Smith Family

My girls are pretty good about taking a shower or bath every day or other day, I don't need to remind them they just know! Apparently that part of Brandon's brain doesn't work quite yet. I had to remind him last Wednesday when I did their laundry for the week that he had ZERO pairs of underwear for the week. A WEEK!!! I told him we need to maybe make assigned days to take a shower or bath because that's not okay. Brandon always wakes up early and gets his chores done, bed made and breakfast eaten and cleaned up before most of us wake up. So this morning, as usually, he was chilling on the couch as Elliott was walking out the door for work. Elliott asks Brandon, hey when was the last time you took a bath? Brandon slyly looks up with a grin on his face and says, "Nobody know, dad." 🤣🤣

Some of the Beehives in the ward are desperately working to earn their YW medallion before the program changes at the end of the year. They decided to throw an Activity Days Camp to get some of their goals passed off and my girls LOVED it! Melanie doesn't turn 8 until next year but they were nice enough to let her come and Audrey was able to get to know the beehives better before she joins them in January. They were there Friday night and most of Saturday. I loved hearing how much fun they had and am glad they are building bonds with the girls in the ward.  While they were gone Brandon and I were able to hang out and get some pizza together. There is this place called Mod Pizza down the street we had never tried so thought we would check it out and it's pretty cool! It's like a Subway for pizza, you get to pick any topics you want and they cook it right up for you. We were fans! And I'm always a fan of hanging out with this dude.

I was asked to give a talk a couple Sundays ago. I KNEW as soon as Elliott was called to be in the bishopric my days were numbered and of course I was the first person he asked to speak! I was overwhelmed by the response I got from baring my testimony, I don't know if we realize how rampant faith crisis's are and how they are effecting so many people and families. I wish there was space at church for those struggling with testimony, and way for them to know that they are still wanted there. We want them and need them. I wanted to share it here so I can remember what this time felt like. I wanted to end my talk by baring my testimony. I've been debating how vulnerable I wanted to be here because I haven't born my testimony in a few years and the reason for that is because I lost my testimony, at least a significant portion of it. Faith crisis seems to be the new cool term to call it but I can guarantee there isn't one thing cool about it, it's earth shattering ...

When the AC goes out, we go out to dinner! It went out Sunday night around 9:00pm so the kids were already asleep and not effected, but I felt like I was basically roughin it like a pioneer that night! Eventually we fell asleep. I spent the rest of the day at the elementary school working on PTO stuff to avoid the heat and when I get back it was 88 degrees. The guys finally came to fix it around 4:00 but it was too warm to cook anything. So we checked out a place we haven't been before, the kids were in a pretty goofy mood and we had a fun time!

When we moved here and knew how intense Elliott's schedule was going to be we made it a priority to have a date night every Saturday. It's something we both look forward too every week. Last month was a challenge because last Saturday we had a ward BBQ and the week before a bishopric dinner. This week we almost didn't go again because I had a sacrament meeting talk to prepare for and Elliott had a class he needed to prepare for, but we realized it had been 1 year and we needed to celebrate. It's hard to believe one year ago he and I drove out here with all our stuff and moved him into a little apartment. It was the absolute worst saying good bye and leaving him behind, after he dropped me off at the airport and drove away I ran straight into the bathroom sobbing and had to take a min before going through security. I can't express how happy I am that time is over! So even though we didn't have a lot of time we wanted to at least sneak out for some tacos and ice c...

The girls love to do my hair and make up. You can take a guess at which one did which hair style! I will say that I am pretty impressed with how well Audrey has gotten at straightening and curling my hair, I think she does a better job than I do! I am always impressed with Melanie's creativity.