Thinking about marriage


Marriage has been on my mind a lot the past few months. 
Then today, Tyler sent me this:
"Married couples are tried by temptation, misunderstandings, financial problems family crises, and illness, and all the while love grows stronger. Mature love has a bliss not even imagined by newlyweds."
—Boyd K. Packer, from "The Plan of Happiness"

I felt like putting my right thumb high up in the air as I read it! I remember shortly after 
marrying Dennis, as exciting and wonderful as it was, longing for the day when we would 
no longer be newlyweds....because I knew, having had a 22 marriage before this one, that 
love only grows. 

Then I remembered today an article Tyler had published back in 2010, in our church 
magazine, The Ensign. I wish every couple contemplating marriage could read it. 
It's all about taking it slow and figuring it all out....before jumping.

And I want to add....his very last line is my favorite.

Trusting the Lord to Be My Guide

For me, getting a confirmation about my marriage was like filling a glass. Because I knew that dating
and marriage were things to pray about, I pictured myself getting a “full glass” of an answer the first
time I prayed. But I became confused when I went on a few dates with Karen and couldn’t figure out
where to go from there. I liked her personality, but I didn’t know about her testimony or anything
else. I was afraid of the relationship ending with broken hearts or anger. However, I realized I would
know what to do only by spending time with her. I figured that in the end it would be a learning
experience for both of us—whatever that end would be.

We eventually decided to date exclusively, but neither of us knew exactly what we wanted from the
relationship and we broke up a few times because we weren’t on the same page. She had strong
desires to serve a mission, and I strongly wanted to be sure of whom I should date and marry. Plus,
we were both afraid of making a mistake in choosing when and whom to marry.

As I sought priesthood blessings and counsel from priesthood leaders and continued to pray, the glass
continued to fill. I learned more about Karen and me—what we could work through together, what
our personal weaknesses and strengths were and how they affected us, what our fears were and how
we would deal with them, and how to communicate with each other. We both saw from experience
that we worked well together and complemented each other. We learned of each other’s faith,
testimony, opinions, and quirks. As I prayed and as my glass filled, I felt added courage to keep
dating her to see what would happen. I didn’t know “for sure,” but my faith that things would work
between us increased.

Over time, I realized that I truly loved Karen and wanted to spend eternity with her. When she met
my family and I saw how she fit in, my glass was full. It took me a year to get to that point, but when
I did, the doubt dispersed and I could see clearly. I knew I should marry her and I knew that I knew.
I’ve wondered what would have happened had I not had the faith to let the Lord guide me through my
relationship with Karen. I’m glad I had the courage to move forward, even in uncertainty. Because we
learned so much in our dating and during our engagement, our adjustment to marriage has been
smooth, and we are extremely happy.
Tyler Heasley, California, USA

Family Camp Lip Syncing Videos


In case you haven't seen these from the lip syncing contest up at Family Camp, here they are....

I will show them in the order they came to me, because how else do I decide.

1. Our DIL Amy with 4 of their kids, Laurynn, Chandler, Macie, and Austin.
Turn down the music though. Just warning you.

2. My niece Carly and Enoch's 6 children. How does 2 year old Mara stay SO focused!

3. My sister Peggy with some of her kids....Jake and his wife Katie, Sam's husband Brian, Ty
(who arrived home from his mission the day before they drove up there!), and Kaidy, and one girl I don't recognize (sorry)

4. My niece McKenzie with Elora and Hailey. 

5. My nieces Tess and Kate.

Letter to the editor

Den saw this in today's Fresno Bee...
Thank you Leslie Knudsen!




Lately, some of my favorite products

I thought I'd tell you about some of my latest favorite products, and why I like them

First on my list is this stuff:


McKenna turned us to this, as she puts it in her fabulous stew. Den kept raving about it so we
thought, hey, if it's good on stew how about trying it on other things…  Slowly we don't even use 
regular black pepper anymore. Just Montreal Stake. What's in it? coarse salt, spices including
black pepper and red pepper, garlic, sunflower oil, natural flavor, and paprika



A friend told me about this deodorant and I've loved it ever since. My Mom use to worry about how 
deodorant put under our arms goes directly into our lymph nodes and our blood stream. So I
was forever looking for something natural. And this one came along.


It has none of the junk in it. No petrochemicals, phthalates, propylene glycol, mineral oils, silicone,
synthetic dyes, sulfates, or paragons. It's the cleanest deodorant I've found….and it smells wonderful.





Love this liquid hand soap. Many different scents but Honeysuckle is my favorite.

I buy this at Vons and it's probably at other grocery stores as well.
Or there's always Amazon.



I'm not a chili pepper person, but there's something about this on Tacos!
Karen and Tyler introduced us to this, but don't suppose she is eating this now, or much of anything.



I keep bottled water, and two of these in my car at all times. 

I have this fear of my car breaking down on the freeway in 105' weather. 
I've never used this cooling collar but I've read that if you activate it with water and put it on your
neck, it will bring the atmosphere down 30 degrees. 


Okay, so maybe this doesn't cut grease as well as some of the harsher dish soaps, 
but to me, it's worth it for the smell! And I'd rather side on the safer less toxic way. 
So it works good enough for me. 
Fills my kitchen will a lovely scent.


Have you ever tried Ghee? 

I react to all milk products except butter, but the past few years I'm reacting to that as well. 
So when I read the Food Babe approves of Ghee and says many who cannot tolerate regular 
butter, can tolerate butter in this form, I thought I'd try it. What is so convenient too, is it looks and
acts like melted butter so it's so easy to add to recipes. And you don't keep it in the fridge so that's
nice too. It seems to work just fine in all my recipes that call for butter.

And now because of Ghee, I can eat butter without my throat hurting, or my glands swelling up.

So that's it for now. 
I'm sure I'll think of others once I press Publish. Murphy's Law, you know.


Two announcements

Keep in mind as you watch this....most of the time no one was aware that I was even filming. Plus,
when Richie gives a message to my Dad that was totally his own doing. I didn't prompt him or even
suggest he talk to him.

This was from our trip to see our grandkids and their parents in May....but with the new iMovie 10, it
took me a while to learn how to do this.

Also, one more disclaimer....
None of this is planned, (that's just the way I am)....so if it seems I focused more on some than others,
I didn't mean to. Some moments were just easier to pull the camera out than other times.

The announcements are at the end....




grandchildren in Washington plus 2 announcements from Jill Shelley on Vimeo.

Some relatives you've just got to love them the way they are

Since it's Family Camp week up in the mountains, that means guess who is in town? 
My brother Richard.

So he drives Hailey and Elora up there, then comes back to Clovis and sends me this text:

"What's for dinner Tuesday night? Chinese Haystacks?"

It took me until the next morning to figure out he was inviting himself to dinner,
which is fine with me. So I finally responded:

"So are you saying you want Chinese Haystacks 
tomorrow night?"

One word text back:

"Yes."

Chinese Haystacks seems more like party food and I wanted more than just the 3 of us....so I invited a
few others. At first they said yes, and then something came up and they had to cancel.

So then I told Richard we would rather take him out to eat at our favorite restaurant, Yosemite Ranch.

We agreed to be meet there after his golf game at 4:45. At 4:27 we get a text from him that reads:

"I've got a table right where you requested."


He's 15 minutes ahead of us I tell Dennis. Why does this not surprise me?


So we walk into the Yosemite Ranch right about 4:45 and this is what we see in the distance...

We squinted our eyes as we came closer....."He's already eating??" Dennis asks me.



So his waitress shows up soon after we sit down..... and Richard says to her as he's pointing to
Dennis, "My Dad will be paying for this."


The problem was, the waitress didn't flinch or laugh or anything. She just said, "Okay."
Does she not notice Richard and Den are about the same age...Just a 3 year difference.

Then Richard said, "This is my graduation dinner."

Waitress goes on like this is all normal.

But it's never normal when we're with Richard.

But I gotta love him right? 

I do, especially considering he went up to camp and came home with this for me....

Elora and Hailey

Even got one of the girls washing dishes


He asked our granddaughter Téa (in the middle here) if he could take a picture for Grandma Honey.
She said, "I know her!"

Come back soon.
I'm working on a video with an announcement. 
Make that two announcements.



Not a good week for Dennis



It started Friday night at a party. Dennis said he felt like things were "just a bit off." But by the time
we got home that evening he said his vertigo from last March was back. 

By the time Monday afternoon came he asked me to make him a Dr's appt. I don't know that he's ever
asked me that before. So I did, and the next afternoon we were at Kaiser.


 The Doctor in Clovis sent us right to Fresno to see a specialist in audiology. 
I called before hand with questions, and luckily found out our appt time was wrong
....it had already passed!
Luckily I mean since we didn't drive all the way over there for nothing.

But we were also left with nothing. No help for yesterday.
Last night he got really bad. At one point I didn't think the vomiting would ever quit. 

But it did. And we made it through the night okay.
This morning I took him here:

Den pretty much takes his towel with him every where we go this week. 
Which, lately, is not very far.



  We even got to see our grandson Austin in action, since he works for Dr. Travis.



I never knew Travis would grow up to be a chiropractor, 
but I did know he would do good in this world.



So Dr Travis taught me how not only to do these maneuvers on Dennis, but he also taught me how to
use my NOTES on my iPhone. I had never even noticed this feature before.

Even though he set us up to do these manipulations at home, I'm thinking we will go back for more
appointments. Travis said it would take about a week of daily doing these for improvement to begin.

We'll take it. As long as we can know help is coming.



Yep. lots has happened to Travis and Logan since 8th grade....

(can't even remember the girl's name in this picture....but I do recognize Logan and Travis.





Lots of memories, including this one Travis of using my bedroom window in 1997 to go "on stage" with his band in our backyard....That was our largest party ever. Over 100 people. 

I hope Dr Travis doesn't see this. He may not want his patients to know he has such a past.

PS  Dennis is much better tonight. I think we may be on to something. Time will tell.

What was interesting to me, is Travis could even identify what side the vertigo is coming from. 
He showed me how Dennis' eyes would flutter when he moved his head to the left, 
thus identifying the left side and also diagnosing the vertigo. 
Apparently it's not as much of a guessing game as I thought. 

A key to resolving conflict

I think this question would be excellent in 
any relationship during a disagreement!


Reunion with the 6 buds and their wives

Who needs to be formal when you are meeting high school buds from 17 years ago...

We arrived 3 hours later than everyone else....

I love how Amy and Logan invite us.....the oldest ones there.

We walked in and found this.....proof of a good time.



Then stepping out into the backyard....

This group had 3 more babies born this year. 
Robby held little Piper the entire time we were there, even though she belongs to Travis and Brittany. 



Back in 1998, the day Logan left on his mission.
Travis, Robby, Logan, Brad, Brice, Ryan

Brice, Logan, Robby, Travis, Brad, Ryan.
(They now have a total of 20 children)


The wives and one Grandma taking pictures. We have long history with this group.
.


Logan shows a video they made back in high school. They were all drama students.

I should have brought the videos I have of these 6 guys back in the day. Next year!
It was just a really good feeling being with them all. Brought back so many stories in my head. 
Even some of the not so good memories of those days, are great memories now!

Loved all the hugs last night. I felt like it was my reunion too.
I guess in a way it sort of was.
Afterall....
These guys have stuck together since 8th grade.
That's over 20 years and still going strong.

Look what happened last night

  Just a little pre-graduating gathering for our DIL Amy.... Not everyday a Mom of 7 and a Grandma of 7, graduates from college. It was not ...