Random catching up...

ok, so admittedly, i seriously suck at keeping up with this blog, i think i just tend to put it all out there on FB so I don't feel the need to blog, but once again, I'd like to try to chronicle the Dales on our blog. So, it's summer and the kids are all out of school. Bill and I are working on being the best parents and people that we can be. I will try to give you a little input on what's going on around here. Hannah just finished the 6th grade. She had all PROBE (gifted) classes and did very well making mostly A's with a few B's all year. She is a beautiful girl and is just entering the oh so fun stage of pubesance (read, eye rolling, loud sighing and uncontrollable crying!). But she is very responsible, and is a joy overall! Kailie just finished 4th grade and is also in the gifted program at school. She made all A's on her last report card! She enjoys her friends and is still liking drawing her designs. I think she is starting to like boys...ugh! Caroline just finished 1st grade and will be entering the world of "real" grades next year. She's grown up a lot this year and is a very inquisitive and fun little girl! Stevie just finished her first year of pre-school. She was well loved by all in her class! They took to her bossiness very well! ;) I have been working hard to lose some weight. I have so far lost 40 lbs and am only about 10 lbs or so from being the weight I was when Bill and I married 13 1/2 years ago. Not that I'll need it again, but my goal is to be able to fit into my wedding gown!! lol! The biggest thing going on for me is that, through some personal trials, I have developed my relationship with my Savior to a level that I've never experienced. I am forever grateful for that and while my trials are difficult to bear, in a wierd way, I am grateful for them and the awakening they have given me. Bill started a new job a few months ago and is doing very well in it. He has decided to learn how to play the guitar. He is doing very well with it, though he just began this week. He's learning a new chord every day. He seems like a bit of a natural. We are going to start playing some tennis together as a new activity that the two of us can enjoy together. But we will have to wait until his basketball injury heals first!
I love my family very much. I am so grateful for all of them. I am lucky enough to have married a man whom I love deeply and we have have 4 amazing, beautiful, smart, wonderful girls together. Bill is an amazing dad and has been a wonderful, loving husband to me for 13 years of our marriage. I am grateful for a Father in Heaven who loves me and is patient with me and helps me to grow and learn and shows me the right path to follow. I hope and pray with all my heart to be able to, with Bill at my side, teach our children how to over come adversity and fear and become righteous daughters of God. I hope to be able to show them through example what it means to work for something that you believe in and by that same example to be able to teach them the value of eternal marriage and eternal families. I am so grateful for the chance to be with my family forever. They are my whole world and I cannot imagine my life without them, forever. I know that my Redeemeer lives and through the Spirit, he guides me. I want to live my life in a way that will allow me to be in his presence one day, and I hope and pray to have my family there with me. I know that Satan works hard to destroy families, and that he works the hardest on the families that have the potential to really make it. I will work everyday to fight the adversary. I will do everything within my power to work with my husband to make ours a truly eternal family, dispite any obstacles that may come up. "Families Can be Together Forever."