Today was great. I got to sleep in, but still had enough time to finish up the Christmas cards that need to be hand carried to the post office and still had enough time to take my time getting to Church. We had a good meeting in branch council. It sounds like we will be starting a teacher development class again.

I was asked during sacrament meeting to come up and bear my testimony and talk about the temple. This was supposed to be a way to use up 10-15 minutes, but I couldn’t come up with anything to talk about in the 15 seconds it took me to walk to the stand. I talked for maybe two minutes. If I had been told that I would be speaking later I’m sure I could have come up with 5-15 minutes of material, but I didn’t want to just throw something out there without pondering it first.

Kyle ended up not being able to join us today, so Sister Dowden stepped in and taught gospel principles which worked out really well. I was sad that I didn’t get to enjoy Marissa’s lesson, but I’m sure it was great.

I had a great time catching up with some friends who are back for Christmas today. I guess there is more to like about Christmas than the cookies…

It sounds like it’s going to be a busy week. This is also our stake’s week to go to the temple, so I’m going to have to try and find some time. Our branch’s day is Friday, but with everything else going on I don’t know if that will work out the best. I still haven’t figured out what I’m doing tomorrow, but I guess since I haven’t told otherwise, i had better plan on showing up at GT around 9!

I enjoyed my day off today – maybe a little too much. I never left the house/property. I blew off the driveway after taking my time to do some reading this morning. Then I put up some Christmas lights. I was thinking there would be more, but I couldn’t find them easily, so I figured I’d wait for more direction. The direction didn’t come so I called it quits.

I spent most of the rest of the day working on writing Christmas cards. I’ve got what seems like a huge stack here, but it is really not that many when you look at the numbers. I’m probably about halfway through where I would like to be, and a quarter of the way through where I should be! I’m going to have to make a special trip to the post office for many of the cards which will probably require extra postage and being hand canceled. That means I really need to get at least the rest of those kind of cards done tomorrow so I can take them all in at once on Monday.

I got some reading in as a break from the card writing and then watched Casino Royale this evening. I never made it to the shower, nor did I ever shave today. i feel so much like a slacker, but I guess it is OK every once in a while.

I haven’t found gifts for really anyone other than one. It just isn’t coming easily. I don’t even have a clue as to what most people would appreciate.

I bought tickets for Brad Paisley today – for both Idaho and SLC. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with them both because I don’t have a clue, but I guess I’ll figure it out and just make that one heck of a concert week. Brad twice and then Garth Brooks. I guess that means I’ll be going to Idaho the last week of January for the temple open house.

We had a good lesson tonight at FHE from Dan. He made us match up dates and events from Joseph Smith. I cheated and pulled up a Joseph Smith history on lds.org, but we still had a good time. Our team won, not only because we were done first, but also because we had them all correct. Somehow the other team ended up with one wrong, but I’m pretty sure in matching games you would have to get at least two wrong, so I’m not sure what was going on over there!

I came home tonight hoping to get some stuff done, but time has just disappeared. I was thinking about taking a Linksys exam, but decided that I probably wouldn’t have enough time to really put forth the appropriate effort for it. I did do a little bit of review, so maybe I can find an hour to take it at work tomorrow. I was also hoping to get some reading time in, but I knew that probably wasn’t going to actually happen. I am going to get to bed at a reasonable time though, so here goes step one!

I think the lesson tonight at FHE went well. I didn’t have as much time to prepare as I was really hoping for today, but I had way more than enough material and probably talked too much as it was. We had great participation which was awesome. We tried to wait for Maegan, by even singing two songs – Christmas songs thanks to Larilyn, but she still didn’t show up until we were almost done. We talked about being prepared for all the things of life. I hope i was able to get the message across that someone needed to hear and will cause him or her to find out what he or she needs to prepare for and do so.

We went to Mimi’s after FHE, but people started disappearing before we even got orders in. I guess I need to shower more frequently or something! It was good, but it is now past my bedtime and I was going to try to show up to work on-time tomorrow!

Today went pretty well. I had sufficient time to do some reading this morning before church, got through all the meetings without starving to death – although I think I was getting a little thirsty more than once and couldn’t talk because of it. I had some more time to ponder what I’m going to speak on tomorrow night and think I have some stuff coming together. I’m hoping I can just kind of lead a discussion and others will take it away and the spirit will direct us to where we need to be, but I want to make sure I have enough other things to discuss in the event that doesn’t work out so well. Maegan says she is probably going to come and bring some friends from Vista, so I need to have an extra good and spiritual message for them! Really my only concern at this point is that I am possibly not focused enough on a topic, but I’m hoping we will get the focus and focus where we need to be tomorrow night.

I’m talking about being prepared. I’m hoping somehow to tie into this discussion of choices we make and the consequences they leave for us. I’m thinking we will make a list of all sorts of things to be prepared for and then talk about a few of them in detail about how we can best prepare. I’m thinking I will use the recent fires as an example of being prepared to evacuate out house and possibly never see it again. Also, the trip to the DR and getting things in order and backup plans in place in case something was to happen to us while traveling. The overall message is that we need to make a choice to be prepared or we are going to meet the consequences of not preparing. Hopefully it turns out well.

I’m off to bed. Hopefully i can get a good night’s sleep and still get up early enough to get some more preparation in for FHE. Good night!

I pulled myself out of bed just before 9 this morning in order to get on Ticketmaster in an attempt to get tickets to Garth Brooks. I waited for 9 and kept refreshing the page. I was in the ticket queue no more than 30 seconds after they released the tickets. I saw the please wait message go from 5 minutes down to 2 minutes then up to 15 minutes before finally telling me that there were no tickets available. It was 9:05 at this point. I was ready to give up, but Nathaniel told me they added another show. So I started looking there. I got 6 tickets in nosebleed for Friday night. Then they added a Saturday early evening show, no luck. Then Friday evening. I was able to get another 6 lower level straight back here. They first offered me directly behind stage seats which I decided against. They then added a Saturday afternoon show, but I didn’t really care at that point. I think Nathaniel has 6 tickets for each of the shows I have tickets for as well, so we could get a good group together or choose the best seats and sell the others.

Tickets for Brad in Idaho went on sale this morning as well too, but I wasn’t sure if I should commit to buying them, so I didn’t. After breakfast and once I got to reading, it was about time to get ready for another wedding. Of course, it started raining just before I left. It further turns out that the wedding I thought was at 4 was really at 3 and therefore I was an hour late when I showed up at 2! I guess it was a good thing I was there at 2 and not 2:30! It all worked out as I probably would have waited until then to put the sound gear out anyway. In fact, it was good news that the wedding was earlier because that freed up plans for the evening. The Vista ward was going to the temple at 5 (of which I had a chance of making it from a 3 o’clock wedding, but no chance from a 4 o’clock one).

So, I didn’t make the 5:30 session, but Larilyn and I went for the 6:30 session. We met up with Maegan for dinner though, after talking her into it. She had never been to Outback, so we ended up going there even though Larilyn wanted Claim Jumper. The service was incredibly slow, so i don’t think she’ll be going back. Next time we’ll let her pick and go to Mimi’s.

I enjoyed sleeping in this morning. i woke up first around 6, but then went went back to sleep while enjoying the sound of rain until about 9:30! I did some work and before I knew it I was at the point I needed to be getting ready for the wedding. Somewhere along the line this morning I realized that rain meant new adventure …

I came home and read for a few minutes before Maegan talked me into going to the “Night at the Oscar’s” at the Vista Stake Center. I had never gone to one of these when i was a member of the ward, but she pressured me into going and Larilyn told me that I had already told her I would go. Some of the movies were a little weird, but some were funny as well. (I’m sure they were all better if you knew the people in them.) We ended up sitting in the stake center talking for another hour or so before finally deciding it was time for bed. I’d do it again if presented with the option.

It is still raining, so I’m doubting I’ll get to go for a ride in the morning, but I guess that will get me out of blowing off the driveway as well! I’m going to enjoy sleeping tonight with the sound of the rain and tomorrow may be somewhat a repeat of today.