Saturday morning, Jer packed up the trailer, I packed up the bags, gave big hugs and we got a leisurely start to our trip home because we were going to take two days. Probably too leisurely because we had to stop to go potty a ton (Seth kept getting his hands on everyone elses' water). We got to my Aunt Diane's house about 10:30pm.
This picture was fun. We stopped at a rest stop and apparently the area was known for a copper mine. In the early 1900s, they had the biggest recorded smoke stack in the world. You could see it in the distance.
This was a very cute and very ghost town. We stopped to get gas and it turned out that the gas station was also the post office and the grocery store for a little town called Dell.... really little, as in 35 people in the whole town. They had the original 1903 school house with a bell in the tower and a few wooden buildings next door that looked like stables and a forge kind of thing.
We stayed overnight at Aunt Diane and Uncle Marty's place. We didn't think we'd see Marty at all because he was on call, but he got to come home and go to church with us in the morning. Two fun things from church: one is that the organist is my Mom's second cousin from the Merlin Ellis side. I went up and introduced myself as your 2nd cousin once removed. That was fun. Second thing was that the youth speaker was talking about daily faith building and my Uncle Marty made a quiet comment about trickle charging. I don't think he knew that I could hear, but I liked what he said. I like the visual of a battery staying full with trickle charging. And a side note about the organ. I got called as the Laurel's advisor last week (even more exciting because I really like the YW's pres and secretary). I'm pretty excited, but I am going to miss playing the organ. It's also very exciting because Ada only has a year left before she's in YWs. I'll love being there to see her come in. Maybe even get to go to camp with her. I love all the different callings that we get to experience as members of the church. I've loved all of them. Some of them have been hard to adjust to, but all of them have proved a blessing. Two of my friends we having the discussion that sometimes they feel like callings aren't inspired. I can honestly say that I've benefited in some way from each of my callings. I can't say that callings are always inspired, but I do testify that we are blessed when we accept what we're given. I've played the organ now for about 12-13 years. It's been painful this year because sitting on the bench still hurts my foot a little bit, but I sure love sitting up there with one my kids sitting next to me and asking questions all about the organ and how it works.
Seth fell in love with their dog, Cooper. McKay told me that his kids held a dog wedding last time they were up there. They dressed up Cooper and their own dog, Jules, and married them. Ada and Evelyn are in love with their cat, Lady Shadow. She's a kitten that acts like a ninja.
We stopped for lunch (thanks Mom for the lunch food!), at the State line. It wasn't just a rest stop, they also have an information desk with a worker to answer questions about Utah. I thought that would be a fun job. Each of these rest stops turned out to be Pokestops for the Pokémon Go game. The kids and I took turns spinning the stops, catching pokemon and fighting at the gyms. It's an unexpectedly fun game to play especially as a group.
After lunch we dropped in to see McKay and Sophie at their new house in Brigham City. I think it's a great place. I especially like the basement. All the bedrooms encircle a main area. It's a great layout. We surprised them kind of... I texted while they were at church and we tried to catch them just as they got home, but we got lost and went to the wrong house. The neighbors were kind and tried to be helpful. I ended up calling McKay for directions. All 4 of the twins have birthdays in the next two weeks, so we're going to come back soon for some cake.
This was cute. Ada and Aubrey were all matchy. Sophie, McKay, Jer and I were talking about how Aubrey loves people but would rather be part of the adult conversations instead of playing.... Ada's starting to do that too. On the other hand, Evelyn gets a little overwhelmed with all the people and likes to find a quiet corner where she can just be by herself.
I downloaded this from our family cabin's facebook page. One of the fires is just on the other side of Bear Lake.... This is on the East of the lake at sunset, it looks like a sunset but it's all fire...apparently there has been about 16,000 acres burned just on the other side of the mountain. Down by our house, Spanish Fork Canyon has also lost about that many acres. It sounds like both fires are mostly contained at this point though. I'm grateful to all the emergency workers and the resources that the local government puts into keeping us safe. It could be worse. It could be like the Chicago fires from years ago. We did have one firefighter from Draper die as he was fighting fires in California. Yesterday was the procession. He must have been buried in Orem because we got caught in the procession on accident on our way home from school. They blocked off all lanes of traffic going down Center Street using emergency vehicles from Lindon, Orem, Provo, Vineyard, etc... They even had some helicoptors flying overhead. We couldn't cross, so we went grocery shopping at the Target right there on Center and waited for traffic to open up.
I got these two pictures from my Mom's blog. Aren't these missionaries so cute?! I love these two so much and we were very blessed to be able to make it out there to say hi. I'm proud of all the work they do so that the other missionaries can do their work as well. I'm proud of the goals they set and how friendly and open they are to talking to everyone around them. Everywhere we went, they were stopped and asked about their name plaques and a lot of less active members seem to open up a lot, especially when my parents would sit next to them and chat. They were impressed that a mission can have so many ripples that last. They have a missionary in their mission right now that came from the Macon, Georgia area. That was where my Wilcox grandparents served their mission when I was a younger teen. He talks about one of the members that made such a big impression on him and has reactivated many other members in the area. That member was reactivated by my grandparents. We can't see the end result, but with faith in God and work for His work we can make a difference. I see it as being part of the house of Ephraim.
