MAY 2017

Wow!  May was a busy APM time for us!  We just kept running into our great RM's!!

First we had Alisa Baumgartner Hansen stop by for dinner with not-so-little Lincoln.  He is now walking and into everything and SO ADORABLE!  We had a blast talking and playing with him!  Oh, and Alisa too!

We got to celebrate the sealing of Connor Cardwell and his bride Nicole.  They are a beautiful couple and we loved meeting his parents as well!  So fun to tell them what a great missionary they had!
CONGRATS!

We HAPPENED TO BE DRIVING PAST Sam Stanley Ripley's home on her birthday!  And she HAPPENED to be outside so we stopped to give her a birthday hug!  It was the best!!

(Yes, we give free birthday hugs, but you may need to come to us as chances of us driving by are slim!)

I got to go up to Kaitlyn Tolley's sealing in Draper this month too.  What a beautiful sealing it was!  I loved the counsel from their sealer and was only disappointed that he will be out of town when our son Braden is sealed at that temple in June...I would have requested him!

I enjoyed meeting Kristin Williamson from Flagstaff YSA where Kaitlyn served.  She drove all the way up to be there for the sealing!

Here are the Sisters in our Italian branch this month.  The roses at the Provo Temple are so pretty in May that we wanted a Sister shot!

And this was our branch this month.  We traditionally have one of the larger branches in the MTC.

Jenny Greenwood spent and evening with us this month and it was so fun catching up with her!  Congrats to her on graduation from the U and on her internship at KSL weather!

 Our APM DINNER GROUP this month was smaller than normal...half of them came down sick that day!
Tyber Parsons, Crystal Turner, Drew and Sam Ripley and us.
It was actually a blessing to have a small group because...

...our house was also WEDDING INVITATION CENTRAL this month and our upstairs tables were full of invite stuff!

Our son Austin is a designer for Microsoft and he designed custom invites for both Braden and Breanna that were just perfect for each of them!


Here Braden and McKenna are helping out with Breanna and Elliot's invites one night after they did their own!

OK, so in relation to these weddings we have coming up...one night I was at the Draper Temple with Braden getting his Bridal/Groomal photos and I hear a "HEY SISTER TAYLOR"
from none other than Kellon Parkinson who happened to be there with his photographer girlfriend shooting another wedding party!
It was so fun to catch up with him while we were there!

And another blast from our past was getting to see Parker Geren and his fiance Mia.
They joined us for dinner one night and lots of catching up!

 President T got to take a trip back to AZ for some sweet work assignments covering the Tucson Temple Open House.
Isn't this a great shot he got?  Read Deseret News to see his full story!  And more to come!

And another shot of our favorite AZ Temple!  Oh how we love this place!

He also got to visit with the Griffins in the mission office as they are completing their third year now and returning home the end of June.  "Well done thou good and faithful servants!"

Here is what we miss about AZ the most.  The people.
If we could transplant a few, we would, but we are so grateful to be able to visit with our old mission friends when we go back!
Jim King with President T.

And as always...COME SEE US OR SIGN UP FOR DINNER!  WE LOVE YOU!

MARCH & APRIL 2017

We have had a whirlwind couple of months!  Lots going on and really, lots of interactions with APM friends!

We started March with the sealing of Caleb Leonhardt and his bride Elizabeth.  It was a beautiful day and so fun to meet his family!

Truly one of our favorite RM activities!!

We were able to meet up with Jason Hutchinson one evening for dinner.  Great to show an older RM where he ended up on the quilt that he never saw completed!

Great to spend time one on one!!

A few days later we were able to host a great RM dinner with some of our other RMs! L to R: Brad and Michelle Knabe,  behind them are Dahlin Lutz and girlfriend, Emily Walker Murry and Adam, Sarah Jenson Williams and Logan, Taylors, Amelia Johnson, Catie Swallow Paulsen and her little girl  Ava and hubby John, Brooke Zollinger Murphy and Mikey, Matt Hilton and Maddie.

Ava playing with our farm animal set!  She is ADORABLE!

President Taylor left a day early for our ITALY TRIP this month in order to cover the placing of the MORONI on the Italy temple!  Beautiful experience for him!

We were able to stay with our dear friends, Mike and Susan Pickerd in the Rome Mission Home!  We attended church with them and were surprised to greet about 10 of our former MTC missionaries, two of which we had just been in church with the previous Sunday in Provo!! What a blessing!

We enjoyed touring Rome, then Floerence, then Venice...

...then Milan where you can see we spend an interesting Sunday!
We started on the rook of the Duomo in our Sunday clothes for a walk!  It was incredible!

Then we took a couple trains and a bus to get to the MILAN MISSION HOME to meet the Allens.  We watched General Conference with them and their assistants, which we also had in our MTC branch when we first started in that branch!

Here we are after conference with 4 of the missionaries we had in our branch at Provo MTC currently serving in Italy Milan.

Then we spent about 5 days in the CInque Terre area of Italy for wonderful hiking each day and enjoying the sweet little city so peaceful when all the day tourists would leave at night!
We hiked about 13 miles a day and loved it!

We came home for a few days and then turned around and went back to Europe to FRANCE!
Scott got to cover the Open House for the new France Paris Temple.  It is stunning!









What made our trip the most meaningful was meeting up with former APM missionary CHristie Mejia!  We spent the day with her touring Paris including a boat tour of the Seine River and all the incredible sights along it!
We had a traditional AMAZING French dinner with her family and a wonderful evening just visiting!  Oh what a miracle to see one of our foreign missionaries again!




And of course, we spent time getting in some sights of our own including going up in the Eiffel Tower at night!

Back in Provo, we are in the season of weddings!

We were headed to Andy Marble's sealing when we heard s "Hey, President Taylor!"  We see Nick Egan and his wife Courtney also at the Payson temple.  We finally figured out that we were headed to the same sealing!  Andy married Courtney's cousin Rachel!



Beautiful couple coming out of the Payson Temple.

Us with Andy and Rachel.

Another reception the same day for Jessica Turner marrying Dillon Selee.  We also saw Emily and Adam Murry,  Corinne Coleman, Sarah and Logan Williams, Kadee and Caleb Arave.
SO FUN!


Our branch at the MTC this month!!

And another Sunday Dinner Group at the Taylors!  Girlfriend Ally with Kalen Gapinski, Joseph Cotton (his family was in WY), Us, Caleb Brown, Melissa Chord, Lance Cabral, Aryssa Hutchinson and fiance Ben, Camilla with Jake Goehring, Chris and Tiffany Stott, Jesica Scott, Tiffany and Kyle Bradfield with Camden.   WE LOVE YOU!  JOIN US BY SIGNING UP ON THE APM PAGE!

FEBRUARY 2017 APM

This was a sweet month for us seeing quite a few of you great RM's!  President Taylor had a last-minute assignment up at BYU-Idaho when they announced the new Pathway Worldwide and new BYU-I president.  He rushed up to the devotional and no one knew he was going to be there, but look who he ran into...                  Desirrae Barnett for one!

Shaun Hampton and his girlfriend...

Then Drew Parks and his girlfriend...

Then Roger Pollard...

And then  Ryan James afterwards!!

BYU-I is full of great APM returned missionaries.  He was so happy to see each of them!!

Early February we attended ROOTSTECH up in Salt Lake with our neighbors from Phoenix, the Janulis.

We always look for Brooke Zollinger Murphy when we go, since her hubby's business is in this arena...he has some really cool stuff going on!!

And she is SO CUTE with her baby belly!!

February Sunday Dinner Group: Rebecca Wooden, Landon Bangeter and girlfriend Kaitlyn, Conner Albrecht.  Back: Us with Shea Smith, girlfriend Makenna with Chad Alvey, Matt Bryson, Jihun Jeong, Crystal Turner and Shannon Magee and her boyfriend Daniel.  Super fun group!

This week we had a visit from one of our mission babies!  Arwyn is SO CUTE!!










Well, that is because her Mommy Nicole is so cute!  Nicole Okeson Elkins does a good job staying in touch.

Oh, and this little baby does sign language (her daddy served ASL) in learning Spanish thanks to Mom's mission and is potty trained at 10 months...asian style.  Ask Nicole for details...it's pretty amazing!

And...here's to SPRING!  We have HOPE in things that we cannot see, like those bulbs beneath the snow that bloom even when it seems unlikely.
We are so grateful for our faith in our Savior and in the Gospel that brings us all good things in our lives!
Thank you for who you are and who you continue to become!

PS...please go to the FB page and sign up for a Sunday dinner for the next 6 months!

DECEMBER 2016 /JANUARY 2017

December and January have flown by and we have had a few APM related interactions!

We met up with Conner Dickson at Blendtec getting  a couple blenders!!

December Dinner Group: Dani Robinson, Jenny Greenwood, Prescott Jackson, K'Loni and Scott Weston, Holy and Paul Wilson, Jordan & Sonya Hastings.

December was a busy month in hospitals for President Taylor...

...but he was a good boy and got lots of stickers!!

He has had to take it easy a bit for a while, but is doing really well now!  The first surgery uncovered an underlying problem that really needed attention immediately, so he went back in for a second surgery within the month!

For Christmas our daughter-in-law found this very cool pillow cover that fit exactly for our APM Family Room!

Elder Bednar's injunction to "STAY WEIRD" is not lost on us...we are as weird as ever!! And we hope you are too!!

Christmas Day found us in the MTC with our missionaries making their phone calls home.  This has been our tradition for the past 3 Christmases now!

We hope that your mission memories are close to the surface and that your mission is a part of who you have become.

In early January we  had a couple of RM wedding Open Houses or Receptions to participate in.  First was Nate Handy out in Eagle Mountain...so good to meet his wife Mariah and spend some time talking.

Next was Heather Belnap and her new husband Tanner.  We have enjoyed getting to know him at one of our APM dinners last fall.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from the Taylors!

We still love serving at the MTC with missionaries several times a week.  This group is going to Romania!  (Well, all but me!)

And here are our Sisters headed to Italy!  I love Sister Manning's family tie...with a pin for each family member that has served a mission...she is taking it to Italy to find a pin and add to the tie then send it home!




Our JANUARY DINNER GROUP:
Alex Whipple, Andy Marble and fiance Rachel, Calvin Madsen, Collin and Alyssa Christensen, Zach Jensen, Daniel Shurtleff, Natalie Dayton, Tyber Parsons and Tanner Gardner.

And when President Taylor gets up on campus for any work related things he is always keeping his eyes open for our RM's.  Today he was lucky enough to run into Shea Smith and that made his day!!


So...HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE TAYLORS!
Please message us to join in a dinner group sometime this year!  WE LOVE YOU!