No Pics - Just Words

I thought I'd catch up a bit on what's been happening. The Dana household has been hopping lately, I guess so much so that I haven't had much time (or remembered well enough) to take pictures.

Halloween was pretty low key this year. Our week before Halloween was so busy we never even carved the pumpkins I bought. I promised Cooper we'd make a fun Thanksgiving display with them. Now I've got to get going on that. Cooper went as a Sun Devil's Football player (big surprise), Shelby was a witch. We went to our ward's Trunk or Treat and then Shelby and her friends took Cooper around the neighborhood (you have to do a lot of walking around here so you work off the candy quite well). Jeff and I held back some candy at the trunck or treat so that we'd have something for those who came to our house, but we didn't get one knock at our door until the kids came home.

Cooper counted his loot and fell asleep on our bed watching Ironman. Shelby and her friends watched a movie in the basement (I think they did more hanging out than watching the movie) and stayed up late. Friday night is a good night for Halloween I guess.

Cooper played some football the next day - I guess I did actually video some of his game, I'll have to post some of that later. Then he and Jeff went to the ASU game that night. They've been extrememely disappointed in their Sun Devils this year.

Sunday we had our Arizona wide Stake Conference broadcast from Salt Lake City. It was really nice, and we enjoyed hearing about Arizona's part in the early church history. My favorite talk was from Bruce C. Hafen about the need for us to be "Consecrated" to the church. Our stake president told us the night before that we can't be cafeteria Mormons anymore, we can't pick and choose which parts of the gospel to live, we need to dedicate ourselves to living it all. I really enjoyed the conference and all of the "warnings" to live faithfully through the perils that will come in the days and years ahead.

Speaking of perils, Jeff had his last day of work on Friday. He's quitting (maybe we could say that Real Estate quit him) and we're getting ready to start a new business partnering with some friends of ours, John and Jacqueline Olson, opening a Wellness clinic called "Vital Solutions MD". We'll focus on weight loss (our family is now 130lbs lighter) and Bio-identical hormone replacement. We're very excited. Jeff feels like what he's done has changed his whole outlook on weight and how he can feel. I think he'll be terrific at helping others. We've got a lot of things to do to open our doors (like finding an office with doors) in December so we'll be ready for a huge January push. It's a scary and exciting time in our family.

This was a busy week. Monday for FHE we hung some pictures in Grandma's Granny flat for her. Tuesday night Shelby and I had Mother Daughter enrichment night. Wednesday Shelby had dress rehearsal for her MYS concert and I had the Harvest Dance for our stake. Thursday night was Shelby's concert. She was the principal violist in the Division II. She'll get to move up to Division I for her next big concert. She's very excited about that because many of her friends are in that group. Friday we packed up our quads and our trailer and headed to the sand dunes for a much anticipated weekend at the dunes. We had a great time with the Hunsakers and the McClaws'. Cooper and Shelby rode so hard that they can barely move today. I only took one big ride and did the rest of my riding in the Rhino's with Katie and Stephanie, so I'm not too sore. A nice jacuzzi bath felt really good last night though.

We had our big election day for 2008 on Tuesday, November 4th. I was disappointed that John McCain didn't run a better campaign. I worry about many of the policies Barack Obama has in mind. I worry that he leans toward the socialist side in too many of his beliefs and I hate that the conservative party has leaned so far toward the center to placate people that they've lost site of their values.

I was so pleased that the marriage ammendments passed in Arizona, California and Florida. I think that speaks well for conservative values and the importance of family and the institution of marriage. I'm sad that so many people think the church should not have voiced it's opinion in this matter. The church always stands for moral issues and encourages it's members to do the same. I know that in Massachussettes the Catholic church stopped it's Catholic Social Services adoption program because they were being pushed to allow same sex couples to adopt through them because same sex marriage is legal in that state. I feel like that is a huge infringement on freedom of religion. It seems that the LDS people in California are really being persecuted for these beliefs even though they were only about 4% of those who voted in favor of this amendment. They had to close the LA temple for awhile because protestors were so disruptive and the members felt threatened as they tried to go to the temple. I sometimes feel that maybe the economy isn't the worst of what is going to happen to us as a people. I think we might have to have our mettle tested by those who disagree with our beliefs and want to make us reject them. I guess now is really the time to hold to the rod and stay on that path to eternal life.

Okay, enough of my soap box.

Today was our fast and testimony meeting. It was a nice meeting. We had our faithful home teachers come, Jeff and I took a much needed nap, then after dinner I went to a presidency meeting and then to our Youth Committee meeting. We've got another really busy week coming up.