BFR 2011

Happy 4th of July and the start of the Beckstrand Family Reunion. We went up to Pine Valley and stayed in a cabin we rented from the 4th-6th. It was gorgeous weather and the house and yard were so much fun. They had it all. 2 t.v.'s just for video games. 4 different systems and over a hundred games. Needless to say, that is where you could find the boys, especially Alex, night or day. They also had a pool table and theatre room. Outside there was a zip line for little kids,


ping pong table,

volleyball net and tons of room for games, tents and all around fun.



Of course there was arm wrestling


and hangin' out with the cousins.


This years theme was, "Prepare yourself in every needful thing". Everyday Garrett would give 2 little lessons on being prepared in every way not just with your food storage. It was really good especially for the teenagers who thought that being prepared was only for the parents.

When we first got there Kellie and Garrett had us split into groups and we were with that group the entire reunion. Which of course makes it fun because of the competitive streak that runs through the Beckstrand Boys bloodstream. Each group had equal amounts of little kids and I really enjoyed seeing how the big kids dealt with that. As parents we deal. Teenagers usually run. But I loved watching Jaden help Ben with every relay race and Bryce helped David and Kai. I think of how Joel always talks about how he looked up to Brent and Mark when he was little and know that our little boys will do the same to the teenagers.



This is our Green Team.

On Friday morning Garrett & Lance took Joel, Me & kids, Kristal, John and kids, Brian and his boys, Grandpa, Ashley and Erica fishing up at the Pine Valley Reservoir. Joel, Shayne and Sophie caught their first fish! EVER! Ben caught 6. David didn't fish. He had fun catching everyone's as they pulled them out of the water. It was awesome! 24 fish in all. Garrett spent time teaching Josh how to gut and clean the fish and whatever else he needed to pass off part of his fishing merit badge.





Joel brought his Eskimo Blanket from school and we had a blast. What was the funniest was listening to Grandma's gasps each time someone was flung into the air.

From the look on Debra's face makes you think she went the highest. But...

It was amazing that everyone was there except Daniel and Stephen's family. What a fun time and the memories made will last forever!

Vegas Baby!

Wednesday we took 12 of our Young Women to do baptisms at the Las Vegas Temple.

If you know me then you know I have an obsession with the youth doing Baptisms. I'm pretty sure stems from when I was in YW and we only had the Provo Temple to do baptisms. But we had to share it with ALL of the other youth in Utah County down to Washington County. So we were able to do them once every 2 years. So if you were lucky you did them twice while you were a youth. I wasn't that lucky. I was sick one of the times so I only got to go once. Now we have the St. George Temple and we get to take the youth once a quarter. Which still isn't enough for me. We make it the most important birthday party ever when my kid each turns 12. I have a whole talk about this subject and will post it later. As for now:

9 of our YW were able to do baptisms. The other three were non-members. The Vegas Temple is a lot different than ours but the one thing I loved was that it had a huge entrance where everyone could come in (even in your cut off shorts and t-shirts) to sit and read the Ensign or New Era and they even have a large atrium when they could walk around and sit while they were waiting for us. It was nice to not have them sitting outside in the heat thinking that they couldn't be a part of what we were doing.

The rest of us went downstairs and did baptisms. It was really fun to see how laid back and reverent it was there. Our St. George Temple seems to get a little on the, Hurry up and get it done, side. Which is fine. Our Temple is very busy and they hurry to accommodate everyone. We were the only ones in the Vegas Baptistery. The 1st Counselor in the Temple Presidency came down and talked to us for 15 minutes before we even started. It was really neat. Randy Turek, Stefanie's husband came to do our baptizing. It was nice to have a priesthood member with us. We had one Young Woman who this was her 1st time ever doing baptisms. It was fun to watch her.
This is Angie Smith our YW Sec., Jen DeMille and Sarah DeMille our 1st Counselor. I love them all so much. They always keep me laughing.

While everyone got dressed I went back up stairs to see the other girls. They were patiently waiting. I went up and sat next to one of them who asked me if she could come to church with me on Sunday. I, of course, said yes and invited her cousin who was one of the other girls to come too. Shayne had invited them both last week but they declined. So maybe this week. We always have kids that do not belong to us sitting with us. We love it. That's why we have moved to a center pew. I am so impressed with the youth of the world today. They are a great example to their parents. They come to church by themselves and stay for all 3 meetings. I am so glad that I have the calling to help them out.

SIDE NOTE -
Since Jacob got his mission call he has been working in the Temple on Thursdays from 9am-2pm. So Shayne and Sophie have been there every week so he can baptize them. This week I took Sophie and Chase. I think this is Chases first time in the blog so I will tell you who she is. Chase is Debra's 12 year old daughter. They are here for our Beckstrand Reunion this week. So it was just the three of us because Shayne had to work. When we got there the lady at the front desk said that Jacob had just called and couldn't make it because his car broke down. So we did our baptisms anyway and when I saw Jacob later that night at dinner (all of the adults and Jacob went out to eat as part of reunion) I told him that we missed him. Next week we are taking Jaden, he had basketball and couldn't come, Ashley, she was at girls camp, Emma, just turned 12 and didn't have her recommend yet but will get it this Sunday, and Austin and Bryce (Debra's boys) were at a football camp. It will be a great experience. Jacob has been an excellent example to all of his cousins.

Back to Vegas-
After the Temple we went to Ethel M's chocolate factory to see them make all sorts of yummy things. It was very interesting and didn't take long. Then we went to Randy's sister's house to swim and have a B-B-Q. The girls loved it.

They had chicken fights, played basketball,

went down the slide and squirted everyone.

They had a great time. It was hard to get them out of the water when it was time to go.

The whole trip was wonderful. I know it'll be one that they'll remember for a long time and will hopefully give them a desire to go back to the temple soon. I wish we could take them to a different Temple every week. Utah now has 13 working temples and 2 more under construction. Our next closest ones are in Manti and Monticello both a couple hours away. But we are truly blessed to have ours so close. I try to go as often as I can for fear that I may have to move somewhere where it takes longer than 10 minutes to go and I won't be able to take advantage of feeling the spirit and helping those who are waiting patiently for their work to be done.

I hate Vehicles!

My Dad has a saying that I've adopted. "When I die and wake up to see cars I know I've gone to Hell." I can't stand our Blue Van. It is always falling apart. Nothing huge but just light after light not working, blinker after blinker, tire after tire and now for some reason the light cover on the back decided to melt off. Here we was most recent problems:

The day before girls camp I found a screw in my tire. It wasn't flat but was leaking. Went to get it fixed and they showed me on a different tire that the wire was showing in one little spot that I didn't see so I had to buy a new tire.

Went to the Dentist on Tuesday. Went in, came out 2 hours later and my tire was so flat that it was sitting on the rim. I couldn't see anything wrong with it. But with the kindness of an old stranger he helped my put the spare on and off I went to get it fixed. The cause of the problem - It MELTED! That's it. No hole, no leak, nothing. It just melted. Had to buy a new one.

So now I have 4 brand new tires. So I think I'm done having car problems but, no.

I took our YW to the Vegas Temple the nest day, Wednesday. Had an amazing time. (See next blog) But on the way home right before I got into the gorge I looked in my side mirror to see my light cover flapping in the wind. I nearly slammed on my brakes and pulled of the road and grabbed it. It was hanging on for dear life with 1 inch of adhesive. The problem - It MELTED! The stupid black glue holding it on just melted in the heat and it was falling off. What the heck! Really? I didn't think it was that hot of a day in Vegas. 105 probably but that's not bad. It was windy so it felt good.

So the moral to my story (complaint) is this:
The Lord does watch out for us. If I had taken my van up to Girls Camp without seeing the screw in it for sure the tire would have been flat and the worn one may have blown out. Maybe on the way down Cedar Mountain and killed us all. The Melted tire would have definitely melted in Vegas and ruined our beautiful experience with my YW. As for the Light cover, I think He threw that in just for fun. Lucky Me!

LSP Reunion in A.F. Canyon!!!

I LOVE this reunion! We only have it every 2 or 3 years and when we do it is AMAZING! My Dad has an older Sister Pauline (aunt Polly - Lucero's). When my Dad was 4 his Dad died of Tuberculosis form working in the coal mines and left my grandma alone to raise these 2 beautiful kids. 8 years later she married Harold Schow and a year after that she had a baby girl named Barbra (Aunt Barb - Peck's). Harold died not long after that and she was alone again never to remarry. Well, from that 1 amazing woman there are 102 people that are members of our family. 3 of which are no longer living. Out of the 99 people we had 76 people there. It was incredible! All from the oldest ( left to right, not from oldest to youngest - Aunt Barb, Aunt Polly, My Mom and My Dad)

to the youngest (Adams twins Allie and Ethan) who are darling!

76 of us up American Fork Canyon having the time of our lives, freezing to death, but doing it together. We got up there Saturday the 18th just in time for dinner. We would have been up sooner but the girls and I were still up in Hatch. We got home from Girls Camp at noon and jumped in the shower while Joel and the boys unloaded and reloaded the van. Then we got back in all clean and ready to go camping again for another 4 days. Sunday it rained and rained and rained. So we ate breakfast and went down into town to dry sleeping bags and clothes and play games at Aunt Barb's. It was really fun. The little kids played whiffleball in the front yard in the rain and the rest of us stayed in.




We had dinner and around 7pm the rained completely stopped and we headed back up the canyon. We made a big fire and talked about Granny Schow and told stories that we remembered about her. Jan wasn't able to be there so she wrote up a little thing and had me read it to everyone. I cried like a baby. Jan did a play on my grandma's life about 10 years ago. It is called Breathless. When she was writing it she asked my Aunt Polly if she had any information on Granny that she could see. Well, Aunt Polly pulled out Granny's journal from 1977-1981. Jan kept it. I pulled it out at the reunion and we all had a great experience looking back on her life and ours through her eyes. Her journal wasn't much to her. She just talked about the weather, her blood sugar and weight and the family. But, every page was extremely special to us. Shayne and I are now in the process of interpreting that journal (sometimes her hand writing was hard to read) so that we can give everyone a copy of there own to love and cherish. Like we do her.

Monday was a gorgeous day! We played softball,

Used Joel's Eskimo blanket - Cinco (Phillip) has the new record for the highest throw.

Painted fingernails,

Braided hair - Jaxson-

Had a moose come into camp,

and of course played horseshoes.

It was so much fun. We had a great time just relaxing. Some people went down to the reservoir to fish for awhile while the rest of us played games or colored with the little kids - thanks Shayne and Katie. It was so nice to just sit and talk and not have to have things scheduled or lessons to do or go to. Girls Camp was great but when it comes to family, time is needed to just sit and enjoy each others company. You can bond so much by just talking to each other. Especially with those who you don't see very often. I can hardly wait for another 2 or 3 years till we all get together again.

Girls Camp!

Our Washington Utah Stake Girls Camp this year was June 15th-18th. Here is a picture of our wonderful 5th Ward.

I am just writing about it now because I have been super busy. We went up to the Wilson's property in Hatch again because Cedar Mountain had too much snow still. Well, I love Hatch. I think that Girls Camp is amazing every year. Not because of where it is but because of the spirit and closeness it brings to God and to each other.
As soon as we got there we found 3 different snakes, all harmless Mom, and Bro. Allen kindly moved them to a different location.

The first night there we had Katie Cluff come up and give a Fireside about her experinces when she was a YW and how it changed her life. It was so good for those girls to hear that they need to hold strong to the gospel and to help all those around them do the same.

The Wilson's have this great homemade waterside that the girls and leaders had fun sliding down. This is our Stake YW President, Renee Cram. She is in our ward and we love her!




We had lots of crafts, games, singing, scripture reading and lessons on how we are Princess's because our Father is the King and how to get our Happily Ever After. It was amazing!
Our ward was White, FAITH. My lessons was about frogs and how sometimes we have to have faith that if we "kiss a frog" things will get better. Are we willing to give up Better for Best? Then we made a frog to hang out door knob and on the back wrote F.R.O.G. Fully Rely On God. Faith is to fully rely on God and know that if you are doing what he asks then everything will work out. Then I gave them all bracelets that had F.R.O.G. on it with a cute little frog. F.R.O.G. is the new W.W.J.D.

We did lots of certifying and we learned of a new app on my phone that if you hold it up to the night sky and line it up with a star it will not only tell you what star that is but will show you every constellation including the ones that we can't see that are on the other side of the earth. It's awesome! The 2nd year girls had to do a flag ceremony and they did a wonderful job.

This years YW theme is the 13th Article of Faith so every day we were seeking a way to find our Happily Ever After. Friday was seeking Purity and President Ellsworth and Bro. Koeven were the Sesame Street Martians helping a girl know what was pure and what wasn't. It was Hilarious!

Our Stake Presidency is incredible. On Saturday morning they and Brother Lewis all spoke and each one talked about a different Princess and sang a fun little song to go along with it. Bro. Koeven's was Snow White's "Once Upon A Dream." Bro. Lewis talked about Enchanted and sang "How do you know that He loves you?" It was darling. Pres. Ellsworth didn't want to sing and ended up singing a tiny bit and talking about Princess Bride and how Wesley always said, "As you wish", and how the girls should be looking for there prince to be a worthy priesthood holder that will love her like the princess she is and take her to the Temple. It was so neat to see them talk to the girls and see the girls faces light up. They are truly called of God to help out our stake.

There is so much more to talk about but I will have to stop and leave you with these 2 pictures. The first one is of Shayne and I with Sophie in the Background. We were just goofing around at first to get a good picture and then she moved into the background which made for a funny picture. Well, funny for me and Shayne but not for Sophie. She looks sad. Hahaha! The next picture is the 3 of us on a swing there at camp. I LOVED being there for the second year in a row with both my girls. I know that this will be my last year with them. Unless, I get called to be the Ward Camp Director and Shayne is still around next summer. We've learned in this family that you cannot make plans for your life because we don't know what the Lord has in store for us. All we can do is to live righteously so He can use us for whatever he needs us to do.