Allison's latest photo shoot.....

Allison is getting really good at this photography thing........ I loved this particular shot but go to her website and see the others - they are all pretty amazing. Some of you from Texas might recognize the last bride she did. Gorgeous!

http://allisonrexphotography.blogspot.com/

John & Allison were here in Texas - YAY!

This last weekend was my Dad's wedding! John and Allison were able to come and it was fantastic having them here! We were extremely sad that Anne Marie could not take any more time off of work at the Hospital, with Allison's Wedding, Mom's Funeral, and this all in the same year......yeah, the Hospital didn't seem to understand.....well, that is a lot of time off for 1 yr! But we talked to Anne Marie and thought about her all the time and even went shopping for her to send gifts home...... so you were with us in spirit Anne Marie! We love you so very much!

So, now to the crazy things that happened before the wedding and before the kids came! Thursday was the day that we moved out the very few things that my Dad was taking with him to Barbara's. Then we scheduled the carpet cleaners to come at 9:30 am that morning after his bedroom stuff was gone so they could clean that carpet and by the afternoon have the carpets dry enough to move our bedroom furniture into the Master Bedroom (Thanks Chem-dry). And then move some of our stuff out of storage and other places upstairs so there would be a guest room for Allison and John to sleep in while they were here!

There was also the taking all the utilities and dishnet etc... out of my Dad's name and putting them in our names and the switching of beds in 3 different houses and the swapping out of a refrigerator! Plus all the cleaning and I mean deep cleaning that goes along with that. As if that wasn't enough to worry about....... We have bees inside the siding on the back of the house where the air conditioner unit is hooked up into the house. We had arranged for the bee keeper to come before the wedding but had to have a contractor there to take the siding off the house when the bee keeper comes to do this. Well, our Contractor couldn't come before the wedding because of Boy Scout Camp, so we had planned it for the next Tuesday, which was a couple of days after the wedding.......and since we really only saw a couple of bees inside the house every once and awhile that should have been fine.

The Dish Network guys came to hook up our new stuff and had a great fear of the bees and sprayed 3 cans of wasp spray into the hole that the air conditioner wire goes into the house (inside the siding) and this did nothing to get the bees out of their way....but totally made the bees so made that we had hundreds of bees in our home -- and I do not exaggerate when I say hundreds (I can't believe I didn't take a picture)and they still couldn't hook us up until they got someone that wasn't afraid of bees and that person just went up the ladder and threaded whatever wiring needed to be threaded and slick as a whistle hooked us up and the bees never bothered him a minute....

Here I am the night before John and Allison are suppose to come and not only am I trying to move furniture and my father and deep clean....but now I have bees all over and every morning when we woke up hundreds of dead bees everywhere! I was stung, Alan was stung, and my nephew Jimmie who is staying with us right now got stung! And I really wanted this time that my son-in-law came to be a normal visit....ha-ha!

Luckily the night that the kids came and stayed upstairs in the guest room, we only had 50 bees on the floor in the morning and Allison and John didn't see any upstairs! It was just us in the master bedroom that had that joy!!!!

Then the day before they came the washing machine broke down. And the truck was already gone so we couldn't get ours out of the storage and Alan didn't really want to be moving the washer and dryer out of the room when that was the room that all of the bees were coming in from so I have been going to the Laundromat or doing without the whole wedding weekend and with company to boot!

So Tuesday morning the contractor and the bee keeper came to take care of the bees and siding etc... and they cut through our air conditioner Freon line - REALLY? are you kidding me? And our phone with our new phone number was suppose to be all set up with our Internet on Friday the 18th, but because of them not being able to move my Dad's phone number because Barb's lines are too old and a big dog in the neighbors yard where the telephone poll is - they didn't move my Dad's number and we didn't get our phone and Internet service until yesterday.... whew!

But it was a great weekend. John and Allison are good sports.....we just had to laugh at all the craziness and John told me "I always have a great time when I come to visit" So I guess that is good even though he has never seen me "normal" and our life in "normal mode" we always seem to have some kind of craziness going on.

New Relief Society Presidency

Our Secretary moved out of our Ward at the beginning of March (We miss you sweet Morgan)! And it has taken us this long to get a picture of the new group......and at the end of this month our 1st Counselor will be moving. I am glad we got a picture for my personal history before she left....so better late than never!

The 1st Counselor is the 2nd one from the right (the tall skinny one - she has had 3 boys too and still is that skinny!). Before she was in the RS Presidency she was the Young Women's President and was Allison's YW's president when Allison was a Senior, not sure about the Junior year but definitely her Senior year in High School! As you can guess I was always really worried about Allison's time because she was involved in EVERYTHING and Senior year is the worst.....

My best memory of Sarah, is at the end of Allison's Senior year when everything is going full force with theatre, choir, banquets, awards, tests, auditioning for colleges etc.... she asked Allison to teach the combined YW/RS lesson in May I think and when she called to ask this, Allison wasn't there so I was taking the message and my Mom radar went up and I said something to the effect that Allison was extremely busy at this time and I didn't think she realized how much pressure she was under! Luckily Sarah persisted in asking Allison and I had a few minutes to take a step back from all the whirlwind of activities and realized that our family has never turned down an assignment unless there was just no way, and I needed to let Allison, who we had raised and taught all these correct principles to, make that decision.

Allison excepted the assignment to give the lesson and it was beautiful and I believe it was on answer to prayer or listening to the spirit or something like that. Allison of course did an amazing job and it was really wonderful to hear her testimony about answer to prayers! When everyone was coming up to me afterwards to to tell me what an amazing job Allison did on the lesson Sarah came up and not only told me how great Allison did, but said something along the lines of, I knew that this was a time in her life that she would be having to make BIG life decisions and that this would be a good reminder for her to depend on and listen to answer to prayer!

And at that time Allison was having a huge debate over which college to go to..... whether to go to Sam Houston and know that she could be in shows and have more exposure in a smaller college and hope that she would be able to get to the Institute programs once and awhile and Church.....because the music theatre program there would have demanded a lot of her time on Sunday and basically every night of the week.

Or to go to BYU and hope that she would eventually make it into the major that she wanted to be in and be one of thousands of talented people and maybe never be recognized for her talent! But would be an amazing place for her to be spiritually!

Now this may seem like a simple answer....but you have to remember this is the girl that was always front and center on stage in High School, recognized with all kinds of awards etc.... and dreamed of being on Broadway some day! So it was a tough decision and maybe a real test of her testimony! I know we were all relieved when she decided to go with BYU (I'm sure only because of answer to prayer and her accepting that answer).

And she has done awesome at BYU, changed her mind about needing to be on Broadway (not that I don't think she could have done it.....because I do believe she could have) has picked doing something she loves (theatre education) that she can make a living doing if she needs to/wants to. And met an amazing young man that loves her and supports her and will help her get back to her Heavenly Father......all because she listened to the spirit and went to BYU! And probably all because Sarah, listening to the spirit asked Allison to teach a lesson for RS at the very busiest time of her life! I'm so glad that I stepped back and didn't let the "protective mama" stop this from happening and let Allison decide if she wanted to (of course she chose the better part) and she was able to find the Lord's path for her life! She is so happy and I love Sarah for being the kind of YW leader that she was!

I also will miss getting to see Sarah in action in our Presidency meetings. Just recently I am trying to take a page from her example and do better myself on something. I have just started and it will take some practice! But I hope I can do it with persistence, because I do believe I will be a better person/leader because of it!

You will be so very missed Sarah and your cute little family....but we will all be better people for having known you!

A mother's right to brag......

So, my girls are doing great in College!

My oldest is at Salt Community College/pre-nursing and getting a 4.0. And these classes are very difficult classes like Biology, Chemistry, so on and so forth! I'm so proud of her determination.



And my youngest, is at BYU and got a 4.0 this semester and a 3.75 overall! And this is at BYU, really quite amazing! BYU professors think that BYU is Harvard and so expect that kind of work. I'm very proud of her as well! In fact this last year Allison was invited to join the Golden Key Honor Society, which I later found out that they only invite the top 10% of the College to join.



Aileen, my middle girl, just gets a 4.0 in life! And I love her dearly - well actually Aileen is the professor and Alan and I are the students...... I wonder what kind of GPA we are earning........

So, thanks for letting me have this moment to brag!

Allison's first photo shoot!

I'm so excited for this new adventure that Allison is taking with her photography. Although this hobby is an expensive one.....she does have an eye for it and that is a direct quote from others not just her mother! Here are a few shots from her first photo shoot, where she was asked by someome to document a precious memory!

Her photography wesite is http://allisonrexphotography.blogspot.com/ if you would like to go and check out more!

To get more experience and lots of practice she also has a coupon for anyone intersted in having a setting! Just in case you want to go for it.....

BYU Intramural Flag Football

My son-in-law is part of a BYU Intramural Flag Football team with people he works with on campus. And since Allison has her new camera and is practicing her techniques she has been taking pictures of their games. Here are just a few of her photos. And if you would like to see more here is her blog to go and check them out!

http://johnandallisonrex.blogspot.com/

Allison the photographer.....

Allison has found a new passion/hobby! She got a new fancy camera and just took her first pictures of her BYU Voice Teacher's baby boy! I think she has an eye for it. Anyway, I'm always a proud mom! Here are a couple of the ones I liked (of course I liked them all but I just picked a few).....

As you may remember it is her voice teacher that took Allison's headshots for Theatre, her engagement pictures, and her Bridals. So it was a huge compliment to Allison when after she saw the pictures she asked Allison to help her take pictures at a double wedding this summer!

She also, has found a great way to love Football, like her husband does, she took pictures of his game (he is on a intramural team at BYU), which I can't wait to see and will put those up soon as well. So now she can go to his games and take pictures and practice techniques!