We were in the first showing

of captain EO at Disneyland
Talk about a flash to the past. Bad acting, corny script, good dancing. Jamie said, "Better than you could have done." Lots of interesting fans with sparkly gloves and MJ tee-shirts. We even saw one really large guy pushed down but not trampled. The lines were short on all the rides all day, which made for a good day.

Tuesday we had a beautiful day at Disneyland. The Score Family joined us along with Vinny, their foreign exchange student from Mongolia and Robin Fratus. Andrew drove down after work and brought us pizza. I took pictures while he went on California Screamin'. Della said that every time they go to Disneyland, Rachel wins stuffed animals out of the arcade game with the claw, so her daughter Alora, gave Rachel some money to play the claw for her. In one try Rachel picked up TWO stuffed animals. Alora gave one to Jamie.

Stake Sweetheart Dance February 2010

One of my duties as stake cultural arts specialist is to put on the annual stake sweethearts' dance . I have been working on it a little at a time for th past 3 months. On February 13th it finally came to pass. I must have had a hundred people working in various capacities to make this thing come together. It reminded me of the

Christmas holidays, with everyone coming together to celebrate a holiday by decorating and preparing food, but on a much larger scale. Our theme this year was "One Night in Cabo.....es Muy Romantico" This is a picture of me the day of the event, as we decorated the walk way with yards of tulle, fish and green lights. We had the sound of ocean waves playing as they walked past this scene. At night, in the dark, the green lights made it look irridescent. We had rope lights strung around the palm trees at the entrance with a big welcome sign.

In the picture below is Suzanne Birkett. She was my co-chairman for the event. She was so helpful and creative. Behind her was my fountain, which we turned on at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, but it didn't start. We were disappointed, but went on decorating. When we came out to greet people at 5:45 , low and behold, the fountain came on. At the end of the walk-way we had this scuba diver picture for couples to take their picture in. In the picture at the top you can see in the distance on the stage some entertainers called Sound Stage. They are a 6 part a Capella group who have won awards for being the best harmony group in LA and 2nd best for the country of Taiwan. They won a Dodge Caravan for a jingle they entered on the View TV show. One of the members is Suzannes's nephew, so we got them to perform. We gave them a standin ovation for their performance.

We decorated the foyer with this boat and mural. Andrew was just testing it out. When people walked in the foyer we had the lights dimmed and little white lights around the boat (by Andrew's feet) Jim Moser played romantic music on his guitar while his wife sat in the boat looking adoringly at him. It actually was their anniversary. In the above right picture is Linda Butterfield. She is an art teacher at Valley College and painted all the murals you see on the walls. She and I went to downtown LA and got muslin for a dollar a yard for her to paint on so we are just going to store the murals for other events.

We got the tables and lights all set up Thursday and Friday before the big day.

Stake Sweetheart Dance February 2010

To the right is President Avarell, his wife Faye and Laura Collis. Laura is the one that gave me many of the recipes we used that night. The Rancho San Bernardino Ward made over 500 tamales. If you have my cookbook, we used the recipes on page 26.

Suszanne & her husband Bishop Birkett and Stephnie Fratus.

Christian, Emily, Rachel, Mandie, and Jamie acted as waiters for the 430 plus guests, along with 15 other youth from our stake. They received a lot of complements for their courteous service.

My favorite part of the night was slow dancing with Andrew and holding Macey. Thanks Meagan and John for bringing her, doing my hair and picking up the tortillas!

Snow Shoeing at the Children's Forest February 2010

In between all the good weather we have had, we had a big snow storm. I went snow shoeing wth Jamie's 6th grade class at Lake Gregory Elementory school. It was strikingly beautiful with the snow glittering in the sunshine. There were pristine creeks flowing between snow banks and wild animal tracks. Wonderful day.

Jamie and I.

Jamie's class poses for a picture in the
Children's Forest where we began our adventure.

(To the right) Jamie and her best friend Savannah exhibit their snowshoes.