fun at the beach

Shawna got up Saturday 07/07/07 , a lucky day, and said, lets go to the beach! We loaded up the car and headed out of town. It was expected to be 105 in Bakersfield, so it was a good day to get out. We arrived in Ventura about noon, it took about 2 hours to drive. We got out of the car to find it a chilly 65. What a difference.

As you can tell by the looks on their faces, Emily and Ben found out the water was cold .

Shawna is burying Ben. Dad had to pull him out. Mom really buried him.
We tug two deep holes and then a tunnel between them. Haley and Hannah are both in the tunnel.

As you can see we had a great time at the beach. Until the fog burned off we froze. But once the sun came out it was a great day. We did all the beach things: dug holes, buried each other, hit a ball around, ran into the water and tried to body surf until you could not take the cold, and Hannah's favorite part, caught sand crabs. And did we ever catch sand crabs! Most everyone slept all the way home.

This week was also the 4th of July. We had a great holiday. We went to a pancake breakfast at the church. We ate a lot of pancakes and had fun visiting with our friends. We worked around the house the rest of the morning. After lunch Haley and Hannah went into the backyard to catch these little butterflies that we get each summer. I think at one time they had caught over 20.

In the evening we had about 30 people come over for swimming and barbecue. We enjoy having the pool and a big backyard for events like this. Everyone had fun, especially in the pool to get out of the heat. When it got dark we set off a few fireworks in the street. From our house we could see the fireworks from the county club very well. In addition we could see three of four firework shows off in the distance. A great 4th.

Allison continues to love being at college. She got great news this week. She passed the Advance Placement tests for English, Statistics, and Calculus. This is worth 14 credit hours. She is happier that passing these test gives here credit for Freshmen English and all the math she will need to graduate. Her hard work in High School and commitment to learning is really paying off.

This week in priesthood meeting we studied the principle of integrity. A great follow-up to our family home evening lesson on the same topic.

Elder Worthlin told a story about a time that he was the back for his football team. They were near the goaline and the play was for him to take it right up the middle. He soon found himself on the bottom of the pile. He could see that he was down about 2 inches from the goal line. He realized that he could push the ball forward the two inches across the goal line and when the referee's dug out the pile the ball would be across the goal line and he would be a hero for scoring the touchdown. He told of his desire to have integrity more than to be a hero in the eyes of others. Others would soon forget the touchdown but he would always remember his lack of integrity.

Being true to oneself, living in a way that is in line with your personal values brings great peace of consciousness. If we want to be true to our self, we care more for the truth than we do to what others think of us.