Celebrating Work, Grandchildren, Friends and Homecomings,

On Monday we started our second full week post mission.  It seems a little crazy, but we are enjoying being home.  We are working on getting the house ready for our home coming on the 22nd  

We got a call from Trevor telling us that Scott was being awarded the Viking of the Month at PGH.  These are four of the six who won the award for April.  All of these young people were amazing.  Involved in lots of different things, but also concerned about other people.  The examples of their service to other students was heart warming.  The senior guy, is also Study Body President, if that tells you anything.  Yep, we are so proud of our Scott.

Here he is with the fam!!

On Tuesday there was work to do.  Dad decided to go ahead and move all the furniture instead of bothering the kids.

He brought in a couple of desks from the garage, and then it was time to move the heavy hide-a-bed from the library on the second floor to the main floor family room.  Its a good thing he's flexible still.  Go Dad!!

We also emptied more boxes.  Dad's determined to empty out the garage ... he has this silly idea that we could park cars in there.

I worked on Wednesday, which will be the norm for a while.  After work Trevor called to say he was headed down south and was going to drop in.  He helped Dad with something to do with our wifi being available on all three floors.  He brought along his helpers, so I got to visit and play with them.  They were pretty fun.

Here we see Eleanor pretending to eat Penny's Bunny friend.  Penny played along and we had a blast.  We also hid a toy clock and played hot and cold to find it.

I think that Dad and Trevor successfully got coverage for the whole house, other than the family room on the main, where it is spotty.

 I worked again on Thursday.  Isn't this a great display?  Its in my friend Keith's booth, he's always amazing.

Dad meanwhile, had been very busy clearing the garage.  He took a load to DI and I think another to the dump.  He's very happy with all that he's getting accomplished.

He also cut and installed the rest of the board and batten in the family room that day.  He had taken down the faux mantel on Tuesday, and was ready to go.

On Friday we woke up to a snowy day in our neighborhood.  We knew it was going to be cold that day and had decided to work in the house.  

After scripture and language study that morning, I looked for a chair to use in the parlor.  Dad had called on the pair of chairs we'd bought at Down East last week, only to find that the clerk had made a mistake, they had the chairs on order, not in stock.  We won't get them until May 15th.  Happy Birthday to me, but no chairs in the Parlor for our homecoming.  We have a rocker in the garage we thought we could use for one, so we were happy to find this one.  We'll move it to the library later.

So we headed to the family room and spent about four hours painting it.  I'll show you picture this coming week.

We headed off to pick up the chair in Very, Very West Valley around three ...

 and since we'd not visited Nina since we'd been home, we made arrangements to see her ...

We had a very nice visit, and it was fun to talk about Emory.  She repeated several times that she was so impressed with all the kids coming to support her, and the flowers that were sent as well.

It was such a hard time for me to decided not to come home, that I was so grateful for all of you and the support to the family that you offered.  I am so proud of the kind of people Dad and I raised.  Thank You.

After our visited we headed back to Utah Country to meet the Heuers and Moes for dinner at a Thai place.  I love Thai curry, OK I love all curry, but the Thai curry is good too.  We got to meet Tami's husband, which was very nice.  They are lovely together.  Then we all headed over to the Hale to see The Little Mermaid.

 Trevor and Nell also have season tickets, and we were delighted that they happened to be mixed in with our seats. All told there were 16 Heuers, Perkins and Moes, well, OK one of them was an Ericson, (Bri's brother Brock)  its confusing, I know.  Randy's brother Craig had 3 tickets, but moved to Texas and sold them to their  (Randy, Jeff and Craig) cousin Lisa Jones (Bri's Mom) who thought the little girls would enjoy it, so somehow Brock got to bring them.  He is such a great uncle, and Lisa made a great call, I don't think I've seen anyone enjoy a play as much as those two sweet girls did. I spent a good deal of my time watching them, it was so charming.

 Not sure how I missed Trevor, but here's the rest of his family, with Adi.

 Barb and Randy brought there granddaughter (Trina's) Kamryn.

 Jeff and Robin brought Tami and Robert ... it was such a lovely evening.  The HoMoKins together again.

How cute are these quackers?

 What a good looking crew! (Nenna, Brock and Adi)

 Yep, cuteness overload. (Nenna, Dad, Eleanor, Me, and Adi)

 The play was a delight, just as Darby had told me it would be.  Ursala, played by a large man was fabulous.  Thanks for the heads up Darby, I never read the program and I could hardly believe she was a he. He's wearing 6 inch heels.  So much fun.

On Saturday Dad was up early for his run and Ashley brought Zach over to hang out, as she was working and Andy had a seminar.

I had to run to Walmart (sorry Dad) for a shower gift, so I took him along to choose a toy to keep him busy.  Not surprisingly he chose Legos. 

I wrapped up a gift for Eden (soon to be Heuer) and headed off to the stake center.

 Where I joined a Relief Society Conference, based on the theme, from President Nelson's Saturday afternoon talk at conference this month. 

"In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting and constant influence of the Holy Ghost."

Given this theme we talked about how we can have more meaningful scripture study, and how such study invites the spirit.  Its amazing to me that in my mother's day people just didn't really study the Book of Mormon.  It was used by missionaries, and as part of talks, lessons and articles in the Era magazine, but my mother, who had a wonderful, amazing testimony, had never actually read it cover to cover, until 1972, when I challenged her to, despite the fact that she regularly read two to three books a week.

I think the difference is the days in which we live.  We need to study the scriptures daily, to strengthen our relationship with God, and to keep us connected with the spirit.  

 It was fun to see High Priests in force serving us lunch.  The woman toward the right, was in charge of the meal, and did a lovely job. 

 I was thrilled to meet up with this beauty, as I walked in to the conference alone, after being turned down by two sisters in the ward to go with me.  It was a tender mercy, I love Pat (Zeeman) who is currently serving with Sherm as Church Service Missionaries, doing MLS (Member Leadership Support)  Did you catch in conference that there are something like 33,000 Church Service missionaries, in addition to the 71,000 Full Time Missionaries.  I thought that was a pretty impressive number, and most of them are senior couples.  We were replaced in Finland by a Church Service couple and another Finnish couple was headed up to Kemi to live there, and work as MLS missionaries there. 

 Next I was off to Highland to meet Eden, Jake Heuer's fiance.  They've been on again off again since their mid teens, and lived just a couple of houses apart. (the house is directly across from where our lot was in Highland),  Here I am with Robin and Teri  Quigg.

 Here are some daughters-in-law, Tia (married to Ryan Moe) and her son Kobe, Melody (married to Daniel Heuer) Ginger (married to Christopher Heuer) and Lily, who is Christopher's daughter).

And this is Eden, who will soon be Robin's daughter-in-law, as mentioned.

I got home from the shower in time to head out with the Kews to Antelope Island for some bird watching...

I'd always wanted to try it out and it was rather fun.  Very quiet and peaceful too, and of course we always enjoy our time with the Kews.

The area was very pretty, in a non-Finland sort of way.  We are shown here at the original homestead on the island, which was build at the site of the only fresh water spring on the island, which is important, since its in the middle of the Great Salt Lake.

We ended our day at Crown Burger by the Salt Lake Temple.  Great food, and friends,

Here is Dad in front of the old white church in Mapleton.  He has  many fond memories of attending many a family funeral.  I know that's a strange statement, but when you know you will see your loved one again in the next life, its not as sad as it might be, then you understand why  Dad has always seen funerals as reunions ... he loves them.

This time we were attending a home coming for Sister Harris, one of the sisters that served with us .... it was homecoming marathon day, and we hit three.  The Missionaries who were in the MTC with us came home on Wednesday.

Here are the former, Elder Brown, Sister Wilson (Who are dating) Sister Parker (Sister Wade's granddaughter) Sister Bradbury, Sister Patterick and Sister Barrus.

Here is Sister Patterick with Sister Cardon who we only overlapped with for about two months. She lives in Bountiful and knows my friend Dyan Harris.

 We met up with the Londons, who joined us for the homecoming fun.  This is Sister Harris whose homecoming we were attending.  It was her mother who was so supportive and who made Dad's

"Bow tie", shown here.

Here is Sister Patterick again, at the Vests Homecoming in Spanish Fork.  She is shown here with Elder Piggot. It was so fun to see our old Missionary buddies.

Above is Elder Minson, who was an AP, so we saw quite a bit of him, with his girl friend, and the Londons.

And last of all a picture of Dad with Elder Vest.    We later attended a Home Coming in Pleasant Grove, but didn't get any pictures.  It was for Elder Jaccard, whose Grandpa worked in the Provo temple with Dad back in the day.

The messages from all the missionaries where amazing and LONG,  Sister Harris spoke for a half an hour, and Sister Vest spoke for a half hour, and Elder Vest spoke for twenty minutes.  Elder Jaccard's spoke for about fifteen minutes.  Dad and I will be sharing fifteen minutes next week.  I think I'll speak for two minutes and give Dad the rest.

Well it was a great week.  We loved getting together with friends so much, we really missed having a social life on our mission, so this feels great.

We hope to see you all at our homecoming next week at 1:00 A.M.  Love you all.