BACK TO OREGON THEN BACK TO THE TEMPLE

My stay at home in Utah was short lived but very busy.  The Saturday, before I left to go babysit for Andrea in Oregon, we had a houseful of company. Charlotte Boreen, Andrea's sister- in- law, drove her four boys and Charlotte and Jillian to Utah. Casey's mom and step dad, Marilyn and Keith, tagged along in their motor home. They stopped here for dinner and to spend the night before going onto Salt Lake.  Jon and his boys also came up to spend the night so we had a houseful.  I fixed cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs for breakfast before the Boreen's and Wallburgers left. 

Loving the Oreo Brownies made for dessert

Charlotte and Jillian stayed and went to church with us, along with Jon and his boys. Todd joined us al,l after church, for dinner and stayed long enought to be wowed by the musical talent of his two nieces.  Charlotte and Jillian both play the piano and have incredible voices. They spent hours singing together at our piano. We took them down to Provo to join up with their aunt on Monday morning.  I flew to Oregon that Friday to go to Andrea's so I had the privilege of seeing our granddaughters again real soon.

 Sunday morning, before church everyone enjoyed playing games together.

It was only ten days after returning from Oregon for Lydia' baptism that I was back in Oregon to babysit for a week.  Andrea and Casey went on a cruise to the Bahamas and were gone from Sunday, the 28th of March, to Easter Sunday, the 5th of April.  I was grateful I, once again, was available to babysit.  I hadn't done it for 3 years so it was a marvelous opportunity to get to know our granddaughters as teenagers and almost teenagers.  

Charlotte rehearsing her 'Frozen"
story for a Saturday gig she was doing

All dressed and ready to play Elsa
at a 4 year old's birthday party

So beautiful....too grown up

The night before Casey and Andres left, they were organizing their closet
and found these sombreros.  The younger girls loved them.

This time around, babysitting was a lot easier because of the ages of our granddaughters. It was, though, a lot of running around to get them to and from school, and to and from piano lessons, voice lessons and play practices. I had 6 hours in the day without children at home so I could do some cleaning, catch up on the endless amount of laundry, and work on a Moscow, Russia scrapbook on Shutterfy. Each day I was up at 6, dressed and ready to make lunches and take Charlotte and Jillian to early morning seminary by 6:40.  It was then time to wake up the other girls and get them started getting ready for school. By 7:40 I was picking up Charlotte and Jillian and taking them to the high school.  By the time I returned, it was time to take Maggie to the middle school.  At 8:35, I was in the car again going to the elementary school to drop off Allison and Lydia.  It all repeated itself after school.... Lydia and Allison from elementary school, Jillian from high school, Maggie from middle school. Charlotte had a cardio activity after school so I had to pick her up at  4, after getting everyone else home.  At 5:15 it was off again, with Charlotte, to take her and a friend back to the high school for play practice.  Charlotte is the narrator in the musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat.  Usually the running was done by 5:30 except on piano lesson days when the last lesson didn't get over until about 6. Now I know why Andrea is tired. To that day, she adds working 6 hours everyday with Casey at their business.  I don't know how she does it all. Two adventures during this time - on the very first day the garbage disposal backed up and would not drain.  I had to have Jared Boreen come take the whole unit apart to unclog it. Then, on Wednesday I had a flat tire. I had done some running in the morning and noticed an almost flat tire once I got home.  I called what I thought was Charlotte Boreen's number and got Marilyn Wallburger, Casey's mom, instead.  It was a tender mercy that I had dialed her number because she just happened to have a car tire pump. I immediately went to her home and she pumped up the tire.  Luckily the air held until I could get to Les Swaab the next morning to get it fixed.  

While I was in Oregon, Lydia was the student of the week in her class.  That meant she could have someone come be with her at lunch so on Thursday I brought her a MacDonald's happy and me a Subway sandwich. We ate lunch together, along with 4 of her friends.  The next day was an early release day from school so the younger girls decorated Easter eggs.

Easter baskets all set out for Easter morning.

The last day I was babysitting was Easter Sunday and General Conference. Saturday night I assembled all the baskets and set them out.  Lydia is the only one who still believes in the Easter Bunny so she was up bright and early to see what the Easter Bunny had brought her. I made her wait until 8 to wake up the other girls and go out in the living room to see their baskets.  I fixed an Easter breakfast of ham and scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls, after which we watched the morning session of conference. It was then time to pick up Andrea and Casey at the Eugene airport, bringing them back just in time for the afternoon session. It was a good day. In fact, it was a great weekend of inspiring messages from our church leaders. Monday I flew back to Heber and Paul.

This was taken before I left but it was him the whole time
I was gone......in the yard working.

While I was gone Paul worked in the yard as the weather permitted. He got quite a bit accomplished, weeding and putting down vegetation killer in our creek bed.  I think he enjoys time to himself, once in a while, even though he has to fend for himself when it come to his meals.  A lot of fast foods, that's for sure.  I was grateful that Todd and Kailee came up the first Sunday and cooked dinner for Paul. On Easter Sunday, Jon and Mindy and their families came up and cooked an Easter dinner for all of them. They followed dinner with an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. That was so sweet of them to think about Paul up in Heber all alone on Easter. I had left an Easter basket for Paul before I left so he would know I was thinking about him, too.



I arrived back in Utah just in time for a call from Derrill and Irene. They were in town visiting Courtney and wanted to get together for lunch.  We met at Olive Garden and had a good visit. They were really concerned for our safety while we were in Russia, especially after the sanctions were put in place by the West.  Derrill was even going to call us to make sure we were aware of all that was going on but Irene wouldn't let him.  It was a sweet thought, for sure.

We started working in the temple the Friday after I returned home.  We had our temple interviews between my Oregon trips and had committed to start at the temple May 8, after our trip to Hawaii.  Because the temple would be so short handed after the first of April, we committed to work in the temple the two Fridays before we left for Hawaii. It was a joy to be back in the temple and bask in the beautiful spirit there.  Of course it was also wonderful to be with all our dear friends whom we had worked for so many years. The performance of the ordinances came back to us pretty quickly, even the initiatory, after just a bit of study.

At Texas Roadhouse for a delicious meal together

This month we have had two special birthdays and two special visits from friends from Russia. Jon and Gavin both had birthdays. On Friday, the 10th of April, we met Jon and Mindy at Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Luckily, we were there right about 5 so we got right in. As we left there were lots of people waiting their turn to eat. We had a delightful time visiting with Jon and Mindy. They had just had an enjoyable time at Deer Valley skiing with both their families. They told us Gavin took to it real quickly, thanks to Mindy's patience. We are glad she is in Jon's life

Enjoying a night out with Gavin, despite the horrible weather

The following Tuesday, Paul and I drove to Salt Lake to run some errands and take Gavin to dinner. We were glad we made it safely as the winds were almost tornado strength in places. By the of end of the evening it was snowing. Interesting spring weather. We had a wonderful time with Gavin at the Sukiyaki Steak House where our meals were cooked right in front of us, Japanese style.

What we woke up to Wednesday morning.
We need the moisture so we can't be too sad.

As for the special visits from friends from Russia, Vlad and Olya Boloshov came to see us the Tuesday after I returned from Oregon.  Vlad and Olya were in our ward in Moscow and Vlad completed BYU Idaho Pathway with us. We were grateful they would come all the way to Heber to visit us. Garrett McClintock and Brandon Richards came to dinner that night, too. Garret and Vlad were in the MTC together and are good friend. Brandon, my nephew, is Garret's friend. We had promised him and Garrett a dinner at our home so this filled the bill. We all had a wonderful visit. Vlad and Olya and their little girl spent the night and left the next day around noon. So fun to see them again.

Garrett and Brandon

Garrett and Vlad

Vlad and Olya and family

From left to right: Madison (Carver) Hoffman,
Erica Hawkins, Nastia V, and  Lyndsi Tolbert

Our second visitor from Russia was our dear Nastia. She had been in Rexburg, Idaho attending BYU Idaho since October. She was in Utah for a few days before returning home to Russia for the summer. We were so grateful we had the privilege of seeing her Sunday evening, April 19th. Three of our dear sister missionaries, Sister Carver, Hawkins and Tolbert, all came up, too. Sisters Carver and Hawkins had been instrumental in Nastia's conversion and Sister Tolbert helped fellowship her and they became best of friends. We had a wonderful visit remembering good times spent together in Russia. We are so grateful to have served our mission in Moscow, Russia and will always cherish the friendships established.

Love this beautiful girl. Nastia whispered in my ear, as she was leaving, that she had
felt a special spirit in our apartment in Moscow when she was there with us and that
she felt the same spirit in our home in Heber.  What a special compliment.

I must mention one other thing that happened just Saturday. Our freezer had been acting up for the past month, not keeping its freezing temperatures.  We had the repairman out a couple of weeks ago and he couldn't tell us what was wrong but said something was definitely going out and we would just have to wait until it did. Finally, on Friday, the freezer was not even getting cold anymore so Saturday we called Heber appliance and asked for the same repairman who had come out before. Luckily he was the one on call for that weekend so he could come and fix the freezer easily, knowing its history.  Two tender mercies.....that the freezer went out before we left for Hawaii and on a day that the right repairman was on call.  We are so grateful to have a working freezer again.

And that is our busy, busy month.