart hasn't been in JROTC as much as it was after having experienced Basic Training but he is taking this camp quite seriously. I think that's mostly because dad can't go so James gets to play medic.

Back a few weeks ago, I had all these costumes to make. There were about 100 skirts, kilts and drapes to make and it would be cool to have a few vests. I decided that we'd get the essentials (skirts & kilts) done and see how things were going. I cut out fabric and made instructions and shopped for threads and elastic. Everything was given out in kits and the sewers were given two weeks to complete the tasks at hand. If it all worked out well, I'd have two weeks to spare until dress rehearsal day and felt we could easily get 32 vests made in that amount of time. It went really smooth so as I began to get skirts, etc back all complete, I got really excited and made the vest kits to hand out. This did not go quite as smooth. Some sewers no longer had time and one thing and another conspired to hold things up so that I didn't get them all back in a week but have had them straggling in this last week too. Then on Wednesday, I discovered that I was short a few drapes and had to track those down which took a couple days.

All this week I've been sewing odds and ends. I had two kilts and one skirt to make as well as lacing up all the vests. You know, it takes longer than you'd think to match up costume pieces with all the right sizes for each person. I also put a number on each costume piece to identify it to its wearer in case something gets misplaced or mixed up. Once all costumes were hanging with all their pieces, it was time to convert the Yukon into a costume vault. Everything got loaded Friday night... much easier than waking up at 5am to do it before the THS run.

As soon as James was on his way, I high-tailed it to the church to set up. The kids started arriving just before 9am and were given their costumes to change into. The boys and girls each had two of the smaller multi-purpose rooms for changing so those had to be set up too with pictures of what they were to look like and some brief instructions inside the room and on the doors. I also needed to set up tables for checking the costumes back into me. That went fairly well for our first time doing it. There were just a few bloops and blunders. One gal was on my list as YM so her costume was very wrong! Luckily I had almost a full outfit extra at home and could run go get it. Another gal was measured wrong or something because she got a skirt that was about 5 sizes too small so I have to quick make a skirt for her. Then, to top things off, one of my clothing racks broke the weld where the rack attaches to the wheel base. That was interesting. Duck tape to the rescue! It was a temporary rescue at best but bless Bishop Watts for knowing how to weld and having all the equipment. When we were done checking in all the costumes, he took that part home, fixed it, and ran it right back up to the church. Fortunately I don't have to haul costumes back and forth but can store them in a fairly secure place on site.

Then it was time to get home and change for the temple. Little Diane-y and her hubby were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple today. It's awesome that they made this commitment to each other and to the Lord. Their sealer was really good and it was neat to see Diane's family in the temple setting. It was also awesome to see the change in Joe's countenance and I felt really good about their temple marriage.

Rush, rush, rush... then it was time to get to Greg Fetzer's Eagle Court of Honor! Everyone who knows Greg can hardly believe that this finally happened. He waited until the 11th hour (11:59 to be exact!) to get his Eagle papers in and have his Eagle Board of Review so it was no surprise that it's about a year later that he's having his Eagle Court of Honor. I'm almost amazed he did it at all. It's fun to see all the accomplishments of the young men of our ward. Now I'm off to another Board of Review... keep 'em comin'!

Milestones

This last Saturday my oldest granddaughter, Natasha, was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was so happy to be eight and to have her dad baptize her.

It was a full day. I went up to Hillary and Marc's to get the hams started. Between Gingell's and Moseley's, it took two hams and my turkey roaster came in handy! There wasn't even that much left over, just enough for a few sandwiches but the bonus is that both Hillary and I have a ham-bone for soup. I'll be making beans and ham.

Back to the baptism... due to some miscommunication, we were late to the service. It turned out ok but we were kind of running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying get everyone in the car, figure everything out, and get everyone to where they needed to be. That didn't end once we got to the church. Then it was go here, go there and oh, Tasha and Marc need to change! It's obvioiusly been too long since I've been involved in a baptism and it didn't help that they do the service a bit different up north. Once the baptisms were done, we moved back to Hillary and Marc's for dinner.

The hams were perfect and to them we added rolls, veggies, salads and eclair cake. Mmmmm. While everyone was enjoying their dinners, Sonia was surrounded with little ones waiting their turn to have bunnies painted on their toenails. The Moseley siblings took the opportunity to pose for serious and fun photos. My favorite is the James Bond-ish style poses.

Before long Sonia, Shawn and I were the only guests left so we gave Addie presents (since her birthday was the week before) and she was so happy getting her favorite things, a horse and a dog (stuffed of course!). By then Tasha and Emma were getting ready to go see the Hannah Montana movie with Sonia and Shawn so I bugged out leaving Hillary with my few Easter things to dole out Easter morning. Dad, James and I had a quiet and very different Easter meal... grilled steak and baked potato! Mmmmm.

Domestic Divas Unite!

Man, have I been busy! Since my last post, I met with Sarah Marcrum who is the Magna Central's Stake Wardrobe Director. Our stakes were to combine for the three dances but our stake has almost twice the amount if youth as theirs. We decided just to divide the responsibilities so we have the German and Scottish dances and Magna Central has the Irish dance. It was fun to meet with Sarah and show her everything. A few days later we met with our Dance Coordinators, Kim and Melanee, and together we decided what the costuming should look like. Getting other people's inputs keeps making my job easier and easier!

I've managed to get a ward wardrobe coordinator for each ward and was able to have a nice meeting with about half of them. The other half I've had to rush through their duties which wasn't my preference. Last night we all went to the dance practices and measured our kids. Having each ward there made it go really fast because each ward only had 10-15 kids. Much better than trying to measure almost 120 kids by myself!!! There are still a few to track down.

We're going to begin sewing soon because the costumes need to be finished by May 9th. Flyers are going out Sunday to tell the youth what they need to provide for their costumes (everyone should have their own shoes, socks, etc.) and to ask for supply donations. I am hoping we have lots of material donated within the week because that is the most expensive part. (I can only imagine what was spent on the costumes we borrowed!) Everything has been going so smoothly and I'm excited about all the help I'm getting for this great project.

You're Gonna Be Hearing A Lot About This!

You see, about a month ago I was asked to be the Stake Wardrobe Coordinator. Since then, I've changed my title to Stake Wardobe Director because I'm having Ward Wardrobe Coordinators called (that means someone else figures out who can help and asks them for me) and it just seems more fitting that I direct them instead of coordinate them.

And why would I be asked to do such a thing? And beyond that, what would I do? And not really having a clue about this, why did I say 'yes'? I was really wondering that myself when I was asked! I was like, 'you've gotta be kidding!' Then, just a couple days later I was at a fireside (spiritual meeting in the evening, usually on Sunday) and afterward this lady comes up to me and says she's a costume designer and that she would be willing to help me with whatever I need. Wow... cool. Now the trick is to figure out what I need.

Through a series of meetings which seemed to make me more and more confused and overwhelmed, I eventually got a clue. This production is not as huge as the 'Day of Celebration' I was a little involved with about 4 years ago but it's pretty big. We anticipate having 3000 kids just in the choir and probably twice that in the different dances. With two LDS temples being built in the Salt Lake valley, it was decided just a few short months ago to involve the youth (ages 12-18) in a celebration of song and dance. Now, this isn't any random song and dance. Each dance segment tells a portion of a story from when the pioneers first arrived here and found the indians who populated this region, to present day. That's a lot of ground to cover. There are about 15 different dances to tell the story. Our little 3-4 minute segment is a re-creation of a town social where a few of the immigrants who came here get together and show off their 'skills'. We have Scottish, Irish and German costuming for our number and that is where I come in. I've been swimming in costumes since last Friday when I picked up the costumes we have been blessed to borrow. I've been counting and measuring and sorting. These pictures show a few of the costumes. Here is the German costume from the back. The tie you see is from an apron that we have to shorten a bit because it totally takes over the front of the costume and you can't see the pretty skirt fabric. We may or may not use the wreath... I haven't decided that yet.

This cute green skirt with the shawl is our Irish outfit. We have a few costumes of another style that we have borrowed but I'm not sure if they will get used or not, or if the two styles will clash. The good news is I was able to pick up a lot of green material to make what we need, FREE! I sure hope we have enough.

The German guys will be in knickers with suspenders to simulate lederhosen like these fine men. Our Scottish guys get to wear kilts and I've been surprised by the number of young men who are willing to wear them. We have about 15! Making the plaid skirts for the girls and the kilts is going to be a fairly big job. I've got about 48 yards of plaid material for the skirts and am hoping for lots of donations (or dollar fabric) for the kilts.

Doesn't this sound like a lot of work? It is but it's so fun! I wouldn't have thought I'd be having this much fun a month ago. I think it's because I remember the other celebration so well and how much fun it was that I'm so excited for this group of kids to have this opportunity to celebrate having these new temples. It helps that James gets a second opportunity to participate in this kind of production. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and it's rare that he gets this second chance.