Salt Lake Temple

Dad liked the "artsy" picture I took of the temple with the fountain in front. In none of the many photos I took of the temple was it perfectly straight. I always seem to tilt it to the right no matter how hard I try. These are the closest to level. Everyone who lives in the valley should see Temple Square in the Spring. I think it even beats Christmas time.

Flowers on Temple Square!!

Aren't these flowers gorgeous! This is not really Temple Square but the area between the Joseph Smith Building and the Relief Society Building. Actually hardly any of Temple Square proper was accessible due to some kind of major renovation. But there was no shortage of Spring's bounty to photograph.

Utah Trip Pictures

Dad finally found the right cable and we were able to get the Utah pictures off the camera. Here's a few that turned out. The grand kids loved swimming in the Hampton pool so we did that twice. Joe used to always sit just like the grandsons are with their knees to their chins. (Neighbor dog) The last pic is of the Oquirrh Temple which is having its open house this summer. I think Kaylee is participating in a big festival in conjunction with it. I'll be looking forward to pictures from that! It was great seeing Joe, Amber, and the grands!

Elder Harris's Phone Call!

On Mother's Day we got to talk with Kyle for about an hour. It was great to hear from him. He sounded terrific. Very happy and stoked from his meeting with Elder Bednar a week ago.
Some highlights:
He said he had a big pile of pictures to send soon. Can't wait for those.
He has gained about 15 pounds. Yikes. Quote: "I don't think I ate much before my mission."
He was also stoked to learn that the father of a girl he took to Prom as a senior (Rosemary Richards, daughter of the San Antonio Mission President at the time) is now a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. (Rosemary is married lest anyone wonders.)
He prefers being in Pocatello to Idaho Falls. More missionary opportunities.
He appreciated all the emails he got from people for his birthday.
Well, that's a start. Perhaps I'll post some more in a day or two.

A New Critter

Evidently this little bunny couldn't resist this pile of just picked weeds. We've had so much rain lately that the weeds stayed green for days without drying out. I've been nervous to let the dogs out, though. I don't want anymore animal carnage. I'll elaborate on that in a future post.

Engrish

Notice I've added one of Joe's favorite websites to my list of places I regularly check out. Pretty funny. I'd like to add more "daily reads" to my blog. Anyone have a really funny joke site? Clean and actually funny. G-rated, ya know.

Trip to Utah!

Gotta love all these pictures. What, you say you can't see any? Well, I was happily snapping away with my trusty camera while in Utah last week not realizing that the little postage stamp thingy wasn't inside. Sooo, I understand that I CAN get the pictures out of the camera as soon as we can find the right cord. Dang those cords. We have millions but never the right one. Well, hopefully, soon you will see pictures of Joe's family, Heidi and Liz, and lots of pretty tulips on Temple Square.

ELDER HARRIS'S BIRTHDAY!

Super missionary of the universe if having a birthday today, April 29th!!! AND tomorrow is his one year anniversary in the Idaho Pocatello Mission! We miss him terribly but are so proud of the work he is doing. We know he's in the best place in the world for him right now. We love him tons and pray for him daily. I'm sorry these pictures are repeats but I don't have any new stuff. (Yes, actually s's IS correct.)

You Dirty Dog!

This is our dirty Sonic. Enlarge the pictures to appreciate how much dust and dirt he picked up in the backyard. A couple dozen paper towels later he was good as new.

Piggy Down

This is the effect I have on Big Piggy. He comes to the fence to say Hello or to see if I have any apples. If I scratch him on his forehead he immediately falls over and goes to sleep. Not quite sure what to make of it. Hope y'all like pigs. They're mostly what I blog about it seems.

Easter with Emily's family

Because we live "relatively" close to Emily we can "pop" up there ( 6.5 hours of driving) more often than we used to which is so nice. Wish we could do that with all our spread out family members. Anyway, we spent a couple days with them over the Easter weekend and had lots of fun. Pictured are the girls making sugar cookies. (I ate 4 and was pretty sure I'd reached some form of nirvana.) If you look closely at the bottom picture you can see one of our Bunny Salads.

Woops!

There are millions of trees in Tennessee but unfortunately a few falling over in wind storms is not rare. This one landed on the fence that borders our property and the farm behind us. Fortunately, it didn't land inside the area where the dogs hang out. They were in the house and I must have been running errands when it fell because I didn't hear anything. It makes one a little nervous, though, when the wind starts blowing around here. We have several trees that could land on our house.

Bowl of Ice

Here are some pictures of a family dinner at Bruce's house. It was fun to have Joe, Scott and Paige, Aunt's Ruth and Helen, my folks, Bonnie Terry, Bruce's family and us together. We just wish all the family members could have been there. The boys had fun ATV-ing. We watched Mama Mia on Bruce's big screen. Jim's' comment after it was over: "It's good to know that my initial instinct to avoid that movie was correct."
(Aunt Ruth shirked her duty when it came to the bowl of ice.)

Cousin Bonnie

This is our darling cousin, Bonnie Terry. She joined us for dinner at Bruce and Louisa's house. She is the assistant concert master for the San Antonio Symphony. After dinner she thrilled us by playing a couple numbers on her violin. It was wonderful. She's terrific and soooo funny. Her father and Arlo Terry are first cousins. Bonnie's grandfather and my maternal grandmother (Geneva) were siblings. If anyone knows what that makes Bonnie and me I'd like to know!!

Churchill High School, San Antonio, TX

Joe, Scott and Emily, do you recognize this place? Good grief it's grown.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAIGE!!!

Happy Birthday to our sweet, talented daughter-in-law, Paige! And thanks for putting up with the "crazy middle child". (I didn't have anything to do with his craziness. It's all his "middle childness".) Hope your special day is loads of fun and not just a lot of studying. Well, maybe the weekend will bring time to party. I meant to celebrate your birthday when we were all together in Houston/SA last week and completely forgot. Duh. I don't have many pictures of you on my computer. The ones at Opryland got accidentally erased. I forgot how old you are??

BLISS!!!

Perfect bliss. I'm eating Mexican food at Pappasitos! We're in Houston with Scott, Paige and Joe. Yuummmmm. Lots more about our Texas trip to follow so check back soon.

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS!

Our ward had a social where people could sign up to represent a country or state that they have either lived in, knew something about, or were just interested in. Of course, several returned missionaries displayed their fields of labor. I decided to do Texas since it is THE most fascinating state in the union. After I signed up I realized I didn't have a single Texas artifact in my home. Hmm, this was bad on a number of fronts. Well, I was going to cancel but remembered our neighbors are from Texas and I'd seen plenty of paraphernalia at their house. So, the boots, hat, flag and basket (with spoons) are theirs. Much of the other stuff is thanks to good ol' Hobby Lobby. We also were supposed to bring typical food. I made chili, with chips and cheese. Next year, maybe brisket. Anyway, I secretly thought our table was the best. Dad and I were pretty decked out if I do say so myself. Isn't Dad cute touting the glories of the Lone Star State. It was a really fun night and I recommend it as a great activity.

Calves Checking Out Short Dogs

These cows may look big compared to Sonic and Penny but they were really only about "teen-aged" calves. They really wanted to check out the dogs but Sonic and Penny mostly just felt the urge to try to herd them by running back and forth along the fence. The calves weren't very interested in me. The Mom cows were keeping half an eye on what was going on. It's been fascinating to me that all the farm animals (horses, pigs, emus,) are very curious about Sonic and Penny. Most of the time the cows looks like their thought bubbles are completely empty. Cute, though.