the Titan

Last week was spring break for everyone not in hair school (yay), so Brandon's parents took us all to Six Flags in Dallas. Brandon, Brittany, Brian and I ran around riding the rides, and Sherrie and Randy hung out with Portia. We had a blast basking in the sunshine and hanging out as a family.

By far, my favorite part was the Titan. Three and a half minutes of stunning speeds, death-defeating drops, and one 120-foot long tunnel shrouded in total darkness. That first drop is over 255 feet tall (about 26 stories), and puts you at over 85 mph, and it is straight down. I repeat: straight. down.

By the end of the ride the first time, my eyes were watering like crazy and I was shaking so much that I could hardly hide it. And I couldnt wait to do it again! (Do I sound like a commercial yet?)

We only got to ride it twice because of the length of all the lines, but if you ask me, the hours stood waiting for all these thrilling coasters were worth it!

If you ever go to Dallas, take the time to stop at Six Flags. Its totally awesome!

my little fizgig

Portia is a funny kid. She has become fully mobile now and prides herself in her crawling skills. But, as you may imagine, she gets herself into some trouble, at least more than she used to.

This afternoon, I hopped in the shower (yes, I do this often). I left Portia in the living room, surrounded by toys and Baby Einstein, and Brandon was just in the other room studying, but I left the bathroom door open so I could hear her just in case. After a few minutes, I heard her come into the bathroom. Her bath toys were in there and she started playing with them, so I continued my shower. But pretty soon, she stopped making any noise, so I stuck my head out to see what she was up to. She looked fine, just sitting on the rug, holding a rubber duckie. Then she smiled.

Remember on TV, when someone puts too much soap in the washing machine and the bubbles ooze out everywhere? Now imagine that same situation, but in my daughter's mouth. She had found a tiny piece of broken soap on the floor somewhere and was sucking on it. I yelled to Brandon and he got her good and rinsed.

So what happens if when she's older, she says a bad word sometime? I can't wash her mouth out with soap, she likes it!

Portia Swinging

There is a little park in our complex with a few swings. The sun was shining today, so we took Portia to try it out!

Portia Swinging from kathleen rawlinson on Vimeo.

Sacrament talk

today, Brandon and I gave talks in Sacrament meeting, here's mine:

Good morning,

We have been asked to speak on the Conference talk: To Acquire Spiritual Guidance, by Elder Richard G. Scott. When we first received the call to speak, I immediately felt overwhelmed. Public speaking is something that I generally don’t like to do. After a few days of hyperventilating at the thought of today, I started to try to think of ideas, but I was stumped. I had no clue what to speak about. Before going to bed one night, I prayed for guidance and for confidence. The next day, I happened to come across one of my old friend’s blogs online. Miraculously, she had just posted some of her feelings on personal revelation. After reading her simple but profound thoughts, I not only felt a little less frightened, but also had a few thoughts of my own. The Lord answered my plea for help in a most unconventional way.

Personal revelation can come in many different forms, and can come at any time. It is up to us to be continuously ready to receive that strength and guidance from the Lord. If we are not prepared, we will miss something.

Elder Scott said:

“I am convinced that there is no simple formula or technique that would immediately allow you to master the ability to be guided by the voice of the Spirit. Our Father expects you to learn how to obtain that divine help by exercising faith in Him and His Holy Son, Jesus Christ.”

He goes on to say that if receiving revelation were easy, we would become weak. We must work at it, having faith and patience, only then can we grow spiritually.

When we are spiritually strong, we can not only receive inspiration to know what to do, but also the power to do it. In high school, my English class read a play based on the story of Job. Beforehand, my teacher had all of us bring our Bibles to class, to go over the story together so that we could understand the play better. I felt prompted to bring my Book of Mormon as well, and being the only member of the church in the class, I was nervous that a lot of attention would be turned my way. But I brought it, and after a few minutes of quietly studying our bibles, some of my classmates began to ask me questions about the church. And after a while, the teacher and every student in the class were listening intently to me. I was petrified that I would say something wrong or that I would be confusing, but I was given the power and courage to answer the questions and bear my testimony to my class.

The Lord also comforts us in times of grief or fear. He has given us this gift out of pure love. When I was a little girl, I had quite the overactive imagination. It didn’t help that I had seen the move Hocus Pocus, which scared the living daylights out of me. I would lay in bed at night and imagine witches coming to steal me away to turn me into a cat, and I would never get to see my family, or play with my barbies ever again! I would terrify myself to the point of insomnia, at which point I would usually remember from Primary, that my Heavenly Father loves me. I would say a prayer to help me be less afraid and fall asleep. Every single time, my silly childhood fears were dispelled, and I did this quite often. Because of this, I learned at an early age of the infinite and abounding love of my Father in heaven.

We must all remember that our Heavenly Father loves us and wants to help us. He rejoices when we are happily following the gospel of Christ. Moses 1:39 states that the Father’s work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. He will reveal to us the help and guidance we need, as well as His incredible love for us, as long as we remain worthy to receive such.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

8 months has gone by so fast

Portia is getting so big, she has just started crawling! It's so fun to see her explore and learn about the world around her!

Portia's 1st Christmas

Just a little highlight reel from the holidays! We spent our time visiting family in Tulsa!

Tub time with cousin Luke.

Christmas morning!

(Yes, she is eating a lemon.)

McElroy Summer or Hey, how was your weekend?

I thought since I wrote about my glorious high school job at Sonic, I would write about the next-worst job on my resume: McElroy Manufacturing.

My Carrie-sister and I got summer internship jobs at the manufacturing plant our dad worked at where they build machines used for fusing rubber pipeline together. Carrie was basically a glorified receptionist, and I was the lucky girl to be stationed under John Mink, who had a specific job for my partner, Viktor (a 17 year old Russian, who spoke very broken english) and I. We were to go out into the plant, armed with a notepad and digital camera, and watch the mechanics build the machines. We were then to re-write the instruction books on how to do this task, complete with illustrations. Great. Needless to say, Viktor and I spent alot of time trying to figure out how to accomplish this. We decided that since my grasp of the English language was better, I would be in charge of note-taking and Viktor would take the pictures. After a few weeks, we realized that this was going to take a much longer time than even we thought at first. And it didn't help that John Mink was beginning to worry. Not that he had given us much too difficult a task, but that I was too stupid for the job. You see, John loved Viktor. I mean REALLY loved him. He thought Viktor was the best thing to ever happen to the company. And he thought I was a blooming idiot. One day, he pulled me aside, and informed me that if I wanted, he could teach me how to use the camera. I politely informed him that I already knew how to use it. He said that since he always saw Viktor with it, he thought I must not know how. I tried to help him understand why this was, but he must have stopped listening. A few days later, he tried to teach me how to use the camera. And a few weeks after that he tried again. And a few more times after that. Thanks, John. Really. Thanks.

We now come to Bart Bartlett, or Brett Bretterson as Carrie and I called him. He was the plant manager, whose office was across the aisle from our cubicles. He hated us. He was constantly getting mad at us for being too loud on our lunch breaks, and talking in the hallways. We just decided that maybe he didn't like girls, as we were 2 of 4 that worked in the entire plant. Our suspicions were confirmed, when he asked John Mink to talk to me about "being too pretty" and distracting the workers. Apparently, I was so cute in my steel-toed boots, no makeup, and safety goggles, none of the men in the plant could do anything when I was around, and I should stop it. Brett Bretterson was also the most hilarious person to eavesdrop on. Since his office was so close, Carrie and I could always hear him on the phone cussing out his kid's little league coach, or pondering the quandary: "But what do you do with the dead body in the back of the truck?!?" There are so many more stories I could tell about him (like "32+8=40," "that's feasible," and "you are all asking: You fool, it can't be done!"), but none are as amusing as what's coming next: Bobby.

Bobby was a 40-something mechanic, who had a bit of a crush on me. He always asked me how my weekend was. Always. Every time he saw me. On a wednesday afternoon, he might walk up to me, and in all seriousness say "Hey. How was your weekend?" I never could figure it out. If nothing else, Bobby was definitely generous. At least once a day, usually more, Bobby would go to the vending machine and buy me a package of Peanut MMs. He had never seen me buy them, and never heard me talk about how much I liked them, he just thought it up. Brilliant! At first, I just thought whatever, free candy. But after a few weeks of this, I started giving it away. And after a month, Carrie and my other friends stopped wanting it as well, so I started throwing it away. I still had 2 more months of this. To this day, Peanut MMs still make me want to yak. Finally, the last day of our internship had arrived, and as I was packing up my stuff to leave, my office phone rang. It was Bobby. He wanted to know if I wanted to go out to dinner sometime. Ooooooh dinner! What are we going to have, Peanut MMs? No thanks. Not to mention the fact that Bobby was old enough to be my father. Yuck.

The only thing I liked about that summer was working with Carrie, my dad, Derek, and Sheridan. We had some good times in that break room, watching the price is right and eating love-cookies. Ah, memories.