Awesome picture of the week

This is my cousin, Karen McCoy Clothier's husband Brian.  They live in Oregon and he is a physician who is in the Dominican Republic for some humanitarian work.  He found Palmer and sent this awesome picture!

Return from Utah

Andy and I got back from Utah last night.  He had been participating in the BYU football camp.  It was a great experience for him and he felt like he learned a lot and got to meet Bronco Mendenhall as well.  Plus his only injuries were two jammed fingers!  I drove up on Wednesday, spent Thursday running around gathering things for our girls camp and for trek and spent time with Lauren, Matt, Audrey, my sister, and my mom.  I had plans to visit other people, but the time went too fast.  I had an enjoyable trip home with Andy, it helped the 6 hours and 35 minutes go a bit faster!

On my solo drive down to Utah South Pass was looking especially lovely.  That area can strike fear in my heart when the weather is bad, which seems to happen suddenly and without warning.  I have been driving in 50mph winds, zero visibility, ice, snow, torrential rain, etc.  Many prayers have been uttered in the hour it takes to go across those mountains.  This time, however, it was breathtakingly beautiful.  With all the rain we have been getting it has made those mountains come alive.  I had to stop and take some pictures.  These pictures reminded me of something I might see in Ireland.  

I got to help with the summer reading program here at our small library.  I did a 30 minute story time 3 times in a row as the kids rotated stations.  I had anywhere from 15-30 kids in each rotation, so it was pretty easy to manage.  I couldn't get any of the kids to check out any of the books I had on display, however, which was kind of sad!  I think they are just there to be entertained for a few hours and don't think that they can continue to enjoy stories at home!  

It's great to have Andy back and to be together as a family again.  It was a little hard to have Palmer leave and Andy gone, the house felt too empty!  

Weekend fun

Andy has been in Utah since Wednesday.  He left with our neighbors who were going to Bountiful.  He then caught the front runner train down to Orem where Audrey picked him up.  He will be going to the BYU football camp on Monday.  He has been having fun hanging out with his friends, cousins, sisters, and grandma.

Since we only have 4 children right now we wanted to do something fun last night.  We thought about camping but settled on breaking in our new fire pit.  We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and then set up the tent in the backyard.  The kids watched a movie in the tent and then Peter, Lucy and Eric slept out there.  Emma came in to sleep in a bed and so did Brian and I.  Around midnight the thunderstorm hit and here came the kids inside!  It was a good thing our camping consisted of our backyard!  The rain here has been non-stop!

We tackled all the bedrooms yesterday.  We moved Eric downstairs  into Andy and Palmer's room, moved Lucy upstairs to share with Peter and helped Emma clean out her room that she now has to herself.  It took all day, but the results look really good!  Peter isn't too happy about sharing with Lucy, but hopefully it will work out well!

Emma taught her first dance classes today and she did really well!  She had 6 students today and will have 4 more next week since people are on vacation.  She has 3 classes that are an hour each.  Lucy stays and helps in all the classes as her assistant.  The 3-4 year old class was the hardest because their attention span is challenging.  The 7-9 class went really well and I was impressed with how well Emma interacts with the kids.  She will make $300 doing this for the next 6 weeks and has to give 20% to the woman who owns the building, which is the original Catholic Church and is 100  years old.  The floors are beautiful wood and the stained glass windows really give the space an awesome feel.  It's perfect for dancing!  They also teach yoga there, which I've been to as well.

Brian didn't have to work today and the lawn is mowed and laundry is done and house is clean and it's only 3:00!  Looks like it's time to do something fun!

Setting apart

Today marks the last full day with Palmer for 2 years.  We worked hard and got him completely packed and his room cleared out!  Brian and I took him to lunch at Goodies.  We saw a couple of girls from the other ward there and they came to say goodbye to him.  He also had some friends from high school stop by to wish him well.

The stake president came by tonight to set him apart as a missionary in the Dominican Republic Santo Domingo West Mission.  The Bishop came as well with three of the priests from our ward.  The stake president met with Palmer first alone upstairs.  Then he had us start with a prayer and then set him apart with the Bishop and Brian assisting.  It was a beautiful blessing.  I would like to share a part that I remember well without compromising the specialness of that blessing: the stake president said that Palmer will meet friends from the pre-earth life there who will listen to his message.

After the setting apart the stake president said that since Palmer has never given anyone a blessing he would like to give his first blessing to his mother!  I was blessed to have Palmer place his hands on my head and give me a sweet simple blessing.  Our stake president is truly a special sweet man who really wants the best for those members of the stake.  It was a wonderful evening.  Our ward members are very kind and the best of people.  It was thoughtful of the bishop to bring a few of the priests over to support Palmer tonight and to be such an influence in his life.

We are all set for tomorrow.  I know the separation will be hard at first, like ripping a bandage off really fast, but Palmer blessed me in his blessing that the time will go fast for me and I will be comforted and be able to share his experiences and my experiences with people in our ward and as a missionary to the people here in Worland.  I will trust in that blessing from my wonderful son.

Pretty flowers!I

I have to admit I've never loved growing roses.  They are hard and thorny.  I hacked these plants down to the earth last fall and look how pretty they are now!

Snapdragons have always been my favorite flower and I love that they are growing next to our house!

I love this type of rose, wild and free!

This was a perfect blooming rose!

These seem almost like wild roses, maybe they are, I don't speak rose!

And our tree is fully leafed out!  

They say spring is very short lived here in Worland, but it is so nice to sit outside in the evening and not be hot and the mosquitoes aren't bad yet.  We turned our air conditioning on for the first time since last year today-how nice is that!

Lucy learned this magic trick and wanted me to film her so you all can see her expertise:

And I had to post these.  Andy was trying to teach everyone how to do the "worm".  Emma was determined to get it down, but we were laughing really hard!  Palmer got it pretty well.

First Andy illustrates

Emma's first attempt and Palmer gets a try

Emma's second attempt

Peter tries

And Lucy

We are all quite the talented family!

Getting ready...last days at home

Busy week!  Palmer has been cleaning out his room and I've been rearranging the garage so there is room for his boxes.  Andy was the recipient of some of Palmer's clothes.  I had Andy go through his clothes and Eric got some of his stuff, so everyone wins!  I now have 3 boxes of clothes for D.I,!

Palmer has been spending a lot of time with his siblings.  Andy and him spent a few hours hitting the baseball around with each other at the baseball park the other day.  Palmer made sugar cookies for the little kids and played some board games with them.  It's very sweet and cute to see him realize he won't see them for two years.

Here is a picture of his tie dye sugar cookies.  He got the mix for Christmas:

It finally is summer weather here, the ran has stopped!  So this Saturday was a major clean up day.  Brian and the kids cleaned out his tools in the garage which was a HUGE undertaking!  And now we are normal people who can park our cars in the garage!  We have never had this luxury!

WooHoo.  This will be especially great in the winter!

We also planted some tomatoes and peppers:

Peter is pretty excited about the peppers, he loves them.

Palmer's friends from Utah just arrived for his farewell.  Stephanie Woodall drove her van with her kids in it plus two more of Palmer's friends.  They will go home tomorrow, but it's nice that they wanted to come and support him.

At the moment Palmer is playing his drums and his friend, Dane, is playing his guitar at the rest home.  I'm sure those residents are loving it!

Palmer's VISA came on yesterday, so we are a go for him to fly out on Tuesday!  Wow.  All the happenings of the last few months have officially tired me out, I'm ready for a nap!

Seminary graduation

Tonight was seminary graduation for the Worland Wyoming stake.  It was a very small and very nice affair.  There were 5 youth from our ward who graduated, three from the Greybull ward, 1 from the Thermopolis ward, 1 from the Worland 1st ward and 2 from the Worland 3rd ward.  I played the piano, Palmer led the music and Emma sang in the choir.

Palmer, Jesse, and Dane with President Nelson smiling big in the background!

Apparently I wasn't supposed to take the picture in the chapel!  Oops!

Peter had his first T-Ball game tonight.  Last weeks game was rained out and this weeks was cut short because a big hail storm hit in the middle of the game!  He looks so cute in his complete outfit!  T-Ball here is a bit more involved than in Orem--they play on the actual baseball diamond and they wear the entire uniform.  It was extremely cute to watch them play!  Peter hit the ball really well!

I took a video of him running home: