Hope of America

It's Hope of America time once again.  This was Kate's first.  Look at her cute little self!  Matt and I volunteered again.  It is so fun to do this kind of thing with Matt.  He just jumps in and gets things moving.  It was also fun to remember back a few years ago when Matt saw me for the first time at Hope of America.  I'm not sure that story about Hope of America is recorded anywhere (maybe it is in my little journal from Ghana...?), so why not here :) 

Matt and I started emailing each other in May of 2010.  I had been living with Caroline for several months to help after the twins were born and while I looked for a house to buy.  I'd decided to quit waiting "just in case"I met someone and just start settling down.  I'd moved 5 times in 5 years and I was tired.  So, Fred Benson, John's dad, was helping me look for places.  The townhouse I settled on wasn't my first choice, but it was a good size, I could afford it, it was just a few blocks from Westside, and it had a garage (which I was so excited to park in during the winter!). 

I had signed up for LDSsingles again to help me move past a very difficult experience I'd had.  I wasn't, however, planning on doing much besides sign up.  But then one Saturday evening I got a fun little email that left a smile on my face and allowed for an short, easy response.  It was Matt (although I didn't know that was his  name at first).  Over the course of the next week I closed on the townhouse and moved in while Matt and I were emailing back and forth a few times a day.  Then he asked if he could call me sometime.  I was nervous and yet very interested in talking to this man who had been so easy to write to.  I gave him my number and we planned to talk on a Sunday afternoon (which happened to be the day after Erin and I moved into my townhouse).  

We talked for three house as if it had been minutes.  During the course of that chat the Hope of America came up and Matt says "I've seen you before.  I saw you there!"  It was almost as much as a surprise to him as it was to me.  Tyler was in the show that night and Matt was there by himself (talking to a girl he'd gone out with on the phone) to watch the show. I didn't believe  that he'd really seen me, but then he said that he remembered watching my mom on the stand trying to get the attention of some teachers leading a group of students down to the floor and was obviously frustrated about something.  He said he saw me run up and talk to mom and then run over to the group of  teachers and talk to them.  He was only a few rows up from the floor and "noticed you weren't wearing a ring" he said, kind of smiling through his words.  I was quite struck by this.  He then said that Tyler had been in the flag, sitting on the far left side.  He had started out in a blue shirt but then was given a yellow shirt to put over the top to be part of the frame that went around the edge of the flag.  Matt later told me that he asked Tyler a few days later if he remembered who gave him the yellow shirt.  Tyler said it was a lady with a blond ponytail and a headset on.  It was me.  Heavenly Father has a way of showing that He is involved in our lives.

So here's a few pictures from this years show.  It is amazing to me every time I see it.  What a great thing my mom has done for this community!  And what a happy reminder it is of the time a boy saw a girl and a few months later they would be happily married with with eternity to go.  

Here we go!  The flag came together in the last minutes before the show started.  It's always a small miracle that it does at all.

Mom was invited to lead two songs.  This picture, however, is of her on the sidelines singing/signing The Star Spangled Banner with the chorus.  She's pretty darn cute!