From Idaho to Mexico.

The first week of the new year … here we go.  It started with saying good-bye to our Idaho family, and driving home.  Though it was New Years Eve, we got home around six, and hauled in our stuff, unpacked, then watched a movie and went to bed at 11:00, pretty pathetic really.

On New Years Day we made up for it.  We met Barb and Randy, and Donelle and her family for breakfast, before heading to TG point where we literally spent the rest of the day.  We started our 5 movie day with Mary Poppins ...

 Where strangely, we ran into these hooligans … what are the chances.  We also saw, Bumblebee, Second Act, Instant Family and Aqua Man.  We had dinner at Zupas. It was a great day, one we have always looked forward to, but now it will be three years before we do it again.

 On Wednesday we added the Pioneer Woman mixing bowls Dad gave me for Christmas to my shelves above the sink in the kitchen, completing the transition from white to colors. 

Then I made a huge fiber salad to take to work. I was on the same high fiber diet while Emily was on her mission, and lost the most weight I have since living in Payson.  I thought it would be a good thing, since just being Vegetarian and loosing 15 pounds since last June, has stalled for several months.  Whoa, I used my Melmac pioneer woman, small size, mixing bowl for it … it was actually really yummy, and the whole thing had 18 grams of fiber, though it took two sittings to eat.

Then I was off to work, while Dad subbed at the Temple.  The temple film changes were announced that day, but he and others who were not actually working the endowment rooms were unaware of the actual changes, and were told they'd need to do an endowment to see them.

If you are wondering where all the white ironstone went … here is some of it at the store.

After work that night Dad and I went to see the Stake President to 'turn in our papers'. We are turning them in early because President Aura said that Finland is taking up to 6 months to process senior couple visas these days, and we need to be there by mid August.

Early Thursday morning Dad was off to the temple to do an endowment session, since he couldn't stand to wait to see the changes.  I couldn't join him because I had my normal walking date at 7 with Carolyn. He then worked his normal shift there, while I went off to a normal day of work.

 That night we went to a wedding reception in Eagle Mountain.  Here we see Sister Katie Cooper (From West Mountain and a member of the family that boarded our horses when we first moved to Payson), is shown here with her fiancé.  Their wedding is later this month.

We made arrangements to meet up with the Londons there.  Here is Lynn London with Susie Carilli and Laurie Kehr.  Some of our favorite missionaries.

There were also a lot of elders there, not sure why I chose all sisters for my pictures, but it was very much a reunion.

 Elder Shryver Christian and Sister Ashlin Patterick are now Brother and Sister Christian.  We loved both of these missionaries, and they are the second set of our missionaries to marry. (the others are Sister Anna Wilson and Elder Cameron Brown)

On Friday it was time to take down Christmas … here is one of our newest décor items.  I made three of these gnome guys while babysitting for Brit and Spencer for her birthday.

This Santa, that my sister Julie made, is probably the oldest piece of Christmas décor still in use, and still my favorite.  Who knew that one day the guy with blue starred pants and a graphic red and white coat would be a perfect color match for my parlor.  I was tempted to leave him out all year, which I did do one year after I'd had had him a short time … in the end he was nestled in a bin of Christmas décor to not be seen until the Christmas of 2021, how crazy is that.

Saturday turned out to be the perfect day for us.  Dad spent the majority of the day setting up Darby's cable for TV and installing a dog door for Harley.  I, meanwhile, had driven up with him so we could listen to Harry Potter some more (we're listening to book number five now) and I got to go junking, while he and Darby bonded over her to-do list. We finished off our perfect day perfectly by eating a nice high fiber salad (double beans for me) at Café Rio.

We woke up bright and early for our first day of the minimized block meeting schedule, and enjoyed it tremendously, other than realizing that most everyone else had already read the preliminary stuff in Come Follow Me for the Sunday School lesson and we had not. Oops … We made up for it after the meeting though, by going through the multiple intros to Come Follow Me, and then by reading the preliminary stuff and discussing it after the fact.  We'll be prepared for our next Sunday School lesson.  We also adapted our missionary study, that we have striven to continue, to fit the new model of family study for Come Follow Me.  All this change is a bit hard for our old brains to wrap around, but we're doing our darnedest. 

That afternoon we gathered at Trevor's for a Café Rioish dinner, and an overview of their humanitarian trip to Mexican over Christmas, which was evidently amazing. (pictures at the end)  This is a picture of Titan and his Dad in a pair of his 101 plus socks from Christmas.  So much fun!

 We brought along Christmas gifts Emily had sent to us because they were for different families …  How fun are these custom shirts.  We also brought the gift basket for Trevor's family since they had been in Mexico on the 23rd when we gave them to other local families. (We took Britt's family's basket to her last week.) so that was the official end of Christmas for us … actually a day late for the 12 days of Christmas, but really, whose counting?

 Here we are singing to the January birthday people before blowing out the candles on the Birthday cheesecake … as we continue to find an alternative to cake, which none of us like. (Its often brownies)

Now for some pictures from Trevor and Nell and their family's trip to Mexico with about four other families.  Eva made crocheted toys, as did her Aunt Bugs, and Nell's mom made several of her amazing braided rugs.  I think the unicorn in the lower left of this photo is one of Bug's creations.

They attended church with a local ward on the Baja Peninsula, where they gave gifts and food to some members, but mostly to other members of the community that the ward members and missionaries helped them select and to whom they also gave two months worth of groceries. (amazingly for just forty American dollars each)  They had sought donations for this part, and happily several of our family member participated.  I love that Trevor said that several of the families who had received this gift of food in the past had used the money they didn't have to spend on food to enlarge or improve their impoverished housing. 

They also showed some pictures of family fun … this was my personal favorite of those.

So that was our first week of 2019.  We hope yours was full of amazingness too.