YW Memories

After finishing my post about the Young Women farewell party I remembered that my friend, Sabette, was able to get me copies of some of the pictures of the yw that I didn't have before we moved. So in tribute to the YW whom I love and miss dearly.... here are some of my favorite memories with you!

In January or February we had New Beginnings/YW in Excellence combined. I had wanted to blog about it at the time but my camera died and I never got pictures. So thanks Sabette for your help so I could add this to my blog!

We did a whole Hollywood themed night for the activity and called it "A Nite Amongst the Stars". All the yw were our stars and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I was in charge of decorations and all the girls helped me make them. We had a red carpet for the girls to walk down when they got their awards from the previous year.

The biggest award of the night was when our sweet Jean received her YW medallion. Way to go Jean!

All the parents were invited for the special night. All the girls and leaders dressed up in Hollywood attire and we ate dinner of china and drank out of crystal glasses. It was lots of fun but definitely WAY too many dishes to wash by hand afterwards! The girls were worth it though.

Each of the YW had a table set up specifically for them to display their accomplishments from the last year on.

Kaitlin

Heather D.

Kali

Madison

Emma

Amber

Racheal (she forgot her display so we let her borrow our party favors so her table wasn't empty!)

Jean

Kayla

Maitlin

Mariah

Jaclyn

Sarah

The Laurels

The Miamaids

The Beehives (and soon to be beehives!)

Us Leaders

Everyone showing off their bling!

One of my favorite activities with the YW was when we got to go to the Lake! We went boating several times last summer and always had a blast.

The Loftins, a family in our ward, let us use their backyard and dock for our boating activities. This picture is of some of the YW before we started boating.

The YW were obviously a lot more talented than me at boating!!!

YW Goodbye Party

A week or two before we moved the yw had a huge goodbye party. There were about 4 or 5 military families that moved into the ward at the same time as us and we all moved out within a month or two of each other. Anyway, the yw's presidency had to be re-arranged as well as one of our girls was moving. So the yw president decided to throw a party for us all:) I had a really good time. It was nice to be able to visit and joke around with the girls on a Wednesday one last time. I miss them!:)

The Heathers sporting the soon to be new fad.


Most of the yw preparing to "cannonball"

The Heathers sporting yet another new soon to be fad

Cady Hunt

Kali, Maitlin, Cady, Jacyln, and Emma.

Cady and Maitlin (I gave these two girls rides almost every Wednesday so I got to know them quite well!)

Jaclyn

Emma

Kali

Heather & the YW Pres Sue Ellen

Heather, Sue Ellen, and her daughter, Reagan.

Rachael, Sis. Doan, and Kayla

Madison, Cady, Maitlin, Reagan, and Jaclyn

Sarah, Rachael, and Kayla

The Heathers...

A few of our favorite things continued...

As I mentioned before, Dan and I many opportunities to do some of our favorite things before we left Louisiana. One of my most favorite things was the night we spent with my best Louisiana friend, Jenni, and her family. We LOVED to craft and cake decorate together so we had to have one last fun-filled night to last us until we visit Louisiana again.

We had a BBQ for dinner and then the boys watched a basketball game while us girls and the kids decorated. We usually try to do extravagant things but that night, we just kept it simple so we could relax and visit.

Jenni's niece, Tori, was visiting for the day. Tori and Jacob got to decorate a cake of their own as well.

Jenni and I decided to make fish cakes:) They were lots of fun!

All of us decorating.


Our finished product!

The kids finished product! Whoever LOVES frosting would enjoy this cake!

Dan dipping orange candy slices in frosting. He must of been really hungry because normally he hates frosting! I had to take a picture because I couldn't help but laugh at him dipping sugar in sugar!

Last but not least, we tried a new experiment. Jenni found a recipe for homemade Marshmallow fondant. It was so easy to make and it was YUMMY! It melted in your mouth it was so good. I was so excited to find a good/easy recipe because usually when I decorate with fondant it looks pretty but doesn't taste good. Now I have found the best of both worlds!

Our Quick cake with Fondant.

Thanks again Jenni and Jason for such a great night! We loved it. Tell the boys hi for me and give them a hug and kiss! We miss ya'll!

We also loved going miniature golfing to this place just down the street from our house. The movers came to pack up our stuff on a Monday and we didn't move until Wednesday. We kept some movies and the computer for entertainment but it didn't quite work out as planned! Our Internet was turned off early (my stupidity...oops!) and for some reason the sound on the laptop wasn't working so we couldn't watch our movies. Needless to say, the last two nights we were there we spent a lot of time out of the house at the Boardwalk, mini golfing, and even at Walmart!

I am not a very good mini golfer, but I enjoy it. I was SOOO close to getting a hole in one but then I might have ruined my really high score! Too bad we weren't playing basketball, I would have won:)

Dan getting ready to get a hole in one.

Probably getting a hole in one again:)

Maybe if I swing the club like a bat....I might get somewhere, lol!

Waiting on the bench for Dan to take his turn.

More favorite things soon to follow!:)

A few of our favorite things....

Before we moved from Louisiana we tried to cram in as many of our favorite things/activities as possible.

One of our favorite things was going to the Boardwalk, which is an outdoor mall along the Red River. This picture was taken in front of Bass Pro Shop next to the Alligator Zoo.

We also ate one night at Salt Grass and had a great view of the River.

Another night we went with our good friends, the Doans and Bloods, to the Mudbug Madness Festival. They invited us to do lots of things with them the last few months we lived in Louisiana which we were really grateful for! They even planned a Cajun dinner for us with others in the ward the night before we moved. We miss them lots already!

The Mudbug Madness Festival is sponsored by the Shreveport Mudbug (Crawfish) Hockey Team. There is lots of yummy Cajun food, music, game and shopping booths. We had a great time!

Everyone enjoying Boiled Crawfish (well not me on that part:) and a fried onion mum while listening to great Cajun music.

Dan eating his fried alligator.

Gotta love 'em crawfish!! Might taste a little better next time wit out the shell though!:)

Visiting Donna

A few weeks before we moved we went down for one last trip to Lafayette to see Donna. We had a great time, like usual. She always spoils us:) She cooked crawfish etouffee for Dan the first night we got there and continued to pile on the Cajun cuisine until we left. We also filled the weekend with enough Cajun activities to hopefully last us until we could come visit again. So to say the least, the weekend was bittersweet:)

We got to see Donna's kids and mom which was great. We always love getting to visit with all of them. Her daughter, Angel, we got to spend the most time with. On Saturday we went to New Orleans for the day and she came along. We mainly went to see the French Quarters and the French Market.

Right as you enter French Quarters

Man dressed up as a Copper Statue right by Jackson Square.

Some of the neat buildings.


Sierra, Dan & Angel in front of Jackson Square.

Us with Donna in front of Jackson Square.

I don't know how well you can see, but as we were taking pictures in Jackson Square it was about to begin to downpour. We made it just in time! As soon as we snapped a few pictures we ran to the car in order not to get soaked:) The rain came at a good time though, we were tired and had seen just about all we wanted to see on our short trip to New Orleans. We go to eat Beignets, browse all the junk at the market (our favorite part), and spend time with Angel and Donna. The ride home was a different story, we are used to Louisiana rain, but this was worse than the normal Louisiana rain! But thanks to Donna and her one good eye (lol) we were able to make it back home safely!

No Trading Spaces for me!

All the way back in March, I think, ( I know.... I am REALLY behind on blogging....) I helped my friend, Jenni, re-d0 her boy's bathroom. We always love doing craft projects together so we decided to do our own version of "While you were out". Her husband was away for work for the weekend when the project began. We spend Friday night painting the first coat. Then Saturday we painted a second coat, cut the vinyl for the mirror, and made the shower curtain. Between all of that, fixing meals, and watching the two boys (Jenni's sister Layla helped with the boys quite a bit as well) we were exhausted! I remember as a teenager LOVING to watch Trading Spaces and thinking how cool it would be to be on the show. After our weekend, we both agreed we would NEVER want to do it! We had fun doing the bathroom but couldn't imagine handling any bigger of a room in such a short time! By the way, Jenni's husband was definitely surprised and seemed to loved it!

Bring out the Diva...

Sometime in April or May, I can't really remember when...I helped my friend make a cake for her daughter's birthday. Last year we did a Fancy Nancy cake for her youngest and this year it was a Diva cake for her oldest.

I had a lot of fun executing all the creative ideas she had for the cake. I have to say...a cake design like this could bring out the diva in any girl! Thanks Julie for letting me be a part of the birthday fun!