Cate said yes!!

It's official Doug asked Cate to be his wife and she said yes!! Yeah another beautiful Hopkins girl! The date is August 22 in the Oakland temple. We couldn't be happier for Dougie - he found his one and only. When he was in high school they asked the seniors what they wanted for their future and Doug answered, "someone to grow old with". His dreams are coming true. Stay tuned, I'll add pictures as soon as I get them.

I've been tagged

10 years ago I was: Busy with a boy in preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school and college! I spent a lot of time in the car...

5 Things on my To Do List for Today: Vacuum, clean the bathroom, do laundry, clean out the spare bedroom and Fix dinner - these 5 things are always on my to do list...they're also usually on my "didn't get done" list...

6 Things I'd Do If I Became A Billionaire: 1. Build all my kids a house in the same neighborhood. 2. Buy Dave a Porsche. 3. Do a mission tour with the boys where we'd set up a humanitarian project of their choice. 4. Build a fabulous and beautiful fitness retreat that wouldn't cost much to attend. 5. Spend a year traveling so Dave could visit all the architectural wonders of the world 6. Set up retirement funds for all my friends and family (hey a billion dollars is a lot of money!)

3 Bad Habits: I don't want to talk about it!

5 Places I Have Lived: Nampa, Idaho - Pacifica, CA - Rexburg, Idaho - San Luis Obispo, CA - Half Moon Bay, CA

5 Jobs I have Had- Hickory Farms sample girl, United Airlines temp secretary, Secretary for flight attendants and Pilots at Swift Air, Gifts and Gadgets in-home consultant (such a horrible decision...) and my favorite - WW leader and personal trainer!

*Things Most People Don't Know About Me: I hate mice! Some people know that my claim to fame is that I threw up from the top of a ferris wheel - yes over the edge while it was moving -showering many, many people with chunks - that was not a happy carny guy when we finally got off... one more thing you may not know - I was nominated for homecoming queen at Ricks college in 1977 - I made it to the top 10 but lost to my friend who played the drums for her talent!

More Hopkins noses

Here's your quiz for the day - which Hopkins belongs to these noses?

Collosus Proboscis

The kids had a picture book about animal parts - one was a picture of an elephant with a "Collosus Proboscis'. It became a family joke because we have collosus proboscises or is it proboscie?? Here's the photographic proof except for Johnny who has a cute little freckled nose. We love all our family noses - it's a Hopkins thing!

The hanging gardens...

These lovely weeds in our gutters have been growing for quite some time - they really are nice except they're weeds and they're in the gutters so they had to go. Dave made his way onto the roof as I prayed fervently that he would not fall. You can see he got the job done and the hanging gardens of Hopkins are gone - when the next rain comes the gutters will run freely...

My Valentine

Before we knew what love really was...

30 years later - life just keeps getting better!

Happy Valentines Day sweet Davey - thanks for overlooking my faults and making life so much fun!!

Come along grow old with me - the best is yet to be....

Things I Love

I got this idea from one of my favorite blogs. In honor of valentines day - I present - things I love



This cute heart plate that Patty gave me

This very cool necklace Kim gave me

This beautiful daffodil in my very own backyard! I love Spring!!

There will be many more pictures of things I love...

Everything is broken....

The heater is broken...honestly just when I think one more thing can't break it does! The guy came to fix it and of course it can't be fixed, it must be replaced - the air conditioner broke at the end of the summer so we put off fixing it until we can't stand the heat but now it looks like replacing the whole thing is the way to go. Heck $10,000 no big deal!

Unless of course you consider that the tree broke and needs to be removed and the oven goes out regularly (you have to turn off the circuit breaker so it resets). The refrigerator is on it's last leg, the couch is broken - the carpet is disgusting, the lawnmower is dead. We have big plumbing issues and there are plants growing in the rain gutters. Honestly we are the Beverly Hillbillies!

I'm writing this so you, dear reader will look around and be happy that your heater and appliances are in good working order. I will now make a list of the things that are working to count my blessings in the hopes that it won't jinx me and I'll have to add something to the not working - needing repair list.

Things that are working just fine (at the moment) - dishwasher, garbage disposal, washing machine, dryer, waterbed, boys shower (I forgot to mention that our's isn't working), vacuum (see ealier post to qualify that it's "working"), all 3 cars and everyone is healthy so what more could I ask for except maybe the millenium - wait - please tell me there's a scripture about things not breaking for 1,000 years....

Happy Birthday Liz!!

This is picture from one of the greatest days in the Hopkins family - when Liz married Jim and joined our family. Here are just a few things that I love about Liz:

1. She's kind
2. She always goes out of her way to help others.
3. She's funny - her laugh is so contagious!
4. She has a strong testimony.
5. She goes shopping with me and tells me when things look ridiculous.
6. She finds a way to look on the bright side of things.
7. She's a hard worker.
8. She's a great sister to the boys.
9. She loves Jimmy, always and makes him a better man.
10. She's the queen of the daughters-in-law!

We love you Liz and hope you have a wonderful birthday - we look forward to many wonderful celebrations through the years. We're so grateful you belong to us (and you and Jim belong to your mom and dad too - we're all good at sharing).

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday Doug!!

Treasures left behind

When the boys were packing for college I instructed them, "Please have your room completely clean before you go. Anything you don't want goes in a bag for DI. If you want to keep it but don't need it at school, pack up a box with your name on it and put it on a shelf in the garage." Seems reasonable don't you think? I finished my lecture with: "Anything that's left I will be throwing in the garbage because I'll assume that you don't want it." It was a fabulous plan! Well it's time to magically change one of the rooms into my sewing room. The bedroom, of course, was not left completely clean - far from it - but true to my plan I was going to throw everything away. Below are a few of the things I found while purging:

When Summer comes they're going to need these:

What mother could throw these away?

There will be luau's - we'll need a shirt!

From the rice fields in the Philippines...

Now tell me how am I supposed to throw away these treasures? This could be an illness and I may need intervention. Can't those people from clean house just come over and take it all away? If I never see it I won't miss it...or will I...it doesn't matter because I have seen it and I would miss it so I have to find a spot for it. Every few years my parents give me a box of my junk that they just couldn't throw away. Things I didn't know I couldn't live without. The circle of life continues.

The man I love getting heart healthy

Here's Davey walking on the treadmill - he walks every day - very impressive!

Before

New Healthy Life Blog

I've started my Healthy Life Blog - Jimmy set it up for me months ago and I'm finally jumping in. The new blog will be all about health and fitness with my blogbabblings and food ideas. Feel free to comment and contribute your food finds. I'm going to try to update it regularly - I hope you like it! http://lanette.hopkinz.com/

stickermania

I got a thousand stickers at the dollar store and Johnny found a good use for them. He's a funny kid!

Church Basketball at it's best

Our boys basketball team - we don't win many games but the boys have lots of fun together. Usually we have 10 deacons on the bench so the future looks very bright!

(as you may have guessed the date on the picture is not correct...I have issues with technology...)