A lesson learned

Stephen and I were driving home and we were approaching a stop light. We had not quite reached the stop light yet. The intersection was somewhat of a busy intersection. Its right off the freeway and its a main street. So as we were approaching the intersection our light was red so we were coming to a stop. We see cars that were turning left and were then passing by us. Suddenly we see this little boy who is not near the crosswalk, the side of the road that we are on that has 3 lanes is full, and we see this little boy just start crossing the street and running through the cars not looking around for cars. Suddenly we see a green car that had turned left and this little boy is headed right for the other side of the street that is going to put this little boy in front of this car and he is going to get hit. We both are looking and say that big, "Huhuhuhuh" sound as we see this little boy and think we are going to see him die right there in front of us. Well luckily the green car saw the little boy and screeched to a stop. The little boy didn't realize he nearly got hit and just ran across the street and made it to the other side. My first reaction was, "Phewwwww." Then suddenly Stephen is pulling into the gas station where this little boy ended. Stephen rolls his window down. Now my reaction is, "What is Stephen going to do." Stephen, then as nice as can be, asks the little boy where he was going. He said he was going to the gas station. Stephen asks him where his parents are and the little boy says that they are at home. Stephen asked him where home was and the little boy pointed over the car and said, "Over there."

Okay, at this point there are a couple of different thoughts. 1. That the little boy could possibly think what is this man asking me all these questions. 2. That has the little boy not been taught about talking to strangers and especially when its a man in a car. (This appears as if we are going to kidnap this little boy. Not good for us. 3. That I was thinking that this little boy is so willing to just give these answers to a complete stranger. 4. That he is giving the answers, BUT that he is all alone! He looked like he was only about 7 years old. 5. So then, what kind of parents does he have??????

So to continue, Stephen talks to the little boy about how the street is really busy and that he needs to use the crosswalk so he doesn't get hit. I'm in the passenger side and making comments, "Ask how old he is?", "Ask if he knows what a crosswalk is?", "Ask what...?". Stephen asks what I'm saying and I have him explain what a crosswalk is.

(Who knows? This little boy is somewhat young. At this age, you can't expect the child to just 'know.' Especially if he is darting across the road, he may have never been taught about crossing the road and to look both ways. Did his parents not know that when this child came into the world he didn't know about the world and they were going to have to teach him about the world. That is there job as the parent. The child is not going to know what a crosswalk is or what a street or what a corner or what a road or a light or 'dangerous' means until they, the parents TEACH him. This is my soap box for parenting, since I taught parenting classes to drug users for so long, I get really fired up when parents who aren't drug users don't teach their kids and expect them to know to 'STOP THAT', 'DON'T DO THAT', 'NO', 'STOP IT'. I say, "Stop WHAT, Don't do WHAT, No WHAT, Stop WHAT???????" EXPLAIN IT TO THE CHILD!!!!! Okay, I'm done with my soap box.)



So Stephen asks the little boy if he knew where the crosswalk was. The little boy pointed to it. Stephen then explained to him that when he crosses the road he needs to use the crosswalk and to wait for the light that shows the person walking and when he say the hand to not walk across the street. Stephen explained that there was a car that almost hit him and that the reason to use the crosswalk was so he would not get hit. I poked my head out there so the little boy could hear me and I told him that it would have been sad if he had gotten hit by the car and gotten hurt really bad. I told him that his parents would have missed him a lot. We asked him to be safe and to use the crosswalk from then on. We start to drive off and we see that the little boy is turned around to head back across the street. He started to walk toward the sidewalk and walked toward the crosswalk. But before he got to the crosswalk, again we see he is about to just bolt out into the street. This time though we see that he hesitated because he saw a car coming towards him. He saw some people standing on the corner and he walked toward the crosswalk. It was the people's turn to walk across. He saw the people start to walk and he started to walk. This time he was looking around more and he was not just running full speed to the other side of the road. He hesitated some even in the crosswalk but he made it across the street, much more safely that time. We were glad to see and hoped that maybe by having talked to him and explained about using the crosswalk that he learned something and hopefully it will stick and will help him in the future.

After that little experience we talked about it and we were was shaken up by it quite a bit. I mentioned maybe having called the police and then Stephen was thinking that we should have called the police to have them come take this little boy back home. I had a thought and told Stephen about it and we decided that maybe it was just better that we explained and taught him what we could and hopefully that will stick with him more than what could have possibly happened in my thought. This was my thought: if the police were to come and take this little boy home they would talk to the parents about making sure the little boy is not out running around in the streets alone. Possibly. After the police leave, the parents though would not take in anything that the police had said and instead end up getting upset and angry at the little boy for going and getting in trouble that brought the police to there house which made them look bad. Then possibly hurt the child, punish the child, and basically the bottom point of the child being the one to get in trouble. Now I only thought that this is what would possibly happen since the little boy is out running around alone in the first place, and the parents are not taking any responsibility in that regard so why would they take the responsibility if it was said to them straight face that THEY need to take care of there son and make sure that he is always safe.

The lesson here is not the child having done anything wrong. Its just so sad to Stephen and I who work (or worked) with so many of these kinds of parents. They take no responsibility for their actions. They as the parents are responsible for this little boy. To teach him how to cross the road, to teach him its not safe to go wander around on a busy street by himself, to now that if the police were to bring their little 7 year old boy home because he was not safe was an irresponsible action on their part and not paying attention to knowing where their child is and making sure he was safe.

We don't know what would have happened if we would have called the police and we don't know the circumstances of this little boys life. What we do know is that there are a lot of people that we have worked with that are in that situation I just mentioned. We as individuals all need to take responsibility for our own actions. We need to not make excuses for EVERYTHING, we need to not blame EVERYONE else, and we need to BUCK UP and deal with the consequences we are handed for the choices that we make.

Stephen and I experienced this situation of this little boy nearly getting hit by a car and could have gotten hurt badly to the extreme of dying and that would have been because of parents who didn't take responsibility of making sure their son was safe that day. Stephen and I were so shook up by this for a few days and how glad we were that the little boy didn't get hit. This is a situation that LUCKILY he didn't get hit, but is he going to be as lucky next time?

We talked about this and thought about this and it was a very interesting lesson to learn in a very unique kind of way, about being responsible. We all need to be responsible and I am going to work on being more responsible in my own life!

I know its a day early!

Okay, I know I'm posting this a day early, but I want to make sure that I post it and I'm worried that I will forget because that happens way too often in my life!!! Ask Stephen!!! So, to make sure that I don't forget I'm going to just go ahead and post it a day early! So now some of you are wondering what are you posting a day early! Well its my older sister JENNIFER JEANE HOOPES MIX Birthday tomorrow. August 28, 1978 she was born in Idaho Falls, Id. She was the best big sister I could ask for. I wanted to be so much like her. I wanted to have the same things she had. I wanted to be go out with her friends. I wanted to be in the same school as her. In yet, I just was not able to be cool enough, why, because I was the annoying little sister!!! In spite of being the younger little sister right below Jen, she was still very good to me. She has always been so good about put an extra effort in things she does for you. She has always been there. She is always up to party and play. She is always a gamer which makes her so great to be around. I have learned so many things from Jen and I am grateful for all the things that she taught me! So I hope you have the best birthday ever Jen. You definitely deserve it. Go out and do something crazy and fun!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JINJIN, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!! :)

Do you have yours memorized?

I read this little article in a magazine about the things that people spend their money on and what lasting things come from the things that were spent on. They pointed out that when buying material things the gratification lasts for only a short time. They said the money that is spent on vacations has a much longer gratification since there is the memories and the pictures the laughs and so many things that can come from vacations. Stephen and I decided that we were going to stop spending money on material things and we wanted to focus on saving to have amazing vacations that we would have the lasting memories and joys and pleasures. So, we had to look at some of the things we spent our money on and how we could eliminate the spending. One big area was he bought books and I bought DVD's. We both enjoy reading and watching movies so we decided okay, we are going to go to the library. Now the library at first was overwhelming for me since its this building with books that's organized in ways that I could not figure out. It has movies that are a lot of times just far out there. The people that work there seem to be older and I worried about their patience with me. Well, I decided okay this is going to be good. We went at first to check out a movie or two. Just see what they had. In the meantime I had heard about this book called Twlight and so I asked the librarian if she had happened to hear of it. She chuckled and said it would be kind of a long waiting list but that they had about 25 books and so the list should go pretty fast. Okay, I thought so she put on the holding list. We checked out a couple of movies and went on our way. As time progressed I thought of looking up a movie one time while we were at home. Sure enough I was quite surprised that they actually had a selection of movies that was up to date just always checked out. I wanted to hold the item and I could do that from home but I needed the library card. So I got that out and decided to put it on hold. Well, I checked a couple other things and put them on hold just because it was kind of fun to feel like I was holding things from home. I ended up putting the whole Twlight series on hold. I put a few movies and a CD or two. Then I was talking to Stephen on the phone and he mentioned the library had called and said that one of the holds had come in. I was so excited that the library had called and had our things. Then I gradually started looking things up from home more often. I looked up more movies, Cd's, Books. I have lists of movies and books from companions from my mission that I asked them about their favorite books and movies and wrote them all down. Now I can look them up. So then I figured out that rather than putting everything on hold and it all coming at once, since you can only have 25 items out at once. They have that you can place things on a "My List". Essentially its like a que, like Netflix or Blockbuster has, where you can just store all the movies you want to watch eventually. So, I have things on hold, things in my list, things that I'm reading, and things waiting to be put on my list. Its really been quite fun. The whole overwhelming aspect of the library: Completely Gone! It's great. I love the library. Stephen was joking and said the library calls every day and says they have something since you have put the whole library on hold. Ha, ha, ha! It's just so fun though! I'm definitely getting much more from the library than every expected! So, I'm looking things up on the computer from home nearly every day that I now have my library card memorized. You could call me on any given day, off the cuff and I could tell it to you. So, do you have yours memorized? :)

The Game Is On!!!!

Describe ME in one word.... just one single word. Think of the word and then comment. Don’t peek and see what others wrote for their word. No cheating!!!
You can then copy and paste this on your Blog and see how many strange & interesting things your family and friends say about you.

This is really fun(ny). Here's how to Play:

1. Think up your word. Don’t peek at the comments! Once you have the word, hit the comment key and type your one word YOU thought of and then send. Even if anonymous, just add your name on with the word so I know it was from you!

2. Then paste this message on your Blog, and see what people say about you when limited to one word!!!

Thanks!

I wanted to give a big thanks to my Aunt Julie. She threw me a bridal shower the morning of the Luau. She did such a great job. I don't know truly who all she got help from, so those who helped Aunt Julie thanks so much as well. We all had so much fun. The games she planned were fun, the food was great. The prizes were fun and I even won! Yeah! I got great gifts and thanks to everyone for those. Thanks to all who came out and were able to make it. We had a good time. Thanks again Aunt Julie for throwing me a shower, it meant a lot! :)

This picture shows my Aunt Julie there in the background! She's such a cutie isn't she!!!

Bountiful Baskets the Food Co-Op

So, my sister Jen has told me about these food co-op for awhile called Bountiful Baskets. I looked and the closest one to me was about 20 miles away. So I hesitated and hesitated. Then, we got in this situation where I don't have a job and am limited on my job options so I decided to give it a look again and found a site that was only about 3 to 4 miles away from our house. So I decided okay well, we can try it this first time and see how it goes. Lets just say, WOW! If you have a food co-op close to your house do it. Basically I got online and signed up. I then just added things to my shopping cart which was a basket of fruits and vegetables. We decided to get some bread as well. As a first time person the fruits and vegetables were $17 and the bread was $2. The bread was artisan bread, it was a rye bread that we picked. So, we ordered and then on Saturday morning of the 16Th we took our own basket and headed off to get our produce basket. We needed to pick up the food around 8:15am. We went to a park and I saw these rows of baskets with food. I saw a line of people with empty baskets. I saw others by the rows of food baskets filling their baskets and walking away with these full baskets that was looking like a lot of food. So I was starting to kind of get excited. Now the catch, is just that you don't really know what kinds of fruits and vegetables they will have from week to week. So we got in line and heard the chitter chatter of woman who have done this food co-op more than once. So it came our turn and we were sent to one of the rows and the guy asked how many baskets we had and we told him that we got one basket. He then said that the 2 round laundry baskets of food were ours. So we filled our bucket up. we got 2 lettuce leaf packs, 5 peaches, 7 tomatoes, 8 sweet potato's, 2 lbs of green beans, 10-13 carrot sticks, a cantaloupe, 6 bananas, a carton of strawberries, and our artisan bread. We have already had about 3 or 4 meals using the fruits or vegetables and the food isn't even half gone yet. It was a great, great buy. I just ordered our next bunch and its only $15 this time. You pick up the baskets every other Saturday, so we will skip this Saturday to pick up and wait till the following Saturday. This time though we are going to be getting Alpine Bread, white sandwich bread and honey wheat bread, along with our produce basket. Yummy! I can't wait. (This picture is not of our food. I had put our food away and then thought of taking a picture and I have not had the energy to pull all the food out to lay it out to take a picture. So I found this one online from someone who took this picture after getting there food from bountiful baskets. So it would be something similar, but just different veggies and fruits. But the idea of how much there is for the great price.)

For Arizonians you can go to: www.bountifulbaskets.org its on the west and the east side. Enjoy! :)

The Luau! Aloha!!!!

I need to give a BIG shout out to my sister Jen. She is amazing! Wow! I will become her new advertisement for party planning of any kind, because I know that she will not disappoint. She threw together one fun party! She did awesome! I never doubted and never worried, she has always done a great job in every project she has ever done. I am just so glad that I got to have a personal party planner in the family to take care of such a HUGE task that I definitely would not have been able to pull off! So, I really don't think that there's a big enough thanks or a big enough return to give for what a great job she did. I know that was a lot of behind the scenes action going on that I don't even now how long that list goes. I know that there were helpers like, my mom, Amy, Dave, the girls, Aunt Julie, Carissa, Genelle, Becky, James, and Stephen. Helped in ways from cutting up food, helping with decorations, running errands, getting music figured out, drawing the Luau people pictures, ironing, taking down and cleaning up, loading and unloading, and taking out the garbage. Some tasks big or small, with the help of these people for Jen I'm sure made it possible! The Luau was so much fun to see family and friends and eat, and dance, and laugh! Thanks again Jen and all those who helped and who came for making it such a great, fun night!

Luau

Home from the Honeymoon

So we got back to Arizona and it was raining horribly, horribly bad. Now we parked the car in long term parking and so we had to take the little roadrunner bus to the roadrunner long term parking area to where our car was at. So, its raining horribly bad and we wait for the bus forever and then run out to the bus and get wet, wet, wet. The bus takes us out to the long term area but right when we finally approached the gate to enter the little arm of the gate wouldn't go up and so we sat for awhile when Stephen decided he would just go and run to get the car. So Here is a picture of him after being out in the rain so much.
Stephen just smiling away, wet or not, he's just happy to be married to ME!!! :)


Once we got to our condo we saw ants along an ant trail. So we cleaned up ants and Stephen caulked the wall where we saw the ants coming from. Whew, that was not really the welcome from the honeymoon we thought we were going to be having. Once we were back though we started getting settled into the condo and Stephen went through all of his books that he had and I went through mine. We started to make piles of things to get rid of and clear out and settle in. In the mean while we also went and ended up getting as I call them 'our kids.' We got 9 plants. I told him that if I can take care of and nurture some plants than I could take care of a child right??? :) Here are our kids. I have named each one. I wish I knew how to put the names under each picture. I'll try and see, so here it goes.

She is the only one I have not offically named, but I continue to call her the prayer because in the day she will flatten her leaves and at night she lifts her leaves up as if she is praying.


This is Leafinigus


This is Staulky


This is Bendifurous


This is Stretch


This is Curliquis


This is Ferni's twin, Fernigus


This is Ferni, he has a twin


This is Flora, we call her Flo for short.


Now since I have not been able to work for the past month and half I have had some time on my hands and so its been helpful to have 'my kids' here to keep me company and help keep the house feeling calm and peacful. They make it very nature feeling like, which is very comforting. I have grown attached to them and I talk to them, and they are all doing very good. I am excited to see them all grow bigger. We have the twins (the ferns) and the triplets (philodendrens) which are bendifirus, leafinigus, and staulky. Each of the plants are unique in their own way even though we do have the twins and the triplets. I think because I have attached myself to the kids I would be really sad if they were to die suddenly. So I am taking care of them as best I can. We read about them online and make sure that we are watering them correctly and giving them the correct amount of light. By me making sure that I am giving 'my kids' the kind of care and attention to make sure that they are getting the correct amount of water or light or what they need in order to survive the best in its environment, isn't that far off from what parenting is like, eh moms??? Or more like, if I can't even take care of these plants how would I ever be able to do the much more complicated job of raising a child.

Brown's in Salem, Boston, the Beach, and Maine