JUNE - FULL OF ACTIVITIES AND FAMILY TIME

June's activities began with me driving off to our stake Young Women's girl's camp. It started on June 1 and was held in the mountains southeast of Mount Nebo, about two hours from Heber. I went up with the Spanish Branch and did the meals for the 9 girls and 3 leaders. I had spent the week before cooking and freezing spaghetti sauce, barbecue beef, bread sticks, and cinnamon rolls so that cooking on a camp stove would be relatively easy. The girls were sweet and it was fun to get to know them and feel of their spirits. I was the oldest at camp and by the end of the three days I was feeling every year of my age. It took me at least 10 days to recover and feel like myself again. It was a great experience but I don't think I would agree to do it again.

Car packed and ready for the drive to camp

At the church before leaving for camp in a caravan

My sleeping arrangements - inside the food cabin

Inside the food cabin

Our camp

The weekend after returning from camp, we attended Aubrey's graduation, via Zoom, of course. She was one of the valedictorians and so she gave a speech at her session of the graduation. Because of COVID, the school held 4 different ceremonies with only about 75 graduates in each session. This seemed really funny to us as the graduation was held in a outdoor huge stadium with the graduates on the field in chairs spaced 6 feet apart. The guests were in the bleachers of this stadium which could have easily accommodated all the graduates and their guests even with 6 foot spacing. But we're talking Oregon here and they are COVID crazy with all sorts of regulations.

Everyone admiring Aubrey's cords and medallions
for her to wear at graduation because of all the honors 
she received - honor roll, student body officer, valedictorian, etc.

Aubrey giving her speech

Receiving her diploma - we had a better
view via Zoom than her family n the stands.

We also planted our garden and annuals right after girl's camp. We decided to take a chance on planting a garden even though we have been told that we would run out of water by August. Hopefully it will rain enough to keep our plants alive once the water is turned off. If not, we will have to use culinary water which is pretty expensive after you go over you allotted amount for the month. We do pray for rain often.

The garden

A few months ago, when we had lunch with Sam and Kathy and Kathy and Curt, we decided it was important to get together occasionally for dinner. I said I would be the first to host it at our home so, on June 10th, we had everyone over for dinner. I served teriyaki chicken with fried rice and stir fried vegetable. Kathy Morgan brought rolls. Kathy Bulkeley brought dessert, and Deon brought a salad. It was a great meal and the company was incredible. We never have to worry about running out of things to talk about when we get this group together. Deon will host another dinner in August. This will be a good tradition now that both the Fullers and the Bulkeleys are living here in Utah.

Kim Howe joined us for dinner and took this picture so we could all be in it.

This month, Jon and Mindi put their home on the market, after working on it for almost 2 years. They listed it for $1.7 million. Within a week, they had an offer from an Asian couple. They have a business in American Fork as well as in California and want a home near their business in Utah. They paid full price and also seem to want whatever furniture Jon and Mindi are willing to sell to them. The 12 day period has passed for them to back out of the offer so it should be a done deal. They should close on July 30 at which time Jon and Mindi and family will make their way to San Antonio, Texas where they will live. A long ways from us but a good move for them.

Wednesday, June 16th, Kailee left for Texas to help her sister with her new baby, so on Thursday, we went down to Todd's in the afternoon to help him with the girls. We had planned to spend the whole day there so Todd could go into work but Avery has such a hard time when her parents leave her that we decided to come in the afternoon and just spend time with them. We all went grocery shopping and Todd appreciated our help keeping the girls entertained in the store while he found what he needed. He was hosting a barbecue in his backyard for his office personnel the next evening and needed to get some supplies.  Before we left to go back to Heber, we went to Cafe Rio for dinner then to Yogurtland for dessert.  A fun day.

While we were with him, Todd took us to see his company's
new office space. It is in the process of being designed and will be completed
sometime in August. It is going to be an amazing office which
they shouldn't outgrow for a long time.

Eating yogurt - their eyes were bigger
than their stomachs and they couldn't
finish all they had taken.

The following weekend was Paul's birthday and Father's Day. Jon invited us to have dinner at his home so, after church, we traveled to Highland to be with him and family. His boys were there so we got to be with them, too. They had ordered smoked brisket and Mindi had put some chicken breast on the grill. I brought rolls and cream puffs. I was going to put a candle in Paul's cream puff and have everyone sing Happy Birthday but that didn't happen. Hopefully, Paul felt loved on his big day anyway.

Paul opening his presents and cards

Jon's boys - notice they are all on their phones

Jon opening his presents

This month, we have also spent time with Ryan. He and his family are moving to St. George for the summer and Fall school semester. Ryan brought Nathan and Grace to St. George a week early so Grace could start rehearsing for a musical with a performance group she was accepted into. When they got there, the temperature hit 109. By Friday night, they were ready for cooler weather so they hopped in the car and came to Heber for a visit. They stayed here till Sunday morning so it was a quick visit but we did a couple of fun things on Saturday. Beside just chilling at home, we went to lunch at Culver's, a new fast food place in town that serves hamburgers and custard. Ryan loved the burger and the kids especially loved their custard shakes. After lunch, we took the scenic drive to Cascade Springs. It's a winding road above Soldier Hollow golf course and the vistas are amazing as you look out over the Heber Valley and Deer Creek reservoir.  At the Springs, we took the paved walkway around the beautiful area crossing several bridges and streams. A great afternoon in a little cooler weather then even in Heber.

One week later on the following Sunday, we headed down to St. George to see Ryan and Katie's new living arrangements. We stayed at the World Mark and spent Sunday evening and all day Monday with them. It was hot but we spent time driving to Pine Valley, a little town in the mountains above St. George. It was in the 80's, a nice change after only a 45 minute drive. We visited the white chapel there and then walked around the reservoir there. 

The reservoir in Pine Valley

The little white chapel, the oldest church building still in use, in Utah

Nathan had to climb this rock on our walk

We found a pizza place for lunch before dropping Grace off to her practice. Ryan then took us around to show us his office and the exact lot on which they are having a house built. We looked at the rental he would be moving into, and the club house/swimming pool to which he will have access. That night, we went to Culver's for dinner and to the club house for a night swim. We left the next morning so it was a quick trip but fun to see where they will be hanging out for at least a few months....hopefully it will turn into a full on move from Medford. That's for sure what Ryan wants.

The clubhouse pool area, complete with hot tub, lazy river,
and a special pool for playing basketball.

Between visits with Ryan, we bought a new car. Paul wanted a red car so we decided to look at both Honda and Toyota SUV's. We found a red Honda on our first day of looking but wanted to check out the Toyotas. Later in the week, we found a Toyota Rav 4 that we wanted to drive even though it was not red. When we went to that dealership, the salesman pointed out a red 2019 Toyota Rav 4 with only 14,000 miles on it. We immediately fell in love with it, especially after we drove it. We bought it on the spot. The next day we cleaned out our Honda CRV and took it to the Toyota dealer as a trade in and drove away with our beautiful new red car. 

After we picked up the car, we drove to Mod Pizza in American Fork for a late lunch. As we were leaving, it started to rain and then it started to pour. The rain was coming down so hard you could hardly see out the windows. It continued until we got to Pleasant Grove but started again, even harder, when we hit Orem. We battled the rain all the way up the canyon.  We couldn't complain, though, because we are in such need of rain to fill our reservoirs and water our crops and lawns. It had rained quite a bit in Heber, too, so we took that as an answer to our prayers for rain.

This is Avery during the rain storm in Lehi. She is
afraid of wind and with the combination of wind, rain, and thunder,
she was scared enough to cover herself with the blanket.

And then there's our beautiful sunsets.....This picture was taken out our living room window.

We can't leave this month's blog without some words of wisdom........

And one political meme.....

Just couldn't resist posting this one because it is so
true to the frustration we are all feeling about this 
current administration.

WATER, WATER WHERE FOR ART THOU?

 Our cry for most of the month of May was 'Where's the water?' The irrigation water was turned on into our development at the first of the month but there was very little water coming to our property.  Our neighbors and several of the residents up the hill from us had the same problem. Paul kept texting Marshall, the new landscape guy for the development, but got no response. Next he sent in several action items to the management company and got a standard answer that it was the water department's problem, and not the development's. As our lawns became drier and drier, we all got very concerned about ever getting water to them as we could not get anyone to take responsibility to solve the problem. As Paul wrote in a letter to Tracy Cannon, the developer, it's like a circular firing squad with everyone pointing the finger to someone else to solve the problem. Luckily, last year's development landscape person, Steve, came to our rescue. After looking into many things, he discovered water streaming out of a new viaduct put in this Spring. Paul reported that to Tracy and she had her son out that very afternoon. They finally woke up to the fact the the problem was within the development. Long story short, the water company turned up the pressure coming into the development and the water was set to bypass the new filter......and we had water!!!! Obviously something was wrong with the new filter. For the last week of May, we have had pretty good water pressure and luckily we've also had several days of rain to help our lawns. The lawns are finally greening up and looking much better. We're afraid that in August we will be making that same cry, 'Where's the water,' as we've been told our irrigation water will run out sometime in August due to lack of snow pack this past winter. We may have to become use to brown lawns. We pray constantly for water from heaven to break the drought we're in right now. 

This was taken when we thought we had water. 
The pressure only lasted a day so, for several days, we had to move 
a single sprinkler around to save our lawn.

The picture we finally sent Tracy so she could see
the effects of not enough water to green up our lawns.

May always brings Mother's Day and this year it also brought the day we celebrated Avery's birthday. We were out of town the Sunday after her birthday when we would have baked a cake and given her some presents so it fell on the next Sunday, Mother's Day. I was glad to share my day with her. For dinner, Paul cooked some filets and Todd stuffed the potatoes so my job was relatively easy for Sunday dinner. Todd and Kailee brought me some flower and bath bombs. I love taking my late night baths with the great smelling bath bombs. The girls made me two super heroes out of Hershey candy bars. Andrea had sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers the Thursday prior to Mother's Day. She knows how much I love flowers. Her flowers lasted more than two weeks and were enjoyed every minute of that time. Of course, I heard from Ryan and Jon who called or texted to wish me a happy Mother's Day. It was a great day. I love being a mom of such wonderful children.

From Andrea

From Todd and Kailee and the girls

A close up of the girls superhero grandmas

I loved this meme about Mothers

Now for Avery's birthday celebration - I think she was a little confused that she would have another birthday party two weeks after her birthday. We always do a Sunday celebration for the girls and give them toys that stay here for them to play with when they visit. Avery is really into Peppa Pig so I did a Peppa Pig cake and found a Peppa Pig playhouse and some other Peppa Pig characters to supplement the ones that came with the playhouse. She seemed to love both the cake and the toys.

Avery and her Peppa Pig cake

May always brings more Spring clean up. Paul was involved almost everyday going through and cultivating the soil pep in the shrub areas as well as weeding them. We decided to take out a couple more dogwood plants on the front slope. I have wanted those out for a long time as they were so big and almost out of control. It took a lot of digging but they are finally out. The two stumps were a bit of a problem and Paul was afraid to try and pull them out for fear of hurting his back again like he did last year.  The neighbors came to his rescue. While we were at lunch one day, Joe, Joyce and Jeff got together and pulled them out with Jeff's truck for one and Joe's pick ax for the other. I was so thankful for these thoughtful neighbors. The berm looks so much better now. We'll add a couple more plants but they will be small ones. 

This is the largest tumbleweed Paul has ever found in our yard.

The limbs and stumps from the two plants
Paul (and the neighbors) removed

The wide open berm now with those two large dogwoods gone.

Each year we also plant many annuals in the pots placed around our yard.  This year, we decided to buy 6 pots already planted with flowers from Highland nursery. We have bought as many as 4 before and loved the look so much that we bought 2 more than usual. Learning from last year, we bought them before Mother's Day and had to store them in our garage till it was time to put them out in our yard. It has been known t freeze as late as the second week in June and we didn't want to take any chance of losing those beautiful pots. Paul faithfully watered them every day and we kept the garage door opened all day to give them enough sunlight. We also started buying annuals for the 10 other pots in our yard.

At the first of this month, I got a call from President Lythcoe to asked if I would accept an assignment to go to Young Women's camp in June. He said I would be working with the Spanish branch girls as well as his wife, Jan. She is the Young Women's President for the branch. Marth Witt was the camp director so I would be working with her, too. Of course, I said yes. Martha asked if I would be in charge of the food, which is an easy assignment for me. There are only 9 girls and 3 leaders so I didn't think that would be too difficult. Jan asked if I would help with the faith walk so I will be giving a 5 minute talk on the Liahona as a director in our lives. I don't think President Lythcoe realized how old I was because when I went into him for my temple recommend interview, we got talking about camp. I mentioned that I would be the oldest person there as I didn't think there would be too many 76 year old grandmas at camp. He seemed very surprised and said he would not have guessed that I was anywhere near 70. That made me happy, not to look as old as I really am. As a result of this calling, I've been cooking food and freezing it for the last two weeks. As of right now, I have spaghetti sauce, refried beans, barbecue beef, cinnamon rolls, and 40 frosted sugar cookies in my freezer. I'm trying to make meal preparation as easy as possible while we are there.

One of the wonderful things about this month is that we are back at church full time with no limit to the number of people in attendance. We have an hour sacrament meeting and then an hour relief society or Sunday school. It was so exciting to see most of our ward gathering, many without masks. Maybe this COVID thing is on the way out...at least in Utah and other Republican run states.

The best picture I could take from my seat without being
too obvious. The cultural hall was filled to the very
back as was the chapel.

How COVID is affecting people is depending on the
political party in charge. The CDC came out and
said no masks were needed outside, especially if you have been
vaccinated. Even with that, several states have not lifted the mask
mandate nor opened up completely yet. So grateful to live in Utah

Graduations started in May, also. Clark graduated from Skyridge high school. He's not been the biggest fan of school so we are very proud of him for making it through. The ceremony was held at the Rio Tinto stadium in Salt Lake City. It was also broadcasted on zoom. At the last minute and at Jon's suggestion, it was decided we would just stay home and watch the ceremony on our television instead of battling the crowds and parking. We probably got a better view of everything than Jon and Mindi did. I was all set to take a picture of Clark as he came out to receive his diploma but was not able to because he decided to to a little dance instead of holding still long enough for a picture. Luckily Jon and Mindi got a few pictures.

Aria also graduated this May.  She graduated from preschool and is ready to start Kindergarten this Fall. We were unable to attend her end of year program and graduation because of COVID restrictions but Kailee sent us pictures and even a video of the program. Aria has matured a lot from last year when she just covered her face while her class was singing. This year, she sang and even did the hand movements. Growing up and becoming more confident, for sure.

The week before graduation, Jon and Mindi put on a big dinner party for Clark and his friends prior to their Senior Prom. We dropped by their home that day to drop off a  Texas Sheet cake for the party. The next day, they invited us to come back to their home for leftovers from the dinner party. They had ordered smoked brisket and chicken from BamBam's and had lots left over. We drove down and were so glad we did because Jon's boys were there, too. We hadn't seen them for quite some time so it was good to hang out with them for a while. After dinner, we went downstairs and did a puzzle together. A fun Sunday evening....

Because we did not get to see Todd's family on that Sunday, we decided to get together at P.F. Chang's for dinner on the following Tuesday. We had a delightful dinner there and then went with them to the children's favorite park. It was in Orem and was an amazing place for the girls to play. We took lots of pictures, of course. We always love being with Todd and his family.

May always brings Memorial day and this means putting flowers on Paul's parents graves. We did this on the Friday aafternoon as we were already down on that side of the mountain running other errands. We bought flowers at Smith's in Pleasant Grove and then spent a few minutes, at the gravesite, placing the flowers and reminiscing about Harvey and Pauline. We miss them and are grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the promise of Eternal families.

We love how Heber honored those who
fought and died for our country and our freedoms

A few more thoughts on what this holiday should be all about....

Now for Aria and Avery.......We love when they come up for Sunday dinner. One Sunday, they brought up Aria's bike to show us that she could ride it without training wheels. Of course, Avery had to show us she could ride her scooter. 

Each Sunday, just before the girl leave our home, they have to get a candy bag. Lately, we have been splitting the candy into two bags so they could each carry one in the car as they ride home. Todd sent this picture to show us that they play a trading game with the candy but some how Aria ends up with all the good candy, leaving Avery with a Payday and a Mike and Ike or two. Interesting.....

And then there's the ritual of saying good bye to us. It used to be that they rolled down the windows and yelled good bye all the way out of the driveway. Lately, though, they have opened up the roof top and the girls stand up through the skylight, yelling good bye and I love you.  It's so sweet.  

At first it was just Aria doing this but lately
Avery has joined her

Just some thoughts to end this months blog entry....

Our world could use a lot more of this 

As they try to divide us on race, we need to stand together

Enough said!