gaga for the babe

"Baby, there's no other superstar

You know that I'll be

Papa-paparazzi" --Lady Gaga

Umm.. Need I say more? ADORABLE.

Uncle Callis

This is a perfect example of my Uncle Callis. All I can say is that he's awesome.

Aunt Anne's email to the family today: I planted mom's garden this year and am very proud of the strength of my tomato plants. However, I didn't know how strong they were until Callis and Jennifer came to visit overnight. I let them tour the garden and they were impressed. I mentioned I would be weeding later that day. They left soon after for Jennifer's family reunion. About 1 hour into my weeding I looked up at one of my plants and to my surprise saw a big red tomato! I was so confused thinking I already had a full sized tomato in my garden. I pulled the tomato off the "vine" and then noticed a sticker on the tomato "Fresh Farms." This confused me even more. I was thinking how did the sticker get on my tomato??? I took it in to show mom and she was amazed as well. Then I showed her the sticker and she said, "Callis." That one word we all know so well. An olive in our ice cream... "Callis." Our bed short sheeted... "Callis." Needless to say that was awesome Callis.

i'm famous

So I decided to google myself. I know, I know. Pretty ridiculous. But fun.

Guess what?
I was quoted in the Church News in 1994. Yep, I was 6 years old. Check it out here.

Choirs combine for African-American series

Published: Saturday, Feb. 12, 1994

Choirs from several different religious denominations are performing this month at the Los Angeles Temple Visitors Center in a special concert series.

The concerts are being held in conjunction with a monthlong African American exhibit at the center, according to Doris Russell, a Church member and associate director of public affairs for the African American community in the Los Angeles area."The exhibit includes displays about the Church in Africa as well as items reflecting the history of African American members in California," Sister Russell said.

The exhibit coincides with Black History Month, and features news articles, member profiles, photographs, wood carvings, batiks, antique books, family heirlooms, maps and sculptures.

Included in the exhibit are stories of Church members from Nambia, Zaire, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Zimbabwe. In addition, the exhibit profiles African American Latter-day Saints from New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City, among other U.S. locales.

Two combined choirs of 30 African American children, ages 3 to 13, have presented musical programs at the visitors center, and other programs during the month will include performances by the gospel choir of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of central Los Angeles and performers from the Bahai' Youth Workshop.

During their programs, children's choirs from the People's United Community Church in Compton and the New Hope Baptist Church in Long Beach sang spirituals to audiences of Latter-day Saints and other guests. The children's program was a big hit, especially with Latter-day Saint children who attended.

"I liked it a lot," said Sarah Sheranian, 9, of the Westwood 1st Ward, Los Angeles California Stake. "All of the children had their parts memorized. You could tell they knew the meaning of the words."

Her 6-year-old sister, KaRynn, agreed. "They had a really good beat and sound," she said. "They were happy, and you could hear it in their singing. You could tell that they practiced a lot."

I guess I was a really wordy 6 year old. =D Awesome, right?

PS - I don't remember this.

ugh

Really? REALLY? This is ridiculous.
The worst part is that it's an obvious hate film...
There is no other point to the movie other than to blatantly "hate on" Mormons.
How hypocritical can they get?
"It's about love."
You're right. It is. So why are you being so hateful?
Just from watching the trailer, it is apparent that the film is filled with distortions, critical omissions, half truths, and unrelated and random facts. The trailer is a montage of anti-Mormons and their opinions of the Church's involvement in Prop 8 paired with pictures of the Church's administration.
So ridiculous.
And hurtful.

Good going Reed Cowan and Steven Greenstreet (directors of 8: The Mormon Proposition).
Way to hate.

Juliet Marie Johnson

Had to share. She is just too cute.

she didn't need a GED...

...cuz she got a high school diploma!!

Congrats Marie! I wish I could have been there to embarrass you.

bridesmaid shoes

So Marie sent me a text today that said:

"Good shoes for bridesmaid??"
I scrolled down......
And it had this picture:


My immediate response was, "Um NO. Do you want to die?"
Yikes!! Fun shoes, and I would be tempted to buy them if I didn't have major problems with my messed up feet.
..............Except for the fact that I will probably be on my feet for 15 hours the day of Sarah's wedding. OUCH.

Anyways, I went back to the text a few minutes later just to roll my eyes again (I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself) and I scrolled down a bit more and was surprised to find THIS picture too:

Um, I really like this one. I don't think this wedge is as kill-me-because-i-don't-think-i-can-stand-walking-on-my-toes-any-longer. But apparently it was expensive. Dang.

And so the search for the perfect bridesmaid shoe begins.

gasp

Selig won’t overturn call that cost perfect game
"An umpire’s tears and admission he blew a call failed to move baseball commissioner Bud Selig to award Armando Galarraga the perfect game he pitched. "

For real, that would make me cry for a week if I was either Jim Joyce or Galarraga. Has anyone ever had a chance at reaching a perfect game more than once in their life? That was probably Galarraga's one perfect game. 27 people struck out, no walks. But on the records, it is 26. Oh my goodness. Heartbreaking.

and so the summer begins...

So, seriously. Saturday night was the bomb-diggity. (Yes, I'm reverting to '90s lingo for this). But I mean, come on! When you rediscover your love of croquet and discover a new game all in one evening, how can it not be bomb-diggity??

When I googled croquet for pics, this came up:

Awesome, huh?

Anyways, I played croquet on Saturday night with Melissa, Dan, Lionel and Amy. I was so bad the first game (totally lost--most definitely last place), Melissa cheated for me and threw my ball so that I could catch up to them. =D

During the second game, I totally owned it. I made it through practically the first half of the game (stick to stick) in one turn. Yeah. That's right. My aim was awesome.

And then I lost it, and came in 4th place (out of 5th). That's right. I beat you Dan!!

And then, Lionel introduced us to the game Speed Scrabble.

I'm not sure "Zed" is a word, but I tried it once and everyone vetoed it. Dang it. Anyways, I am now converted. I will always love a slow, original game of Scrabble, but speedy is the way to go.

Instructions in 11 Steps:

1.There are no teams in this form of Scrabble; each person is on his or her own team. The best way to play this game is with 3 – 7 people.

2. Each person begins with seven Scrabble tiles placed letter-side down in front of them.

3. Place the remainder of the Scrabble tiles in the center of the round table, letter side down.

4. Clear an area in front of each player on the table in front of them (be sure to clear enough room to complete your puzzle – this will be where your puzzle is formed).

5. To begin the game, one player will say “On your mark, Get set, Go,” at which time all of the players will flip their seven pieces over and begin to form a word with the letters they have.

6. Once one word is created, you may begin to play off of that word, as if using a scrabble board (follow the rules of Scrabble pertaining to horizontal and vertical word arrangements).

7. Don’t forget that the point of this game is to connect your letters to make words in the timeliest manner possible.

8. Once someone has used all of their letters they will shout “GO!” and everyone must draw one tile from the center pile of upside-down game pieces.

9. Every player must draw one tile, and they may not switch the tiles that they picked for a different ones. They must draw new pieces even if they have not used their own pieces yet (this is what makes players get backed up and frantic). They cannot trade tiles with other players!

10. The game proceeds in this manner until the pieces in the center of the table are gone or until there are not enough left for everyone to draw from.

11. At this time, when the first person has used up all of their game pieces and there are no more to draw, the game is over.

GramO

It was my Grandma Ogles 79th birthday on Saturday.

The Ogles side of my family (mama's side) are emailers. Like, seriously, I get 20 a day that are mass-emailed to everyone in my family.

But this week, all the emails have been things we love about GramO. I thought I'd share:

Uncle Callis: I think the words that describe Grandma O the best are “Long reach” and “strong pincher”. Just a warning to all you grand kids. Don’t ever sit on the same bench with her in church… it doesn’t matter how far away you are! If you are on the same bench “Beware!”. Don’t say I didn’t warn you….

Cousin Amy: The best way to describe how I feel about my Grandma Ogles would be to give her a great big hug and kiss! I love her so much. If there was one word that could describe Grandma O it would be LOVE.

Sister Sarah: Grandma is famous for her faithful temple attendance, indexing records, bell collection, and citrus centerpieces. She takes very good care of her dear adopted dog, Lola, and will feed visitors any time of the day or night.

Cousin Mo: I love how she always sends us wonderful emails, and how she spoils us, and she always makes sure we have enough to eat. She is the most unselfish person that I know.

Cousin Ty: The best way for me to share what Grandma O means to me would be to give her a big big hug... but since she's not around and that wouldn't work well electronically... I'll just write a few things. I really admire Grandma's love and care for her family. In a mixed up world it's nice to have people like grandma to look up to who have their priorities where they should be.

Cousin Melissa: She is always so supportive and complimenting. After leaving grandmas my self esteem has raised to the top! She just believes in all of us so much! She listens to any story about my day despite how boring it might be. She has the best advice and knows so much. I admire her love that she has for EVERYONE! I don't know where I would be in life without her example and influence in my life.

Aunt Georgia: My favorite thing about Mom right now (besides that she always cooks wonderful meals for me) is her devotion to family history. You may have been lucky enough to visit her when she had a long drawerful of couples waiting to be sealed - she let us take a peek. She has the true spirit and longs to find all the Hayes, Ogles, etc. that she can.

Cousin Max: GramO worries about everyone but that's only because she's so compassionate and charitable....She let Lisa and I drive her car to Oregon and I felt bad for taking the car so long....I hope Lola kept her company since she couldn't leave the house to drive to the gym and lift weights like she usually does....And she let us borrow the car again when I made the mistake of trying to fix my clutch....she's a very sweet and compassionate woman who loves to do temple work and throw family parties......especially karaoke...

Me: Grandma Ogles is one of the most extraordinary women. Her whole world revolves around the family and the gospel. I feel like we all sometimes get distracted by other things in life, but Grandma's sole focus is always on the family--whether it is through phone calls or emails, or visits out to lunch with Sue or her sisters, or temple work, or wanting to know about and encouraging the dating lives of all of us college kids. =D Not only that, but she is constantly bettering herself through scripture study and service. She also raised my Mom (and yes, you other 8 wonderful children). But my mom wouldn't be the mother she is if Grandma Ogles didn't raise her the way she did.


ps - Yes, we call my Grandma Ogles "Gramma Oh." I don't know who started it, but everyone does it. And then she started signing her emails to the family as GramO. So we do it now too. She's becoming an expert in internet lingo. At least we cured her of all caps. She did that for a long time AND I ALWAYS FELT LIKE SHE WAS YELLING AT ME THROUGH HER EMAILS.

utah, you always seem to surprise me

Gorgeous, right? On Sunday, Amy and I (and we each took a friend) went to visit GramO in Springville, UT. When we left, as we drove down her street, the most beautiful sunset came into view. It looked a LOT like this. (This is a sunset in Zion somewhere). But Anyways, same colors, same clouds, etc. Except that more north, there was a huge electrical storm going on, so the sky was like a dark purple with SO many flashes of lightning, it was kind of scary! But absolutely breathtaking. After I dropped Amy and her friend off, I rolled my windows down and enjoyed the warm air at 9pm with the wind. The storm never made it far enough to hit Provo, but seriously, you gotta feel good about the little things. =D