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 

Letter to Cam #5

Dear Soeur G.,

Well, it's raining buckets and buckets here and it looks like we are going to end up being brushed by the edges of a hurricane this weekend.   Hurricane Hermine (NOT Hermione) is a category 1 hurricane and is supposed to hit land at Florida soon (probably already has by the time you've received this).   They were worried that DC would take more of a direct hit from the remnants, but the most recent forecasts predict that it will go further out to sea.  Basically they say it's just likely to be a bit of a blustery rainy weekend, which is a bummer for the last weekend before school starts, but thankfully it's unlikely to be anything too big here.  

I took the kids school clothes shopping today and ADAM PICKED OUT STYLISH CLOTHES!!!!!! He didn't buy any gym shorts or t-shirts whatsoever and actually picked out button down shirts and some nice Levi slacks.   I was very surprised and impressed.   It cost a lot more to outfit him than when he solely wears shorts and t-shirts, but, hey, he looks good and it makes me smile that he actually is starting to care.    :)

I have no idea how closely you read my Dear Elders, but I was wondering a few things:

1.  How did the meet-up with Ash, Caroline, MK, Karly, and Janessa go?   Ashley mentioned that she started crying immediately when she saw you.  Were you okay?   Was it a happy meeting?  

2.    So, how was the bread and jam?   Was it totally dried out?    Did you like the pectin free peach jam?   I think it turned out more like an apple butter texture, but I loved the flavor.  I think I will probably go pectin free from now on for flavor purposes!    

3.   Please send us your travel plans as soon as you receive them.   We're excited to hear about the details! 

4.   I want to hear more about your sister trainer responsibilities.   How is that going?  Is it a lot of extra work?   Or just a fresh change of scenery?         

 FYI...... I am sending the phone to you today, which means you should receive it early next week.   I will have it charged and all set up and programmed with our phone number.    I will also send directions on how to use it.   It should be easy peasy and we will look forward talking with you while you're the airport!

Well, WE LOVE YOU and can't wait to hear from you!

Have a wonderful P-day!
Love,
Mom

Random pictures:  

I saved $7 in postage by putting the smaller box inside the Priority Mail box when I sent your bread.   It kind of cracked me up.

A yummy fruit salad that Emma made for breakfast one morning.  The mangoes, in particular,  are SOOOOOOOOOO  GOOD right now.

My slow progress reading, "Truman" for next week's book group.   I'm on page 205 out of 992 pages.

Take a closer look at the picture of Logan and Adam and you'll see this cicada shell on his shirt!  

The Rest of the Week

April 5:  

It was a long day with a lot of driving, a lot of socializing with people I don't know, Glen not getting home until 3am,  and me feeling a tad grumpy.   

April 6:  

This day probably deserves a blogpost all to itself, so here's the picture, and you can look for a separate blogpost about my trip to the FDA for an AML conference coming soon. 

April 7: 

The kids are still eating hard-boiled eggs from Easter and Ellie thought that this pear/lemon/garlic shaped yolk was so cool! 

April 8: 

Finally I had a day to breathe a bit!   After spinning my wheels all week long (especially with the AML conference taking up two of the days), I finally got to cross a few things off my list.   We ended with a night at the local middle school to watch five of my young women (and three young men from our ward) perform in Beauty and the Beast.   

Adam's long-time best friend, Logan, was an awesome Lumiere!

 I never did catch a picture with all of them at the same time, but here's Bella (cutlery), Maeve (a wolf), Martha (my next seat over neighbor in the audience), and Alyvia (cutlery).  

And here's Martha again, a random friend I don't know, Alyvia, Alyvia's brother, Everett, and Gianna (a member of the backstage crew)! 

It was a fun way to end the night and now we're just waiting until the wee hours of the morning again for Glen to come home! 

Hiking to Calvert Cliffs

Oh what do you do on a Saturday

when all the world is soggy?  

Do you stay nice and dry at home

while you play with your doggy?   

No!  

You pack some food, bundle up the kids, pick up a couple of friends along the way, drive for an hour and a half, then go for a hike! 

At least that's what our crazy crew does!  

We drove through driving rain and arrived to Calvert Cliffs State Park right as it started thundering.   We briefly debated not hiking, but quickly decided that we'd come that far, a little thunder wasn't going to stop us.  Especially since the thunder was in the distance and there didn't seem to be even an ounce of lightning.  

 It was a pretty soggy walk, but we still enjoyed seeing a real deal beaver dam along the way, along with its accompanying beaver-made reservoir.     I, of course, had to use our proximity to a dam to throw in a little dam humor.   I commented to the kids on how the trail must now be called the Dam Trail and weren't the dam water lilies lovely and such.   

It  is almost a 2-mile hike to this beach...famous for it's beautiful cliffs and abundant fossils.  Lucky us, it stopped raining right as we arrived, although I think the kids would have had just as much fun even if it had kept raining!    

The kids swam in the warm water of the Chesapeake Bay...

and found some awesome seashells and fossils!  

After a couple of hours of fun... 

we trekked back to the car.

Then we drove to the very cute seaside town of Solomon's Island, got lunch, ate some delicious ice cream, and watched these threatening looking clouds roll by without so much as dropping one drop of rain on us.  

All in all, it was a fun day with the kids and we would gladly go back to Calvert Cliffs again someday, although it won't be anytime too soon!   Now that the soccer season has started, our Saturdays are about to be jam-packed again!  

(we did this hike on 9/12/15)

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