Hurricane Rita

$5 Opera tickets

To anyone who is interested, the Ft. Worth Opera does a special student night, which is actually the dress rehearsal. Tickets are only $5 and it's much less formal and just as good as going to an actual performance. The first one is La Traviata on November 9. Tickets are first come, first served and are available for purchase starting Oct. 1. The next one is Dialogues of the Carmelites on January 4, and the last one is La Boheme (one of my favorites) on March 21. You can call Tony at (817) 731-0833 ext. 19 or send an e-mail to tkostecki@fwopera.org to make your reservations or get more information.

DFW Management Society/LDS Employment Resource Services Professional Career Fair

A Professional Career Fair is being held in Carrollton that may be interesting to even those who are currently gainfully employed. If you're looking for an upgrade or a different employment scene, update your resume and attend the career fair. Details below.

Who:
Over 50 of DFW's best and brightest employers, and ...
You with your well prepared resume.

When:
Wednesday, October 12 11:30am - 3:00pm
There will be a keynote speaker at 11:30am. You are encouraged to arrive then.

Where:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints chapel
4000 Nazarene Dr.
Carrollton, TX

How to register:
Contact the fair organizers at wel-ec-dallas@ldschurch.org

About the DFW Management Society (DFWMS) and LDS Employment Resources Services (LDS ERS)
DFWMS is a local chapter sponsored by the BYU Marriott School of Management. It helps qualified students gain educational experience, by providing scholarships and mentoring. It also encourages life-long learning, networking and ongoing career development.
LDS ERS provides job training and employment services to the executive, professional, and managerial community at large. This work is administered in over 100 sites throughout the Metroplex. LDS ERS placed over 2,400 individuals in Dallas/Ft.Worth and surrounding areas in 2004, and over 200,000 individuals worldwide.
Our aim is to connect good employees with good employers. Finding and hiring good employees, who will make a positive contribution to your operation, is a difficult challenge. When the job is done well, business and individual needs are met.

I will be attending with my employer, Protiviti. If you have any questions, you can also contact me.

General Conference Weekend

General Conference weekend will be here soon. Here is the food plan:

Saturday I will do brisket with buns and whatever anyone else brings. I will have lots of drinks and will fill the Elijah basket. Please try to refrain from eating more than 3 or 4 of those per day or we may run out and you may fill out.

Sunday will be the Tex-Mex Cookoff (it won by a wide margin!) I will have more drinks and maybe cook rice and get a dessert.

Suzy and Paul will be in Niagara Falls (tough life) and Ginny and JT may take Sophy to Dallas on Sunday morning to the Russian Orthodox service since there is not one of those in FW.

Conference schedule is: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Priesthood is Saturday night at 7 p.m. but not on BYU TV. Any girls who want to play games Saturday night are cordially invited. I will be recording all of conference in case anyone misses any of the sessions.

Please feel free to bring friends and family but also be sure to bring food or we might run out or have to do the fishes and loaves thing.

Love, Mom/Grandma

The Results are In!

Well, from the majority of votes on the poll, it looks like we have a clear winner in the choice for this year's cook-off theme: Tex Mex! I will take down the poll tomorrow and we'll make this official. So grab your recipe and jalapeños and have fun! Join us for the sampling and voting at 1pm on Sunday, October 2nd!

Hurricane Rita

Mom got back from talking with the fire (or police?) chief of Forest Hill who had some scary words about Hurricane Rita. It's supposed to be worse than people are thinking it will be, so everyone be on guard! Make sure you have water and food enough for a couple of days and in case the power should go out. Rita is forecased to still be a tropical storm once it hits North Texas. Mom is setting up shelter at her house and anyone is welcome to join her. The women can even join her Saturday night for the women's broadcast and ride out the rain there instead of outside. Any reason for a party, right?















**Note: The storm was just downgraded to a Category 4 and might even lose strength as it gets closer to the coast. It is still predicted to be either a Category 1 or a strong Tropical Storm by the time it hits north Texas, but the brunt of the force in south Texas won't be as bad as they thought. Good news!

Tommy Update

Today we had our first interview and pre-screening with Early Childhood Intervention. This is the first of 3 that we will have, and after the third one, we will either begin therapy, or they will decide that Tommy doesn't need it. It went pretty well, except the interviewer does a lot of things with toys to see where Tommy is with various stages of his development. Anna wanted to play with the toys and interfered several times with the interview. I finally had to take her out and threaten her before we could continue. Tommy has an ENT appointment on Oct. 3, and they will take a look at his ears and determine what to do from there. On Oct. 5, we have our first meeting with a speech therapist, who will do a complete social and hearing evaluation on Tommy and see if he's a candidate for speech therapy, or any other kind of therapy.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

A new trailer for the movie was just released and it's really cool! Look for Sirius' head in the fire, Mad Eye Moody and Voldemort. Goblet of Fire Trailer

Tommy's Ears

Tommy went to the doctor on Monday for a check-up. She was concerned about his lack of speech and did a thorough check of his ears. She saw that the ear drum was not moving as much as she liked and went ahead and did a tympanogram on his ears which measures the amount of vibration from the ear drum. It was in the acceptable range, but in the lower portion, so she wanted to cover all bases and referred us to an ENT and Audiologist. Danny and I have decided to not set up those appointments yet and wait and see how things progress. We will have a different doctor look at him at his 18-month check-up and see what he thinks. If he decides that Tommy does indeed need more tests, then we will go ahead and have them done. We have also been referred to Early Childhood Prevention for his speech and have set up his first appointment for next Wednesday. (I think Ginny knows a lot about these people) He will then be evaluated and they will decide whether or not he needs therapy. Let's hope that everything is fine!

Photos from Biloxi

Left: The water line in the living room, the drywall had to be removed up to that point because of mold; Center: What's left of the shed and swings in the backyard of the Dickens' home; Right: A funny sign down the street: "Neighborhood Yard Sale, Pick a House."


Left: Dick Cheney's helicopter flying over Biloxi; Center: The inside of the Dicken's home after 4' of the drywall was removed and the floors pulled up, it all has to be replaced. Looks like their very own Extreme Home Makeover; Right: A piece of Highway 90 a few yards from where it should have been.

It's Still a Girl!

Just to update everyone, Mandie went to the doctor yesterday and they were able to tell her for sure that she's having a girl. Thankfully they won't be having a boy who would have been teased with the fact that we all thought he was going to be a girl. :)

Congratulations Randi and CJ!

Randi and CJ will welcome their first bundle of joy next April. Will it be a boy or a girl? What will they name it? Will it look like Randi or CJ? So many unanswered questions! But one question we do know the answer to: Will be a grandparent make Ginny and Jared feel old? Undoubtedly.

Operation Underwear

Nikki and her family made it safely to Biloxi. Here parents' (Gene and Sonya Dickens) main need was garments so they named their team "Operation Underwear." From Blake: We made it to the church around 5pm this evening (Monday). Gene & Sonya seem to be doing ok but they are pretty tired. We went by to see the house for a while before dark...we have many hard days of work ahead of us just to salvage their belongings. Pray for us and them.








Left: Gene Dickens' wound on his hand from a shelf that fell on it, forcing him to take it easy. Right: Nikki, Kelly, Heinz, Gene and Sonya taking a lunch break.

Message from President Hansen

Highlights from the Area Authorities & Stake Presidents Conference Call:

• Elder John Anderson—Area 70 from Florida has put in charge of all Church Relief Efforts for Hurricane Katrina. Probably because of his experience with Florida Hurricanes.
• It is always important to follow the brethren! The Church had concerns about putting individuals into our homes just as we did, but if we would have taken individuals into our homes, (without being asked by FEMA), those individuals would have gone to the bottom of the list for Federal Help and may have forfeited all claims or hope for any other governmental assistance.
•The Church is not going to send volunteers into the stricken area until the sanitation and water is better than it is now. The time will come when we will go, so we need to be ready to do that.
• Elder Packer and Elder Ballard were in Baton Rouge Monday to further assess the situation and to see what else the Church can do to help this situation.
• I found out that if the Relief Society were to try to take meals into any of these shelters it would be thrown away; all food must go through an inspection process or be provided by a Foodservice entity. For instance if we bought 150 Pizzas from Pizza Hut—they would be accepted since these type of Foodservice operations meet all governmental guidelines.
• Individuals can go and volunteer—and volunteers are needed to serve food. Anyone doing this must first go through a “Serve Safe” course which ordinarily takes 3 hours of training and passing a test to be certified. They have streamlined this now down to 1 hour and a test.
• We can continue to have individuals help in any way they can by volunteering, (please have them contact the Red Cross or Salvation Army by phone and be assigned), the Arlington ISD needs children’s clothing and school supplies for all the children who are enrolling—this would be a great way to help, or in any other way that they deem to be a worthy effort.
• The Church still continues to ask for members to donate generously to Fast Offering and Humanitarian Aide Fund through our Tithes and Offerings envelopes.
• It was decided that each Stake will be assigned to be the lead Stake on an area that we think will be needed. Just a few of the things we talked about are; Food Drive, Blood Drive, Volunteers, clothing drives. The Stake assigned would not be the only Stake doing this, but would act as the lead in gathering all the information.
• It appears the bottom line is that we are still in somewhat of an evaluation state, both Church Headquarters and our own Regional Welfare Council.

Sincerely,
Pres. H

Cool Ways To Help!

I found this website where crafty people send in their crafts to sell to raise money for red cross. This site has raised over $4,000 since monday when they opened. So feel free to sell something or buy stuff! There's tons of cool stuff there!

craftrevolution.etsy.com

Hurricane Katrina: How to Help

From the Stake President:

Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Here is an excellent opportunity for someone who wants to jump right in and help! Please call Sister Megan Morris, Arlington 3rd Ward at 817-475-3232. Please provide her your contact information and the hours you could volunteer. This is a 24/7 operation for the next 10 or 12 days. - President Hansen

Another way to help:

Part of Nikki's family are heading from Utah down to Biloxi, MS to help out her parents and others that might need it. They will be needing supplies like gas cans, etc. Once Nikki has a list from her brother I will post it so that you can all help out if you need to. They'll be making a stop at mom's to rest and eat and then head to Mississippi. Anyone can bring what they have for them to borrow to mom's sometime Saturday. The church has supplied the area very well, they will mainly be in need of gas cans since gas is so sparse in the area.

The Texas Marriage Amendment

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Many of you are already aware that Texas will be the only state in the union voting on this issue come November. Last year, I believe there were 10 states where this was on the ballot. All 10 states voted for this amendment and kept as a part of their state’s constitution, that marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman.

We cannot lose this election; therefore, we need to start now to urge our members who are not registered to register. Secondly, we need to start now to emphasize the importance of this vote and to insure every member gets out to vote on this important Constitutional Amendment.

This is a moral issue, we not only have the right to urge our members to vote on this, but more importantly, we have an obligation to do so.

Please let me know if you have any issues or questions from any of our members.

Sincerely,
President Hansen

* From Mom: Please note that early voting will be held at the FH Community Center again and will even be on one Sunday and a Saturday. Anyone from anywhere in Tarrant County can vote there during early voting days. This makes it really easy for all. I will get the schedule before the time comes and update this!