A Quick Bit of Summer Catch-up

Hello, friends!   Here's the quickest catch-up post ever from the last few weeks of summer, so I don't forget to get it down and, also, so that I can move onto other things to blog about.    

My college friend, Brenda, recently came to town.  It had been many years since I'd seen her and it was great to catch up!   She played a role in Glen and I getting together, so she holds a special place in our hearts.  

Here is Emma with the stake RS presidency she served with before she moved away.  They really miss her, as do I.     

Here is Glen with the EQ presidency from our old ward (minus the secretary)...

Before we were officially sustained in our new ward, I had my "old ward" RS presidency over one last time.   

We made food as a service for someone with health issues in the ward and just had fun eating, playing games, and hanging out together.  This is where I told them that we would be leaving them the following week.   

 Leaving them so soon after starting is honestly one of the hardest parts about getting this new calling.  I felt like we had just learned everyone's names and were just starting to develop some good relationships.   That's okay though...we are already feeling the Lord's hand working to help us in our new ward and now we'll have double the YSA friends!  

The last week in August Emma came back from Rhode Island to be in a friend's wedding.   

We loved, loved, loved having her around again...

It made the week extra busy, but it also made the week extra good!  

#bonustimewithemma

 Adam was around for part of the same week Emma was here until he could move into his new apartment.  We did A LOT of yardwork together while he was here and I think we wore him out pretty good by the time he moved into his new apartment.  

I'll be honest...we were pretty darn exhausted by the time church rolled around on Sunday for our first official week in the new ward.  There are A LOT Of moving pieces getting a ward up and running at the beginning of a new school year and being brand new makes it all the more intimidating / hard. This picture shows us in front of our new church building.   

It's a cool old building on BYU Campus, but doesn't have good classrooms, so we move over to  another building for 2nd hour.      

Adam just started at his new ward this past week as well and his Bishop gave everyone in the ward a sand dollar from the Oregon coast as a welcome gift.  

I haven't blogged about it yet, but will soon...but we were just in Oregon visiting Adam's mission.   While we were there, we spent some time at the coast and Adam searched high and low for sand dollars, but never found an intact one.  

The gift seemed like a little tender mercy / confirmation that he's right where he's supposed to be for this school year.  

  And that, folks, is all I've got for today.  Hopefully I'll blog about our trip to visit Adam's mission soon and wrap up maybe one more summer post, before moving on to a very busy fall!  Thanks for tuning in today!  💗

Mid-Summer Visit from Some of Our Favorites

A few weeks ago, my sister and her kiddos came to visit!  Then my brother joined the fun.    

As always with their visits, it meant life got a little extra chaotic for a bit, but it was a {mostly} happy chaos, so we loved it!  

Highlights of the visit included: 

* lots of time with J, Manuel, and Isaiah!

* Denali LOVED all the extra attention with them there

* With three of the four C. girls (and Mom) there, it meant we got to do a lot of talking time

*  My Legos got well-loved again 

*  We took a trip to the aquarium

*  Silliness and potty humor was abundant

* I got to expand my repertoire of music to way more "exciting" genres (according to I, M, and J anyway)

*   Lots of combined family dinners and culinary offerings not normally found at our house...

*  Pete came to town and we  had a big family dinner down in Provo to include the college kids

* 7 of the 10 boy cousins were all together...just missing Ben, Jack, and Lincoln

* Had 2 of the 8 girl cousins together...just missing Cam, Ellie, McKenzie, Lauren, Bridgette, and Anna

*  4 of the 8 siblings together!   

*  We don't see Pete often enough, so it was fun to have him there! 

* Pete's son, Davin, is a superstar baseball player who had come to participate in a BYU sports camp.

Lowlights included: 

*  I had a  major meltdown that I can only assume was fueled by hormones,  lack of sleep, and lack of routine.  It was of the epic sort I have only once every few years, so that was stupid.  I got to practice all the skills I had recently learned in my emotional resilience class at church (FSITL).  

* Nate came into town a few hours after Pete and Davin left, so we barely missed having 5/8 of the siblings together

In other news:  

* Some big changes are happening and life has taken a turn for busyness in the extreme and the next few months/years are going to be crazy {and good...we hope!}  I'll probably share more details eventually...

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Lots of Stuff

We've had A LOT on our calendar lately and this post is all about a few days we took for a work conference in Saint George in the middle of all that.     Glen works for a cool company that supports dentists in a unique and innovative way and this event was technically considered a retreat.  The word "retreat" sounds it should have been nice and relaxing, and it was for the dentists, and for me and for the other employees' spouses, but it definitely was anything but retreat-like for Glen and his colleagues who worked their tails off to make this event happen, which is why I am referring to it as a work conference for him.    

There were fun events scheduled, but mostly it was a time for the dentists to interact with each other and for Glen's team to meet, coordinate, and problem solve together.   We met A LOT of new people (especially me) over the few days of the conference and I am about tapped out on small talk for the next year, but poor Glen had to be ON ON the whole time and it was especially exhausting for him.  

While Glen was in meetings, I hiked to Scout Cave in Snow Canyon with Katie, who is the wife of Glen's boss.  We knew them back in VA, so it was fun to catch up.  

The weather wasn't too bad yet and the scenery was pretty grand!

 We spent a lot of time small talking around the pool....

We had a cookie decorating class, which I very much enjoyed...

I thought I was quite hilarious when I washed my hair the next day and realized that I matched my cookie.   

And I was quite excited to bring that cookie with me to Alabama to share with Lucie, who appreciated my artistic attempts by immediately gobbling it up!   Haha!  

On Saturday, we had the opportunity to ride e-bikes through Snow Canyon.  I'd never ridden an e-bike before and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.  

Even though I'd hiked in Snow Canyon just a day or two before, I'd forgotten how incredibly beautiful it is in the depths of the canyon, which we did not get to on our hike.  

It truly was a delightful experience for both of us and I am already concocting a plan to get Emma and Adam down there for a similar trek sometime!  

The conference technically ended around 8:30pm on Saturday, which meant that most people stayed overnight and went home on Sunday morning.   But we had a YSA ward to attend and a plane to catch...so we headed home that night.  WE got home a little before 1:00am, where I then packed for Alabama (including dirty clothes I didn't have time to wash), and eventually crashed into bed.  We were off to church meetings at 8:20am, then left straight for SLC from Provo after church.   We made a quick pit-stop at a hotel in SLC to visit our long-lost friend, Terri, we hadn't seen in 25ish years, who was in town with  her husband for a  business trip.  Sadly, her husband was in meetings and couldn't meet with us, but it was fun to catch up after all these years.   They had been our neighbors in Baltimore and have kids the same ages as Spencer and Cami, which meant we had a lot of play dates back in the day!     

After arriving to the airport, my flight was delayed, which meant I had yet another long night in front of me, though not as long as Glen's proved to be the very next night.   His flight to Alabama ended up getting totally canceled after arriving to the airport and rather than missing another day of work for the rescheduled flight the next day, he opted to take a red-eye to Atlanta, where he rented a car, then drove here to Birmingham (about a 2 hour drive), and arrived here early on Tuesday morning.   But it was worth it for this...

Lucie is OBSESSED with Glen!   

Glen is trying to keep working while he's here, but he's eating up this time with them...

As am I.   

And now you know not to judge how completely and totally exhausted we look...because we were...and it was worth it a million times over to be here with them!  

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PS  Don't worry, there will be at least one whole blogpost  dedicated to our time here in Alabama, so consider this just a little teaser.   😁
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Eastering Together

Since becoming empty nesters, we honestly  go through some pretty dry spells where our lives are pretty uneventful, but lately it's been a pretty steady stream of nonboringness and we are enjoying it!  In fact, it's felt a bit like a whirlwind here the last month or so, so there's a ton to blog about.

This post will focus on the happenings of Easter weekend.  

On the Friday before Easter, my sister Heather was down in Provo with my Mom taking Emma's graduation pics (more of the recent excitement) and we decided to join them for a spontaneous little dinner and treat night.  Besides Heather, my Mom, and Emma, McKenzie (my niece), Riley (Emma's roommate), Adam, Spencer, and Glen and I were there.  We ate dinner at Don Joaquin's...

and laughed when our receipt was #74, which induced a lot of giggles on our parts...

We ended the night at Brooker's Founding Flavors ice cream shop near BYU.  Zwahlens in PA is still our gold standard for the best ice cream ever, but Brooker's isn't too far behind.  Plus the colonial / Founding Fathers theme of the shop makes us nostalgic for the DC area.   We were there on the snowy day mentioned here, so it wasn't great ice cream weather, but the place was still packed and we laughed that they had an outdoor DJ there that night.   

It was way too cold to be sitting outside and eating ice cream, but we chatted with the DJ on the way out and were impressed that they were celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere that night.  

I doubt any of you blog readers have been around long enough to remember that Emma was OBSESSED with the poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow back in the day!   We both could quote several stanzas of the poem from memory and I had to pull up this picture I found here on the blog to pass around to everyone!    "Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere..." 

Then on Easter Sunday we attended our new YSA ward and LOVED it!   The talks and music were Christ centered and beautiful.   I think we are going to really enjoy this season of serving down at BYU. 

After church, we hosted dinner for 12 people!    Guests besides Glen, Emma, Spence, Adam, and I, included our niece, McKenzie, my sister, Heather, my Mom, my cousin, Trisha, and her 2 daughters Lily and Sylvie, plus Adam's roommate, Ty.

Glen woke up at 2am to  smoke  brisket and later made mashed potatoes, Heather brought rolls, and I made broccoli salad, pie,cupcakes.  Adam, Emma, and McKenzie were our sous chefs.  Everything was delicious and we ate well! 

It was so fun to get these first and second cousins together again. 

Meanwhile, in Alabama...the B family was enjoying their own Easter.  Yes, Cami and I were wearing matching dresses that we both bought on a recent sale!    And Cami sewed Lucie and Oliver's matching outfits!    Apparently Lucie had the time of her life with all the Easter celebrations, but Oliver wasn't so sure...

And, in California, Ellie was busy teaching people about Jesus, while celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.   She, along with the other missionaries serving in her ward, ended up performing a musical number in the Easter sacrament service without any previous notice.  Overall it sounded like she had a beautiful day. 

It turned out to be a lovely weekend with  a lot of good food, lots of reflection on the atonement of our Savior, and  with lots of good company... just the way Easter should be!  💗

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