Sam's Girl, Lots of Boys and Culture

Sammy has a girlfriend. She is lovely and delightful! Her name is Tes. 

Sammy is so happy and we love her too!

Josh and Leigh went apple picking in the BYU-I orchards. They picked beautiful, juicy honeycrisp apples for $.50 per pound!!!

Sunday evening was lots of fun with our guests, Ty, Connor, Quinton and Daniel. Of course, one thing led to another and before we knew it, they were wrestling.

The bystanders

Dad was focused on dealing the Uno cards.

It all ended in laughs and smiles. We stayed up well past midnight playing Jungle Uno. We love these guys!

Monday morning, no one wanted to wake up. We were all super tired. When we did crawl out of bed, Sara cut Daniel's hair for him. 

 The guys played Call of Duty Black Ops 2, Halo Reach,  and Speed Runners.

Connor played the piano and the ukulele with Susanna for a while.

At noon we had to bid them farewell. Connor had school starting the next morning and need to get back to Provo to prepare. We sure loved having a few days with these awesome guys!

We love them and can't wait for them to come back!

Thursday was our 3rd MCO rehearsal for this semester. It is sounding amazing already.

Ammon, Lilli and Caden saying, "Hi Timmy! We miss you!!!"

We are getting more and more of our friends from Surprise to join MCO. It is a lot of fun! We are missing a few of them, Noah and Kendall Fechter, Averi Jordan, the Baker girls, the Youngs, Spencer Smith and his friend. It is wonderful to share this love with them!

Friday night, Rich and I went out to dinner with our dear friends, Drex and Laura Davis. We love going out with them. We never run out of things to talk about and we have tons in common. Plus, we all love eating at Cha Da Thai, our usual meeting spot!

Saturday, Sara and I drove out to Gilbert for the day. We started by picking up Josh Jensen. They dropped me off and Starbucks to do homework, while they went to Carrabba's for lunch. Then they came back and got me so we could go to see The Scarlet Pimpernell with Papa, Gram, Nan, Madi, Dandi and Jessi. It was for our annual daddy daughter date. We let Josh crash the party.

I have wanted to see this show for years. It was hilarious! The singing was great and it was really well cast. The sword fighting was horrible, and the choreograph, not so great, but the show was so much fun that it didn't matter.

Sir Percy Blakeney (the Scarlet Pimpernell) and his wife Marguerite St. Just Blakeney

Percy's merry men

After the show, we went to Joyride Taco for dinner. It was delicious! I loved the limey salsa!!!

We asked Josh to take a picture for us, but Jessi had her mouth full of food. We decided to help her feel like she fit in, well, other than Sara, Gram and Papa.

Then we tried to take a pretty one, but Papa was really hungry, so he missed the cue.

We took some quick pics on our way back to the car.

It was such a fun night with the family. I loved talking with everyone and being silly, as usual.

My people are so cute!

Thanks, Daddy, for another fabulous date! We loved it!!!

After the date, we began our drive back to Josh's house, but got side tracked... for a few hours. We got gas for the car and began talking personalities, temperaments, gospel and healthy relationships. We went to Frost for the first time. It's a gelato shop. Josh treated us to sugar-free chocolate and peanut butter! We had him take the Personality Plus test while we indulged. 

When he finished, he wanted to know what it all meant, but we didn't have our book with us. We walked around the corner to Barnes and Noble and found a copy of the book. We sat down in the kids section and gave him some highlights of his strengths and weaknesses. It was great to get to know him a little better and to watch him as he had some breakthroughs of his own. 

We took him home at ten and drove home, happy and tired. It was such an incredibly fun day! I love being with my big girl, Sara.

Goodbye Josh and Leigh, Hello John Denver

Sunday evening, Josh and Leigh came over for a family game night. We played lots of Uno!

After the little girls went to bed, they played Blokus with Freddy, Daniel and Andrew.

It was hard to say goodbye. We have missed them while they have been away in Rexburg. They are so cute and happy and seem to be enjoying married life a ton. They flew back to Idaho Tuesday morning, but our Monday was so packed that we didn't get to see them again after Sunday.

Monday night, Rich and I drove out to Gilbert. My dad purchased tickets for all of his kiddos and their spouses/dates to a John Denver Tribute concert at the Hale Theater. Gavin and Cadie couldn't come because he conducts a choir on Monday nights. We missed them, but we still had a ton of fun. It was a surprise birthday date for my mom. She knew she was going to the concert, but she didn't know we were all meeting them there.

The performer, Ted Vigil, was really talented. He even looked like John Denver. And the band was incredibly awesome! I had as much or more fun watching them play their instruments as I did watching Ted sing and play his guitar. The Hale Theater is in the round, so sometimes he was facing us and sometimes he wasn't, but we had a great view of the musicians the whole time.  It really was a great show!

You can see a bit of the show at these links:

https://youtu.be/yZKailUJ-8Q

https://youtu.be/nM7l4nwvCls

Grammy with "John Denver" Ted Vigil

Dandi almost cut her fingers off last Saturday, so she kept putting them up like a peace sign in all the pictures, since she couldn't bend them and didn't want to put them down and have someone bum them.

This is one of my new friends in Concert Choir. His name is Josue and he just graduated from Independence High School when I mentioned that Jessi was my sister, I moved up a few levels of coolness. She choreographed for their choir shows and plays. She is a rock star to him!

I didn't get a picture, but Millennial Choir rehearsals started up again this last Thursday. The kids were so thrilled to be back there every week. AND... now we have a bunch of families from Surprise in choir; Josh and Averie Jordan, Noah and Kendall Fechter, Lindsey and Kailey Baker, Lauren Ruff and her cousin, Isabelle Hunsaker, Rachel and Spencer Smith and Spencer's friend, and Tommy Lundquist. We also have one of their cousins, Emily Alger in concert choir as well. It is tons of fun to share this awesome part of our lives with those we love! I love all my choir boys too. I have 201 guys in Concert Choir this year. Last year we had 130 and the year before that 103, so it is growing fast.

Saturday, we had a surprise birthday party for Gavin at Dandi's house. He turned 30 on August 17th. We wanted him to know we love him and that he is a pretty wonderful guy. He was surprised and so happy. We played his favorite game, Signs. He loved it! The kids all had a great time playing it too. Dandi made food and did an awesome job decorating!

We surprised Grammy too. We gave her a super cool present that we bought in Niagara Falls. It is a beautiful hanging decoration that looks so cool when it spins. I've want to get her one of these for years, but they are super expensive. This one was more affordable and Dandi, Gavin and Ben went in on it with me.

Here is a video of it spinning. You can see a little better how beautiful it is!

https://youtu.be/75W6SUhPQwU

Tori wished Gavin a happy girly birthday and gave him 2 choker necklaces. He was a great sport and put them right on. He took them off almost immediately. They really were chokers on him, super tight. Hahahaha!

Dandi and I gave Gavin the songbook for the Broadway musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This is one of his families favorites, so he was super excited about it.

Jessi and her other girls were at the West Coast Swing competition at the Arizona Grand Resort, so we were missing them. (Heidi and Lilli made it into the finals.) Chad and Melissa were able to come and a few of Gavin's school friends stayed for a little while. Rich had to work and the twins had a birthday party they had already committed to, so they were not able to come either.

The siblings, minus Jessi

Just as lovely as ever!

We had a wonderful afternoon and evening together as a family. I got to talk music with Gavin too. He loves that I am learning all the things he has been studying. He is excited to have someone he can talk to about hoity-toity music stuff. 

We drove home safely, arriving around 10:30 pm. At 12:30 am, we had 4 previous missionaries arrive to stay the weekend with us, Ty Towle, Connor Olvera, Daniel Rosengren and Quinton Steere. Daniel and Quinton didn't serve in our ward, but Quinton served in the YSA ward when Sam was there and came to our house for dinner a couple of times and Daniel moved down here for a couple of months after his mission and went to the YSA ward with Sara.

Ty and Connor went to church with us, while Daniel and Quinton attended a ward they had both served in. The boys loved having Ty and Connor join us on our pew. They are such sweet guys!

I told Drew he looked a little like "The Doctor", Matt Smith style, in his suit and bow tie. He ran upstairs and got Sam's old sonic screwdriver to complete the look. (Doctor Who)

There was a little bit of horsing around of course. Poor Andrew was on the bottom of the pile with Ty's elbow in his throat. They had a good laugh about it after.

Then it was time for a Sunday nap! (I wish I was joining them on this part.)

Andrew, Freddy and Daniel

Dad and Laney snuggled on the nap sofa. Susanna napped upstairs and Sara is still at church.

We are excited for our guests to come back after their dinner appointment to play some games. We sure love our missionaries and love that they come back to visit!