my kind of tender mercy

Phew! I made it back to blogging! For the past two weeks I feel like I haven't had a chance to sit down, let alone blog. Here are just a few of the things that have been going on:

*I took a fun trip to California with my friends for our annual scrapbook convention where we get to see all the newest products coming out. I had a great time, and because I'm a 'designer', I got TONS of free products that aren't even in the stores yet!
*My parents were in town for my nephew's mission 'farewell'. It happened to be the same weekend I was in California, so I hardly got to see them, but fortunately they were able to stay with the kids while I was gone, so that worked out.
*My in-laws were in town (they came two days after my parents left) for Dave's nephew's baptism. They have been BUSY house-shopping and finally found a house they put an offer on. It's always fun to have family in town.
*Dave was called as the new Elder's Quorum President for our ward. He is going to do a great job! He is super busy and I've been trying to help out where I can -- printing this and that, getting this phone number, etc. Mainly, though, I haven't even seen him much because he's gone so much. I'm hoping that eases up a bit. I think it will.
*It is my month to teach sharing time. That is always added responsibility! But, I love, love, love working in Primary.
*Soccer has started -- practices, coaching, games, you get the idea. My TIVO is so full-- I haven't had a chance to sit down and watch much (besides 24) lately!

Anyway, I'm SURE I'm not as busy as most of you. But, I just wanted to share a fun tender mercy that happened a few weeks ago. I was feeling a bit down one day -- nothing in particular, just the type of night that you want to get in your pj's at 6:30 p.m., put the kids to bed real early, pull out the carton of ice cream and watch a chick flick. Instead, I drove over to my sister's house to play games and visit with my parents. I was leaving for CA the next day and new I wouldn't see much of them.

They let me chose which games I wanted to play, so I chose my favorites -- Scrabble and Settlers of Catan. I sat in the middle of the table so I could play both! I played Settlers with my nephews while I was playing Scrabble with my sister and her husband and my parents. About 1/2 way through, a new episode of Monk came on (my sister and her family are fans, as am I). So, we watched that and played during the commercials. We were also eating ice cream. I sat back and thought -- this right here is a tender mercy! I'm eating ice-cream, watching Monk, and playing two of my favorite games at the same time, surrounded by family. Can life get any better? Well, it did -- because I won BOTH games! (My mom and I were on the same Scrabble team, so I can't take all the credit! She kept apologizing for picking 'bad' tiles -- like the X, the Z, and the Q. I had to convince her those were the best tiles she could pick!).

As I was driving home at 11:30 p.m. that night in the quiet drizzle of rain, listening to awesome 80's songs on the radio, I was really happy. It doesn't take much more than family, food, and fun to get me out of a bad mood! I pulled in our driveway, and was a little confused because we had been toilet-papered! There was shaving cream and toilet paper everywhere! Crazy! Here are a few photos. My first thought was 'what the heck?'. My second thought was 'I'm leaving for CA tomorrow. I don't have to clean this up!" Nice, huh! But the kids and Dave had a great time cleaning it up.

So, next time you are feeling down, pull out your Scrabble game, get out the ice cream, turn on Monk, and call me up!