Date Night – Covington, Georgia

Frank and I recently went on a fun date.  We checked out the town of Covington, GA.  I know….doesn’t sound that exciting…but it was a lot of fun.  First we took a hike along a river…we have no idea what river it was.  We went to Factory Shoals.  Someone had told us that they had some fun waterfalls on the river and it was a fun place to hike.  We never found the waterfalls, but we had a great hike along the river…it was REALLY humid though and the bugs were out….oh, yeah, we saw a snake on the trail too.

Frank on the River

 

 

The snake...

After the hike we checked out the local ice cream shop - Scoops. It sits on an old time Towne Square that is extremely quaint. There is a Back to the Future clock and huge magnolia trees.

Us with our ice cream on rockers outside the shop...

Frank in front of the clock and a Confederate monument.

 

Shayne in front of the monument.

Date Night – River Hike – Near Covington, GA…really not sure what river it is.

Shayne’s Birthday

It wasn’t a birthday I was looking forward to…but it turned out to be not so bad.  I guess I should just be happy to be alive, very healthy, and to have a family that loves me!  Life is good.

The family took me out to dinner at Don Tellos (TexMex). We had fun.

...Meggie Lou waiting for food...

...Mikayla and Don eating chips while waiting for their food...

The kids at Don Tellos...except for Liz (missing to the left) and Cody (who was in Utah at the time)...

Ooohhh...Frank got me some pretty jewelry for my birthday...I was totally surprised!!

Modeling the jewelry...not sure what the hand was for...it was a necklace and earrings :-).

Word got out it was my birthday (hard to hide when you have 6 kids at the table)...so they brought me a sombrero and a chocolate drizzled sopapia (yummy!) and then sang to me.

So, we watched Liz's soccer game and then got home just in time for cake, ice cream and presents before everyone headed off to bed (all sugared up). It was a fun birthday.

VIDEO: So, we didn’t bother to put candles on the cake (fire hazard, ya know?)….so I just pretended…

Shayne’s 2010 Birthday from Shayne Nolden on Vimeo.

Hanging out on Sunday Afternoon

I had a great time recently on a Sunday…just hanging out with the kids…

Above: Human Sandwich!! PJ, Liz & Shayne...

Above: PJ checking out Sophie's crate.

Above: Megan was asking Trivial Pursuit questions of the human sandwich participants.

Above: Liz enjoying being smooshed!

Shayne’s ?? BD

Shayne celebrated one of her many Birthdays at the end of January.

Above: OK…I wasn’t going to reveal how old I was…but Megan made me this awesome cake and I had to share it. But, I just don’t know what all that blue stuff is covering up my age…how did that happen??!! (the cake was YUMMY!!)

Above: Bring on the presents!!

Above: “Oh, yeah…I need help getting up at 5:50 to get kids out the door to school!”

Above: Frank was looking amazing in his new brilliant blue shirt. Weird…the cake is blue again.

Above: Time for cake and ice cream.

Above: Liz got a bunch of photos of me looking bad…so she obliged me by providing a weird one of herself!

Above: Liz and the gift she made me.

Date Night — Atlanta

We were a little worried when we first moved to the Atlanta area that our “Date Nights” were going to be a little bit less exciting than when we lived in Vegas. But we have discovered that there is plenty to explore in Atlanta. Here are a couple of our outings:

Above: We went to the CNN Center one night. Unfortunately we were too late for the tours. We are going to have to go back though…Shayne is addicted to CNN right now.

Above: This is (Frank) outside of Coke World in downtown Atlanta. This is near where Centennial Olympic Park is (where they had the bombing when the Olympics were in Atlanta).

Above: This is Shayne – also outside of Coke World.

Above: We discovered this really cool restaurant in downtown Atlanta (it is derived from Gone with the Wind). The decor was very cool and the food was to die for. Frank discovered molasses over cornbread here…he had never had molasses. He was dying over it and then I took a bite and was like, “Hmmmm…yeah…yummy.” I didn’t get it .

You can check out the interior at: http://www.pittypatsrestaurant.com/lookinside.html

Above: After dinner at Pittypat’s Porch, we got to go to an Atlanta Braves game (they were playing the NY Mets). Frank is a DIE HARD Braves fan…so it was really fun for him. The weather was perfect (it was in September), and it was just really fun to sit in the park and take it all in.

Above: The Braves ball park: Turner Field.

Above: More of Turner Field.

Above: We rode the Metro Train (MARTA) into the ballgame. This was taken late at night after we got to our final train stop.

Above: While I was taking this picture some “MARTA guy” told us that we couldn’t take pictures in that fake bus front….which is silly because it looks like that is what it is for. He was rambling about some terrorist thing or something…I don’t know. But we still got the photo .

Young Women Camp 2008

I was called to be the Stake Young Women Camp Director over a year ago.

**NOTE for those of you not familiar with that** Every year each local church group puts on a one week summer camp for the girls ages 12 to 18 in our geographic area. We take the girls up into the mountains or as far away from “society” as we can. They leave their cell phones and iPods at home and we try to get them out into nature where they can “feel the spirit” and concentrate on spiritual things as well as having a lot of fun for just a little while. They also certify in things like First Aid and other camp related items similar to what boy scouts might do***

I have to admit I wasn’t so sure about the calling at first. I’m not much of a camper and my mom had a good laugh when she found out what my new calling would be because of that.

But I worked on it for a whole year (who knew it took that long to put together! with a group of amazing people that had been going to camp for many years…and over that period of time I really came to appreciate the Girls’ Camp Program and the effect it can have on the girls (and the leaders). Liz, Megan and Mikayla all went to camp and had a great time.

Unfortunately for me, camp was the week before we moved in July! Camp ended on Saturday and our movers showed up the next Monday. So, I had to leave midweek and come home to get everything ready…I was extremely sad to leave because I missed some of the best “stuff” going on at camp! I had gone up on Saturday to help set up over the weekend before the girls showed up…so I had already been there 5 days when I left.

Our camp was in Southwestern Utah near Zion National Park (close to Kolob Lake). Our theme was “Anchored to Christ.” We had 6 “wards” there plus a group of YCL. YCLs are Youth Camp Leaders – the 16 and 17 year old girls who have already gone for 4 years and now serve as leaders at camp. We had 97 girls and about 50 leaders. Each group had their own ship name (e.g. LDSS Cheerfulness) and they decorated their camps accordingly. The stake camp was the “Stake Coast Guard,” the YCLs were the “LDSS Love Boat,” the men were the “Priesthood Pirates of Love,” etc. It was a lot of fun. Everything we did had a nautical bent to it.

Oh, yeah, and then there were those darn cooks : “The Black Galley – The Crooked Cooks.” They were a lot of fun and kept things interesting. Somehow our palm tree disappeared one day and reappeared hanging from the top of their cooking area. We had to keep our eyes on them the whole time . At least we got them back (a couple of times). It wouldn’t have been the same without them. We didn’t have to do any cooking. They prepared 3 awesome meals a day for us plus some great treats.

The girls got to go on a full-day hike to Zion National Park and do part of “The Narrows” hike. That was the day I went home, so I missed out on that…but I heard they had a lot of fun. They also got to do rapelling, shooting guns, a zipline, lots of crafts, plus good entertainment at night. We also did a Nighthike out in the forest with no flashlights (except for one group leader had one) where they went to 5 stations where there were scriptural characters (in costume) who talked to them about staying steady and true. It was really cool. I also missed the skit night.

So, as you can tell it had a great effect on me. I am bummed that I didn’t get more pictures. But I was always busy doing something, so there wasn’t much time. But I did get a few good ones. Check them out below:

Above: This was the Stake Camp. The white building to the furthest right was a showerhouse. That was the best part – a hot shower every day and flushing toilets. It could’ve been a totally different experience without that .

Above: Two of the awesome ladies I had the privilege to work with (Janine & Marrae). Everyone on the Camp Committee was so dedicated and hardworking. I was inspired by them all. We had complete leadership support.

Above: That’s me doing the zipline (before the girls arrived). That was the first time I had done that. It was scary stepping off the tower…ok, so I sat down and scooted off the first time
. There was a little bit of screaming involved…but it was actually a lot of fun!

Above: Woohoooo…I survived!!!

Above: The YCLS at the Amphitheater and President Jarvis conducting one of our first meetings as a group.

Above: The girls in the background in the yellow T-Shirts were our ward (Desert Sage). If you look close you can see Liz (center), Megan and Mikayla.

Above: Beverly Glen had the largest group of girls…they are in the Orange.

Above: Beverly Glen again (I never got a photo like this of our ward where my girls were). This is where we ate all our meals. You can see the line in the background getting their food.

Above: Girls enjoying camp (and getting ready to eat). The two on the left are YCLs (that’s Mary W. getting squeezed). Mikayla is in the middle, then there’s Elizabeth L. and Megan. If you notice their T-shirts…I got to design the Logo for the Camp, which is on the front of their shirts. I love doing stuff like that.

Above: The Lunch Line. The cooks did such an awesome job of feeding us all. Some of them have been coming up for years and years to do this for the Stake (Stake camp is every other year and the wards do their own camp on the off-year). They work really hard.

Above: The Brooks and Sis. Neel.

Above: Bishop Neel (troublemaker #1 , Bro Millette (accomplice #1) & Bro Justice (accomplice #2).

Above: So, when something got into the “Lost and Found” – you had to sing to get it back. SOMEHOW…it’s still a mystery ….Bishop Neels Boots and Hat went missing….hmmmm…..He got a little help from his friends. Yeah…I had to sing once too…

Above: Some Desert Sage Campers: Arielle, Alicia P., Jackie P., and Veronica.

Above: The Priesthood Posse. They took care of the camp via their quads. I regretted not bringing one of ours along with me…I was completely jealous .

Above: Carolee catching a ride.

Another Date Night – Danny Gans

We had been wanting to see Danny Gans for a long time. He is an impressionist that has been named “Entertainer of the Year” in Vegas for several years running.

We finally got to go at the end of April. It was a great show! We lucked out and some guy’s wife didn’t want to go at the last minute so we bought his 3rd row seats from him….it was great.

Above: OOPS! No flash photography??? OK…that’s why it so bad….no flash.
Above: I got in trouble for this one…used the flash .
Above: This is in the new Palazzo Hotel/Casino. We went there for Gelato after the show. Above: Frank and his “Boys”.

January 2008 – Shayne’s Birthday

Shayne celebrated a birthday in January…we won’t say which one .

Above: Liz, Mikayla, Shayne, Ashley, Donovan, PJ & Megan.
Above: Donovan, Megan, & PJ.
Above: Shayne & PJ. PJ painted the letters.
Above: Liz and Shayne.
Above: Shayne & Megan…and Megan’s creation.
Above: Ashley & Mikayla.

“Living it Large” in Vegas

We are trying to enjoy some of the fun that Vegas has to offer…while at the same time trying to stay away from the scary things it has to offer.

LEFT: Frank watching the water show in front of the Belagio on “The Strip.”

LEFT: Frank across the street from the Belagio on “The Strip.”

Above: Shayne across the street from the Belagio on “The Strip.”

Above: Shayne & Frank across the street from the Belagio on “The Strip.”

Above: Frank across the street from Planet Hollywood on the Strip.

LEFT: We got to participate in the version of “The Price is Right” that they do in Vegas. Neither of us got called up to be participants…but it was still fun.

LEFT: We LOVE the (free) water show at the Belagio…can’t get enough of it.

LEFT: The replica of the Eiffel Tower…it’s half the normal size. It’s fun to watch the Belagio watershow from up there too (it’s across the street).

LEFT: We got free tickets to see “The Producers” with Tony Danza playing the lead role. We had no idea what the content was…and were a little surprised…but overall it was a good presentation.Above: Shayne took Grandma Slade to see “Blue Man Group” at the Venetian in March. It was a great show!

Above: Grandma Slade before the show.

Above: Shayne (after the show) with one of the “Blue Men.”