We had the best weekend ever!  I am so grateful for family and all of my blessings.  We didn't end up putting the steers in the livestock show.  They were and are too mean and skittish to parade around people. We did go, and learn a lot from those who did show steers though. Hopefully next year, we will figure it out.  We are just going to eat these ones, which is fine with me.  I am thinking about T-bone steak every time I go down to feed them.  They are getting nice and large.
     Jamie and Sage went over to a friend's house to hang out on Friday.  I went over to get them and they kept refusing to leave.  Since when did hanging out with their friends (I must note that some of these were guy friends)become better than helping me at home? Wow...how did that happen?  I am way cool and full of fun.
     On Saturday we had plans to celebrate little Lyvia's birthday.  Jeff and Christine are up with their kids and they don't come up very often.  We decided to meet at Discovery Park at 11am.  Well, it poured rain almost all day here in Cedar, and so everyone came to my house instead.  We had Jeff and Christine, and they had Wiley and Adeline.  Doug and Larissa brought Lyvia and Tommy and Troy and Brandon came too.  We had a great time.  Chloee desired to get Lyvia a "pink doll" for her birthday and so it was done.  They had a great time playing around the house and we even snuck in a few pictures in between rain storms.  I love catching up with my family.  It was great fun.
     We also had a niece get married on Saturday.  This wedding was beautiful, and it turned out being a total blast. Savhana and Ammon Seely are now hitched, and it was a gorgeous and rainy night for them.  They had hired Steve Gifford (my favorite Bundy Reunion Deejay) to come and we had a great dance thanks to him.  The kids ran back and forth on hay bales (which I explained to Jazz wasn't exactly lady-like in a dress) and we had an almost steeling of the bride by Arden and Wyatt.  I didn't care that I was in a stuffy church dress, I raged around the dance for quite awhile.  It reminded my of my high school and college days.  I definitely had friends that raged with me at dances.  I love Ryan's family...they know how to have a good time for sure.  I also loved the fact that they had an ice cream maker with toppings.  Chloee and I went back for several rounds of ice cream with little colored flower sprinkles.  Man, you just cannot beat how fresh it was over there, and the dancing, and ice cream....I will never forget the evening, I am sure. The drive home was as beautiful as it gets.  It rained and we got to watch a gorgeous thunder and lightening display.  I loved every minute of it because the kids had settled down, and most of them fell asleep.  Oak just happened to overhear Ryan mention a deer that he saw.  We were on the look out, and Oak wondered why it would really matter if we hit a deer.  We explained that it kills an animal for no good reason, and it does major damage to the car.  Everyone in the car could get hurt too.  He scoffed at that idea,  he explained that deer cannot hurt cars, only elephants.  He was going to be on the lookout for elephants instead because he figured that an elephant would just come up and stomp on the van.  I took a risk, and promised him that he could go to sleep because I could guarantee that we were not going to encounter any elephants on the way home.
     Sunday morning Ryan got up at the crack of dawn because Elder D. Todd Christofferson was coming to our stake to speak.  He roused a sleepy Sags and Rooshkie and they went at 7:30am to save us a good seat.  In fact Ryan mentioned that he wanted the front row, and my man always delivers on his word.  I didn't really think much about it, but I was way intimidated on the front row.  D.  Todd was right there watching my kids the whole time.  I must say that we did better than usual.  Considering the fact that Sags and Rooshkie sat there for like 5 hrs, we did great.  Because of the fun and rainy dance, Oak broke out into the Macarena once, which I quickly stifled, and Moroni woke up and began passing out pieces to his Spiderman puzzle to various members of the congregation.  Other than that I didn't have to shoot too many dirty looks at the kids.  He spoke on continuing with those little things that build our testimonies and explained the importance of studying the gospel with our families.  He blessed the congregation that we would always have sufficient for our needs in caring for our families, which was a great thing to hear from an Apostle of the Lord.  I so often worry about the future, and the calamities foretold.  I no longer fear that after his blessing.  The thing that I loved, was he desired to shake all of the young people's hands.  He hung out for an extra hour, as each child was brought up to him.  It reminded me of the account in 3rd Nephi about the Saviour.  Because we were on the front row, Jams and Mo man were the first to shake his hand.  I will never forget our beautiful Sunday meeting with an apostle.  After the meeting we walked home in the rain.  I was really impressed with my little Jerusha.  It was kind of a cold rain, and I looked back to see if they were keeping up.  I had asked Rooshkie to hold Chlo's hand.  She took off her jacket, and bundled Chlo up in it.  Yep, I have good kids.  I am also sure that being around an apostle had a lot to do with that too.  The mantle of that calling was definitely felt by all of us.
     Ryan and I needed a nap, but Rooshkie kept bugging us because she wanted to make a batch of brownies.  I am trying to encourage all of my girls to be good cooks and so I told her to go ahead and make some.  Of course she wanted me to get up and help, but hey, the bed was way too fluffy and soft.  Finally she came in and complained that the stuff was way too thick and wouldn't stir.  Ryan finally got up to see what the problem was, and there definitely was a problem.  I came in and tasted it and it was really bitter.  We finally determined that she had added four cups of cocoa instead of four tablespoons.  This doesn't work so well for brownies, but luckily Ryan fixed it.  Little Beekster will figure it out and be a good cook someday for sure.
     Ryan and I went home teaching again, and while he was visiting with a family I slipped out to meet my gals at the track.  It was a great walk because of all of the rain.  Ryan and Mo showed up so that Mo could play football again.  According to Ryan, he could see and hear them throwing passes while he was only half-way up the street and began bouncing and saying "ball" all excited.  He was included in the passing and plays again, and Mo is on his way to becoming a real football hero.  At least Mo thinks that he is pretty hot stuff for sure.