SUCCESS!!!

I know that this post will probably disappoint a lot of people who are hoping for another embarrassing or exciting story, but today I made my 3rd attempt at speaking in church and I guess the third time is a charm because I actually COMPLETED my talk for the 1st time ever!!! This is a little ridiculous since I am 27 years old and SHOULD be able to speak in sacrament, but it was a pretty big deal for me, so YEAH me!!! I honestly wasn't nervous at all, until about an hour before church and then I had a bit of a panic attack. Thank goodness for priesthood blessings or I don't think I would have made it!!! When we got to church, the program said "Speakers: To be announced". I think they were a little worried that we were going to chicken out so they didn't include our names on the program.
For those of you who may not know, let me give you a little history on my speaking disasters.... When I was 14 and gave my first sacrament meeting talk, I passed out at the pulpit, hit my head on the box they use to adjust the microphone and was out cold for 5 minutes!!! Somehow, I escaped any speaking assignments until Darren and I moved to Vegas. It had been 10 years since I passed out and Darren convinced me that it would be fine. So, I attempted to speak in that ward, and just as I got through our introduction, I felt really sick, went to sit down and threw up on the stand!!! I don't know if ANYONE has 2 stories that embarrassing!!! SO...My bishop in Las Vegas knew I shouldn't speak and passed it on to our new bishop when our ward was split. I was hoping that our Bishop in Vegas would pass the message on to our Bishop here when we moved, but no luck!
Last time I turned down a speaking assignment, I felt extremely guilty, so I decided to give it a shot and I actually made it! I don't know if this should actually count because I DID sit on a stool, which probably looked really odd, but it was a LOT better than throwing up or passing out! The good news is that I will not be known as "The girl who threw up" in this ward like our last ward (although I WILL probably be known as "the girl who sat on a stool") but I think that is an improvement. Baby steps, right? The bad news is that when I threw up last time, everyone came rushing to my aid, and that is how we made a lot of our good friends and even got some dinner invitations out of it - I guess we will have to look for new ways to make friends... ha ha! I was glad to avoid any major catastrophes and to avoid being the subject of everyone's "Guess what happened in my ward?" blog entry!!! I did talk a little too long...probably because I've never made it past the first paragraph before... and Darren didn't get to give much of his talk, but he was probably glad since I have left him as the only speaker in the past! Also, there are so many new people always moving into our ward (we average 4 or 5 new families a week) we probably won't have to speak again for quite awhile! Yeah!!! It is a great thing to have over with, especially since I was up until 2 am writing my talk and am exhausted!
Also, this weekend was Logan's birthday. We had a great couple of days and a really fun Buzz Lightyear party. I haven't gotten my pictures off the camera yet, but I will post them soon. I made a Buzz cake that turned out pretty good...Darren and I were up til 3:30 am frosting it! It was a little crazy, but Logan loved it! I can't believe that he is really 3 years old! It is a little hard for me. He had a great couple of days and was SO spoiled!!! He got some really fun stuff.
One other exciting note...Darren's 1st OFFICIAL day of work is tomorrow! He has spent a lot of time in the office setting everything up - We had no idea how much work and time getting started was going to take - but we are finally ready to go! He has seen a few patients here and there, but tomorrow is his first real day and he has a full day of patients scheduled. We are very excited to start earning a paycheck...It has been a long time for us and we have a LOT of bills to pay! It will be a little sad for me and the kids though. We have been having so much fun hanging out with him. It has been like a big vacation! I guess we have to get to real world sometime, right?