APRIL - A MONTH OF BIRTHDAYS FOR BRAYDON, CLARK, GAVIN, JON, AND ME

April is our big month for birthdays....5 in all, including Jon, Gavin, Clark, Braydon and me. We like to take the grandchildren out to dinner, or lunch, to celebrate with them so mid month we took Gavin, Clark, and Braydon to dinner. We picked them up at Jon and Mindi's home and took them to The Fuji Steakhouse, a Japanese restaurant where they cook the meal in front of you. It is a favorite place for Jon's boys. Clark had never been to such a restaurant so it was a treat for him, too. After dinner we dropped Gavin off at his home for a basketball practise and then drove to the Vineyard movie complex for a special viewing of Jungle Book, on the Imax screen and in 3D. Jon's company, Nudge, bought out all the seats and offered them free, on a first come first serve basis, for the families of their employees. Jon secured 7 tickets and when Jaron and Gavin couldn't come, he invited us to stay and watch the movie with them. It was a great movie, especially in 3D. A fun night with Jon and Mindi and family. 

The Saturday previous to this, we took Olivia out to lunch for her birthday. She had a birthday in March but, because of Spring break and other activities, our schedules didn't jive until into April. Hence the April birthday lunch celebration. 

At the end of the month I celebrated my 71st birthday. My actual birthday was on a Thursday but I had volunteered to substitute in the temple for Betty Smedley so we didn't do anything to celebrate until Friday, after our regular temple shift. Our celebration was going to dinner at PF Chang's. We hadn't been there since returning from our mission and it had been a favorite, especially their lettuce wraps. It was a good choice. My present from Paul was to buy clothes for our cruise in August.  I went out shopping one day but only found a couple of blouses. I have a hard time with the styles as of late so shopping isn't that exciting for me right now. I'll try again when we return from Oregon in May.

Special flowers from Paul, cookies and a gift card from Todd and Kailee,
a book and card from Janet and Gloria, and a key chain from the Relief Society

Now for the rest of the month.....We started the month by going with Marv and Kay Rust to a matinee performance at the Hale theater in Salt Lake. The play was a musical entitled The Pirate Queen and was very entertaining. We are always in awe at what can be done in such a small theater in the round. The stage moves so the sets are incredible and the effects are amazing. Before the show, we went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. We enjoyed being with the Rusts again. Before our missions, (they went to New Zealand a few months after we left for Russia) we went to all the musical performances at the Hale theaters but hadn't attended a show together until now. We have another date, for the end of May, to see The Big River.  


The next wonderful thing that happened was General Conference. We so love being taught by the general authorities of the Church for two whole days. It was an incredible conference during which we felt the spirit testifying continually to us of the truthfulness of what was being said and the importance of abiding by counsel given. We both hated to see the last session of conference conclude. We were on a spiritual high the whole weekend.  





The Wednesday following conference, we had the privilege of having lunch with our dear friends from our mission, Jeanie and Richard Pierson. We have missed them terribly as they live in Arkansas. We were thrilled when they contacted us via facebook to see if we could get together for lunch. We meet them at the Blue Lemon restaurant at the City Creek Mall in Salt Lake City. It was so wonderful to visit with them again and we soon realized why we had so much fun together in Moscow. We do miss all the great people with whom we associated on our mission.  

Part of the month was spent doing some spring clean up outside and sprucing up on the inside. Paul spent many a day outside undoing the damage a winter does on the yard. He raked the dead grasses left by the voles and planted new lawn seed in the vole damaged areas, raked out the dried leaves from around the plants, and section by section, weeded and cultivated the bark...a lot of hard work. I spray painted the rusting grey chairs to make them a rod iron black and we bought a new black planter for the center of our patio.  It all makes a nice, comfortable setting for the patio.

The picture of Christ by
the ocean in it's grey frame

On the inside, I finally finished a bedroom I had been working on for a few weeks. I was tired of the decor in one of the downstairs bedroom so we bought a new yellow and grey comforter and pillow set. The yellow tied in the yellow chair that had been in that room but I had to add a lot more yellow and a little grey. I purchased flowers and a couple of vases, as well as a few other items to set on the dresser and side table. I found a grey frame that worked perfectly with a picture Deon and Gary had given us of the Savior by the ocean. The picture has enough yellow tones in it that, with the grey frame, looks wonderful in that room. I love doing that kind of thing and now have the urge to change out our bedroom as well as our lighthouse bedroom, at least with new bedspreads or comforters.

On Saturday, April 9, Jan Bishop and I went to the BYU Ballroom Dance Concert in the Marriott Center on campus. Tara Simmons, one of our former sister missionaries, is a member of the BYU dance team and was able to get us great tickets in the center and down close. Jan and I love that kind of thing so Paul willingly gave up his ticket to Jan - a big sacrifice....NOT. I did some shopping earlier in the morning and met Jan in the early afternoon so we could drive together to the performance. It was a delightful show and Tara did a great job. She is one talented woman. She sings with an acapella group at BYU as well as performs with the ballroom dance team.  

The finale
Tara is in the front of the yellow line on the left

We had another thing happen this month that was fun...a baby reveal party for Jake and Nicole. Nicole is pregnant but didn't know the gender of her baby, purposely, so Kailee could throw her a party to reveal whether she was going to have a boy or a girl. It was scheduled for the Tuesday before Kailee and her parents were going to travel to Houston to visit Kailee's other sister, Kristina.  At the last minute, Kailee's parents decided not to come early so the party was held at our home with just the six of us, plus Sadie and Bean. Kailee had pink and blue balloons with one huge black one filled with confetti which would show the baby's sex - pink for a girl and blue for a boy. When Nicole popped the big balloon, blue confetti fell out all over the patio and blew into the bark, much to Paul's dismay. I fixed dinner and at the last minute invited Mitch and Michelle to come over and share it with us. Todd and Kailee brought up pink and blue cake balls and a chocolate chip cookie pizza for dessert. It was a fun Sunday evening.

Sadie got scared when Kailee started the vacuum to
clean up the confetti so Paul picked her up and
sat with her to console her.

We finally accomplished something we set out to do 6 months ago when we were called to be the stake single adult representatives.  Our challenge was to meet with all the bishops and ward councils to go other the list of their young singles as well as their single adults, over 31. Our job, then, was to go out and try to locate those members whom the councils did not know. We have had some interesting experiences as we have gone up to homes only to find out that the person we were searching for was married and had been for several years...some with teenage children. We've been to many trailer parks and up winding mountain roads in search of people. Some didn't want to be found and other appreciated our visit. This month we made our last visits for our last ward. With our research and the information we received from the ward councils, the valid single adult numbers went from 348 to 249. The young single adults went from 394 to 130, many of those being on missions or away to college.  Now our work begins as we determine how to best meet the needs of these single adults. 
  

 

Mid month, we had an Free Birds dinner group at our neighbors, Mitch and Michelle.  She needed a dessert and an appetizer and asked if I could bring that.  Of course I said yes, even though appetizers are not my thing. After much thought, I decided to do a vegetable pizza for the appetizer and a fruit pizza for dessert. They look good and were delicious.





In the last week of the month, we took Dillon Cox out for ice cream at Dairy King. He is a member of our primary class and lately has been quite defiant of a class rule of no leaning back on the chairs.  We have been diligent getting to class early and setting the chairs in a semi circle with the backs of the chairs right against the wall. As soon as Dillon gets to class he pulls his chair out from the wall and leans back. For two weeks, during the lessons, I would motion for him to to set the front legs of his chair onto the floor and he would lean it forward so the legs would almost touch the floor but not quite. Within in a minute or two he would again be leaning his chair back against the wall. After the second week's class, I had him stay after class and talked about him being disrespectful to his classmates, to us, and to the Lord. The next week he was even worse and more defiant...at one time moving to a chair in the corner and leaning it sideways toward the window. His comment was that we hadn't said he couldn't lean sideways. After class that week, I told him I would have to talk with his mother about his behavior, which I did. We wanted him to know, that even though we have to come down hard on him, we still love him, hence the trip to get ice cream. We had a nice visit with him and, as we dropped him off at his home, we let him know the purpose of our time with him.  Hopefully it will make a difference.

The finished project

On the 27th, Paul took off early to go the Lehi and help Todd lay rock in his backyard, under and to the side of their deck. I didn't go with him as I had a birthday lunch date with Janet Harmon and Gloria Linerude. Gloria was in town for Women's Conference at BYU, so she and Janet came up to Heber for lunch with me at Pizza Galleria in Midway. It was so good to see Gloria again as I haven't been with her since coming home from our mission. We had so much to catch up on that we talked, at the restaurant, for 2 1/2 hours, almost making them late to get to the airport. They were picking up Gloria's daughters and daughters-in-laws who were coming for Women's Conference as well.  What a fun day for me....not so much for Paul as he was doing some really hard work.

And then, just as we were thinking Spring had arrived, it snowed....in April. 

 Way to go Heber!!!!!!!!