The Pumpkin Patch!

Have a ghoolish Halloween!

A True Story...

 This story is from Bruce Vincent of Libby , Montana who had gone to the White House with others to receive an award from the President.


He writes:

I've written the following narrative to chronicle the day of the award ceremony in DC. I'm still working on a press release but the White House press corps has yet to provide a photo to go with it. When the photo comes I'll ship it out. When you get done reading this you'll understand the dilemma I face in telling this story beyond my circle of close friends.

Stepping into the Oval Office, each of us was introduced to the President and his wife. We shook hands and participated in small talk. When the President was told that we were from Libby , Montana , I reminded him that Marc Racicot is our native son and the President offered his warm thoughts about Governor Racicot.

I have to tell you, I was blown away by two things upon entering the office. First, the Oval Office sense of 'place' is unreal. The President later shared a story of Russian President Putin entering the room prepared to tackle the President in a tough negotiation and upon entering, the atheist muttered his first words to the President and they were "Oh, my God."

I concurred. I could feel the history in my bones. Second, the man that inhabits the office engaged me with a firm handshake and a look that can only be described as penetrating. Warm, alive, fully engaged, disarmingly penetrating. I was admittedly concerned about meeting the man. I think all of us have an inner hope that the most powerful man in our country is worthy of the responsibility and authority that we bestow upon them through our vote.

I admit that part of me was afraid that I would be let down by the moment -- that the person and the place could not meet the lofty expectations of my fantasy world. This says nothing about my esteem for the President  but just my practical realization that reality may not match my 'dream.'

Once inside the office, the President got right down to business and, standing in front of his desk, handed out the awards one at a time while posing for photos with the winners and his wife. With the mission accomplished, the President and the First Lady relaxed and initiated a lengthy, informal conversation about a number of things with our entire small group. He and the First Lady talked about such things as the rug in the office. It is traditionally designed by the First Lady to make a statement about the President, and she chose a brilliant yellow sunburst pattern to reflect 'hope.' The President talked about the absolute need to believe that with hard work and faith in God there is every reason to start each day in the Oval Office with hope. He and the First Lady were asked about the impact of the Presidency on their marriage and, with an arm casually wrapped around her, he said that he thought the place may be hard on weak marriages but that it had the ability to make strong marriages even stronger and that he was blessed with a strong one.

After about 30 or 35 minutes, it was time to go. By then we were all relaxed and I felt as if I had just had an excellent visit with a friend. The President and First Lady made one more pass down the line of awardees, shaking hands and offering congratulations. When the President shook my hand I said, "Thank you Mr. President and God bless you and your family." He was already in motion to the next person in line, but he stopped abruptly turned fully back to me, gave me a piercing look, renewed the vigor of his handshake and said, "Thank you -- and God bless you and yours as well."

On our way out of the office we were to leave by the glass doors on the west side of the office. I was the last person in the exit line. As I shook his hand one final time, the President  said, "I'll be sure to tell Marc hello and give him your regards."

I then did something that surprised even me. I said to him, "Mr. President, I know you are a busy man and your time is precious. I also know you to be a man of strong faith and I have a favor to ask of you."

As he shook my hand he looked me in the eye and said, "Just name it." I told him that my step-Mom was at that moment in a hospital in Kalispell , Montana , having a tumor removed from her skull and it would mean a great deal to me if he would consider adding her to his prayers that day. He grabbed me by the arm and took me back toward his desk as he said, "So that's it. I could tell that something is weighing heavy on your heart today. I could see it in your eyes.This explains it."

From the top drawer of his desk he retrieved a pen and a note card with his seal on it and asked, "How do you spell her name?" He then jotted a note to her while discussing the importance of family and the strength of prayer. When he handed me the card, he asked about the surgery and the prognosis. I told him we were hoping that it is not a recurrence of an earlier cancer and that, if it is, they can't get it all with this surgery.

He said, "If it's okay with you, we'll take care of the prayer right now. Would you pray with me?" I told him yes and he turned to the staff that remained in the office and hand motioned the folks to step back or leave. He said, "Bruce and I would like some private time for a prayer."

As they left he turned back to me and took my hands in his. I was prepared to do a traditional prayer stance -- standing with each other with heads bowed. Instead, he reached for my head with his right hand and pulling gently forward, he placed my head on his shoulder. With his left arm on my mid-back, he pulled me to him in a prayerful embrace.

He started to pray softly. I started to cry. He continued his prayer for Loretta and for God's perfect will to be done. I cried some more. My body shook a bit as I cried and he just held tighter. He closed by asking God's blessing on Loretta and the family during the coming months. I stepped away from our embrace, wiped my eyes, swiped at the tears I'd left on his shoulder, and looked into the eyes of our president. I thanked him as best I could and told him that me and my family would continue praying for him and his.

As I write this account down and reflect upon what it means, I have to tell you that all I really know is that his simple act left me humbled and believing. I so hoped that the man I thought him to be was the man that he is. I know that our nation needs a man such as this in the Oval Office. George W. Bush is the real deal. I've read Internet stories about the President praying with troops in hospitals and other such uplifting accounts. Each time I read them I hoped them to be true and not an Internet perpetuated myth. This one, I know to be true. I was there. He is real. He has a pile of incredible stuff on his plate each day -- and yet he is tuned in so well to the here and now that he 'sensed' something heavy on my heart. He took time out of his life to care, to share, and to seek God's blessing for my family in a simple man-to-man, father-to-father, son-to-son, husband-to-husband, Christian- to-Christian prayerful embrace. He's not what I had hoped he would be. He is, in fact, so very, very much more.

A work in ProgreSS!

I have a new photography website!  I have been building it for sometime now and am enjoying it so much!  You can check it out here at I Love Your MuG Photography 

Kylee's Homecoming Dance :)

Kylee and her friends had a fantastic time last weekend. They started out their day at our home where the girls made the boys breakfast. After breakfast they went go carting. Then they came home and got ready. Pictures and limo at our home then off to Seattle for a nice dinner and finally to the dance. After the dance they went to watch a movie. Seriously an all day event! Kylee and Sergei have the cutest personalities...she couldn't do his boutonniere last year so this year Sergei told me I should take a seat for pictures because it might be a while. So funny. You can see the expression on her face when she finally did it! Priceless.

Cady and Kylee friends since kindergarten.

The girls...

The boys making fun of the girls...

The attempt...

Success!!!

Having a little fun in their formals...other moms were freaking out...

Not me...I say enjoy the moment!

Limo...

Sassy girl...

Sassy boy!

What Jensen did for his 16th Birthday...Butt or What?

Butt or What?  

It's Spirit week at school and to my surprise when Jensen came down on his birthday for homemade sweetrolls ( at 6:30 am I might add...yes I am a devoted mother)  it wasn't what I expected.  Love this boy !

Happy 16th Birthday Jensen!

Jensen is the last person that would want any attention...so of course we had to throw him a surprise birthday party!  Jensen's good friend Blake and his family were gracious enough to host the party at their home.  Blake helped with the surprise by inviting Jensen up for Pizza...I intentionally didn't make dinner so he would be hungry.  We also had the party 6 days before he  actually turns 16 because next weekend is Homecoming.  I think this helped with the surprise factor.

Jensen was clueless, and didn't even realize all the horns and screams were for him...his words, " What is going on...I think I'm in shock!"  We put a t-shirt on him that everyone signed for his birthday day.  They hung out by  the fire, played some ball, listened to tunes, and ate Jensen's favorite snacks;  pretzels, Puppy Chow, homemake rootbeer, sweedish fish, nachos, homemade caramel and apples, and his favorite cake with Creamsicle ice cream.

It was suppose to rain, but thankfully the weather was beautiful, and the storm rolled in around 11 pm as the party was ending.  Perfect!  Jensen then came home with some friends and they stayed over and up ALL night...this morning we had breakfast and are now relaxing...I am so happy he enjoyed himself and is surrounded by great friends.  Thanks to everyone who came and helped out!

French Onion Soup...my comfort food!

This was dinner last night.  I love this dish because it's so simple, yet tastes like you were slaving all day.  It took me about 45 minutes from start to finish.  I tweeked the recipe to suit my pantry...meaning I didn't have all the ingredients so I improvised.  Success...it tasted just like the kind you would order in a restaurant.  Here is the recipe...

1/2 c. butter
2 sliced yellow onions
2 cloves garlic
2 TLB dried parsley
2 sprigs thyme
salt & pepper to taste

carmelize the onions and all the above ingredients for about 1/2 hour.

Add
1/2 c. red wine ( we don't drink so I substituted grape jelly)  I know crazy...but yummy.   I disolved 1/4 cup jelly in 1/2 cup hot water. 
3 TLB. Flour
2 quarts beef broth

Simmer 10 minutes.

put soup in bowl then add french bread and a slice of swiss cheese over the top. 
Broil for 5 minutes...YUMMY!

Kylee's Surprise!

Kylee was asked to her high school homecoming last night.  I thought it was so creative,  while she ran errands with me, he came over and set up balloons with chocolates leading up our stairs with notes on each balloon.  At the end of the balloon trail the last balloon told her to look outside...this is what she saw...awww how sweet!  He was standing out in the yard holding flowers above the luminary HC? sign. 

The Currant Bush

"You sometimes wonder whether the Lord really knows what he ought to do with you. You sometimes wonder if you know better than he does about what you ought to do and ought to become. I am wondering if I may tell you a story that I have told quite often in the Church. It is a story that is older than you are. It’s a piece out of my own life, and I’ve told it in many stakes and missions. It has to do with an incident in my life when God showed me that he knew best.


I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’ ”


Time passed. Years passed, and I found myself in England. I was in command of a cavalry unit in the Canadian Army. I had made rather rapid progress as far as promotions are concerned, and I held the rank of field officer in the British Canadian Army. And I was proud of my position. And there was an opportunity for me to become a general. I had taken all the examinations. I had the seniority. There was just one man between me and that which for ten years I had hoped to get, the office of general in the British Army. I swelled up with pride. And this one man became a casualty, and I received a telegram from London. It said: “Be in my office tomorrow morning at 10:00,” signed by General Turner in charge of all Canadian forces. I called in my valet, my personal servant. I told him to polish my buttons, to brush my hat and my boots, and to make me look like a general because that is what I was going to be. He did the best he could with what he had to work on, and I went up to London. I walked smartly into the office of the General, and I saluted him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of a salute a senior officer usually gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He said, “Sit down, Brown.” Then he said, “I’m sorry I cannot make the appointment. You are entitled to it. You have passed all the examinations. You have the seniority. You’ve been a good officer, but I can’t make the appointment. You are to return to Canada and become a training officer and a transport officer. Someone else will be made a general.” That for which I had been hoping and praying for ten years suddenly slipped out of my fingers.


Then he went into the other room to answer the telephone, and I took a soldier’s privilege of looking on his desk. I saw my personal history sheet. Right across the bottom of it in bold, block-type letters was written, “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.” We were not very well liked in those days. When I saw that, I knew why I had not been appointed. I already held the highest rank of any Mormon in the British Army. He came back and said, “That’s all, Brown.” I saluted him again, but not quite as smartly. I saluted out of duty and went out. I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles away, with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure. You will be called a coward when you get home. You raised all those Mormon boys to join the army, then you sneak off home.” I knew what I was going to get, and when I got to my tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.


And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness. While kneeling there I heard a song being sung in an adjoining tent. A number of Mormon boys met regularly every Tuesday night. I usually met with them. We would sit on the floor and have a Mutual Improvement Association. As I was kneeling there, praying for forgiveness, I heard their voices singing:


“It may not be on the mountain height
Or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle’s front
My Lord will have need of me;
But if, by a still, small voice he calls
To paths that I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:
I’ll go where you want me to go.”
(Hymns, no. 75.)




I arose from my knees a humble man. And now, almost fifty years later, I look up to him and say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.” I see now that it was wise that I should not become a general at that time, because if I had I would have been senior officer of all western Canada, with a lifelong, handsome salary, a place to live, and a pension when I’m no good any longer, but I would have raised my six daughters and two sons in army barracks. They would no doubt have married out of the Church, and I think I would not have amounted to anything. I haven’t amounted to very much as it is, but I have done better than I would have done if the Lord had let me go the way I wanted to go.


I wanted to tell you that oft-repeated story because there are many of you who are going to have some very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried to prove what you are made of. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, “God is the gardener here. He knows what he wants you to be.” Submit yourselves to his will. Be worthy of his blessings, and you will get his blessings."


I just love this story...it was written in 1973 by one of the 12 aopstles in our church, his name Elder Hugh B. Brown.  I have had such an amazing weekend, first I got to enjoy a bridal shower for a dear friend's daughter.  My dear friend died in a car accident 6 years ago visiting family for Thanksgiving.  In a few weeks the third of her six children will be married, and she has missed every wedding, and will miss so much more to come.  Her sweet daughter, has grown to love all her mother's friends, and her new mother in law knew Kim well.  We all couldn't help but feel the love Kim had for her daughter in that room as we all sat talking about her,sharing our love of her.  Tears were shed, words were said..."It's not fair my mom isn't here."  She is right.  We won't get to understand the ending to this story until a much later time...but there was a strong feeling of peace, acceptance and love that afternoon.  I know their family will be compensated for the heartache they endure daily, because Heavenly Father is the gardner and I am so thankful for this greater understanding. 

I also got to enjoy our General Conference this weekend.  I love General Conference for so many reasons.  I made my homemade cinnamon rolls, and we just lounged around and relaxed; all while listening to inspiring spiritual messages like the one above.  Jeff made a fort out of blankets for Faith all over our family room, and even my big boys aren't too old to enjoy a fort!  Spencer got to fly to Utah to visit his family and attend a session of conference on Sunday,  it is always such a blessing to be in the same room as the prophet, and I kept thinking of him and his excitement as we watched and listened.  I am filled with gratitude this Monday morning and am grateful for inspired leaders that sacrifice their time, energy, and talents to benefit the greater good.