Starting My Diet

I’m back up in my weight!! I ordered Nuturia-system diet before our trip and it was delivered while we were gone.  I’m up to 169 lbs.  I have got to get some weight off especially with summer coming. So today is the day I have officially started my diet for the month of May.  I plan to lose 10 pounds and keep going.   I  would like to get down to 149 that is losing 20 lbs.  If I stick to my diet faithfully I should be  able to lose 2 pounds a week which would put me at my goal weight by the end of June.
I can do it!!

Home Sweet Home

Feels good to Be back to our lake home.  The weather was 80 degree yesterday here at the lake. Summer is coming.  Excited to have the weather warm up.  I haven’t felt well today.  All tired out from our trip and all the driving.  I mange to get myself dressed for church and attend the last hour of our meetings today.  Just sitting on the porch swing enjoying the lake view.  Things are greening up here.  It is about a month behind on the leaves popping out compare to Salt Lake weather here at the lake.  I do love spring and all the flowering blossom trees this time of year.  Fun to see them in the Salt lake valley.  I really want to get some flowers planted here.  I love the tulips and daffodils.  I would really like to get some flowers beds at lake to enjoy.  We are trying to get our steps in and driveway poured this year, it will be nice to get the front of the cabin looking better off the highway. We have been frustrated trying to get someone to work on it.  Just have to be patience.  After staying at the beach home in California for the week it has put me in the decorating mood.  I loved the upper deck on the beach home and gave me some ideas for our lake home patio.  I would really like to get some fun patio furniture and flower pots for the porch.  They had the most fun succulent plants in their pots, I want to look for some up here even if they are plastic they would be fun to have and then don't have to water them. Going to look at the wholesale house to see what they have.  I want to find some fun flower pots too.

Jacobs Baptism Day April 28th, 2018

Grandpa & Grandma Symes with Jacob on his Baptism Day, April 28th, 2018

Cousin's at Jacob's Baptism Day,  front row left Jacob, Boston, Austin, Winston, Lincoln, Back row Saydee, Annie, Cole & Aubrey Noriega,  We love all these grandkids so very much!

Boston, Jacob, Lincoln, all getting baptized this year

A very special day !!  To gather as family for Jacob's baptism.  We are so proud of him to follow the example of our Savior.  Jacob gave a very good talk at his own baptism.  This has been a great tradition in the Noriega family, they each have spoke at their own baptism.   So proud of the Noriega grand kids, a great example to us all.  John Austin gave a beautiful closing prayer from the heart.  

Going Home Today

We are heading home today.  Our trip went by all to fast.  I cleaned out the fridge and bagged up the food we had to get rid of.  Lincoln and I walked down the street and gave it to a lady living on the beach area.  I noticed her the first day we arrived.  So sad. She seemed grateful for the food. We had a lovely trip.   Fun to be at the beach for a few days.  It always feels good to head home too.  Trisha & Buck left yesterday.   We are carpooling with the Thomas family on the way back.  The traffic is crazy busy.  We are trying to get ahead of the traffic traveling to Las Vegas for the weekend.  We hit it coming into California last Sunday and it it took us longer to travel about 2 hours more driving.   Fun to see Stacy and the kids.  We are heading back a few days earlier than scheduled so we can attend Jacobs baptism tomorrow.  We plan to have dinner with Craig’s mom tonight in St George.

Baby sitting Enzo

We are watching baby Enzo today while Stacy goes to Lego Land with Tasha.  Enjoying our time at the beach,  Tasha took a darling picture of Craig & Annie walking down the pier.

Craig & Annie,  Annie loves her papa!!

Our Baby Enzo playing in the Sand at California Beach

Chad and his boys Enzo, Jude

Having Fun at the Beach!!  We had a fun time spending time with the grandkids on our trip to California

Day 4

Our Darling Winston Thomas

We spent another day at the Beach.  The kids love playing in the ocean and sand.  Craig and I have been really tired today.  Our Day at Disney Land yesterday wore us out.  This is a beautiful view!
Our view from the upper deck on the top of the roof.   Craig & I had a nice lunch on the pier with Tasha & Annie.  It is beautiful here.  By 4pm the air starts cooling off fast.

Day at Disney Land

We put a full day in at Disney land.  Craig & I were beat when we got got back to our Beach villa.  It is so hard standing all day long in long lines for the rides.  It was very crowded.  The kids all had a great time.  We had great weather!  I didn't get to spend as much time with the little grand kids as I would have liked.  It was just to crowded.  We spent most of the Day with the Burbidge family riding the rides with Saydee and Karlee the older grandkids.

Disney Land  April 2018, Craig hadn't been since 1994 -24 years since our girls were little, Tasha was 6 yrs old then 

Natasha with her Family at Disney Land April 2018

Love Disney Land, Natasha with her darling Annie 3yrs old.

We love Disney Land, Cousins Lincoln, Jude, Boston, Yeal

Best Cousin's -Lincoln & Jude at Disney Land 2018

Day At The Beach

Karlee a one handed Cartwheel on the Beach. she is our gymnast's in the family. 

We had a fun time hanging out at the beach our first day. Love the salt ocean air, and the cool breeze.  The sand is very pretty with glitter flicks mixed In reflecting the sunlight.

Our California Villia

Our Beautiful eating area

Our Saydee Bug Relaxing in California Oceanside Beach Villa

Uncle Buck reading to Annie Girl, they are best buds!

Winston on his I-pad.

Beautiful entryway up stairs Beach Villa

We have a beautiful place to Stay in by the beach.  It is a lovely place!! We had a fun day at the beach our first day.  We all arrived Sunday evening had a great dinner at Stacy & Chads home and then we  all gathered at our beach villa for the week.   
                                  The kids had fun hanging out in their own room with bunk beds.
  

Going To Disney Land

Papa & Annie, getting ready for Disney Land!!

We are all heading to Disney Land today.  Stacy & Chad their 4 kids slept over, Burbidge Family, Thomas Family and Craig & I . Here we come Disney Land!!

Disney Land Here I come, Annie- Girls 3yrs old.

Grandpa Symes with Saydee & Karlee in front of our Beach Villa for the week.

Tasha’s Online Boutique

Tasha gave me a bag of clothes from her inventory she was getting rid of.  I told her my young women would love it.   They snatched up the clothes,  two Sunday’s ago it was so fun to see Aly and Tessa wear the dress to church that they picked out.   They were excited to get a new dress.

          Tessa Ward my Beehive, and  Aly Wallentine my Mia Maid.

Thomas Family

  Love this picture of the Thomas Family taken last Sunday.  

Aubrey

Our Aubrey Girl is so beautiful!!  She got her braces off last week !! She is now 14 years old.  

We Are Waiting For Spring !!

We are so anxious for spring to arrive at the lake we had snow on Monday and terrible wind for two days.  I have been so sick the past two weeks.  I’m so excited to spent time in warmer weather.

Beautiful Bear Lake March 2018

Driving up Logan Canyon

Burbidge Family

The Burbidge family came up to the lake last weekend.  It was cold but the girls still got in the water.  We are all so anxious for summer to arrive this year.

Karlee J Ready to Jet Ski April 2018 still very cold!!

Our Saydee Bug

  Enjoying this cool spring Day!

Temple Square

Young Women at Temple Square April 20th, 2018 Darlene, Tessa, Rose, Mika, Elsie, Ally, back Kylie, Abril, Debbie

I love the spring flowers at Temple Square, my Favorite time of the year!!

We all had such a great time as young women at temple square, a great bonding time!!  My favorite time of the year, I love all the spring flowers!! This was a great youth trip for our youth at the Garden City 1st Ward.  Something I really wanted the girls to experience.  I just love Temple Square this time of the year.  We had a very busy schedule.  We all meet at the Church at 6am for crispie cream donuts, said a pray for safe travels, carpooled to Salt lake for our day of adventure.  We all met at the family history library at 9 am.  Spent and hour there, it was very enjoyable to us all, from there went to the Church history museum.  We really enjoyed our mystery hunt.  We then all gathered for Lunch at the Nauvoo Cafe.  We Then went up on the 10 floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building to over look the Salt Lake temple and took some fun pictures as a group.  We all gathered at the Salt Lake Temple at 12:30 to perform Baptism for the dead, that was very special.  Mika Anderson is not a member yet so I spent the time with her for 2 hours touring temple square.  After our temple experience we all gathered at the Jesus Christ Christa to take another group picture.  From there we all carpooled to the open house tour of the Jordan River Temple to end our day.  We had a very full day.  It has been a great day for us all.  Time to head home.  Craig and I continued on to St George for the night to see his mother and from there to California for the week. 

Our Youth Outing

We had a great youth trip to Temple Square on Friday, April 20th, I planned lots of fun things for the youth.  We met at the church at 6 AM-and then drove to Salt Lake City together, all met at the family history Library.  We were there for an hour the young men and the young women all loved it from there we went to the church history Museum and spend about an hour, it was lots of fun!!  Craig &  I want to go back and spend more time there.  We then went to the Nauvoo café for lunch, after our lunch we went up on the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building to overlook the Salt Lake Temple and took some fun pictures,  We had a 12:30 appt. to preform baptisms for the dead in the Salt Lake Temple. We had one young woman that was not able to attend.  Mika Anderson she has not been baptized yet so I spent about an hour and a half with her touring Temple Square.  We need to get this young lady baptized, I think she is ready.  We then went to the Jordan River Temple open house at about 4 o’clock it was fun to see the new remodeled Jordan River Temple, we had a very full day by 4:30pm  we were all done and very tired, ready for dinner.  It was a great youth activity for us all a great bonding time to get to know each other and leaders. we created lots of fun memories with the youth of the Garden City 1st Ward.

Youth at the Garden City 1st Ward Temple Outing 

Up on the 10th floor Joseph Smith Memorial Building overlooking the Salt Lake Temple

Mike Anderson darling young Lady we had some very special time together

Craig & I over looking Salt Lake Temple

Young Women’s Activity

We had a great activity this week NeNe did such a great job on her cooking class and we had a great turn out! Jordan Erickson even came also Mariah, two of my laurels that have not been active, I was so thrilled to have them here, the sister missionaries stop by and then the beehives came towards the latter part of the class after their activity, we had a full house in my kitchen this week, it was so fun to socialize and visit with the girls and eat yummy food, our Mexican quesadillas were really good!  I have been very discourage with my calling after the events with Sierra.  I have felt like I'm not making much progress with these girls.  Tonight was a great pay-back for the efforts I have made in reaching out to these young women.  Never give up!!

Mariah, Jordan, Sister Peterson

Love this sister missionary, with NeNe.

Abril and Peyton enjoying our time together

Going Grocery shopping

Nene text me back and said that she would do our Mexican cooking class this week I told her I would like to go grocery shopping to get the things we need on Monday so that we wouldn’t be rushed on Tuesday getting ready wasn’t feeling the best but I got myself up and dressed Monday morning and we drove to Logan to get the supplies that we needed for the Mexican cooking class.  It was really fun to spend time with her and get to know her better, I had an hour in the car there and back.  It was fun to go to the Mexican grocery store feel like I was in another country,  we left at 9:30 AM and I got back about 2 PM.  So excited that she is going to be teaching a class this week.   

Tammy My Stake Leader

I called Tammy Calder later that afternoon so upset, I feel like I'm loosing all my young women. They are all so challenging.  Seirra's example was not going to help the situation, feeling like such a failure, I do not want this calling anymore!!  The burden I carry is too heavy. She said for all of us to meet as a presidency Sunday morning 8:00 a.m. and come fasting for our young women.  We laid out all their names, we have a Challenges with all 13 of them, this is not an easy group of young women to work with.  We divided their names among each of the 6 Leaders so that we can really focus on each girl, to care for the special needs they each have.  I felt very heavy hearten during sacrament, praying for each young women in our ward.  Visiting with Nene, I asked her if she would teach us a Mexican cooking class, trying to think of a way to get her involved.  She did not come to church today.  I did text her,  she said she would think about it, we needed a group activity this Tuesday evening.  Pray for the uplifting hand of my Heavenly Father.   Highlight of our Sunday class time was Tessa Ward and Aly wore the dresses they picked out from Tasha’s boutique that she had given me, I took the clothes to young women’s last week and laid all the clothes on the stage and let the girls pick something out that they would like, it was so fun to see them wearing their dresses to church on Sunday.  The young women in this ward don’t have a lot of money so they were excited to get some new clothes.  So grateful that Tasha gave us some of her clothes from her boutique.  I told her to save her hand me downs for us, the girls all love it!!!

Sierra

Sierra one of my laurel's is giving me so much heart ache this week, in the middle of being deathly ill, she showed up Tuesday showing her face around town arm & arm with her boyfriend Mason.  Her parents had moved her to Montana right after Christmas this year to finish her senior school year out, trying to get her away from Mason, he has not been a good influence on her, things were going really well for her.  I had talked to her and communicated with her several times.   Had hoped for her to finish high school,  she seem to be liking her new Montana home, the young women there had reached out to her and it was a whole New World, she was making new friends,dating, join the school choir & was looking forward to going on choir tour, graduating from high school on May 25th.  Craig came home from the post office and said guess who I saw? Sierra with Mason at the post office,  I thought, Wow, she must be home for spring break, her parents are not going to be happy about her being with Mason.  She just had her 18th birthday on March 18.  She came to young women’s holding hands with Mason.  I was so surprised to see her, I asked her if she was here for Spring break and she said yes & no.  I then said are you back home?  And she said yes!!  I said, "what’s going on?"  " Sierra I thought you were doing so well in Montana!" she said, " it is a long story and will have to tell me later."   I was just sick about it, it couldn’t be good.  Rose my 1st Counselor talk to Sierra‘s mom that night, I was so sick after young women’s I had to just come home and go straight to bed. she said that Mason showed up on March 23rd, Sierra just packed a small backpack and left with him leaving all her things in Montana. they had not known where she has been for the last week and then she just started going around town with Mason this week.  She has not talk to her parents or even showed up at home.  Wow this is not good!!! They did not know where she was staying. Commonsense she’s at Mason’s apartment, I was able to look up his address on LDS tools, he is actually listed in the Ward.  Just not active.  He is only 19 years old and I can see why her parents have tired to get her away from him.  Stacy, Sierra’s mom called me Wednesday afternoon, and told me what was going on,   I was so sad to hear Sierra is making such a huge mistake so close to the finish line of graduating from high school.  Only about eight more weeks left and should be done. She was getting good grades and would’ve been just fine if Mason had never showed up!!! I got myself dressed as sick as I was, I have to talk to this girl and see if I can talk her into going back to Montana and finish up school.  I showed up at their apartment, Mason answered the door and lied to me that she was not there, but I could see Sierra in the background and she saw me,she told Mason it was OK, she could talk to me, he was not wanting to let her leave his sight.  I managed to get her out of the apartment and we drove over to the marina and sat and talked in the car for about 40 minutes. Sierra was very dark and closed off, her countenance did not shine.  She said she loves Mason and she chooses Mason, she’s 18, she’s going to do what she wants to do, she’s been unhappy for a long time and she doesn’t care what anybody says, this is what she wants to do, there was no reasoning with her.  She told me she was going to do the BYU extension and finish her graduating diploma.  That was how our conversation ended I gave her a hug and told her to start praying that I was here if she needed me and that she should asked for a blessing!!
Thursday morning I looked on the BYU website and texted her information about the BYU graduation program for high school diplomas, it was going to take at least three weeks just to turn in her application let alone transferring her transcripts which she would have to do herself now that she is 18 years old, she is considered an adult, her parents could not do it for her, she just up and left and did not have a good exit strategy.  This all takes time and she’s so close to the finish line she just needs to go back and finish her senior year.  She text me back and said to leave her alone this is what she wants to do.  I was so mad at her, cannot believe that she would be this close & so stupid!!  I told her she deserves better than this and that she needs to act like an adult and take charge now that she’s 18 and not live her life like white trash, she needs to graduate from high school she has a whole world out there and that she deserves better than this, if  Mason loves her he would want her to finish her schooling that their relationship can wait.  There is no excuse for not graduating from high school, this is such a tragedy, her relationship with Mason is not going to take her anywhere, I can tell he is a drug user and not good for her, he is very controlling and I saw that the day I tried to pick her up.  I don’t know what she sees in him.  I went on with my day still not feeling well at all,  It took all my energy just to get myself dressed I was meeting. NeNe My new Laurel that just turned 16 at the Bear Trapper to have lunch and go over her personal progress with her.  The Bear Trapper is where Mason’s mother works there.  When I was checking out, Jenny is her name, verbally attacked me in front of NeNe and telling me I was a terrible young women’s president, I can’t even remember what else she said it was like an out of body experience as I signed my receipt..  how dare I interfere with her son and his relationship with Sierra, I have no right wow!!! I very kindly said, I will talk to you in private but this is not the appropriate place to talk about this and walked out with NeNe.  We both looked at each other and said,  "Did that just happen?"  I took NeNe home and then I sat at the top of the road where she lives and called Sierra's  mother to tell her what had just happened and give her my side of the story before it got all twisted, I"m sure Sierra told Jenny from the texts that I had sent to Sierra, so she knew exactly what we had corresponded.  There is no good blood between Jenny and Sierra‘s parents and I got a taste of it today.  I felt so bad for Sierra‘s parents the floodgates opened and I just started crying, I feel so horribly sad and now dealing with this emotionally so sad for Sierra and the mistake she is making at this season in her life. I had a breakdown moment and all the emotional things I’ve been struggling with lately just all came flooding out in my weakened state I started crying, I just want to go home. I just want to go home.!!!   Living here at Bear Lake has been an adjustment and living in a small town can be very challenging now I’m going to be the talk of the town, that’s what I was feeling like.  When really I haven’t done anything wrong!!

UTI Infection Again

I felt another UTI coming on Sunday afternoon, I prayed it did not get any worse, by Tuesday afternoon I could see I was going down fast and needed to get an antibiotic.  We did our first online doctor visit, for the first time with Select Med,  you sign into your account, pick a doctor. They then call to FaceTime with the doctor,  She was able to call in a prescription to the Bear Lake pharmacy. I’ve been on antibiotic since Tuesday night and pretty much in bed sleeping a lot I’ve been so sick running a fever and severe body aches.  Tuesday night was rough for young women’s, we had a craft activity and I had to do all I could get myself dressed and there to set up and follow through on things and then came home and went straight to bed.  It has been five days and I’m still not feeling well . Trisha, Buck and the kids surprised us Thursday night and have spent a few days with us.  It has cheered me up having them here.  Craig and Buck gave me a blessing this afternoon. I just finished my antibiotic today and I’m still not feeling the best. I’m praying that I don’t have a relapse, I might need to be on a stronger antibiotic.  I’m so grateful for the blessing of the priesthood, grateful for the prayer of my husband and Buck in the blessing they gave me.  "My humor with kidney infection... Ending up at the doctor... Is running Slim😠,   pray their faith and through my faith I can receive some renewed health and strength from this illness." 

April 1st Easter Sunday

Karlee J the Golden Egg

Get Ready to hunt Easter Egg, our darling Grandkids the younger bunch, Annie with her mommy Tasha, Winn, Landon, Grandpa Symes, Lincoln, Jacob, Boston

Grandma Symes Loving baby Ashtyn

We had a very nice Easter Sunday I enjoyed listening to the conference sessions and a most memorable conference. Craig and I then drove to Salt Lake to have Easter Sunday dinner at Tasha’s house with our children and grandchildren and a fun Easter egg hunt. Karlee J found the golden egg    
Bridger smoked us some yummy ribs!! We had a great Easter dinner!!  Fun to visited with our family on the Blessed Easter Sunday.