Lunch Dates

This is why these two are my favorite people in the world.



I love going to lunch with them when Annie skips school. Its the best.

Timing is perfect as usual

I think Heavenly Father really wants me to know that his timing is impeccable and that somehow he's always looking out for me and has the best answers to suit my needs and others at the same time. I think it would take me four pages to write out the myriad of times in my life where I can see just how
perfect
the Lord's timing was including how/when Devin and I met and got married...


but apparently I don't recognize this enough in my life and so I got another one thrown at me last night and I am so grateful for it.


I met this friend of mine a couple of months ago when I was called as her visiting teacher. We had a lot of similarities and so we hit it off and always had so much fun when we were together. Needless to say it was really easy to get my VT done when I saw her because we always had a good time hangin' with her kids etc.

Anyways she moved out of the ward so I wasn't her VT anymore but we tried to stay in touch.

Recently she just moved close by me again and so we ran into each other. She told me that she was having her son tested because he hadn't started talking yet.

We went a while with out seeing each other again and randomly on Thursday I had the thought while in class that I needed to give her a call.

Well I put it in my brain on my list of things to do and she beat me to the punch and called me last night. I went over and talked to her and she told me her son was diagnosed with autism and she wanted to know if I would be his respite and habilitation provider.

OF COURSE I WILL!

I was so excited. For a while now I've been wanting to take on another client but I'm with Annie most of the time that she isn't at school so it didn't make much sense to get another client unless it was a younger child and I could work with them during the day when Annie was at school. So working with this family is PERFECT! Her son is two and just diagnosed so this mom is having to go through all the beginning steps and paperwork that comes with state service like occupational therapy, speech therapy etc. I also really want to do early intervention when I get older and advocacy and so this AMAZING mom is letting me help her while this child is still young so it is going to be the most amazing learning experience ever!

When Annie was younger getting all of her early intervention done, I was between like ages 8-10 so I hardly remember what we did for her. So this is my great opportunity to learn as much as I can about the parent's side of early intervention. I am so excited! This mom said I can come to all of the meetings with her and help take notes for her so she understands and so that I can learn.

Just goes to show that Heavenly Father knows EXACTLY what both of us needed and just how to help us both in the situations we are in.

hilarious. i heart everyone that ever worked at jc's.

may i please direct you to this blogpost. I hope you find it as hilarious as i did. i congratulate this family on making my night.

the end.

road trip

So last weekend dev and annie and i went on a little three day road trip with devin's dad david to san jose. it consisted of two nights of no sleep, getting to know devin's dad a lot better because he was the only one that stayed awake with me, hanging out with the fletcher crew and ainge bunch, eating tasty breakfast, and chillin' out max and relaxin' all cool.


annie is elated because she called shot gun for the trip up and the two guys over six feet tall conceded and sat in the back.


devin trying to stay awake all night with his DP which actually resulted in him asleep about 5 hours later


ten points to anyone that can find me a license plate holder that says jones fletcher on it like this one.
picture of devin and his two wives. devin is under strict instruction that when i die the only other person he can marry is annie.

we had tasty breakfast compliments of this very pleasant couple who are friends with devin's uncle. annie and i were very pleased with the food.


unfortunately this trip was strictly no smoking so my hands shaking got in the way of my camera...or at least i thought until i saw these pictures...


notice I am in the picture so it was not my hands shaking that made the picture shake. oh wait...an older gentleman was taking the picture who could have had a tremor...so the hand shake is still a possibility in my camera's inability to function. I was hoping to rule out my hands and blame it on the camera.

the trip was really for the adults to get together and go to a oregan state football game vs stanford and so annie and i on our off time (i think devin slept 75% of the time we were on this trip) went to the park and had a photo shoot.



haha apparently we aren't quite up to amanda's standard yet.

but the trip was a success i didn't run us off the road and david got to see his family. annie and i hung out like the bffs we are and devin got some much needed sleep. the end.

us smelling "the pretty"
sorry mom bad representation of your hair

so my mom used to say that even when she was in her grave i would come over and tap on the coffin and be like umm...mom just one more thing because she kind of made my life possible due to all of the help she gave me. needless to say i kind of resented her comment and wish she didn't view me that way but dang it all the time i think mom, i need just one more thing. examples include but are not limited too:
1. wishing all us girls could go to the relief society broadcast and then out to dinner like we used to.
2. being in the grocery store not knowing where to find random things i.e. today when i had no idea where condensed milk would be found so I called amanda and oftentimes she solves my problem but sometimes (like today) we are both clueless and wished we could call mom.
3. needing help knowing how much food to get for a ward party, i just got put in charge of our ward halloween party and that was her specialty. she would have known how much food i would need and where to get everything.
4. needing gardening advice. somehow my dad didn't pick that up from her she just always did it so he doesn't know.
5. needing my friend who i laid on the bed with and talked to about EVERYTHING.

so mom,
just a couple thousand more things...

already scratched that itch.

Dear Mom Dixon,

I completely understand the urge to dig in dirt. The gardeners itch perhaps? I can't call myself a gardener yet because I'm not that good at it but I'm learning and I would rather buy flowers then pay bills. So I think I'm on my way. Which leads me to this weekends activities, buying flowers and planting them. Probably a tinsy bit premature. I should have maybe waited a couple of more weeks but I have school the next three Saturdays and the compulsion to plant won. My downstairs neighbor who offers both very friendly gardening advice and just told me I could use her hose so I don't have to hand water everything (happy face) told me about these things that can hang on rails to hold your pots. I found them at the ever famous big lots where I was buying a pink horse for pickles to play with as she recovered from her recent bout with the croup (I think my mom put me on autopilot to go there as it was her favorite store to buy presents at) and had a party when I found them. I also tried to buy a hose for myself and bought a soaker hose instead of a normal one which would have essentially soaked my apartment every time I watered (hence why I can't call myself a gardener yet). So after I took that back and bought a couple more racks for my pots so I could fit them all on my rail I decided I have enough flowers for now. Now, until I can figure out how to shade my other porch balcony to have more flowers. Right now its too sunny to grow anything. But I'm working on it. Until then...flowers make me happy.

Sincelrely Yours,

Laura Fletcher




P.S. The empty looking long pot is actually sweet peas that I'm hoping will grow up the rail.

Life is Rectified.

I nervous to post this because I'm afraid as soon as I do something will go poorly for me. But I need to be grateful and I want to blog about it because things are just so happy!

So my sunday started so so. I had prepared my lesson but had some final touches so I went to steal some tree branches across the street to make a fake tree as part of my lesson. I usually don't use the object lessons because they are boring but I like this weeks so I went for it. The whole idea was that we need to cling to our standards which were previously metaphorically compared to trees. So I went out on a walk at 7:30 to cut branches in v.v. lakes. It was really nice that morning and I was enjoying my day. I decided I need to walk in the morning and enjoy the good weather (don't worry I act like a 50 year old). So after collecting my tree specimens I went home and showered.


Fake tree poorly done. I promise my finished product looked better than this.

I started getting ready with full intention of being at church early because dev had to be there 30 minutes early to greet people . I did my hair and it was so goofy. It wouldn't work and so I showered again and restarted. Nine o'clock rolls around and I am not even close to ready to go to church. Anyway long story short I finally got there and set up for my lesson. I had it in a different room because I couldn't get the fake decorative trees in the foyer to fit in my classroom so I switched rooms with devin who is in the cultural hall. I set up my room and I was so excited to give my lesson with all its glorious tree decorations and such and when I got to YWs they were setting apart the Laurel presidency and the Mia Maids presidency. 45 minutes later we got done and I had 15 minutes to give my lesson. My friend Courtney that came to my class said it turned out okay but I felt like a complete failure and that it was terrible and that I went to all that effort for nothing. So we get the trees back where they go (p.s. these trees are 8 feet tall and really heavy so this is a three person ordeal) and we go home and I find this!!!!!




The blue pot is the pot my old next door neighbor used to put out her cigarettes and then gave us once she moved and has sat outside our door ever since. I haven't done anything with it yet. But the new one had a note!

I was so excited! I love geraniums! They remind me of the easter dress my mom bought me when I was four because she would always pin a red geranium to that I thought smelt like pepper. (not that most flowers don't have some story that reminds me of my mom)

But so so nice! I suspect that it was our neighbor that lives under us because there was water by it and she has a hose and she has really pretty flowers too. My other suspicison is because I asked her the other day about how to grow seeds and we talked about how she got all her pots when her gma died and my mom bought me all of mine. The constant reminder to water is because we talked about how all of mine died when my mom did because I forgot to water them. Also my sneaky sleuthing skills led me to this.


See the potting soil? That is her porch. What a fantastic neighbor! I think I'm going to make her cookies even though I'm not positive 100% that it was her. But I think my deductions were well based on scientific proof aka a picture of potting soil.

Anyways it did just as was intended and brightened my day right up! I am so excited for my new flower! It makes me want to plant my seeds instead of waiting for October like I should.

We also get to go to the asu institute dedication today. That is if I can get dev off the couch from watching football. My couch is currently occupied by these fine folks.



Today is a good day. Its amazing what 4 dollars worth of flowers can do to my mood. Flowers make me so happy!

As angie would say...

{Happy Sunday!}

it is a sad day when I type blogger.com in my URL and it doesn't automatically come up because it has been so long since I've been on and or posted. Shame on me.

Bubs's swim meet

Judy's swim meet was last thursday. This consists in an excuse for all of us girls in the family to go to Sonic, get tasty drinks and then sweat the amount of 64 oz. while watching bubs swim fantastically (except for when she misses her event. Ooopsies!) So it was pretty much a scorcher last thursday and we were dying in the heat until Delia broke her stroller and was no longer restrained from jumping in the actual pool so we went to go play on the playground in this amazing mess of sprinkler extrodinairiness thing..y. Anyways Delia and Eden loved it.

Delia tried to follow Eden under a sprinkler that was shooting out really hard. Eden ducked but Delia didn't quite duck fast enough which resulted in her getting shot in the side of the face and so she tried to quickly turn around which resulted in her getting shot in the other side of her face with the sprinkler. It was hilarious and made her hair look funny and her face very startled.

I love this child.

This is Eden pre getting into the water.
She doesn't look like she quite knows how she feels about it...


but then she got used to it.
Eden is making a daniel pose in this one.



I really wanted to get soaked and go back into the swim meet looking like a drowned rat after playing with the girls but amanda would have none of it. Dang her and her social propriety.


But yay for amanda and her adorable girls. They make my camera happy.
(Hence the ridiculous amount of pictures of them)

Last Weekend

So last weekend our fantastically nice friend courtney told us to clear our schedules for friday and saturday because she had a surprise for us. So we did just that and waited for her to tell us what our impending surprise was. She came over that friday night and we thought we were going somewhere with her. She shows up at our house around 6 and proceeds to hand us a card. Apparently she decided that we needed a replacement first anniversary since ours was kind of lame. See earlier post. Inside the card is money and two keys to a resort in scottsdale!!!! Who is that NICE? So she basically bought us a weekend of amazingness.

We went to china china for dinner because their Chinese food is tasty and there are huge portions for our fat bellies and they serve wontons before you get your food which happen to be my most favorite things in the world. We enjoyed our dinner and then headed to the hotel. We got there and found that the hotel grounds were decorated in twinkle lights my fav. Definitely amazing. We finally found our room and walked into this.

Not only did she cover our room in roses and rose petals, she also left us all of this food which had all of our favorite treats and drinks.

Needless to say, all of the food she left us made us very very happy. And very full and round. Devin really enjoyed his dr pepper coctails which consisted of him drinking D.P. with a red vine for a straw. We loved it. It was one of the best weekends we've spent together.



Three cheers for Courtney! WE LOVE HER! Have we mentioned that we have the best friends in the world???