Tangent Wednesday!

 I love it when we get the perfect

 snow for building a snowman!

 I love it even more, when it brings my children together.

 I have witnessed many differences between my girls and boys building snowmen.
The boys process always makes me chuckle.

 I do not need to address which parts

 of the snowman making process were from Britton being involved. 

The pictures speak for themselves:).

The other day Ashlynn's music teacher sent me

 this adorable picture.  

Looks like the kiddos had an enjoyable recess. 

Daxon is loving his mission.

Here is part of his latest E-Mail

Hello everyone!!

This week was another amazing week!! We were able to have a lot of great things happen over the week.  On Tuesday we had interviews with President Shields.  They went super well and its always fun to be around President Shields.  

After we did that we went out to Brampton for English class because there was a Persian guy going to it.  We went and it turns out he is from Afghanistan so he speaks a dialect of Farsi called Dari.  Its about 95% the same just a weird accent. We talked to him and he really liked having us there. We will probably go back in the near future to keep helping him.

On Thursday we went on exchanges with the Mandarin Elders in the area.  It was a lot of fun. I was with Elder Lau who is from Hong Kong.  It's always fun to go with Elders from Hong Kong because they know how to cook good food.  On Friday Elder Lau and I went tracting.  It was super cold and windy out but it was a lot of fun trying not to freeze.  They don't have a car either so we had to walk everywhere.  Elder Lau is a great guy and it was fun to learn from him. 

Saturday was awesome because we were able to go with a new Persian member to do Baptisms in the Temple.  A member took us all and it was so much fun to go with him.  I love going to the Temple and being able to feel the Spirit so strong.  Im so thankful for Temples and the great work that goes on inside of them. After the member took us to get Wings and they were so good.  The rest of the day we were driving all over town to get baptismal interviews done.  We had one in Richmond Hill then another one all the way in Scarborough.  The one was in Chinese, so on the way the Elders taught us how to say a few things.  It was fun to speak a few sentences in Mandarin.

Sunday was the highlight because Richmond Hill ward was able to have 2 Mandarin and 1 Persian Baptism.  The Persian baptism was the wife of a man who got baptized in November.  He was able to do the baptism, so that was awesome!! It is so great to see the Lord's hand in the Richmond hill ward and that he is leading the people who are prepared to us!!  We are so excited to watch the work continue to progress and grow as the Lord continues to make  miracles happen.

I love you all and hope you don't freeze this winter.  It looks like the midwest will be pretty freezing.  Toronto is getting 10 inches of snow today/tonight so that will be a lot of fun!!!

 Alyssas has a fabulous mother in law. A few weekends ago

 she took her to the Hilary Weeks,

Love your Life gathering.

Alyssa LOVED it!

At the beginning of last semester, I came across an article for this
gathering.  I wrote in to receive the scholarship for school. I wanted to receive the scholarship, but mostly I wanted to let Hilary know how blessed my life had been through her music.
 I was thankful and blessed to have been chosen for the scholarship!

I love this picture of Alyssa!  

Ashlynn made us potato chowder soup the other night.

It was seriously some of the BEST soup, I have EVER had!

She also made some apple pancakes the other day.

She was very precise and meticulous 

about the apples cutting process.

The russian piping is going to take a little more practice:).

As she likes to say...

NAILED IT!

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY!!!

Man, why didn't anyone tell me how hard it was going to

 be to leave my kid in Utah and come home???

 When we arrived at the dorms where Riley was signed up to stay, I could not bring myself to leave him.  This initially caused some serious tension. JD and Ry felt I was being judgemental. They both assured me boys do not keep living quarters the same as girls.  They also assured me that the entertainment they had was normal for a boys apartment. At times I can go with the flow, but other times I am not willing to budge. My gut has become pretty good at leading those decisions over the years.  After a crazy afternoon, and some lost money, we found a place we could all agree on. 

I THINK, LOL

I was stressing out the entire way home over the 

"WHAT IFs"

After a month in Logan, he is happy. He loves the place we found, he loves school, he is enjoying his job, and all is well. I have to say, I thought my kids leaving on missions was hard. I am beginning to think it is not as hard as sending them to college. At least on a mission you get weekly emails:). 

I LOVE MY KIDS GROWING UP, BUT I HATE IT AT THE SAME TIME!

 Alyssa and Jake have been sitting on camp chairs since they were married.

Our neighbor asked us if we could think of anyone 

that would want this table and chairs.  We were happy to deliver it to these cute kids!

 Alyssa assured me she would look in on Ry.

He assured us it was not needed :). 

Since our kids keep ending up here, we have decided to become BIG fans!

 Jake was sick when we went to tour campus. 

We were sad to not have him in all the pictures. 

Shari was an amazing tour guide. 

One of the interesting things Shari showed us was Gramps'
baby brother Douglas' grave site. JD was born on the 15th anniversary of his passing.
JD and Riley both have Douglas as a middle name. 

 We may or may not have gone to the Aggie Ice cream shop

 more than once while we were in Logan.

 

 I can't believe we are only going

 to have two kids at home, again.

 Alyssa graduates from her multi-media design program in June. 

I can't wait to go back out to Utah and see our kids!

Shari took us to all the popular picture taking spots!

  

 After moving Riley in on Saturday the plan was to head home.

Britton and Riley were pretty sure that was not the plan.

Britton really wanted to stay for the Air Force VS Utah State basketball game.  

We really needed to be home Monday morning, so we wanted to say no,

After saying NO a million times, and seeing tears that I am unsure if were real or not,

we gave-in and decided to stay one more night.

I am so happy that we did. JD's parents

 came down to watch the game with the boys.

Shari, went to the game also.
I find great comfort in the fact that she lives so close to my kids.
She is seriously one of the most kind hearted people I know!

As you can see it was a big party.

The long day's drive was worth the memories made!

An added bonus, we got to spend one more evening with 

our kiddos and family before heading back home. 

At about 2:30 in the morning I woke up and knew we had slept in. 

It was so bright outside, I thought it was morning. I  got dressed and then I looked at the clock.

I tried to go back to bed and the thought kept coming into my head that we 

needed to get up and leave right now. I knew if I woke up JD he was going to be really mad. (I have a tendency to wake up at crazy hours and want to travel. He does not love it) I tried to go back to sleep.  The feeling  to get up felt like something more than a crazy idea, I decided to take stuff out to the car then wake JD up. :) As I walked outside snow was coming down hard.  We all got up and were gone by 3am.

The roads were already covered in sleet. Coming up the canyon cars wrecked in front of us, we became immobile for a short time. It was an amusing morning, but we were able to keep moving forward. It took 21 hours to make it home.

We were all relieved to finally make it home!!!

We were all very grateful that parts of the drive were beautiful and clear. 

I feel blessed by the guidance and direction the spirit brings to my life.
I love this quote by President Nelson.

President Nelson in a talk from 2009 said the following,

Today’s technology allows us to use wireless telephones to exchange information rapidly. Recently Wendy and I were on assignment on another continent when we learned that a new baby had arrived in our family. We received the good news minutes after that birth had occurred half a world away.Even more amazing than modern technology is our opportunity to access information directly from heaven, without hardware, software, or monthly service fees. It is one of the most marvelous gifts the Lord has offered to mortals. It is His generous invitation to “ask, and it shall be given you; seek,and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”¹This timeless offer to provide personal revelation is extended to all of His children. It almost sounds too good to be true. But it is true! I have received and responded to that heavenly help. And I have learned that I always need to be ready to receive it.

We will be seeing this road again soon.

Until then. . .

See you later Logan.

Take good care of my Kiddos!!!