JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2019

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  We have had a very busy 2019 so far!

We started off with a visit from our daughter Jenna and 2 of her kids and that was a blast for us!  Klay was so excited to ride with Grandpa to work on a TRAIN!

And we got to take them to places like DINOSAUR MUSEUMS.  If any of you want to go to any Thanksgiving Point museums, just let us know...we have a membership that allows us to take guests free :)

We spent a lot of time at IKEA!
Yup, it has become like a Friday night DATE NIGHT tradition!
We did 2 IKEA kitchens in our new home so we are constantly shopping for something to go along with those.







We had a wonderful APM DINNER GROUP in February with some of our RMs in the area...a good mix of older and younger ones!
Catie & John (Swallow) Paulsen, friend Andrew with Melissa Chord, Lance Cabral, Jason & Erica Hutchinson with Logan, Kendra & Klaus Griessman, and Kasey & Joe Cannon. 

We are getting some MISSION GRANDKIDS showing up at these dinners which is a blast!



Speaking of a blast, we are still loving our service in our local YSA!  We had this crazy group over for sort of an IRON CHEF cookoff...and of course, OUR TEAM WON!

February took us BACK TO ARIZONA for the President Nelson devotional there.

Does this stadium look familiar to any of you??

Here is what it looked like BEFORE all the devotional stuff...

And here is what it looked like DURING all the devotional stuff!

 The entire floor area was seating for YOUTH!
It was a wonderful experience to be with so many great Saints in this place that we love so much!

We got in 2 days of hikes while we were there.

First, we went to MORMON TRAIL down on South Mountain.






We were there with Rex from Church News as a videographer so we got to see him film with a DRONE.








And then, we got to be in our very FIRST DRONIE!!!

We drove over to Gilbert to get some drone shots of the temple there...spectacular!

Then we met up with the Janulis and some other News Guys for dinner at our favorite dive, CHINO BANDIDOS!

Here they are saying hello to the PANDA BUDDHA

The next morning we went over to Thunderbird to hike...yes, you see us wearing jackets.  It was February and SO COLD most of the time we were in AZ!

This hike takes up near the Phoenix Temple with some great views.

Then we drove over and got some drone shots there...

We noticed as we drove in that there was a large bird up near the angel Moroni...

So, I was able to zoom in to get a shot of this scraggly RED TAILED HAWK that was up there a long time!






OK, one of our very favorite things in AZ are the people we served with.  We always have a dinner with our great Office Missionaries who are the dearest people in the world!
Lyons (serving a Member Leader Mission still), Kings serving at the temple, Elcocks serving at the temple, Williams (serving as JUST SERVE Missionaries), Kiggins serving at the Temple, Rodgers also serving at the temple, the Janulis serving as Pathways Missionaries and Cherry's (Diane was home with a bum knee)  OH HOW WE LOVE THESE PEOPLE!!

OK, these shots are just for fun...I got to go behind the scenes at the stadium and met up with some former ward members who had decorated both bathrooms down there for President and Sister Nelson.  They were SO AMAZING!

And, I talked with the designers of the flowers for the podiums who used the native flowers inluding my favorite, Bougainvillia, the burgandy one.

Saturday night we arranged to meet up with some local RM's at another favorite place to eat...WALDO'S TACOS!!


Here are KaraLee (Glenn) and Aaron Darrow with their 3 little boys.  Keith and Preston have a new baby brother who was like 2 weeks old!  Brave KaraLee!!

And, it made our night to see Hollie (Moody) Pitts with her little girl and baby boy.

Here I am with some of our GIRLS!!  Add Maureen (Keelin) Hirsch to the mix!

Kathy Turville showed up along with the Elcocks...

And, Alex Whipple surprised us by showing up from Mesa!  He is good friends with the Waldo Family from his service in the area.

Holly and her cute family.  I got some good baby time!!

A shot with KaraLee.

And with Maureen and Chris.
We are getting to know these spouses of our RMs when we visit and we love and admire them too!

We were delighted that Talon and Paxton Campbell with their adorable little girl, showed up later on...he had a test in Tucson that day for his work; we were so grateful they could make it!

We have special memories of the Waldo family ourselves.  This son served a short mission with us in our area before he headed out to serve his fulltime mission!

And here are his folks and little brother who love and serve the ward as he is Bishop Waldo now!

Their new location for the Taco Truck on Grand.

We always love our time visiting the Janulis family...including their grandkids who sort of grew up with us in the mission...we knew these two when they were tiny and even one as a baby and they are now so old!

We were delighted to get an invitation to go to the temple with Caleb Brown the other night.  Made our night really.

And, as we went into the session, who should stand up to go with us but Prescott and Alissa Jackson!!  We loved being in the session and in the Celestial Room with them afterwards!!

 As a matter of fact, we loved being with them so much that we invited them to join us in another DINNER GROUP the next Sunday!  We had a wonderful group of Dan & Cassie Farnsworth with their little baby girl, Sage.  Corinne Coleman, Caleb Brown, Prescott and Alissa Jackson and us.

I have said this before...we are absolutely placed in callings that surround us with people we are supposed to meet.  This is the case with dear friends from our time at the MTC.
We got together with the Dunns and Warners from our time last year at the MTC together. 
Dunns treated us to a wonderful evening at the UTAH JAZZ game, which BTW was probably the most exciting game this season against the Bucks.  Yes, we won.

Courtside seats were super fun.

And, as great as all the trimmings of the game and such, it was the PEOPLE that made it all wonderful!

We were blessed to find another RM at the game, RICHARD TRIPP who happens to work for Vivent as well and was in the loge with us!
Made our night!
















Then when we went in to Stake Conference today, who should we see but LANCE CABRAL!  He was in the right place and we were so happy to see him there!
We love you all!

Quick house updates...our new home is coming along nicely.

Upstairs kitchen here you can see we were getting in doors and drawers, yup, we built those from those IKEA trips.

Weather finally got nice enough for our painter to paint the front of the house this month!

We got going on the downstairs kitchen.











And our home of 33 years in now on the market...a bittersweet time for us!

We love you...we will invite you to a MOVING PARTY one of these days and then an OPEN HOUSE when we get settled in the new place!