Sunday School...?

Okay...this is not your typical Sunday activity, but we ARE together as a family, and there was some learning going on too :) Kira came down for a few days (on her way to a CA and AZ roadtrip), Lexie and Michaela are living at home (for the moment), and they all have been wanting Landon to teach them all about the college football conferences, mascots, team colors, and venues. If anybody knows this stuff...it's Landon. This kid just soaks this knowledge up. His dad has thrown quite a few tidbits in there too, so between the two of them, the girls are coming away with a pretty good knowledge of this very important information :) So now we are all ready to get into ALL college football games, whether we like them or not. If the conferences would leave each other alone, not change everything up, and keep teams where they've been, it would have been a lot easier to keep these things straight. Oh well....on with the pigskin playing!

Finally...

We have been trying to plan a BBQ with our good friends, the Messers, for months...and tonight was finally the night! These guys have been our close friends and were our right-next-door neighbors (and I mean right across the cement between our houses) many years ago, and we just can't consider them anything but our neighbors...still. Austrie has received her mission call and will be leaving soon, school starts in two days (and then no one has time), and it was a perfect day for a BBQ, so they came over for hamburgers and hot dogs (with all the other good stuff that goes with them), and then these girls played a game and laughed all night (well until about 10 o'clock...we do have early church tomorrow.) I think even Ari had a good time. She never really has been around us much, as she was born just about the time they left the "neighborhood."
Matt and Corinne and a great picture of Kevin! (He's not going to be happy I posted this...)
The "not-so-happy" crowd. These guys worked their tails off today in heat outside helping Kevin do a huge clean-up project, which lasted till about 4:00 in the afternoon. I think they were ready to go to bed at just about this time.

These two girls have been best friends for forever, and I mean since before they were born! They have been so good for each other, and have really looked out for one another. We are so glad that Mady has been a part of our family for these past 17 years.

Like I said....they do everything together.

All the way back to starting Kindergarten...

And even before that...

And even before that...

And this year these girls will graduate together. We also (kind of) celebrated a belated birthday for Landon, who turned 16 last week while in Arizona playing in a high school football game. Pretty uneventful, but he IS 16 now, at least. Now all we have to do is get him to study his driving skills...then we can get him up to Mesquite and finally get his permit. It's been a crazy summer...

Another Goodbye...

It's another goodbye to another Sister who served here in our valley. This is Sister Gonzalez, one of our favorite people, and an awesome missionary. She left here in January, and we promised her that we would see her off, so it was another trip in to missionary transfer conference yesterday. She has been a joy to know, and more importantly, was a real boost to the missionary work when we were assigned these girls. They have since taken the sisters out, brought the "boys" back in, and the work goes on and on. It has been a blessing for Kevin to be the ward mission leader for so long - over 4 years. This is one of those perks...
Plus, we got to get another picture with our favorite guy, Elder Gibson, who served out here for only 6 weeks, but ended up falling in love with (because he was such a GREAT missionary, of course :) Those dimples are the best...

Good, Clean TV

Okay, my kids are starting to tease me about this...but what can I say? I'm a succor for good, clean, make-you-feel-good kind of TV watching, and let's face it...there's not much on cable TV that fits into that category. Now my big girls are going to give me the business over this one, but I just can't get into watching a gay guy talking about fashion, or having to watch a show week after week, just to see who wins in the end, and frankly, I don't even miss watching Food Network that much, but this show... oh how it brings back the memories. When my big girls were younger, and we watched Disney Channel just waiting for this series to come on every week, that's when life was good - even for just the night. This is Road To Avonlea - a spinoff from the Anne of Green Gables movies, set in Avonlea with new characters like Hetty King, Felicity and Felix, and some thrown in from Anne also, like Marilla and Rachel Lynde, who ends up in all seven series' of the show.

When I watch these, half of me wonders how great it would have been to live back in that time - the early 1900's, especially if you could have lived on Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada. The scenery and landscape would have been enough ( I live in Nevada where nothing is green), and a simpler time would have been kind of nice...but then I think of all of the conveniences that I have today - indoor plumbing, instant hot water, an air conditioned car, and then I think that it might just be a nice show to keep watching, just for the "feel good" of it. So, now I am on my last season - season 7, where all things come to an end. I'm sad that it won't go on forever, but at least I have found something that not only made me feel good for a time, but also made me grateful for a lifetime.

Love These Guys!

Tuesday, Kevin, Tibi, Colton (Tibi's friend), and I got to go into Vegas to the missionary transfer conference to go see one of the sister missionary's off to head back home. Of course, I didn't get a picture of her, but we did happen to see plenty of missionaries that have served, at one time or another, here in Logandale. That was the best part of being there - being able to see some of these guys that haven't been out here for almost a year. They are all doing great things in their areas of assignment, nothing less than what we would expect of them, and they all look great too! There were so many in this picture, that they all couldn't fit. They were all pretty excited to see us too...
Elder Gibson (my personal favorite) was one of those that got "cut off" in the picture, so we grabbed him and had our own "personal" picture taken with him before he skedaddled off to his new area. I left him with some zucchini bread and a handshake! I am such a huggy type of person, so not being able to give these guys a good, motherly hug is torture for me...

They had a good number of missionaries going home that day, so by the time they all bore their testimony, and they gave out new assignments, it was a long meeting, but well worth it. We were famished by the time we got out of there (4 p.m.), so we hopped over to In'N'Out and got us a burger and fries. It's not very often that I eat fast-food, but my tummy was growlin' so I didn't care. Here's Tibi and Colton with satisfied bellies...

One of the sisters that we went to go see off decided to extend for another 5 weeks, so we will be back for the next transfer conference to go see her off. Good thing we loved it...

4th of July at the Cabin

We were able to get away out of the heat for a few days. Before we headed to the cabin, Tibi and I went up to Salt Lake area to meet up with family members for the sealing of my sister, Debbie's boy. Dad was able to perform the sealing for Craig and Breanna on Friday morning, which was wonderful, of course. At the reception that night I was able to see a cousin I hadn't seen in years, uncles and aunts I hadn't seen for a long time, and spend time with Kira and Michaela also. No pictures, as I took my non-digital camera to take pictures of the weekend events. On Saturday morning we all headed down to the cabin at Panguitch Lake to spend our annual 4th of July family time together. I ended up getting some kind of a bug which put me down in bed for a good day (Sunday), because I had been up all night throwing up. Not my idea of a vacation at the cabin...
Here's the pics that Kevin shot with his camera while I was in bed :(
Grandma Packard and Heather, my youngest sister's daughter (and the youngest grandchild)
Playing games without me (how rude...)

Some of us are okay with not playing games...
It was smart to have more than one game table in the cabin.
Presenting mom and dad with the quilt that me and my sisters made for their upcoming 59th wedding anniversary. This has truly been a labor of love, although it took us almost a whole year to get it done from start to finish.
On Monday, the guys went out fishing and caught their limits. We ate some for breakfast and brought some home too.

Teaching Landon how to gut a fish...

Good Times

What can I say? Life has been good to us. We are still "kickin", we are relatively healthy, and we are still best friends, which is saying a lot now-a-days. Plus, Kevin gets to work from home, I don't have to work, and we HAVE work. So we are grateful... at least for another day!
Plus, we were surprised to have Kira and Michaela show up late Friday night, right during family prayers! All four of the kids took off to the Valley of Fire the next day for a fun hike and play day... and they didn't even come back too sunburned!

I am especially glad that it was a holiday today and there was no school. I think I am ready for my alarm clock to go on strike...although I don't look forward to the kids staying up till THEY think they should go to bed. But I sure love the "down" time we all get. So here's to summer, not necessarily the heat, but here's to no school!