The Male Brain

Let me first tell you about an incident that happened a few years ago. I went looking for my large silver bowl but couldn't find it. It turned up in the garage filled with motor oil. Tomas didn't know what else to use. That became a family joke. Well, Saturday morning I went to the cupboard as I always do in the morning to take my vitamins. I have a new liquid vitamin that I take, but it wasn't there. I searched all the cupboards, but no vitamins. A little while later Krista came down with them. They were in the bathroom upstairs. I chuckled because I had told David the night before where the Xylitol was that I wanted him to start rinsing his mouth with. (the dentist told us that Xylitol will actually heal cavities) I figured he didn't listen to my directions and rinsed with my vitamins instead. So, I went and took my vitamins. They had kind of a weird taste. Almost like cologne. I didn't think more about it until last night when I said, "David, by the way. The Xylitol is in the butter cupboard, what you used was my liquid vitamins." "Oh, well actually I just needed a dropper so I could transfer my cologne from one bottle to another." No wonder I had a headache and felt dizzy for 2 days! He nearly didn't live to see Christmas.

Walking in Memphis

David performed at a recent school concert playing and singing Walking in Memphis. I tried to upload it to my blog, but couldn't get it to work. I tried to send an email link directly from YouTube, but I'm not sure if it worked so now I'm posting the link here for you to watch it if you want to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J--7rm3absU

Toughest Job in the Church

You can see by this video how tough it is on Ezra to be in the nursery. Poor thing!

A great man died

This past week I went to a funeral for our Stake Patriarch, former Stake President and dear friend Parley Hamblin. He had the gift to make you feel like you were the most important person in the world to him. Come to find out everyone thought they were his favorite! One of the speakers shared a dream that Pres Hamblin had several years ago while he was Stake President. He dreamt that he and the previous Stake President Von Pulsipher had decided to start an ambulance business. They worked hard getting all the latest and coolest equipment for the ambulance. When they were finished they realized they no longer had any room for their patients. So they got an old trailer and hooked it up to the back of the ambulance. That would work. Suddenly they were informed of a great disaster that took place and off they went to help. When they got there they tried to part their ambulance with the trailer. One of them did the parking while the other was directing. After several tries the one said to the other, "I can do a better job than that." So they switched placed and continued to struggle to get the ambulance and trailer parked. When they finally had it parked they went to help. But all they found were corpses and as they approached each corpse it disingrated before their eyes as if the stirring of the wind from their bodies blew the ashes. They went from body to body only to have the same thing happen. He then awoke. He shared this dream in a leadership meeting with the Bishops telling them something like, "Brethren, we get so caught up in the programs that we lose the meaning behind them." Brother Anderson then shared some "Parley wisdom" ... "Perfection isn't doing everything perfect, it's doing what's most important really well and doing the rest quickly." My love to you Parley!

Ya gotta try it!

I needed to make dinner the other day and I wanted to use my crock pot. I went to my freezer and got out the package of boneless skinless chicken breast. I figured if I started with chicken I could make it up from there. Then I saw this recipe on the back of the package, "Best Lemon Chicken." It sounded good, but I didn't have any lemon juice, only lime. I decided, what the heck give it a try. It was so good that after the first bite Ezra said, "Wow, this is like something you'd get in a restaurant." I used two breasts, but you can probably use up to 4. The only thing I'd do different next time is to start with the chicken pre cut into smaller pieces, bite size-ish. That way the juices marinade into the meat more.

2-4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
1/4 C Olive oil
1/3 C Lime (Lemon) juice
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbls Red Bell pepper chopped
2 Cloves Garlic finely chopped
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper

I also added about 1 Tbls chopped onion because I wanted to and increased the red pepper a bit. I also used regular mustard because that's all I had and it was still great. Next time I might try adding some fresh cilantro with the lime!

I mixed it all together and poured it over the chicken. It cooked several hours in the crock pot. When it was done I lightly shredded the chicken. THEN (thanks to Jenn's yummy recipe) I served it over angel hair pasta. That lime/olive oil marinade was soooo good on the pasta! Let me know if you like it too.

"Oklahoma"

Not the state, the play. David and Shaun were in "Oklahoma" about a month ago. Shaun was Ali Hakim, the peddler. He did a great job! He stole the show. On the Monday morning after our local talk radio station talked about the show and people called in to comment. I didn't hear the broadcast but others told me that mostly people called in and talked about Shaun and what a great job he did. He's a natural comedian. David was in the dance numbers. In the dance number picture David is in the front row to the left. (tan vest with the mutten chops painted on)

Many Treasures

OK, so this is my first attempt at posting. Thanks to Jennifer I actually have a blog. First, Krista came home from her mission on July 31st. The whole family was here except our other missionary Tomas. It was fun to have everyone home. The grandkids are REALLY cute! They all left on Aug 6th. That same day my Grandpa Dawson passed away. He was 97 so I guess he was ready. My mom's death was really hard on him. I debated whether or not to go. Krista was speaking on Sunday (the 10th) and I really didn't want to miss that! Plus, the expense. Then my Uncle said it can be paid for out of the estate so at the last minute I found a flight that would leave Sunday evening. I flew all night arriving Monday at 9:30 a.m. The funeral was at 2:00. It was a good service. My brother Tony spoke after the minister and he did a great job. Later that day my Aunt Shotsie invited us to go to grandpa's house to see if there was anything we'd like to have. I of course was searching for family history treasures, and I found some! I found my great grandparents wedding certificate, a ring that belonged to my great grandma, a broach that belonged to my great great grandma, and a plate that belonged to my great great great grandma. I also have names that I didn't have before. There were also a few things (a pocket watch and a shaving blade) that we think belonged to my grandpa's dad that my nephew kept. He knows that if he ever doesn't want to keep them to send them back to my family. That was a pretty exciting find!

My Missionaries

Elder Morgan (Tomas)

Sister Morgan (Krista)

Our Grandkids

These are our beautiful grandkids. Macy, James, Samm, and Ava.