Amazing April

April has truly been AMAZING! We have had a wonderful visit from Thomas and Jenn's family, and special activities dealing with the Gila Valley Temple, that balanced out the not-so-pleasant things like yearly physicals and mammograms. We have had several eating together events this month that have been a lot of fun as well as a lot of food. We are looking forward to May when the Temple opens and Dad and I begin our service there.
The first of April, of course, as we mentioned last month, was Isabel's program, which I will give a nod to here, since it really started off this month in a good way.
April has many very important birthdays, starting with Dallin's 18th on the 8th, Erika's on the 11th, Scott's on the 12th, Kirtlyn's 6th on the 13th, and Tayte's 10th on the 19th. We were so glad to get to speak to each of them, either by phone or in person, to express our love and gratitude for them.






We had a wonderful visit from Thomas and Jenn's family during the first week in April. We are already taking advantage of all the medical classes Thomas is having. It's going to be fun having another doctor in the family.

Easter was a grand occasion this year. I always love it when General Conference is held on Easter. Of course that means that Easter dresses are unnecessary, but it has a special feeling that always touches something deep inside me when the spirit of General Conference is combined with the remembrance of Easter. It was made doubly special this year because Thomas and Jenn and Kirtlyn and Thomas and Hyrum shared it with us. We had our annual desert picnic on Friday, in Rachel and Tony's desert. What an amazing view! While we were there, I asked Rylie to play the piano for me. She has only been taking lessons for 4 1/2 months! Check the bottom of the blog for the video. Then on Saturday, we ate our ham dinner all together and even got to visit Rebecca and Scott's (really, Polly's) petting farm to see their baby goats and new pig.






On the 5th, we had an early birthday party for Kirtlyn, who will turn 6 while she is in Mexico, with no family to celebrate with her. Thomas and Jenn made us a real, authentic Mexican taco dinner, with two kinds of meat to choose from and all the tasty trimmings. Kirtlyn designed her "dream" cake and Rylie magically made it happen. She wanted a 3-tier wedding cake with strawberries on the bottom, grapes in the middle and lemons on the top.




Lynn and Sandra Smith invited us to go to a desert picnic with them. They had a Brazilian visitor and wanted Dad (and me, to a lesser extent) to speak Portuguese with her. We went, and enjoyed it, but it was soooo cold. The best surprise, though, was that Allison was there!



After enjoying Thomas & Jenn's family for almost a whole week, we had to say "goodbye" again. It was just as hard this time as it was the first time.

Dallin turned 18 on the 8th.

We were going to Mesa to go to Crew's baptism, so we went a day early in order to take Crew to get his CTR ring and to see Daynen's play "Zorrito." Daynen didn't play a villain this time. He was the brother of Zorrito. He really made a cute Mexican.


April 10th was a very special day. It was the day that J Crew was baptized a member of the Church. He was so sweet (if an 8-year-old boy can be called "sweet") and handsome and we were so proud of him. After his baptism by his father, he was confirmed, also by Joel, and assisted by Dad, Steph's dad, jeremy, Shad, Steph's brothers and brothers-in-law and the Bishop. Then, we all went to Joel & Stephanie's back yard for a feast. What a memorable day for Crew and for all of us who love him.




Before we left town, we saw this oxymoron. I couldn't resist the photo. It's a political classic!

On the 11th, Erika's birthday, by the way, we had the Evanses for dinner after church, and celebrated Scott's birthday. Actually, we had hung the "happy birthday" sign when we had Kirtlyn's party and I didn't take it down so that it would be there for Scott's birthday.


On the 17th, Dad and I went to the Mesa Temple to go through with a man who was a member of our Temple Prep class. It was a joy to be with him. He had changed his life so much that it truly amazed us. Alex Villa is his name and he had lived a life of gangs and all that went with that image. What a changed, humble man he is now. Anyway, we went to see Esther & Shad's family the night before as they were going to be going out with the Browns the next night. We got a shot of Harrison's great pinewood derby car while we were there.

The next night, on the spur of the moment, we went with Joel and Steph and Jer and Erika to Mi Amigos, where we saw David and Staci Cutchen (Erika says that they see them often at Mi Amigos). Also, we gave Tayte his birthday card, even though his birthday was a few days away, so the restaurant celebrated his birthday by chanting "chip, chip Hooray!" Tayte joined in with gusto, wearing the birthday sombrero.



The floorboards came to sit at our house for a week so that they could become acclimated to our environment. I was so excited. We wanted to get our rooms painted before the floor people came, so Rachel and Mary came and helped us. Later, Luke and Lillian painted a little, and then Tyson came and helped us finish up. It was a huge, two-day job, but it really needed to be done and it looks great now.


Tyson stood, precariously, on a ladder, balanced on the steps, to paint the stair walls.


Finally, Dad and Tyson rigged a platform with the ladder, a board, and the steps so that they could finish painting.


On the 25th, we had stake conference,(the subject of which was...guess what...Temples, of course), so we decided that since we were all out at the same time for a change (Mary and Tyson have early church in Thatcher) we would get together for Sunday dinner. It was such a beautiful day that we ate outside.

On Monday, the 26th, Joel and Stephanie and their family came to go through the Temple, and so we took advantage of the occasion to have a joint FHE party. They ate some stew with us and then everyone came and we had rootbeer floats and a lesson and played games. Of course the lesson was on Temples, our focus at the moment. We had a lot of fun and it was so good to see cousins together, that it prompted us to think about trying to have an occasional joint FHE with everyone. We have been trying to do it with the Safford kids and with the Mesa kids, but never even thought of the possibility of trying to do it with everyone.




The floor people came in and tore up our floor in the living room, foyer, family room, hall, kitchen and mud room.
We have had to set up house on the back porch for the duration of the time it takes to get our floor in. The guys, both of whom are really sweet guys, have just been slow for one reason or another. The head guy, Jeremy, hurt his finger on the job and couldn't come back the next day, so they are supposed to come on Monday, May 3rd. We also have furniture stacked up in our kitchen (Mary has been feeding us out of pity) and against the wall in our living room. When they left on Friday, we asked if they would at least put our two chairs back in the family room so we would have a place to sit and watch tv.


As I look back on April, I see that in spite of the inconvenience of having our house torn up, the last week has been filled with opportunities to serve at the Temple and that has been a wonderful blessing. Before the open house even started on the 23rd, Dad and I had two chances to tour the Temple, and then on the very opening day, we were ushers. Actually, Dad was the shift leader for our ward's ushering assignment, so he gave me the wonderful "Bootie duty," which has actually been my favorite job so far. I got to sit down, except for the 45 minutes I spelled someone in the Brides' room, and I can "stand" anything (even cold, blustering wind) if I can sit down to do it!
Then we were tour guides on the 29th. What a great opportunity that was. We had four tours, two of which Dad led and two of which I led. That same night, Rebecca and Scott and their family, and Rachel and Tony and their family and Tyson and some bank people all went on a tour of the Temple, and we didn't get to do any of them! You'd think we would have had at least one of them, but we didn't. It was good, anyway, though, windy and cold as it was when we had to walk back and forth from the chapel to the Temple. By the time we finished, after four hours, I was crippled and in pain, but amazed that I had actually done it. With the Lord's help, I was able to do it, and I didn't think I could. Dad gave me a blessing before we started, and that really helped. Then the next morning, he had to fill in for someone who couldn't make it and stand at the entrance to the parking lot for six hours, directing traffic! He has been as sore as I have. Next week we will have more Temple service opportunities...Dad in security and both of us with another night of guiding tours. We love it.