Well, I found a few pictures that somehow been skipped over in the past few weeks, so I'm going to start with a little bit of catching up.
This is a cute one someone took of Josh and Leigh at their friend's wedding reception. Awww...
Howard Lyon finished painting this beautiful portrait of Sara!
A week and half ago, Sara and I got to sing a duet at a stake Relief Society banquet. It was a great evening. Melanie Wellman spoke on scripture study. She is such an incredible speaker!
Steph, Sara, Nelly Jensen and Melanie Wellman
These are all the kids from our ward that were in the play. So much fun!!
back: Daniel, Coby Larson, Rett Larson, Joseph Watkins
front: Colby Snyder, Laney, Susanna, Jolie Bailey, Payton Mortensen
Sam's boss took him and his work mates out for dinner.
He said it was amazing sushi!
And Creme Brulee!
He also let Sam drive his Porche!!!!
Ok, I think I am caught up now.
This week started with Sam flying to Provo, Utah to speak with Brad Wilcox. He is one of our favorite speakers. He has an incredible way of teaching the grace of God. He has had a large impact on our family through his talks and books.
Here is a link to one of our very favorite talks, His Grace Is Sufficient by Brad.
Sam is such a friendly dude. He made friends with this guy Christian on the plane. Christian kindly gave Sam a ride to Aunt Marilyn's church.
When Sam landed, he exited the plane to find SNOW!
Brad came and picked up Sam at Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Randy's house as well as one of his students, McKenzie, and her boyfriend, Blake. They were served a delicious dinner of stuffed chicken breast and some death by chocolate dessert. Sam said it was all delicious! He then got to bear his testimony before Brad spoke at the devotional. What an honor!
He said that Brad is super warm and loving. They had lots of great conversations on the drive there and back. It was a wonderful evening!
Sam, Brad Wilcox, Blake and McKenzie
The people running the devotional gave him these fancy goat's milk soaps and lotion as a thank you for sharing his testimony. When Brad dropped him off, he gave Sam a copy of him most recent book and signed it for him.
Monday morning, Uncle Randy took Sam for a drive to see the snow in Provo Canyon. Sam said he had a wonderful time staying with them and loved all the fun conversations they had as well as Aunt Marilyn's homemade grape juice.
When Sam was boarding the plane to come home, he saw Spencer Jones boarding as well. They flew home on the same plane. Small world!
At home, we gave Daniel his birthday gifts a day early because Richard was going out of town on Monday. He was thrilled to get a bunch of new musical piano/voice books. These are some of our favorites lately.
Sara gave Dad a haircut so he could look spiffy for his business trip.
The elders came by and gave us some honey from Elder Townsend's family bee farm in Florida. It is yummy!
Monday, Sara and I kidnapped Daniel from school and took him out to lunch for a birthday burger at Red Robin.
His friends at school gave him the birthday hat and a bunch of cute gifts all centered around their inside jokes and things that Daniel says. It was super sweet! He told us about it at lunch.
He loved his burger and fries.
These roses were not for his birthday, a friend gave them to him after the play on Saturday for his performance as Gaston. We just hadn't taken a picture of them yet.
His buddy, Ammon, from church came by and gave him some birthday treats.
The Baker family came by too. He babysits for them and loves all their kids. It was also their daughter Sadie's birthday so Daniel gave her his hat and we sang to them both. Then they all played for awhile.
Sadie and Daniel
Jon, Susanna, Leigh, Josh, Andrew, Freddy, Steph, Lindsey, Krista, Charlotte, Laney, Kailey and Jackson
When they left we had Daniel's birthday "cake". It was actually a fluffy frozen fruit salad, no sugar, so he was a happy boy. (Richard, Sara, Daniel and I don't eat added sugar. Tim didn't eat it pre-mission (not sure now) and sometimes Josh and Freddy don't either. We just don't like how we feel when we eat it.
The twins were punks and blew out all his candles right before he did and his face of disappointment almost made me cry. Daniel was fine. We relit the candles and all was well.
Tuesday evening, Lilli asked me for a ride to meet some of her friends with a detour to Wendy's to get them Frosties. I was waiting for her in the car while she ran in, since the drive through line was about 10 cars long. As I was sitting there reading, I realized that Freddy was working and that I could go in and get a picture of him working. So here he is, hard at work with the nuggets and fries.
Later that evening, Elder Townsend came by to bring Elder Towle by to say goodbye. He is going home to Utah in 3 weeks!
I've been enjoying our spring flowers. They are growing beautifully!
Wednesday, was New Beginnings. It is when the the Young Women at church introduce the Young Women's program to the girls turning 12 this year. Laney is turning 12 in May so we attended for her.
This is the Young Women singing Peace in Christ.
KenaDee introduced Laney to everyone and shared some fun things about her.
Thursday was a rough day. Sara found out during her 3rd hour class that her school counselor had passed away 2 days earlier. It was shocking and upsetting. She started crying and couldn't stop, so I told her to just come home. On her way out another counselor that we know, stopped her to give her more information and to console her. She also called the twins to the office to talk it over with them as well. Drew had not heard the news either. A statement was supposed to have read to them about it in their 1st hour. Freddy stayed at school because he had a test, but Drew and Sara were too upset to stay. We were close with Mrs. Espinoza. She was their school mom. She was warm and loving and always took good care of their needs. She was so supportive through some really tough situations for Sara, and helped Drew work through a lot of things as well. She will be missed a lot. She was only a year older than me and her kids are Sam and Tim's ages. It's so sad, but she, unknown to us, had been seriously ill most of her life. She is now at peace in God's arms waiting to be reunited with her family. She was such a sunshine here, I am sure she is still blessing people from the other side.
Esperanza Espinoza 1975-2018
It's fun to have cousins pop in throughout the week.
Richard came home Friday night. We are all glad to have Daddy back. He had a wonderful week and learned lots of nerdy programming stuff.
Daniel's school friends, all girls, threw a surprise birthday party for him Saturday afternoon. These are the pictures they sent me.
They painted his toenails for him.
Saturday, Leigh took Sara's senior pictures! The few that I saw on her camera looked awesome! I'm excited to see them finished.
Josh was so proud to have found his perch while they were busy shooting pictures. It was pretty cute.
Uncle Richard took Tori to and from a birthday party while Jessi, her other girls and Laney went with Papa to hear the Phoenicians barbershop choir perform.
While I was out with Sara for her pictures, Richard fed the missionaries grits and eggs for dinner. Elder Townsend is from Florida so he know grits. Elder Olvera had never had them before. He said it was like popcorn and mashed potatoes had a baby.
Laney played a round of Spot It with them while Andrew got ready to go out with them for the evening. Drew was finished before they were, so he serenaded them with the guitar. He's getting really good.
Josh and Leigh went to a young adult picnic. Leigh posted that she "only loves him for his fashion."
Sara and her friends attended a senior banquet and dance. They were all so pretty!
KenaDee, Brynn and Sara, posing with the vacuum. Silly girls!
Sam dropped in for a surprise visit.
There was lots of laughing,
and Sam being annoying, talking every time I tried to speak. Sara tried to help.
He told us all about his weekend in Utah and we talked about grace and the gospel for hours. It was after 1:00 am when we went to bed. Sam stayed the night.
Brynn, KenaDee, sleeping Daniel, Sam, Sara, Josh and Dad
Today at church, Daniel was ordained a teacher in the Aaronic priesthood. Sam ordained him. All his brothers, minus our missionary Tim, were able to stand in the circle to ordain him. It was pretty sweet.
