IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE HOW FAST JUNE FLEW BY

It's hard to believe that June has already come and gone. These weeks have just flown by. That must mean we've been busy. For sure, Paul has been very busy with his calling as the Elder's Quorum President for our ward. He holds a Presidency meeting each Wednesday night as the presidency tries to get a handle on this new ministering program which is replacing home teaching. If anyone can do it, and do it well, it will be Paul. He works tirelessly during the other days of the week designing spreadsheets to organize the elders in the ward and those willing to be ministering brothers. The Lord knew who to call to this position, for sure.



The first big event for the month was Paul's surgery. He had a growth on his ear that proved to be a cancer which had to be removed. He went to the doctor in Park City where he spent 4 hours. The doctor would take out a portion of the ear and test it to see if the edges of the sample was clear of cancer. It took about 4 tries before he was confident he got all of it. He then had to do a skin graft on the top of Paul's ear to reestablish the right curve of the ear. When Paul got home, the ear was bandaged so we didn't see it until later when we had to replace the bandage. It looked pretty gross but has healed nicely. You can hardly tell anything was done to the ear. Grateful that Paul had the foresight to get it checked out with this doctor. 

Looking a little raw right
after surgery

Healing quite nicely - a couple
of weeks later

The next evening, we had a date with all of Jon and Mindi's boys to take them out for their birthday dinner. We had not taken any of them out so we thought it would be a good thing to do it all together. We picked most of them up at Jon's home and met the rest of them at Olive Garden in Sandy. After a bit of a wait, we were seated and enjoyed a lovely dinner together. Even Taylor joined us which was great. Just a side note: As we were traveling down the canyon on our way to Jon's, there was an accident and a big traffic jam. We had to laugh when we got stuck right beside a cattle truck, full of cattle going to market. It smelled horrible so we were glad when our lane moved a bit faster so we could get a head of the cattle car.

The truck full of cattle - very smelly

Mid month, we spent the entire day at Jon and Mindi's helping them clean their home so the realtor could have pictures taken before they listed the home for sale. We spent the whole time in the basement, starting with the bedrooms and working our way out to the living room and kitchen areas. There was a lot to do as the basement had become the catch all place during construction. It meant lots of mopping, vacuuming, dusting and organizing. When we finished that evening, just minutes before the photographer arrived, the basement looked remarkable. We were glad we could be a service to them as they would have never been able to get the whole house ready in time. Now we just hope it sells quickly.

The downstairs living area

The downstairs kitchen area

The three

bedrooms

downstairs

The theater room

This month, of course, was Father's day and Paul's birthday. We went down to Jon's for dinner on Father's day. He had most of his boys so it was good the be with them all. Mindi's children were with their dad so we missed them. The following day, Monday, Todd and Kailee and the two girls came to Heber to celebrate a belated Father's Day with Dad. We barbecued teriyaki chicken skewers and sided it with baked beans, potato salad and a strawberry green salad. We ate outside in the backyard and finished the evening doing s'mores with Aria. She was loving it until she burned her finger on a hot skewer. Before dinner she and Todd played in the hot tub which she loved also. It was a fun evening.

After burning her fingers, the only way we could'
console her was by having her put her fingers into cold water.

That Wednesday was Paul's birthday. I had to make him promise he wouldn't work out in the yard at all that day. He kept his promise so we headed to Provo to arrange for a new cell phone plan. Sprint did not work well in Heber so we decided to try AT&T. The Orem office told us we needed to go to the Apple store in Salt Lake and have something done to our phones before they could sell us new ones. It seemed strange but we went to the Apple store anyway. When we got there, we found it was a three hours wait or more before someone could see us. We didn't want to wait that long so we left. As we were leaving the mall, we noticed an AT&T store and decided to drop in on them to see what they could do for us. They saw no problem with our phones and so could arrange new phones for us with an unlimited data plan, all for a decent monthly fee. We left a couple of hours later with new I-phone 8's and phone reception that would work better here in Heber. We needed to drop by Todd's with our old phones so headed his way. 



When we got to Todd's home,we gave him our phones and told him about our new plan and our 'buy one get one phone free' experience. He was excited about that and decided he and Kailee would check out AT&T for them, too. That night they joined us on our plan. This will be good as we will just split the total bill which will work out cheaper for both of us. The picture was taken at Todd's. Aria was playing in her darling kiddie's pool.

A couple of other things happened this month. On June 9, Jillian graduated from high school. Congratulations!! We didn't attend but are so proud of her. She will be going to BYU Idaho in the fall. 








I also did some experimental cooking this month. I wanted to try smoking ribs which is an all day process. I started them a little after noon, smoking them for 3 hours, then wrapping them in tin foil and cooking them for another 2 hours and finally, cooking them unwrapped for an hour. They tasted good but I think next time I'll reduce the cooking time because I thought they were a little dry. A couple of week later I decided to smoke a pork loin. I wanted to serve it with a cherry sauce but couldn't find sour cherries in the store. Todd and Kailee had given us some cherries from their tree so I figured I could use them. It took a little work, cooking them, pitting them and then thickening the sauce but it all worked and tasted wonderful.

That about does it for this month.  It doesn't sound as busy as it was because I didn't talk about all the yard work done - like spreading over 100 bags of soil pep in our barked areas. Paul did most of it but I did help some.

Now for Aria and Avery.......

We loved it when Kailee sent us this picture of Aria sleeping with the big husky we gave her from our cruise.

She also sent us a darling video of her reading her Clifford book which we had given her a few days before. In the video she is talking about the big red dog and when she gets to the end of the book she says, "Amen....yep, it's Amen!!' So darling.

We met Todd and Kailee at Dressed in White to buy a blessing dress for Avery. Later that day Kailee sent us a picture of her in the dress. So precious.







Just a few other pictures of Aria and Avery......

Avery smiling

Aria got into Kailee's lipstick

So cute when little ones start to show a personality