Gardens and Temples and Other Fun Springy Things

Spring is finally here and I am loving it!    Never mind that it snowed last week...this week the weather is beautiful and that's what I'm embracing today!   What does Spring mean for me?   It means increasing my mileage on my morning walks (30+ miles a week)...

thinking about summer endeavors, and, this year, finally thinking ahead to our garden.   As I've mentioned before, we are pretty lazy gardeners, so consider the next thing I tell you as somewhat miraculous!  

I STARTED SEEDLINGS THIS YEAR!

This is literally my first time ever starting our garden from seeds, so forgive me if I sound like I'm bragging a bit.  Because I am.   Neither of us are yard and garden people and any garden we've ever had before has been planted and kept alive (or not) by fits of inconsistent efforts and a good dose of  luck.   So please pat me on the back and tell me how amazing I am to not have to BUY starters from the store this year. 

I'm so excited about it that I even bought another tray and am going to plant more.   Go me.  Now all I have to do is keep them alive until planting time (which is about mid-May here in Utah), then keep them alive in the garden all summer.  

Wish me luck.  I need it. 

On a completely different note,  here are a few other random tidbits from the last couple weeks.  

The hockey season is ending soon and it finally worked for me to attend a game with Glen.   And Utah Hockey Club even won, so that made it extra fun. 

Adam ran into my cousin's daughters one Sunday when he was attending a different ward.  They hadn't seen each other in several years, but somehow recognized each other nonetheless!

We immediately invited them over for Sunday dinner at our house, so we could reconnect as well. 

Oh, and I like that we still share a camera roll with Emma and Adam...

Here Adam is with friends the Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork.

And a temple selfie...

And another temple selfie with Emma...

I know I mentioned it in my last blogpost, but Ellie recently attended the temple for the first time on her mission since the MTC, but since I already shared that picture of her,  here's another cute one of her from this past week.   She seems really happy.

 I know it was completely random, but that is all for my update today!  I hope you all have an amazing week and weekend!  

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A New Missionary in the Family

 Back in April, Adam received the call to serve in the Portland, Oregon Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The ensuing months brought a lot of craziness to our lives and getting him ready to go was more stressful than I care to admit, but AFTER he completed his weeks as an FSY counselor and after my Dad's funeral, I finally had a little more time and brainpower to help him  get  ready to go.   Then, before we knew it, it was time to begin.   On August 14th, he gave his farewell talk at church and later that day he was set apart as a full-time missionary by our stake president.   We shared this invitation with friends and family on social media and by text beforehand.   

Because Adam's only real time living in Utah was his time down in Provo at BYU, then away from home most of the summer as an FSY counselor, we didn't really expect very many people to come.  Maybe a handful of friends (who were mostly away for the summer or already on missions) and some family.   We were pleasantly surprised, though, when we he had quite houseful!   

He had a big group of his FSY kids show up....something that definitely made his day!  

Glen had some aunts, uncles, and cousins show up from his side of the family.  I also had a handful (the Larsen's, my Mom, and siblings), but it wasn't as many and they didn't stay long enough for us to take pictures.  

We had everyone from our immediate family there, except Cami, Garrett, and Lucie.  

We were 100% delighted that the Richards family came.  They were our neighbors during our second year in PA and made us feel so loved--something we so desperately craved and needed after our first year there ended up being a bit of a fiasco.   It's a long story that I'll probably never share fully here on the blog, but suffice it to say, when we moved down the street from them (smack in the middle of the entire state being  shut down by COVID), we were quite lonely and had very tender feelings after gossip and misunderstandings tainted our first year there. 

 Their sweet conversations, spontaneous visits to see  Rocky, and their welcoming arms were healing to our hearts and helped us to feel loved again.  They will forever hold a special place in our hearts and we very much enjoyed the opportunity to see them again at Adam's farewell.    

 Everyone needs friends like the Moores.  Natalie is one of the most amazing people you'll ever meet in your life and I have felt blessed a million times over for her son's Scott's friendship with Adam.   Last August they were traipsing through Europe together and this year they're starting missionary life at the same time.  He's heading to the Philippines and started Provo MTC the same day Adam did.  

I don't consider myself much of a hostess and our house certainly isn't fancy...

but I love, love, love having a house with a  layout that allows us  to host people comfortably...

It made my heart happy to see our house so full..

of people who love us...

and wanted to show their support for Adam...

as he goes off to serve the Lord for the next two years...

Here are a couple of Glen's cousins' kids...💗💗💗

Glen with his Aunt Debbie 💗💗💗

A candid shot with Scott and a friend from FSY...

Catherine, Nicholas (two of Adam's cousins), Uncle Alex, and Glen's cousin, Stephanie and son, Cooper 💗💗💗

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Here is the spread of food we had.  It got almost entirely consumed...

Sydney was the only one of Adam's freshman year friends that was able to come, but I think it meant a lot to him to have her there....

I somehow missed getting a photo of him with Rocky (who likely won't be around anymore when he gets home), but I did get this sweet one with Denali.  💗💗💗

Adam spent the next 1-1/2 weeks at home doing Home MTC.  We totally enjoyed having him home for that time and put him to work....

 We LOVED having the spirit in our home that having a missionary brings!  

Before he started at the MTC in Provo, we made sure he had the opportunity to say his goodbyes...

  

Then on August 24th, we dropped him off at the Provo MTC.

I have a lot of tender feelings about sending him off for two years, and there were quite a few tears shed {mostly after he left}, but we are happy he's doing what he's doing.    A "miserable joy" is what my good friend, Karen Harrison once told me it was like sending off a missionary and, third time around, I have to say that I agree with that description.  

He had a great two weeks in the MTC, but was ready to leave by the time departure day came around.   

We got a message that he'd arrived safely in Portland, but that's about all we've heard so far.  

In the meantime, a huge piece of my heart is living in Portland now and we miss him dearly already.  I'm sure you'll see some more Elder G updates on here in the coming months.

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Fish, Smoke, Snow, and Leaves

 A letter sent to our missionary 10/10/21:  

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Hola Emma Girl!

Don't get too excited, but I think I've set a new record for starting your letter before 8:00pm. Never mind that it's literally 7:59pm, I think you should give me some kind of award or something (or at least eat a cookie for me or something). But then again, earlier does not always equal better (as you know from the goofy letter from a couple weeks ago), so refrain from too much anticipation. 😜

So, what are we doing this week? Eating, eating, and more eating. I don't know why, but suddenly there's good food everywhere and I'm eating it all.    

Also, have I told you that you're going to like our new kitchen? It's not fancy, but it is nice and certainly bigger and more organized than any other kitchen we've ever had. I think you'll enjoy it.

Also, GUESS WHAT?!! I'm finding you some new friends for when you get home. One is named I----- and she lives with her parents in the ward. I don't know her story, but 1. she was homeschooled 2. she's about your age 3. she's very nice. Also, I met A----- today. She lives two doors down from us and she is recently returned from the Vancouver, Washington mission. There's also the BYU student whose family lives kiddy corner behind us who served in the Toronto Mission (she just happened to already be out when COVID went down, so she got to stay), so you were basically meant to be friends one way or the other. We will definitely have a YSA gathering at our house when you get home, so you all can get to know each other. :)

My next mission is to start finding you some dates too.  

Yesterday Dad took Adam, Logan, and Ryan H. fishing on Strawberry Reservoir.

If you remember the weather yesterday, it was COLD, SNOWY, and WET, but they dressed for it and had a successful day. They caught 20+ fish--including a monster big one that Adam caught....

Tonight Dad smoked a few and we ate well (see the eating problem I mentioned above).

YUM!

 

Speaking of cold, snowy, and wet--have you seen this weather alert? 😩😩😩😩😩😩😩

It's funny, because last time I lived in Utah, I was coming from Minnesota and I remembered the Utah winters as pretty wimpy. Now we're coming from somewhere where they cancel everything every time there's an inch of snow and I'm getting increasingly worried that these winters are going to knock my socks off. As it is, I am 10000% NOT excited about a winter storm in October!   😱

I heard that leaves were at their peak this past week, so we braved the cold, soggy weather this week and took a drive through Big Cottonwood Canyon, over Guardsmen Pass, back through Heber Valley and back home through Provo Canyon. The weather in the mountains was a good 20 degrees colder than home and significantly windier too, so we pretty much froze. But we did get some beautiful pictures and I think the bad weather kept the crowds away.

What else did we do this week?  

Adam went to homecoming with his friend, Sydney...

I heard they had a fun time and I found these pictures in the camera roll, so it looks like a success.  

We also found the cutest little alpaca farm about a mile from our house and I think Ellie is ready to be adopted into their family, so she can see this cute little fellow every day...

We talked her into staying home after I promised to drive by at least once a week.  Be sure to remind us and we'll drive you by when you get home too.    It's so stinking cute it's sure to make you smile when you're having a grumpy day! 

A couple last things....

The L---- family (from VF1 in Pennsylvania) came to breakfast this morning.  It was great to see them and I truly feel like they were one of the reasons why we needed to live in PA.   

On Thursday, we went to BYU Homecoming Spectacular.  I sent you a couple videos from it, so you can see that it was AMAZING!!!!    Brian Stokes Mitchell was the headliner and the whole thing was so fun and so well done!   

Spence opted not to come, so we searched for someone to take his place.   Katelin D. was available and  we enjoyed spending the evening with her.  

This month is a pretty busy month.  Next weekend is Ellie's Fall Break and Dad is going on ANOTHER fishing trip with a colleague.  Later Dad will fly to Dallas for a wedding, after which Ellie and I will fly to Austin for Cami's baby shower.  I'm getting so stinking excited to be a grandma I can barely stand it!  I just hope that they end up getting residency somewhere closer than Texas.

Speaking of babies....Dad's cousins (Marilyn's girls) all had babies within a few months of each other and they asked me to take pictures of them when they came to town.  I was SUPER intimidated, but talked Heather into coming along too, and I think they turned out beautifully (thanks to Heather).  It was fun to see them again and meet their sweet babies.   

Jane's baby is P----.  He is about 8 months old.   Stephanie's is C----- and he is 2-3 months old.   Jill's is M---- and I believe she is about 7 months old.   They live in 3 different states currently (Texas, Virginia, and Utah).  

They were all completely adorable ...

And it was fun to see the sisters reunited!   

They sent these beautiful flowers as a thank you gift.  😍

Well, I've definitely set a new record.   I'm wrapping up now and it's not even 9:30 yet, so HALLELUJAH, I might actually get to bed at a reasonable time!  

I hope you have an AMAZING week!  WE love you!!! 

Love, 
Mom