new family pics

At our family reunion, Bryce, my brother and Al, my sister took pictures. I have put them all together and we had some printed. I thought they turned out cute, I especially love the one of Jim looking up at Benjamin and the one of Jim and I laughing and Benjamin looks puzzled! Some of these pictures really capture our true spirits!!!

Lagoon...Westcott Family Reunion 2011

Every year we have a little vacation together as a family. For the past two years we have gone to Lagoon. We all love it! It has been a very fun and exciting day for all of our kids. The cousins get play together and go on all the rides together. This year we had our family picture taken. We have some fun pictures to go with all the great memories. Tom, Jim, Grandpa, Bryce and Spencer took the kids on Rattlesnake Rapids. They all got soaked! Thanks to Tom for sparing them from getting completely soaked to the bone. Jim bought Ben a tee shirt after the soaking. We always try to get a shirt as a souviner to remind us of the fun we had. I am so greatful for my family. They mean so much to me, they are a giant support and I know I can always look to them for love and advice. Can't wait for next year, it is Amy and Todd's turn to plan the event!
P.S. Clayton Westcott was in attendance but is missing from this picture!

CAMPING

We bought a used RV camp trailer this summer. We had a small RV camp trailer that had just enough room for three midgets. Jim was always tearing up something, it was kind of like a bull in a china cabinet! If you know Jim very well you know what I mean. We have been looking for a bigger camp trailer for over a year and we found the perfect one at just the right price. It has a HUGE bathroom...my first concern is the bathroom. I don't like the airplane like bathroom that our little trailer has. I need to breath when I am using the pot! It also has a bedroom with a bed that isn't cramped. I can actually put my legs out! We went camping on the mountain over the Labor day weekend. I loved camping and so enjoyed the end of summer!

America, my home sweet home

"Victims of the World Trade Center terrorism attack will be remembered at a special ceremony on the 10th anniversary of the tragic event.
The long-awaited and much-debated National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center is set to open to the public on September 12, 2011, the day after the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that brought down the Twin Towers in 2001. The 9/11 Memorial will be officially dedicated in a special ceremony for victims’ families on Sunday, September 11, 2011 and is a remarkable tribute of remembrance and honor to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks at the World Trade Center site and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people killed in the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993.
Entry to the 9/11 Memorial is free but a reservation is required through 911memorial.org, which opened for online bookings on Monday. According to the president and chief executive of the 9/11 Memorial, Joe Daniels, more than 1 million visitors are expected between September and December. “There is a tremendous demand to see the memorial site from around the world,” says Daniels, who explains the Memorial Museum attests to the triumph of human dignity over human depravity and affirms an unwavering commitment to the fundamental value of human life by demonstrating the consequences of terrorism on individual lives and its impact on communities at the local, national, and international levels.
Visitors will be allocated 45 minutes to see the memorial, a plaza that consists of two massive pools set within the original footprints of the Twin Towers. The twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest man-made waterfalls in the North America. Bronze parapets inscribed with victims’ names ring the pools, which are surrounded by over 400 trees, including the Peace Tree, which was recovered from the rubble on the site and nursed back to health. Construction of the seven floor underground museum and perimeter buildings, including the tallest building in the US, which began in 2006, continues and is expected to open in time for the 11th anniversary in 2012 with costs climbing up to $700 million.
Israeli architect Michael Arad, not originally from New York, is the designer of the World Trade Center Memorial, entitled “Reflecting Absence.” Arad won the ground-zero memorial design competition in 2004 when he was just 34, beating out 5,201 other contestants and with the support of Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
Once complete, the museum will house collections of diverse materials includes artifacts, photographs, audio and video tapes, personal effects and memorabilia, expressions of tribute and remembrance, recorded testimonies and digital files and websites related to the history of the World Trade Center, the events of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, and the repercussions of these seismic attacks. StoryCorps is just one of the museum’s moving tributes, which recounts stories about the victims by friends, family, neighbors and co-workers providing intimate perspectives on the life and character of each person lost in the tragedy."

I copied this from an information site on 911. I am so grateful to live in the United States of America and enjoy the freedoms that we have. There are others that would like to see the USA fail and would do anything in their power to see that it does. Our Father in Heaven has promised us that if we are righteous and true to the teachings of Christ, that we will have a home of freedom. America, my home sweet home.

OH MY HEART ATTACK!

This morning was BAD to say the least! Yesterday we were almost late to school...well probably we were late. School starts at 8:15 AM on most days except Tuesday, it was Wednesday yesterday and my clock said 8:14 as Benjamin RAN to the door of the school. I was determined that today we would be on time! Benjamin watched Curious George this morning on TV and I yelled at him to eat his toast with butter with the crusts cut off, just like he demands his toast be, and drink his hot chocolate, which was at the precise temperature that he also demands. I yelled at him to get his clothes on and brush his teeth. I yelled at him to come and get his face washed and hair coombed. As we were leaving the house, Benjamin told me that he wanted to take a snack to eat on the bus. I told him he had to tell me that before we were leaving and that we had to leave and didn't have time to get a snack. He wanted to wear a jacket because it was a little chilly outside, he picked up the coat off the hook we have hanging by the door. I told him it was too heavy of a coat and he needed to go to his bedroom and get the jacket. I went to the truck and he got another coat out and came out the door, I yelled again that he needed to go get his jacket. He went into the house only to come out without any jacket on. I YELLED again, and went into the house and got the jacket from his room. He said he couldn't wear it because his backpack would not fit over it. So I made him take off the backpack and put on the jacket. By this time I was MAD! We drove to school and I proceeded to drop him off. As he got out of the truck, he forgot his backpack and I called to him to come back and get it. He came to the truck and then tried to put the backpack on as he was walking down the side walk, as he lifted the backpack to put one arm in out fell his toy gun!!!! HEART ATTACK for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He picked up the gun as I opened my door. He brought the gun back to the truck and I tried to make it clear that he CANNOT take a toy gun to school! He understood what I was saying, I am so thankful that I made him wear his jacket. Luckily the gun fell out because if it had not and he took that to school, he would be in BIG TROUBLE! I will be checking the backpack from now on and I don't care how late it is!!!!

What is a HERO...

I asked myself that question as I attended the memorial services for Jason Workman. Jason was a navy seal and a husband, father, brother, friend and son of my co-worker and friend, Rodney Workman. I thought about the sacrifices that Jason made, leaving his family to fight in Afghanistan and all over the world. The number of hours he spent training and working hard at his job overwhelms me; I think about the time that went into being one of the best in the world. I did not know Jason but my brother in-law and my sister did, they said he was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. I thank his mom, Betty, being a mother myself I cannot imagine that it could be easy to let my son volunteer for such a role as Jason did. It is important to remember the sacrifices that are made on behalf of every American. We have freedom and as we know freedom is not free...it comes at a price and that price is someone else's life. It truly is a heroic accomplishment to volunteer one's life for the sake of the United States of America. I thought a lot about how to raise a son to freely sacrifice all that he has and is in order to serve our country, our god and family. Rodney and his son Tim talked about a book that Jason would read to his little son Jax. The book, "What Little Boys Are Made Of" included a poem by Edgar Guest which made me think and shed tears. It says...
The Boy And The Flag
I want my boy to be the best, I want him to be great; I want him in Life's distant West, Prepared for any fate. I want him to be simple, too, Though clever, ne'er to brag, But, Oh! I want him, through and through, To love his country's flag.
We purchased the book and have read it to Benjamin. I too want my son to love his country's flag as Jason Workman did.