Eternity

Janine, Jessica and I went to the Manti temple together.  Neither had been there before so it was fun.  I like chatting with my friends and I hope they're doing well.  It was fun to meet Jessica's mom.  She really is an angel to her family.  We drove by the Ephraim temple but we didn't have time to stop for the open house.  I really am drawn to the area.  It's beautiful and peaceful.

Judy put her sister's pictures into an aging software.  It's fun to see!  I could see either of these possibilities.  Apparently, she looks like Judy's aunt.

 

Relatives

 

Fourth man from the left is my Grandpa on his mission to NZ.  Below is Sam.  Do you think he might be related?  Cute to see.

Temple weekend

We've had a couple of really neat experiences this weekend. The first was that Jer and Sam were invited to go on splits with the missionaries.  The slow cooker took a couple extra hours with our dinner so they weren't able to eat before they left and I randomly decided to cook 5 cups of rice instead of our usual 3.  It turned out that the Elders hadn't had dinner yet and they were able to eat with us.  They are cute young men and one of them had all the same interests as Sam and Jer.  The spirit leads even when we don't know it is.

The next thing was that we had organized a temple weekend with McKay and Sophie's family.  We drove up for a friday night temple baptism appointment at the Syracuse temple, then we played games and spent the night.  In the morning, we had pancakes and drove to Logan for baptisms in that temple. A papusa lunch and the adults went to do an Endownment session while the kids drove back to McKay's.  Then we watched a soccer World cup game (England and France) and played pickleball.  (I took a nap).  Altogether, we did 110 baptisms, 114 confirmations, 4 endownments..... and it was neat to be together.  The officiator in our session was very obviously special needs, but he did his calling well and the prayer he gave was down to earth and beautiful.  We were going to try to stop in at Sharon's, but I didn't want to storm her house with all of us right after her foot surgery. One of the things that comes to the forefront when you do the same ordinances in a new temple verses an old one is the fact that it is the same ordinances. Syracuse was quieter and Logan was more intimate. Both were good. 

 

High Council and misc

cats waiting for us to get home

trees in full bloom

Jer got called to be on the High Council. He was ordained a High Priest by his dad, and set apart by these wonderful gentlemen. 

Dad and his mini me (Sam)

My Grandma Ellis had this painting in her home. My cousin, Mindy, was doing a fundraiser to pay for a really neat conference opportunity. So we went to get some of their fry bread. It was delicious and I got to say hi to Sonny, Dar, Tyrone and Mindy for a second. I saw that they have this hung up in their home now.  So neat. Mindy was invited to compose music to be performed and recorded at a composers conference this summer.

Sam's first soccer game.  They won and he's feeling a lot better about this season health wise.

 

Uncle Mark and Aunt Carol

My Aunt and Uncle celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year.  It was fun to visit with them cousins and Great Aunts/Uncles. Sam loves Uncle Mark especially.  He really loves to learn blacksmithing with him and last time he went I tagged along.  I loved watching them and chatting.  Sam made a metal star.  Uncle Mark made me one too.  They are rally cool.

Aunt Beth, Grandma, Great Aunt Linda, Great Uncle Doug

Seth, Grandpa, Ada

 

Final pictures

On the way home we drove by this church that great grandpa helped build.

At the spring

The baptistry

This is the church that Judy was blessed in as a baby. 

The drive to Grafton

The hotel stay

 

Back to childhood

Judy got the coordinates for her Grandpa's cabin and we went to find it.  This is the area that it had been. She was about Seth's age last time she came.

It's a beautiful lake and we had fun playing in it.  If there had been open bathrooms, we would have stayed longer.

Everyone tried to do a different pose than anyone else in the picture.

We skipped stones and looked for lava rocks.

Sam tried throwing with his left hand.  That was so funny.