A very eventful June…can hardly breathe when I think back on it!
Noelle made macarons & she was the MOST proud of these ones!
They looked & tasted AMAZE!
Sia OVERJOYED that Halloween chose her as his perch one night…a rarity 😅
Aunt Denise & Jenna started a new venture…gonna be dangerous for us…I’ve already ordered twice 💙
Introducing the babies…Boo got weirded out when Grogu tried to use the force on him 😆
Eating lots of over night oats lately & me and MJ take turns making them for each other…these are his labels & Sia added in her approval for my name 😝
Hmm…we eat too much sugar in summer😎
(girls camp)
Notes from Cielle’s confidence building seminar
Confident people speak kindly to themselves…REFLECTING, remembering writing down hard things we did and how we overcame them increases confidence
What happened?
What did it teach you about yourself?
Lesson learned help in future?
Teaching YW
I made it through my patriarchal blessing lesson…taught me I can get vulnerable with this group of girls
I learned that I can be confident & vulnerable again in this setting for the sake of my young women’s testimonies growing through my own.
QUOTES from the leaders 😂
“Stanley tucci wouldn’t date me in real life. Ya know, this really upsets me.”
- Chelsea
“But Aragorn would?” - Marilee
(cracking up)
(Speaking of small steps up to cabin)
“I know! When I go up then I’m like “thank you” but when I come down I’m like “how dare you!”
(Referring to the term used to describe donkey in the scriptures & how it made her uncomfortable as a youth to read it aloud)
“Yeah…I would just think… I mean I sit on mine too, but I don’t talk about it”
-Jessica H
SO many great moments this girls camp. We stayed in a family cabin, so it was cozy & unifying!
It was a smooth, peaceful, gorgeous, uplifting, & very entertaining time;)
Lots of stomping on carpenter ants, wasps in the house & girls trying to keep it together during testimony meeting while they buzzed around us. No one got stung though so that was such a good thing! SO many snacks set up by cutest Bella and so many great crafts, bedazzling, air clay, beading, thread bracelets, boondoggles, and my favorite downtime activity of course was puzzling with all the leaders! We challenged ourselves to completing a 300 piece in under an hour. We did it in 23 minutes..so fun & chaotic. We had the additional challenge of not looking at the box since Stanley Arnold Dahlin told me once that is cheating ;)
We had the bummer of the outside fire pit not lighting so me & Robyn saved the night with broiler smores in the oven. YAY!
So much prepping of meals, washing of dishes, hilarious quotings of things…these women I serve with. Amaze, amaze, amaze. Marilee said it best…she sent us all a text after and I basically said “amen”
Hey freshly showered wonder women. What a remarkable week! Just had to hop on here and say not only did I really appreciate being removed to the mountains and spending time with our amazing young women, but being with you also sparked so much joy for me. You are selfless, devoted, hilarious, fun, spiritual, and inspiring. I left a better woman and count girls camp 2026 as a highlight of the year so far. Thanks for all you do and did. 
These little needle point scriptures and sayings were all over this family cabin. Loved it 😍
THUNDERSTEIN SHOOT ^^^^
I had not originally planned on going to this shoot at all but Michael Joe walked out the door that morning feeling defeated in other areas (& was not thrilled about having to film all day) so I offered to come later to just BE near him (he says I give him energy;) Noelle had dance that morning, Gwinna had a get together for blanket making that afternoon and then Sia had gymnastics that night. So after all of those picks ups and drops off and dinner me Gwinna & Sia headed over to hang out around 6:30 for a few hours. We met Donny Osmonds son Chris and the girls got to meet Matt Meese which was thrilling for them even though they played it very cool when he shook their hands ;) The whole location was beautiful. It had been a video gaming “live” experience park at one point but is now shut down. Beautifully built, real materials in every structure. So COOL. Anyway…Noelle was getting antsy at home alone so we left around 9:30 against all of our wills since we were having too much fun.
The NEXT day was a night shoot that STARTED at 8pm so we had to bring Noelle with us to show her how fun it could be. Stopped to get the crew (& ourselves) parlor doughnuts first, of course!
I have to say this whole thing was the highlight of my month. It was so fun to just be a wall flower and watch the magic happen. I don’t know why it surprised me so much since one of my favorite parts of the DVD growing up was the extras, behind the scenes stuff!
We had seats set up to watch a scene being shot in the lab & it was so fun to just watch the makeup girls step in when they were needed, Shae creatively directing as she was laying on the table (acting as well), Charan and Elliot doing an amazing scene over and over again, the art department guys stepping in over and over to clean up a table MJ had to flip multiple times, poor Chris under his massive camera almost getting hit in the leg with a book MJ flung in his fake rage, Julin’s great & hilarious cues….WILD & seriously TOO fun. I got to know people on set in a different, deeper way. Good, good peoples. We were very well taken care of…snacks, seats, tours, “right this way…” haha!
The girls lost steam around 11:30 & I asked Noey if she was cool with me returning to hang with dad…she was so I drove back around midnight. I was bummed that I had missed the scene where he “rises” so multiple women got on their phones to show me photos and videos they had taken of it. Someone had already turned it in to a tik tok with fun music. So awesome.
At 1AM they broke for “lunch” !! How crazy. They had a pizza truck (amazing wood fired pizza) One of the art department guys suggested I try a pickled kind & I was shocked to say it was SO good…pepperoni with honey too?! Who knew? YUM. The pizza guys energy was awesome, needed to keep spirits up through the rest of the night. He was calling out all the pizzas loudly & doing some dancing in between. The rest of the night went smoothly & they finally finished around 4:00. Took MJ about half hour to get his makeup removed by that whole team.
We got home around 5AM. I got about 2 hours of sleep because I had to wake up to get my egg casserole in the oven for our annual Osmond Lane breakfast party at Roger’s 😝 I was asked to do this, otherwise I would have been asleep with the rest of my family! ‘Twas a good time, it’s so fun to learn about my neighbors. Patriarch Herrod & his wife told me they turned in their motorcycle fairly recently for their fun light blue BMW they take drives in now:)
I learned Tai and his wife are often out of town visiting Oregon & I learned that Anita doesn’t want to move closer to her grandkids because she would feel like a full time babysitter! Ha! Fair & honest:)
I believe this was Sia’s first monkey bread of the summer… she has since made 3 more!
Got the most fitting troll for Michael Joe on our way to the shoot that night too at FIVE BELOW. Who knew I would love that place? Soph…you did 😄
Youth Conference with my Gwinna Jo, except not really since she preferred I didn’t have to go…but ALAS, they needed me & my car! Haha. It was a mixture of both good & hard times. We went to a VERY nice Airbnb wherein the girls had their own bunk room, boys had their own & EVERY leader had their own master suites with massive showers! That part was very nice. Leaving Michael Joe behind .. not so nice, I would have liked him to be sharing that suite with me. We stopped and did the Cove Fort Tour on the way to Hurricane, played games, ate lunch and then did the Beaver Creamery (learned a day after getting home that a huge fire was burning cabins in Beaver, we had just missed it!)
Amazing BBQ burgers for dinner that night & lip sync battled which was wild & too fun with Bishop playing the DJ Bubba D. We did a little walk around Grandpas pond later that night and counted it as our hike. Next day was LAKE day. UGH. I had thought I just had sunscreen in my eye but the same thing started happening to me as at Disneyland even though I was wearing sunglasses. Anyway I did my best to sunscreen multiple kids backs because OH EM goodness it was 102 out there and they were about to get on a boat!! Still didn’t seem to matter, so many burnt boys later that night that I kept annoying to put on more aloe 😁 The kindest leaders on this trip (21 year old babies!) offered to go get me eye drops. Yes. I will accept help when I quite literally cannot fully open my eyeballs. 😓 This part was really awful. I went back to my car when those two got back to shore so I was able to regain sight enough to drive back to Airbnb to get the drops, take a shower, eat TACOS (BEST I have ever had!..also this is a sweet story. This young man was getting in his truck right when I walked up & quickly started to get out when he saw me looking at the times. It was 2:07 and they had closed at 2:00!! :((( He said “oh grill is still hot, my mom can make you tacos..you want tacos?!” Umm yes please but you really dont have to, I’m late! I felt bad but he insisted and he said his mom was happy to do it for me because she’s walked up to a restaurant and been turned away when it was too late & didn’t want that to happen to me. So sweet. I thanked them a million times, tipped very well and practically skipped back the Airbnb swinging my tacos! Yuuummm. Seriously better than any taco truck I have had in California, even!!!
Then I took myself to get gas (so I didn’t have to the next day with a car full of teens) AND a thank you gathering of food for Nate (who bought me eyedrops). He eats gluten-free so that was a good time to discover things;) Drove back to the beach an hour and half after the planned time of them ending to pick up a very exhausted, hot crew! Ugh. I was grateful for my eyes when I saw them all trekking to the car.
Oh me and Bobby were also productive in starting up pizzas when we got back! It really worked out so well because everyone was too tired to make dinner but me & Bobby had been enjoying AC all afternoon so we had the energy. We made about 16 pizzas I think! Whew! Good times. And for dessert Bishops wife made SCOTCHAROOS! I may have had two and didn’t feel bad about it because I later saw another leader pile 4 into a bowl 😝 Ended the night with a very sweet testimony meeting & then some of us leaders trying with everything in us to have enough energy to puzzle. Could not quite do it.
Next day heading home we stopped by the Cedar city temple for baptisms & were very impressed with how smoothly that went down. Wow. I believe we were in and out within 45 minutes with 24 youth! We worked on service blankets and had Costa Vida for lunch & then headed home. Me and Jess wanted ice cream so we convinced our car full of kids (not hard) that they should want ice cream again too, at Beaver Creamery, so we quickly stopped there so as not to be too far behind and have others get SUS! SOMEHOW they still did and point blank asked Jess when we got there and Jess simply CANNOT lie. Ha. Anyway. We were in trouble with some peoples. Oh well 😅
Came home to these cutest Murdoch faces😍❤
Had to get this out quick to work on with Sophia, of course!
Celebrated Father’s Day with more crap for MJ’s office (I admit I love buying things for him! As do the girls..the fat cat is from Noelle, Bluey book & taco & coupons from Gwinna, and ET from Sia)
Precious Nora 💛
What is it about puzzles, they are my therapy, my happy place, my calm in the midst of a storm…
Also came home to my new cutie mini bus 💛 I LOVE it. The only reason I got this vehicle is because this exact one drove across an intersection in front of me one day last August and I thought it was the cutest, absolutely love at first sight! I knew no other details and didn’t care, so Michael got to work in finding one for me 😄
My bedazzling projects so far…also slightly addicting. Who knew?!
This guy (Poe baby) ran in when Michael went out & I never notice until he pops up right next to me while I am in the tub 😂😂😂
So Layla girl, our neighbor, is moving in July. Too many good ones are moving in July 😞
so sad…”yeah…so sad.” -Mack Murray
So Noelle decided to throw a fun little get together with her. Photos of them hanging on the front of the table, they made time capsule boxes, puff painted t shirts, ate chick fil a, watermelon, cupcakes and more sugar, danced late into the night. Good moments. Oh and they started to film another movie. Gwinna is a bossy little director but they do not seem to mind😅
My second order from Swedish Saturdays. HAD to get the 4th of July themed, right?! This is the day after Michael Joe left us for his trial in California😖 I am attempting to stay distracted (& out of our room for the most part) by watching one of Charan’s movie called “We love you Sally Carmichael” with my gals…we made popcorn too & ate too much. ‘Twas such a sweet, wholesome movie and fun to see studio c people in it & of course Charan (as Philip…Sia said multiple times “Philip is my favorite” as she laughed) & Pioneer Book book store that we’ve been to!
We had dinner with Charan the night before MJ left…sat around for almost 3 hours talking to him about things he’s been in & how much he loves Silva studios. MOM! We ate his mom’s food and his favorite are samosas too, so she threw some in for us! So good and some kind of pancake-like balls drenched in a very sugary, syrupy something. We were just chatting and hovering over the food so we ended up eating all of the desserts together. Very nice. Charan is just one of the best souls on this earth, we adore him.
My other distraction device….did this one in about 3 hours the third night…by myself
I will very highly likely clean and reorganize every square inch of this home before he gets home (still gone as I type this…4th day….this is my distraction tonight…blogging…) UGH I hate, hate, hate being without him. I cried when he left & Gwinna said about me yesterday “yeah mom literally cried, twice, when dad left…you’re never getting divorced.” 😆
Noelle making me laugh tonight. Trapped all of the cats and then made them line up before she set them free. “I’ll wait” she says 😂
Pursuit of happiness: “Founding fathers saw it as a quest for BEING good not just feeling good” Elder cook
Sarah Esplin shared that she believes the 25 minute lesson will be more unifying than even our highs and lows and celebrating of birthdays that we usually do at beginnings of class. I feel the same…girls camps I REMEMBER the testimony meetings being the most powerful and unifying part! It is where people got vulnerable & shared their souls & their hearts & why they believe! I remember vividly testimonies born after we all participated in a musical production as a stake…of course the production itself was powerful & spirit filled but the feeling of the testimony meeting is what’s vividly remembered by my whole soul! In thinking of why we have kept Sacrament meeting to an hour it makes the most sense…unifying with our ward family - hearing each other and learning from each other as one.
