Family Reunion, June 21-24, 2017

June 24, 2017
We had two days and three nights in Indianola, at a cabin called Beck's Ranch.  It was a beautiful home in a lovely peaceful setting.  Other than being hot at night, espcially the first night, it was very pleasant.  We had a wonderful time together.  We had lots of good food, we did crafts, we rode in razors and toured the surrounding area.  Some of us attended the Manti temple to do baptisms for the dead.  We played games both indoors and out.  The rubber chicken launcher Brent and Janis brought was especially fun.  We enjoyed the stars at night and sharing memories.  Some of us took time to be in the hot tub and the young children enjoyed the wading pool.  Emily and Olvia were very knowledgeable in the family trivia game.  We just loved being together.  I am so thankful for our family and the great opportunity to have this reunion.  We were so blessed to be a part of it.  We hope next time, we will be able to have those who could not come this time to be in attendance next time.

Our good babysitters

Hot tub fun

Andrea likes her Uncle Daniel

Katherine and Charlie

art projects

Out door fun

Our Red-Haired Granddaughters

A cool splash in the pool

Arts and Crafts

The Game Janis and Brent brought for us

Rubber Chicken Launcher

Time to visit

Our Michigan girls

Andrea likes Uncle Mike, too.

It felt great to be on the deck.

More artists

Mary is proud of her creation

Happy artists

A nice afternoon at the Temple

Manti is where our family began

Catch that chicken

Nathan is strong

The cousins love Joseph

Dad's special day

What a beautiful cake!

Olivia in the spotlight

Joseph and Ian

More hot tub fun

Jessica and Lauren

Benj and Nathan

Emily and girls

Naptime with Aunt Debbie

Happy cousins

Gwenda loves her cousin Katherine

Good Moms

Downtime for Grandma

Avery

Marshall has a great smile

Dan loves the food

Swimming Cousins

A swinging cousin

Cousins in a Razor

Jayson are you giving your cousin bunny ears?

Kevin and Ian in the Razor.

We love snack time.

Thirsty Owen

Charming Charity

How relaxing

A Quiet Moment to chat

We were so glad to have Emily here

Daniel suprised everyone and got here in time for this picture.

Our scabble master

May Glory

May 31, 2017

This last week of May was nice week.  We attended Grant's sixth grade graduation where he received the Hope of America Award.  We attended Grant, Charity's and Jayson's dance festival.  Dad and I spent a nice day at Scandinavian days in Ephraim.  In honor of Memorial day we visited many grave sites and had dinner and a nice evening with our family.  My flowers are at there very best right now and I am having the blessing of fresh flowers in our house from our yard.  The garden is doing pretty well and I discovered that we do have peaches on our tree, though not a huge crop, enough to enjoy eating fresh.  I am very grateful.  The garage is coming very slowly.  We hope they will get it framed in the next few days.

A nice honor for Grant

Dance festival

More dance festival

Dad loved this old truck at Scandinavian days.

The cabin of C.C. Christensen in Ephraim

Memories of where we met.

Dad in Springville

Springville

Missy and Mike came to West Valley City with Us.

Flowers from our yard.

Progress on our house.

Another view of the project

I can't do justice to my flowers.

The back flowerbed

Progress in the Garden

May is Flying By

May 20, 2017

We had lots of nice activities last week.  Monday night we attended a folk dance concert put on by local groups in the area.  It was excellent.  The weather was unusually cold last week and kept us indoors a little more of the time.  We attend our Personal Finance class on Wednesday and it went well.  We can see it helping the class in all areas of their lives.  We also attended the temple on Wednesday and worked in the temple on Friday.  Saturday we watched Grant play soccer and later we watched Charity and Avery at their dance recital.  Saturday night we watched a movie with Kevin and his family.  Sunday, I attended ward choir and my scout meeting after attending church.  We went home teaching in the evening to a mother and son we have been teaching for several months.  They are getting closer to coming back to church and we are hopeful that they will.  We have learned to love these people and it is a blessing to teach them.

The view of the valley from the temple.

Grant had his last game today.

The dance recital was very nice and the
girls looked so pretty.

A Grandmother's Week

May 14, 2017
Sometimes people ask us what we do with all our free time since our mission.  This is what I do.
Last week I helped Charity with a homework assignment and celebrated Kevin's birthday with his family on Monday.  Tuesday morning I went to the temple.  I gardened, quilted, knocked mortar off bricks, cleaned and cooked.  Wednesday night, I went to the temple with Craig.  Thursday,  I went on a field trip with the cub scouts, attended Relief Society, and Primary Presidency meeting.  I am reading a biography of Mary Fielding Smith.  Friday, we worked in the temple and went out to dinner in the evening with Richard and Kathy,  and Richard helped Craig prepared so more pipes for our watering system.  Saturday, we cleaned the church and went to Jayson's soccer game.  We worked in the yard and Dad took me to get a new temple dress and a pretty plant for our yard for Mother's day.  In the evening, our children came over and we had some lasagne, a lovely salad, garlic bread and for dessert a very rich and yummy chocolate cake.  I have been very blessed to have such a good week.  I received beautiful flowers from Debbie and Emily for Mother's day.

Our garden is about 2/3 planted.
Notice the brick pile in the backyard
to keep me from getting bored.

Our Hawthorne tree is at it's best right now.

We had dinner, family home evening and a movie to celebrate
Kevin's birthday.

I got to see the Hutching's Museum In Lehi
with the cub scouts.

My beautiful Flowers from Debbie.

Jayson loves to play soccer.

My beautiful flowers from Emily

Family time

Two cute redheads.

The guys had fun playing soccer in the front yard.

We had a nice visit for Mother's day.

As We Conclude our Orem Mission

February 17, 2017

Some of the Great Senior Couples We Served With.

Helping with the Open House.

Our MTC District and teachers.

Serving a wedding.

The Map at the MTC

The Fourth of July Parade

Young Missionaries on the 4th of July

The young missionaries sang a song for the Senior Couples that
served at their Christmas Party.

Young Missionary Christmas Party

I loved working with these good young men as well as
others in Missionary Prep.

We enjoyed October Conference.

Clowning Around on a church cleaning assignment.

The morning we left for the MTC.

                                                               Lunch with the Young Missionaries.


How can we sum up 18 months of service in our Mission serving from home? It isn't possible to capture in pictures most of what we did. We gave lots of service, attended many meetings and made many, many visits. I wish we could say that everything we did was super successful, but I know we made a difference in people's lives. I also know that we were blessed for our service. We spent hours studying, we got acquainted with lots of nice people, and we came to love them. We prayed and fasted and lost ourselves in the service of others. We experienced discouragement, frustration and great joy. Craig and I grew closer together and learned to work as a team more than ever. Some of our favorite things we did was serve with the open house for the Provo City Center Temple. We got to be among the some of the first people to walk through it. We gave some tours and we worked in the area where people assembled to watch a film before attending the temple. We were blessed to do a chapel tour almost every week of our mission. This was almost always a spiritual experience for us and the people we taught. We walked in the Fourth of July Parade. Even though it was a long hot walk, the cheering crowds engergized us and moved us along. We met and worked with many good young missionaries and fed them once a week for lunch. We were privileged to work with many good senior couples who taught us and inspired us with their great examples.

Our MTC Group August 2015