Nash

My daughter and I went to the Miley Cyrus concert with 2 very fun girls. Nikki Nielsen and Ashleigh Tanner are best friends and are always together so I am going to start calling them "Nash" (Nik and Ash, get it?) I love these girls. They are half my age and Savannah is half theirs so we make quite a diverse bunch. Somehow, we all relate to each other though. They are the sweetest, funnest girls and I just love being with them. We have a lot in common. You might wonder where I would find girls who are young enough to be my daughters to hang out with. Nikki is my daughter-in-law's sister-in law and Ashleigh is friends with all of my sons. They are so mature and such good role models for my real daughter. We have had so much fun watching Hannah Montana concerts on T.V. with 3-D glasses and dancing around in my living room. We play Catch Phrase and do puzzles during the holidays. I love having them over to my house and now I love going to concerts with them. I hope we do it a lot more. Nik is already part of my family so now I need to work on getting Ash in there. I still have a few single sons :) Nash forever Moore!

Goodbye Hannah, I Miss You :(

Well, she never said it was a "Hannah Montana" concert. And it definitely wasn't. I guess I now know that it was Hannah Montana I loved and not Miley Cyrus. Me and two friends took my 13 year old daughter to see Miley Cyrus in concert last night and we all came home sad, disturbed and thinking we had just wasted a lot of money. I guess it wasn't really Miley's fault since we were the ones who expected something else. The whole time I was watching her I was thinking, "Are her parents watching her right now?" "What could they possibly be thinking?" There she was, a 16 year old girl wearing nearly nothing, shaking her body in ways no 16 year old girl should know how to shake and screaming rock and roll lyrics at decibal levels that may have permanently damaged sweet Emmerson Claire's ears. No sign of Hannah anywhere. I felt bad for the scared little kids in the audience who were probably wondering where Hannah Montana was. Again, not her fault as she never said it was a "Hannah" concert. I will be much more careful the next time I consider taking myself or my daughter to a concert. The whole way home I couldn't help but be very grateful for a church that espouses very different values than the ones I saw last night. I'm pretty sure that my beautiful Mormon girl would rather die than ever be seen doing those things, in those clothes, in public or anywhere else. So I guess I will have to be content with watching Hannah Montana reruns on T.V. Sniff, sniff. Goodbye Hannah, I miss you:(

The First Law of Heaven

On my walk today the thoughts that ran through my head seemed to form themselves automatically into a blog post :) So, here I am up on my soapbox (and at my height this is a dizzying feat). I was thinking about certain friends and family members of mine who are not very happy right now and why that might be. My first thought was that they were not being completely (or in some cases not even remotely) obedient to the things they have been taught. Obedience is the FIRST law of heaven. First being most important and having the most weight. What is obedience? Back in the day the people needed the Law of Moses to guide them because they just weren't quite there in understanding the spirit of the law. They had to have the letter of the law and believe me they utilized every letter of every alphabet known to man. They measured steps and had a law for every breath they took and were instructed down to the nth degree on everything they were supposed to be doing. Guess what? We are waaaayyyy beyond that now. We are so advanced and so cool and so "above" all that that we now have a higher law. This means that we are supposed to be able to understand "why" guidelines are given to us not just that they "are" given. So when we just barely keep the laws as we choose to interpret them, it looks like we are really chafing at those laws and are not really understanding the purpose of why they were given. We are just obeying because we are scared not to. When we drink every caffeinated drink except coffee and tea or wear immodest clothing right up until the day we go to the temple or use words that sound so much like swear words that they have the same meaning then we are showing that we don't really understand the principles of good health, purity and modesty and Christlike thoughts and language, we are just fulfilling the letter of the law so we don't get into trouble with our parents or our church. I submit that when we fully understand and live the law of obedience out of a true desire to receive the blessings waiting for us by doing so that then is the only time we can truly be happy. If we think about the purpose and love behind the law, we might see it in a different light and live it in a different way. As an added bonus we might help the Mormons keep that wonderful reputation of being a "peculiar" people.

I Love My Job

Can you tell I'm in the mood to chat? After reading a friend's blog I was reminded, once again, of how much I love my job. I am a stay at home mom and it is my favorite job in the whole wide world. I've loved it since the day I got it which was on February 25, 1982. I won't be silly and say that I've loved every single minute of it because early on there were several minutes when I was not so happy and might have even been a little bored but overall I wouldn't trade it for any other job. I happen to believe that it has been the absolutely most important way I could spend my time while on this earth. It has been challenging, overwhelming at times, frustrating and monotonous but the end result has been so rewarding and has brought me such joy that I couldn't imagine spending my time on anything else. The other thing I've noticed is how short of a time it has been. I've completely raised 5 children and almost completely raised the last two and it went by in a blink! I still have plenty of time to do all the things I thought I wanted to do while I was raising them. Pretty soon I will have so much free time I will probably need to be put into a loony bin because I won't know what to do with myself. Every sacrifice was worth the relationships I now have with my kids and husband. Looking back it seems like such a small amount of time and effort even though I know it was huge in both areas. 27 years and counting! Thank you, my dear husband, for making it possible for me to stay home and raise our babies to the best of my ability. I will always be grateful to you for that blessing.

What??

Some other things I love are the BYU Cougars and the Oakland Raiders. Most people who know us know that we are Mormons and so the Cougar thing is pretty much automatic and very understandable. The Raider thing? Not so much. Everyone says, "How can you be Mormons and like the Raiders?" Simple. They are our "home boys". Pat and I grew up in Santa Rosa, CA which was the training grounds for the Raiders for years. We lived through their glory days and ALL of their Super Bowl wins (something Charger fans have yet to experience) and when you go through stuff like that with a team there is a bond formed that holds you together through the tough times (which are happening right now) as well as the good times which we know are coming back someday (maybe when Al Davis passes on to the next life? or when someone teaches Jamarcus Russell how to throw an accurate pass?) Anyway, as long as the silver and black are around we will be diehard Raider fans. Just win, baby!

Mama's Boy

I'm going to start thinking of and writing about the things that make me happy. One of those things comes to my mind right away. On Fridays I help other football moms serve lunch to the varsity football players at Mission Hills High School. There are almost 70 football players and maybe 7 or 8 moms who help out. I know a lot of these moms and I know that they are very close to their sons. They come to all the games and I even hear their sons tell them they love them and speak very respectfully to them. Something that has never been cool for a teenage son to do in front of his friends though is give his mom a hug. Hunter and I are single-handedly trying to change that without even really thinking about it. Hunter is the quarterback of his team and although not a captain because he's only a junior, he is still a leader and an example to the rest of the team. After every lunch he comes up to me and gives me a kiss, a huge hug and tells me he loves me. I hope that by his example some of his teammates will not be afraid to show affection to the mothers that I know they love. Hunter is a very good boy and he makes me very happy.

Big-Game Hunter

Holy smokes! What a game! I am still walking on air. I can't believe this is happening to us. All my fears were for naught. We KILLED San Marcos. It was 49-12 and they only got the 12 on our 17th string defense. Hunter was magnificent. He threw a school record 4 touchdown passes and rushed for another touchdown. He had 306 yards and completed 11 out of 12 passes. I'm in shock. He got interviewed by The North County Times, The Union Tribune and The Prep Pigskin Report. We had a ton of our dearest friends and family in the Sky Box with us cheering their heads off. The next day was like Christmas morning when we opened the newspaper. There was a huge headline on the sports page that said "Big-Game Hunter". I was freaking out. They had a big article about him and he was the passing leader for the week too. I feel like I'm in a dream. I'm so happy that all of his hard work is starting to pay off and that he is still in one piece. Next week is Eastlake. We'll see if the magic can hang on for one more week.

The Big Time

Friday night is Hunter's first home game as a varsity quarterback. It would be scary even if we were playing someone we don't know anything about or don't care about. The whole idea of playing in front of the home crowd just makes me nervous for him. But, of course, we aren't playing just some "no-name" that doesn't matter and that is located so far away that none of their fans would come. We are playing the 6th annual Discovery Bowl against our archrivals: San Marcos High School which, in case you didn't know, is located right in our own city. These are boys that Hunter has played against or with his entire life so they have quite a rivalry going on. We have won this game every year we have played it except for the first year when our new high school didn't have any seniors and we almost won that too! So, no pressure. That means that pretty much the entire city will be in our stadium (O.K. I might be exaggerating a little tiny bit). As if that wasn't enough, it will also be Pop Warner night which means that all the little Pop Warner football teams and their families will be there (maybe I wasn't exaggerating!) It is also September 11th AND some Charger cheerleaders are coming to shake their booties for our fans. But the icing on the cake is that the very popular Prep Pigskin Report from KUSI will be filming the whole entire game as the North County Game of the Week! Kill me now! Does anyone know what a very slow heart attack feels like? Well, I'm in one right now. Two of my three sons are coming down from Utah to watch us hopefully kill their alma mater and they will be cheering for OUR side. I know I've waited a lifetime for this, I just hope I can stay alive long enough to enjoy it. GO GRIZZLIES!!!

I'm Exhausted!

I just went on the most emotional rollercoaster ride this past 24 hours. Hunter finally got his varsity jersey with his name on the back. He's only been waiting his whole life to wear one of these. He was so excited. After he left for school I got the morning paper which showed that our coach had named his son the starting quarterback and not my son. I thought my son was better and deserved the job (typical parent) so I was really sad. So, we get to the game and we are definitely not expected to win since we are playing the #6 ranked team in southern California. I'm sure that was because of last year's performance because they lost a few guys and they were not very good (in my humble but most accurate opinion). Of course, we didn't look so hot at first either but we were hanging in there. Then, our quarterback goes down with a broken arm! Now, being a mom and being a very emotional female I felt sick to my stomach. I hate injuries more than anything. They are such a waste! I couldn't imagine what he and his parents were feeling. He's a senior! First game and it's all over. What could be worse? I felt terrible. Then I realized that my son was going to have to go in after this terrible injury and try to play his first varsity game ever. Then I was really sick to my stomach. I was so tense that if anyone would have touched me I think a piece of me would've broken off. I saw other parents surreptitiously looking up at Pat and me and I was trying really hard not to cry while I was praying my guts out. I was so nervous for Hunter. He had pulled a groin muscle three days earlier so I was worried about that, I didn't want him to get injured or be scared, and I certainly didn't want him to mess up after I'd been feeling that he deserved the starting job. So, his very first pass was an interception. Oddly, all I felt was relief that he'd gotten it out of the way early and that it wasn't run back for a touchdown. After that he settled in and played like I know he can play and wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, little Mission Hills beat the mighty Tesoro! Hunter threw a touchdown pass and ran for some yards and didn't get hurt or mess up too bad and now I can't stop smiling even though I'm emotionally exhausted. I feel terrible for Aaron but I can't help feeling elated that after 27 years of anticipation, we finally have a varsity quarterback. Whew! I need to take a nap.

"And a Very Big Child Shall Lead Them"

I was so proud of Hunter the other day. His coach was trying to teach him the finer points of being a varsity quarterback and he wanted Hunter to be more vocal and forceful in the huddle (he must not completely comprehend that this is a "Moore" he's dealing with) and to vocally reprimand his troops for falling apart and letting people tackle him. The coach went into a huddle and demonstrated what he wanted by screaming and yelling and swearing profusely. Later he asked Hunter if he understood what he wanted him to do and Hunter said "Yeah, I think so but can I do it without the cussing?" The coach was so embarrassed that he apologized and told H that he would try harder not to use bad language in front of him. He said, "Hunter, you are going to make me a better man!" I was so proud. Way to go, Deuce!