The Randall Family monthly outing

So since my parents have been away to Africa our family has made the goal to still do things together and not allow our family to fall apart, even though our parents are gone. I have to say that it's harder to get family together because of everyone's busy schedules. But there is no where else I would rather be than with my family. This months activity we wanted to get together with our extended family in Ogden. My dear Uncle Allan who passed away last year left his sweet wife alone and we want to make sure we still visit her so we went up to Ogden to the tree museum. Before that we stopped at my Aunt Cleone's place to have pizza, salad, fruit, and dessert. My Aunt Elaine and Uncle Max were able to come also, it was so much fun seeing them. I have to say I have great Aunt's and Uncle's, even though they are quite a bit older than my dad. (my dad was born when my grandma was 45, a little bit of a surprise. And I found out on this trip that my Aunt Elaine in the white sweater below had a baby the same time my dad was born, weird). Having lunch was fun and just relaxing and catching up. The kids were having fun playing with all the cool toys my Aunt Cleone has. Then we headed off to the tree museum. If you ever get to go there it's right across the street from the temple and it's really inexpensive, compared to the kids museum in Salt Lake. We had a lot of fun dressing up and going from room to room. Here are some pictures from the day.

Here we are in Kenya, for my parents



My cute little nieces dressing up in the chinese clothes

My silly brother-in-law Greg and my brother Jarom

My cute husband and my brother sitting in the tree :)

Boys will be boys when it comes to building stuff

Welcome to the Game of Life

So Dave and I have been feeling really old lately. Technically we are older, which happens in life, but we have been feeling really old. We qualified for life insurance and were so excited to be approved seeing as there are so many technical qualifications that we didn't know about. So now we have life insurance and feel old. We also feel like we are playing the game of life. Does anybody else feel like that? Maybe it's because the last 7 years of my life have been spent sitting my butt in a classroom and I haven't had an actual career income. Because of that I haven't had any money to buy anything, like a car or couches or life insurance. I've just had to make due with hand-me-downs. My favorite hand-me-down was my parents Buick Le Sabre, that was a classic hand-me-down. So now that Dave and I actually have careers we are now in the game of life and have finally bought cars that run and now have life insurance. I keep thinking back to when I was in grade school and the most important decision I made about my future was what I did at recess :) My how life changes so quickly.

Can I just paint?

So Dave and I have not anything extra special going on the last few weeks. We both are still working and Dave is working hard at school. For me, work has been especially hard the last few weeks and I've wondered why. I keep thinking back to my mission when I had an American companion who I absolutely loved. She was so much fun and never got discouraged by the work. One day when we were talking about how hard life can get and how hard it is to work with people she told me that eventually she would like to just paint walls. It involves only you, the wall, and the paint. It doesn't involve any people, emotions, feelings, etc. I just laughed at her then, but lately I have been thinking about how appealing that sounds. I love the people I work with but sometimes it can be overwhelming to think that I have so many responsibilities to help the lady that lives in trailer home to apply for Medicaid and help find a way for her to pay all her late medical bills. So right now I would be happy to just paint walls. Incidentally, that companion I talked about is now in graduate school to be a Marriage and Family Therapist, she is going to be amazing at what she does!!

P.S. I know the image has nothing to do with the post but it seemed like a soothing picture :)