JESSIE'S VEGAS

We are the Budge's and we have been in the ward about 7 years.  We are one of the oldest, non-Cheerio sacrament families in the ward, meaning we no longer have to resort to bribery to get our kids to seat quiet in sacrament meeting.  Don't get me wrong, we had plenty of those kinds of days.  In our first married ward in SLC there was even a big glass partition behind the back row in the chapel.  It was kind of a cool cry room where you could still see and hear the speakers in sacrament meeting.  Inevitably we were in that room every week.  I remember Dave even telling his friend Brett Belliston, "I won't judge you by your baby if you don't judge me by mine."  Needless to say those early years of parenting were some of the toughest of our lives.   One day my husband told me. "I think they are just getting it out of their systems early. I really think we are going to have the world's best teenagers". For some reason I really believed him and you k

     I sleep with the window open at night.  Maybe it's because I am trying to live my 3rd grade dream of spending my time outside as a forest ranger.  That same year,however,I found a cool, dusty hat and changed my future prospects to that of an archeologist. I would dig in the mud, bury things and try to find them later.  This worked out just fine until one year I buried the Easter eggs, figuring my siblings would be delighted as I was to dig in the dirt.  The ensuing wailing and gnashing of teeth was stark proof that not everyone in the household shared my love of digging in the dirt. Some eggs were not discovered until months later when some unsuspecting traveler wandered by an impromptu egg burial sight and almost passed out from the stench of decaying matter.   All threads of my aspirations were connected by one thing;the desire to be outside.  In 4th grade we had a career fair and our school nurse, Mrs Wahlquist, described her job and some of the blood and guts stories she h