Serving With The Youth

Last week the Youth Group (Jr. High aged) participated in a service project at St. Anne's Center (one of two homeless shelters in Ogden). I had the opportunity to go along with the group as a chaperone. I believe there were a total of 18 of us that attended. We were all asked to fast for two meals, if able, work at St. Anne's for a few hours, and then back to the church for tacos. We were given a variety of jobs to do. Here some of the youth are taking large packages of diapers and making smaller packages to give to families with babies.
One of the more time consuming jobs was putting together mens/womens hygiene kits to distribute.

These lovely ladies were in my group. We were given the task of washing all the doors down and they did a great job. As you can see, they are clearly enjoying their work :)

More ladies in my group, washing doors. They worked hard...there's a lot of doors at St. Anne's and we washed EVERY SINGLE ONE!!! I told the girls this would get their arms buff for summer. I don't think they bought it.

This was a great service project to be involved in! Based on the conversation I had with the youth, and the conversation I overheard while working there and on the drive, I believe it was a meaningful experience for them. We are fortunate to have people at our church who are very committed to the youth and take the time to organize activities, like this, for them to be involved in. Sam absolutely loves his Youth Group and has lots of friends there.

On another note, my mom had a pacemaker put in last weekend. After her physician gave it a few tweaks on Friday, she seems to be much better. Unfortunately, right around the time she had her surgery, her husband, who has Parkinson's disease, took a turn for the worse due to a virus he'd caught. This resulted in him having some severe hallucinations, which can be quite scary not only for him but for all of us! Due to my mom not being able to drive post-surgery, I've taken them to quite a few appointments this past week and I think we're on the downhill slide from a very stressful couple of weeks.

Sam is running the local 4th of July 5K this year with us. He has started training with me, and I must say he has improved exponentially since last year when he trained for the same race. We started out by doing 1.5 miles around our neighborhood and he never even broke a sweat! We went out today and bought him a new pair of running shoes, so I hope I can keep up with him tomorrow!

I've finally been assigned some Hospice patients to work with. Fortunately for me, all three are in an assisted living center close to home. I'm looking forward to meeting them all tomorrow and Tuesday. I have no idea what to expect from this volunteer work, but I'm sure it will prove to be an interesting experience!

Our First Official Weekend of Summer

Yesterday Chip had the day off so Sam, Chip, Cloe and I went for a hike. Every summer Chip and I like to hike to Lewis Peak a few times. Sam wants to do it with us this year. The first 2 miles are all uphill and quite steep, but after that it levels off nicely and the rest of the hike, the other 3 miles, to Lewis Peak is like a rambling little trail compared to the first part. We took Sam up the first 2+ miles so he could get a feel for it. He did great but was a much happier kid on the trip down.
That's Sam up ahead, once we got past the steep part of the hike. This picture shows all the wildflowers that are in bloom right now, but it doesn't do justice to the real beauty. In addition to the copious amounts of yellow flowers in bloom, there are numerous purple lupine scattered amongst them. The contrast is spectacular. The last time Chip and I did this hike was the last weekend of September and leaves were changing.
It was breathtaking.The guys on the way up.

The girls and "the guy" on the way up. Our other girl, Caitlin, was home asleep. It was her first official day of summer vacation, after all!

Cloe will follow Sam anywhere, and she did. He wanted a picture on this rock and as he was getting himself all set up for it, she bounded into the picture. You can tell she took him by surprise and almost knocked him off the rock!

Sunday afternoon after church we drove down to Salt Lake and went to a Bees game. It was great fun. We haven't been to a ball game in a long, long time. The weather was perfect for an outdoor event. We actually stayed the entire game. That might not seem noteworthy to a lot of people, however, every game we've been to in the past 15+ years we've had young kids who lost their sense of humor way before the 7th inning stretch. (The novelty of a tub of popcorn only lasts so long.) The Bees won 8-3, by the way.

We had a great time! The Humane Society was there with pets that were up for adoption. It was "bring your dog to the game"day, so lots of people had their dogs with them. We were thoroughy entertained by the beagle "sitting" in front of us. (I should've taken a picture! Darn!) I can guarantee not one of these pictures would've been taken if we'd brought Cloe with us.

My family!