Panorama Champions 2013 Real Steel live at the Yaa Centre

This is my nephew, Jason (back Left) and his band!

End of an Era

Where did all the time go?

We put Gareth into his Stepaside uniform in September 2002.

Followed by Ross in September 2003

And now Martha has left and is ready to join the boys in Greenhill.  

How amazing to watch them change and grow.  

Togetherness

How fantastic it was to see our dear friends the Vingoe family at the weekend and to witness the marriage of Christopher to his beautiful wife Eve.

This family mean so much to us and we can only hope to emulate their example as a couple, as parents and as just all round lovely people.  We have very fond memories of the times we have spent together and the experiences we have been through together.  

We are better people for having them in our lives.

Thanks for letting us share your day and your lives.

World Record

I have always wanted to take part in a world record event.

This past weekend I took part in an international indexing project.  Here is an extract from the email I received today.

FamilySearch volunteers are amazing! On July 20th and 21st, FamilySearch indexers and arbitrators from around the world joined together to set an international record for the greatest number of indexing participants in a single day! We hoped to have an unprecedented 50,000 contributors in a 24 hour period. FamilySearch volunteers excelled, surpassing that goal by 16,511! That’s right—66,511 participants in one day! Incredible! We are grateful for the patience and persistence of many volunteers who faced technical difficulties due to an overwhelming response.

These generous indexers and arbitrators made a true difference. Each record and each name indexed and arbitrated matters. It only takes one to open the door to linking generations of families together. Without question, thousands of lives will be changed as a result of this day’s effort.

While the focus for this challenge was on the total number of participants, a tremendous amount of indexing and arbitration work was accomplished as well. Here are the results for the number of records indexed and arbitrated. 

Indexed: 4,682,746
Arbitrated: 941,932
Total Records Processed: 5.7 million

Our ancestors deserve to be remembered. You can be proud to be the one who made the difference for someone else who is looking for their ancestors. Because of you, they will know the joy of adding a new branch to their family tree. Thank you!

Super Hero has Heart Attack!

Sorry if the title of this post unduly alarmed you!

This week the primary Faith in God activity involved learning about the Priesthood.  Megan, one of the young women in the Branch, taught a fantastic lesson on super Heroes and compared Priesthood holders to them due to their Priesthood Power.

We then discussed how much our Priesthood leaders do for us and showed our appreciation by giving  our Branch President a "Heart Attack"

Car Wash and Cupcakes

Martha and I made lots of cupcakes to sell at out Branch Youth car wash today.

Youth working together to clean Robert's car

And here are the girls trying to win us some more customers

All the members working together to support the Youth as they raised funds for Camp.

This is the slide show I made of my seminary class and what they have been up to over the last twelve months.  it includes depictions of some of the scripture characters they have studied and evidence of the principles they have learnt.

ENJOY

Birthday Bash

This story starts about a year ago when calvin found a leaflet for a new Barber's shop in St Clears.

He took the boys in to give it a try and discovered Neil and Nicci in their garage surrounded by Americana and the warmest welcome you could ever imagine.  

 On their next visit they discovered that Neil cuts ladies hair after 5pm by appointment only....result...I have serious hairdresser trauma and get quite distressed about the whole process. Since finding this gem we have all been totally satisfied with every visit. 

Anyway, if you read the reviews on link above you will see the kind of people they are.

They shared with us and others their idea for creating a special pop up restaurant in the shop for invited groups.  We decided to book them and their idea for my 40th celebration,  Nicci gave us a huge choice of menus and went out of her way to include special dietary requirements.  Thats the kind of service you can't get in a chain!  We invited 3 couples to join us none of which had met before.  After brief intros at our house we headed off to St Clears.

This is what we found!

And here we all are before the marvellous Moroccan meal that Nicci had created for us.

You would never know that Neil had been cutting hair in there until 3pm!

I know this is a bit blurry but the atmosphere once the light was fading was fabulous.

The food was out of this world, every dish was delicious and the table fell silent as we took in the flavours.  Here is our menu.  

Truly a memorable evening for all, making new friends, enjoying beautiful cuisine in a fascinating setting and meeting the ever attentive and warm couple who hosted us.

Thanks Nicci and Neil, we won't forget this evening in a hurry and I'm sure we will be back.

Birthdays Begin

Dad and Martha got to celebrate this year while we were at the Temple.  

Martha's first birthday away from home.

(she almost had one before but the ash cloud cleared and we got home from the USA just in time)

Present opening

The traditional photo of the two birthday people.

Cupcakes was the order of the day as they travel happily!

These were made with Mary Berry's lemon tray bake recipe and extra added lemon curd in the icing!!

Happy Birthday Both.

Trip 3- More

We try to go to the Temple at least 3 or 4 times a year.  It takes about 4 1/2 hours to get there but it is so rewarding because of the peace we can feel there.

Even though we have been many times, we all take photos every time!  

These are a couple of Martha's shots this time, maybe with some help from dad but if its on your camera you can claim it as yours!

So here we all are at the end of our visit together.

Thanks everyone for making the trip so special and memorable.

See you next year!

Trip 3- I love to see the Temple

We travelled down to London to our Temple. There we met up with family members and had a really lovely time.  the first of many of these family trips hopefully.

2nd Cousins on the steps (1 missing- due to the lateness of the hour)

Arty photos of the boys with Uncle Colin and Granddad

Martha and Grandma

Nice shot Martha!

Trip 2 Part 2

Cadbury World was great fun on Good Friday.  

Ross helped to guide me there safely and we ate too much chocolate!

Trip 2 Part 1

Calvin had a Union Conference in Birmingham over the easter weekend.  Ross, Martha and I went with him .  

We were very lucky to have a suite in the Marriott Hotel, with an adjoining family room!

                                                This is the kids room, double bed EACH.

This is the lounge/dining area.  Its lovely to have that extra space.

We shopped lots, and I would have got lost lots without Ross, my very own sat nav.

This is the new Birmingham Library, very impassive from the outside and in, better in the sunshine though!

Easter Holidays Trip 1

Calvin's mum arranged a girls night away, staying at the Vale Hotel in Cardiff.  We left home on Monday and stopped off for a spot of shopping and lunch at Bridgend.

This was our lovely room at the Vale

We spent the afternoon relaxing in the pool and jacuzzi.  

She had booked me in to have my eyebrows ripped off my face with boiling wax 

in the "Health Spa" for an extra TREAT.  

Despite the obvious and immediate pain from this process I was pleased with the results.

We walked around the grounds in the evening before having a meal in the bar.

Next morning we ate a hearty breakfast before hitting the city centre for some serious shopping.

We managed to ring some lovely clothes, mostly in Debenhams. In fact we spent so long in the store that we eventually returned everything and started again by opening up a store card to get a discount.

We usually like to try on a few hats on our outings, what do you think?

We found this travelling show in the town....

...but we couldn't think of anything to tell them about!!

We needed food so we popped to the carvery on the way home, Grandma was sent back to repark the car but not before I had snapped the evidence.

You can't just leave it there!!!!

That's better.

Anyway, a HUGE Thank you to all involved in this production.

I should also mention here that while we were away both granddads were involved in site maintenance at the Williams residence in readiness for our new shed.  so a BIG thank you to them too.

My Faith

This last weekend was General Conference for our Church, 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  

We are really blessed to be able to hear the words of our leaders speaking to us the things that Heavenly Father wants us to hear.  

I wanted to share this talk with you, It is about my Saviour, Jesus Christ.  

It is by Elder D Todd Christofferson one of the General Authorities of the Church

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2014/04?lang=eng&vid=3439077340001&cid=10

I was once talking about my faith with someone and they questioned my beliefs, they wanted to know what I believed and not what the Church believed.  That question caused me to really think and gave me the chance to deepen my own personal testimony of my Saviour.  I know that He lived, died and was resurrected.  And I know that through Him and His atoning sacrifice I can be made clean and return to live with Him and my Heavenly Father and my loved ones again.  

This is the reason I do the things I do, the reason I live the standards of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the reason I raise my children the way I do.