Stake Youth Auction

Apparently updating our blog wasn't one of my New Year's resolutions... :)

As the date of our departure from LA nears, I've been considering some of the things I'll miss most about this place. There are a few things that I can't wait to put behind us (mostly the traffic and lack of grass in the mile radius surrounding our apartment), but for the most part it's going to be difficult to leave all the things and people we've come to love.

One of those things is the Stake Youth Auction held every year to help pay for Scout and Girls Camp. People donate items ranging from quilts and cupcakes to babysitting and SAT tutoring and lots of things in between for the silent auction, then later in the evening is the live auction. In previous years, there have been helicopter tours, a basketball autographed by Jimmer Fredette and other big shots in the NCAA championship game, box seats at a Lakers game and other cool items for the live auction. This year the coolest thing up for bid was to have your answering machine message recorded by Larry King. We have bid on several items in the silent auction, but in the last four years, I can't remember ever having won anything. Last year Paul was in a fierce bidding war with some Korean teenagers for a pair of high top sneakers. They were guarding the sheet of paper where the bids are placed and to his great dismay, they outbid him seconds before the bidding was closed. This year, we decided to bid on more items in the hopes that we would at least get something. To our great surprise, we won four items!

Our loot:
* A round of golf
* A $25 dollar gift card to Chilis AND a chocolate cake (we won with a bid of $20!)
* A "Tiffany Cake" which was shaped and decorated like a jewelery box
* 10 homemade greeting cards

So... anyone want to come over and have some cake? We have plenty. Actually, we gave the chocolate cake to the Dungeons and Dragons group that gets together every Sunday afternoon, so you might have to fight Paul for a slice of the other.

I love our ward and I love our stake; I don't think we've ever felt so needed as we do here. I guess the saying goes that your favorite ward should be the one you're currently in, but I think it's going to be hard to top the USC ward and the LA Stake.