It's a Family way of life

  I love you- -what does that really mean?   Research indicates that humans are “hard-wired” for love.   Our well being depends on love as it does for food, water and air. We hear I love . . . all the time, I love you, I love pizza, I love Disney land, I love summer, I love chocolate. But what does I love you really mean? There are four Greek words that help us define love. The first is storge , which describes the love between a parent and child. This type of love is very different from the love between friends, philia explains this type of love.   Philia is used to describe a warm and close relationship. Agape love happens when on the behalf of the well-being of someone else, rather you like the person or not. However, in the media Eros is the form of love that we see, read about, and hear the most about.   Eros is the erotic love that exists between a man and woman. Eros love is the love when people long to be together.   Being married for 32 ...

  Focus on the marriage, not the wedding.   As someone who has been married for almost 33 years, I think I can rightfully say I have a pretty good idea what is important in a marriage, and it is not the wedding. I think that we were lucky not to have a ton of money to spend on the wedding.   My parents were pretty broke when Matt and I got married, as were Matt and I. Society has romanticized what a wedding should be like- -the beautiful expensive dress that brings everyone to tears when they see the bride in it for the first time. The hand-written personalized place cards for the exclusively catered meal for 300 of your very closest friends.   The wedding industry is a $53.4 BILLION industry, and that estimate was from 2013, eight years ago.   Just imagine what it is now, excluding the COVID year.   Something interesting that I read the other day, is that couples are actually putting off getting married during the pandemic because they can’t have the...

    Planned, paid for, paired off.   Three simple steps of dating. Thirty-five years of dating the same man has led to 33 years of an adventure filled marriage.  Matt and I's story is an important one to share to others that are contemplating dating and marriage.  Sept 1986 Matt and I had our first official date, your typical dinner and a movie date. Nothing too exciting but it was the start of something amazing. I was seeing another guy during that time, it was your basic date with "Gary". Friday night go to Hastings, rent a movie, sit on the couch next to each other and watch the movie. Saturday night hit the repeat button.  Date number two with Matt, we played softball, date number three with Matt went went a played tennis- -I had never played and he enjoyed teaching me how to play, letting me almost win only to come back a "barley" beat me. Interesting how a girl who had never played tennis would almost and even sometimes beat a boy who had been playin...

  Baby girls should wear pink Gender- -Does it really Matter   As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I have been taught that we are sprit children of Heavenly parents, our gender was determined before we came to earth. “ Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” (1995) Each gender has distinct traits that compliment the other.   Women and men are meant to work together for the betterment of families, communities, and society in general. I dressed my baby girls in pink and my baby boy in blue. The girls played with dolls and my son with his truck and blocks.   I always wanted them to know what a magnificent thing it was to be a girl, or a boy and that God had created them with a purpose. Can you imagine if men and women were the same in every aspect, and did not have different abilities?   At that point you could say that gender does not matter.   However, we know ...