Tag Archives: family

What 50 Years Have Taught Me

Tomorrow I’m turning 50 years old and knowing that has caused me to be introspective about a few of the things those 50 years have taught me: *They’ve taught me that happiness comes when we put God first, family second, and everything else third. *They’ve taught me that excelling in the things of righteousness is […]

Kindred Spirits You’re Destined To Meet

“When you encounter someone you were destined to meet the conversation will take flight as if it were on the wings of angels, complete strangers confiding in each other as if you were lifelong friends.” – Kevin Hall Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone for the first time, but having that feeling […]

You’re Never Too Old To Need Your Parents

I can hardly believe it was a full year ago last week that my husband was hospitalized with COVID.  I remember so clearly getting that phone call from him telling me I needed to get him to the Emergency Room immediately which caused me to burst into tears instantly as I knew it must be […]

Life is Like A Journey On A Train

Today I received the sweetest email from a dear friend of mine with a message that made me tear up.  It read “thanks for being on my train” with the following message attached: “Life is like a journey on a train… with its stations… with changes of routes… and with accidents!  At birth we boarded […]

Including Lost Loved Ones In Your Holiday Celebration

Losing a loved one hurts a lot. It’s a pain that never really goes away, it just becomes a little more bearable as time goes on. And while I am grateful that my religious beliefs are that we will see our loved ones again someday in the eternities, there is still the hurts of missing […]

Before You Head Out For Thanksgiving Weekend

Before you head out for Thanksgiving weekend to gather with your families and extended family members you may want to step into a room alone, take a deep breathe in…hold it…and slowly let it out. Then remind yourself that while the next few days will likely be full of chaos, screaming children, siblings fighting, food […]

Celebrating Daughters and Sons

To be honest I’d never even heard of a National Daughters Day until I saw a post on Facebook over the weekend from my Mother wishing her five daughters a happy National Daughters Day. I of course immediately googled it to find out what she was referring to.  Come to find out Friday September 25th […]

Want To Be Happy? Try A Dose Of Nostalgia

If you want to be happy try a good old dose of nostalgia. For those not familiar with that term it is defined in the dictionary as, “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” With all the madness in 2020 I’ve thought quite […]

Come What May And Love It

Joseph B. Worthlin shared the following story that has had a huge impact on my life: “When I was young I loved playing sports, and I have many fond memories of those days. But not all of them are pleasant. I remember one day after my football team lost a tough game, I came home […]

We Will Never Regret The Time We Spent, Only That We Didn’t Spend More

Tonight we said goodbye to our nephew and his wife as the two of them are moving back east to start a new job.  My nephew’s been living out here in Utah since 2012 when he first moved out to attend college and because his parents lived back East my husband and I became his […]

Only In The Darkness Can You See The Stars

Our family has been going to Lake Powell in the summers every year from the time my children were little. It’s literally one of our very favorite places on earth.  The water is amazing, the red rock cliffs are incredible, and there is nothing in the world quite as beautiful as a Lake Powell sunset. […]

Those Who Gave All To Defend God, Religion, Freedom, Peace, and Family

It’s difficult to put into words the profound gratitude and respect I have for all those who gave their lives defending God, religion, freedom, peace, and family. May we never forget the tremendous sacrifice they made: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Appreciate The Time We Have Left In Lockdown, And Stretchy Pants

Living in the Washington D.C. area in high school I was all about music groups like Erasure, The Cure, O.M.D., Depeche Mode, and the Smith’s.  Then my family moved to the Nashville Tennessee area during my Junior year of high school and I couldn’t help but fall in love with country too. I still remember […]

While You Are Growing Up, They Are Growing Old

Today I was really bummed out because it was my Mother’s 78th birthday and we couldn’t be with her even though she lives only fifteen minutes away.  With the quarantine we could only stand on her front porch singing Happy Birthday to her through the glass and then leave a cake an balloons on her […]

Shaken To The Core – Literally

It was 7:09am when the entire house began shaking…and I mean SHAKING! I’d only fallen asleep three hours before that but I went from totally asleep to 100% awake in less than a second! Both my husband and I shot up in our bed and my husband yelled out, “THAT’S AN EARTHQUAKE!!!”  It felt like […]

“If I Would Have Known Then What I Know Now. But I Did, And So Do You.”

She knew she was dying when she wrote the note which read:  “Regrets? I have a few. Too much worrying about finding the right husband and having children, being on time, being late and so on. It didn’t matter. It all works out, and it would have worked out without the worries and the tears. […]

You Couldn’t Ask For More

We were all sitting on the floor opening Christmas presents together when my kids said they had something for me. I waited for them to hand me something to unwrap, but instead they asked me to look up at our TV screen and watch a video they had made for me. As the video started […]

The Christ Child: A Nativity Story

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I’m so excited to have my children and grandchildren with me and my husband this year! There is no greater joy in my life then being with my family… I’m also excited that we’ll have many of my extended family coming over Christmas Eve as well to celebrate with our […]

A Parent’s Letter To Santa

Last week we took our children and grandchildren to go ride the Polar Express train for Christmas. As I was watching my daughter-in-law getting her two year old son and her four month old daughter ready to go it reminded me of how utterly exhausting it can be to a mother with small children. The […]

If You Are Ready For Your Life To Change

“If you really are ready for your life to change you have to make space for something new.” ( quote from a Hallmark Christmas movie) That quote from a recent Hallmark Christmas Movie has really got me to thinking these last few weeks about all of the things I’ve been involved in these last few […]

Be The Miracle

Wishing for your own Thanksgiving Miracle or Christmas Miracle this holiday season?  After all…this time of year does tend to be a time of miracles… But what if this holiday season you decided that rather than just wishing for your own miracle you were actually going to BE THE MIRACLE for someone else’s life instead? […]

Have Each Others Back

The other night I was watching a show about a Navy SEAL Team. Seeing the way the team has each others backs, through thick and thin, was so inspiring and it really got me to thinking…perhaps the reason those SEALs are able to be so brave and have such courage to face whatever obstacles lie […]

Have You Ever Met A Hater Doing Better Than You? Me Neither.

“Haters don’t really hate you. In fact, they hate themselves because you’re a reflection of what they wish to be.” – unknown Today was World Day for Bullying Prevention, so it seems appropriate to share some past thoughts I’ve shared about bullying: Haters, bullies, mean people – they all suffer from one of the following: […]

If I’d Given Up…

Last Friday I was humbled to receive the Leadership in Business Award from the YWCA for my business accomplishments and the work I do championing women and girls through my foundation (the IPOP Foundation).  They put on a beautiful event of around 1,200 attendees Friday and I told them it was the sweetest way to […]

Best Birthday Present In The World!

Tonight I came home to find my children had come together to write a blog post for my birthday present – best birthday present in the world! Here it is: To the Woman who Does it All, Happy Birthday! Often our mom dedicates a special blog to each of us on our birthdays, and we […]

Remind Yourself of Who You Want To Be

“Sometimes you need to step outside, get some air, and remind yourself of who you are and who you want to be.”   -Unknown That’s why I love holidays so much! They give you the chance to disengage from normal life for a day, step outside, get some air, and remember what you are like when […]

He Did What We Could Not Do For Ourselves

“Years ago there was a little one-room schoolhouse in the mountains of Virginia where the boys were so rough that no teacher had been able to handle them. “A young, inexperienced teacher applied, and the old director scanned him and asked: ‘Young fellow, do you know that you are asking for an awful beating? Every […]

Life Flashing Before Your Eyes

It was nine days ago and my husband and I had just arrived down to our houseboat on Lake Powell to prepare things for the group of families we would be hosting for the upcoming week.  I began unloading groceries as my husband climbed down into the hull of the boat to check our tanks […]

We Are Connected – What You Do Affects The Whole World

“One day, a western anthropologist went to Africa to study the social behavior of an indigenous tribe. He proposed a game to the children and they willingly agreed to be part of it. He put a basket filled with fruits underneath a tree and told the children that whoever would reach the basket first would […]

The Greatest Forces In The World Are Babies

“When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way.  He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts.  Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home of some obscure mother.  And then God puts […]