January Joys

January started with our New Year's Day cookout and swim, of course, which I already blogged in December. January is the month of some pretty special birthdays, Shad, Connie, Reygan, and Albert. It is also Rebecca and Scott's anniversary month. We had some exciting weather,with almost two weeks of steady rain, right next to glorious spring-like weather. Dad ordained two of our boys High Priests, Scott was called as a member of the branch presidency and Rebecca was called to be the Relief Society President of the Kimball 3rd Branch, Daniel was called to the High Priest Group leadership and we had a visit from some of our Colorado kids. Grandma hurt her back this month, and has been pretty much flat on the couch the whole month, giving service opportunities to her kids and grandkids.

Josh is doing well and serving faithfully in his new ward in Rancho Cucamonga, which he says is "affluent.," but the people are very nice and welcoming. He says he and his companion are finding investigators, so he is thankful for that blessing. He is getting back in shape, he says because he is back on a bike. This picture is from his former area. I don't know what Temple is in the background. Nathan? Shauna?




Dad and the girls made tamales in January. And I have to say that they were delicious. They were tasty and chili-ish without being too hot, so I really liked them. Most of the pictures I took were video, but Mary and Rachel really did help Dad and Rebecca, you just can't tell it by these pictures.

We had a joint family home evening in January. Rebecca's, Rachel's and Mary's families were there. We ate dinner and then Mary gave a beautiful lesson in which she had the big kids and the little kids help each other make a presentation. Rebecca's family planned some really fun games and Rachel's family brought yummy treats. It was great and we hope to be able to do it regularly...quarterly? monthly? And we hope that when we get it organized and know in advance when it will be that some of the Mesa families might want to join us. Or maybe, we could have a regularly scheduled Mesa joint family home evening once in a while too. What do you think? We did meet with Joel and Stephanie's family and Jeremy and Erika's family on one Monday night this month, and ate together at the Cheesecake Factory. Some Family Home Evening, huh? Yummy!


On the 17th of January, the Safford Kimball 3rd Branch was organized, with Scott as a member of the Branch Presidency. It was truly a spiritual experience to attend the organization of that special branch. Dad was privileged to ordain Scott a High Priest at that meeting.



Kirtlyn lost her first tooth...in Mexico, where they don't have tooth fairies, just tooth rats!



Reygan turned 12 on January 20th, and Dad was able to go to a birthday dinner with her and her family. What a lovely young woman she has become. When a child turns 12 and starts going to mutual, their lives and the lives of their families are never the same again.

We had a special treat this month, with a visit from Daniel and Connie and their five youngest children. Connie's sister and brother-in-law were being sealed in the Temple, so they drove down for the event, and stayed with us in the condo. By happy accident, I was blessed to work in the session that they attended. They brought Albert, whose 10th birthday was the day they arrived, and he had a party with his cousins, Docker, Tayte and Harrison. Isabel, because she was in Safford, not because she is a girl, of course, was not able to attend. They had pizza, ice cream cake, games and fun. It was good to see all those boys together. Later that evening, with Connie's parents in attendance, Dad and Jess Nevin ordained Daniel a High Priest. What a special few days it was for us to be with them. They had planned to go home to their four oldest kids on Wednesday morning, but the road between here and there was dangerously snow packed and they had to wait until Friday morning. As you can imagine, they were on the phone to their children almost constantly.




A beautiful picture of our Temple with snow-covered Mt. Graham in the background. We took this picture the very same day as the one of the Mesa Temple's flowers below.

The Temple has been so beautiful lately. The flowers are blooming and fragrant. It just makes us happy to see and smell the beauty of the Temple, just walking to the front door. We're still eager for our own Temple to open, however. We got word that we will be released as Mesa Temple workers at the end of March.

Mary celebrated her girls' birthdays on the 30th. Brianna turns 5 on the 4th of February, and Lindsay turns 2 on the 12th. Even though they both have February birthdays, Mary figures those two weekends were going to be so busy with visits from families for other important events, that she decided to let them have their parties early. Brianna had a "Ballerina Birthday" as her very first friend party. Mary really carried out the theme in decorations, games, cake, invitations and everything...truly worthy of her hero, Jada. Her special cousin, Ellie, even made the trip to be there for the party, so she had all four of the "quads" together to help her celebrate. After Brianna's friend party, there was a family party for both girls, complete with Mexican hot dogs and a jumping castle.






While the girls were busy being ballerinas, Tayte and Hayden played in the warm pool.



Daynen's play, "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" was actually on February 1st, but he was so cute in it that I don't want to wait a whole month to blog about it. And you would never believe it, but our loving, kind, righteous Daynen was the villain! That's right, and he did such a good job being evil that he was totally believable. I have to say, though, that he was by far the handsomest boy in the play...he was even cuter than most of the princesses!