My Friends from the Congo!

Today I went with Brooke Tanner (from our stake) for a visit with our Refugee Family.  Here, Miriam (in the orange) and Gloria had just braided my hair.  Gloria is a friend and was born here, so she speaks English.  Both were super cute and enjoyed braiding my hair with their fingers that were apparently covered in chocolate!  (They'd been eating it before they started braiding, and it wasn't until I took my braid out later, that I smelled chocolate!!  Too funny!)  Little Gloria was a talker and wouldn't stop asking me about my birthday and birthday cake.  (I made the mistake of telling her I had a birthday last week.)  She couldn't get over the fact that my cake had candles on it...I guess they don't do that in their culture.  (Her dad was a refugee from The Congo and came over here 7 years ago.)  Gloria was also very interested in my glasses and insisted on trying them on and getting a picture with them.  Miriam is 8 and we just got her registered for the 3rd grade and Gloria is 4.  It was a sweet experience today to just relax in Kito's apartment (Miriam's mother) and just get to know them.  Kito has a beautiful smile and can speak more English than I'd originally thought.  She has a cute personality and is so calm and relaxed.  These people have been through so much, it's amazing to me that they can be so strong and come to a new country where they don't know the language or the culture.  It's still very hard to communicate, but we did OK today!  I'm glad they have some friends here in this strange country where they've only lived for less than 2 1/2 months!

...and Birthday Cake with Grandma!

I'm really getting some mileage out of my 48th birthday!  Bill made me an angel food cake and we had Sunday dinner over at mom's house and for dessert, everyone sang happy birthday to me and we enjoyed the cake together.  Another fun day!

Birthday Dinner at Tommy Bahamas...YUM!

It was such a fun evening tonight!  We had fun going out to Scottsdale's Kierland Commons and eating such a yummy dinner at Tommy Bahamas to celebrate my birthday...we all decided that the food was impeccable--so gourmet.  I love the way they combine flavors there!  After, we walked around the Kierland Commons shops and it was coolish with a nice breeze!  A storm passed through quickly which cooled it off a bit.  Nice to have those temperatures in July!  We had a fun night together as a family!

Camp Wrap-Up Swim Party and My Birthday!!



We had a fun party with all the Young Women to commemorate camp and watch a fun slide show.  We had Italian sodas again (we had a lot of it left over from camp so decided to do it again) and it was so refreshing.  The girls had fun swimming and in the jacuzzi with the bubble bath!  (Ugh...)  Later, the YW Leaders presented Jamie with a gift for all her hard work as the ward camp director this year.  She really worked hard to make camp fun for the girls!  THEN, Jamie totally surprised ME with a Nothing Bundt Cakes cake for my birthday, which is today!  She is so thoughtful... she also had the girls write little notes to me and put them into a jar so I could read them one at a time.  I read them all at once, hahaha-- they were so cute I just kept going!  It was a fun night!  Some of Katelyn's friends stayed to watch a movie after...they were all having so much fun, they didn't want it to end!!

 

 

 



Storage Room "After" Pictures...

Megan and I spent the whole day cleaning out the storage room and getting rid of a bunch of stuff.  We threw a lot in the dumpster and also took a big load of stuff over to D.I.  Cassie, the girl who is currently living in the condo, but house sitting for someone right now, while Stan works on the condo, came over and we got to meet her as well.  She carried a big, awkward old TV to the dumpster for us...she's really strong!  It was a hot day and we made so many trips to that dumpster, which wasn't close to the apt., plus we had to go down 3 flights of stairs too!  We also went through the Kitchen cabinets and both of the bathroom cabinets and emptied them, so that Stan can take them all down to install the new ones.  We threw away a bunch of accumulated stuff in those cabinets as well.  It was a big, messy and hot job, but we got it finished.  We went to a late lunch at The Brick Oven as a reward.  We were SO starving, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and we ended up eating way too much... we had to waddle out of there and were really sorry we'd eaten so much!  But it was sooooo good!  It was a fun day, even though it was a lot of hard work, just because we got to spend it together.  I'm glad this task is finished.  Things are really coming together and it should be ready by the time Megan moves in in August!  I fly home and Megan drives home tomorrow...

Utah Trip to Take Care of the Condo... and Kayli Duprests Wedding!

Planned this last minute trip to Utah to take care of some things with the condo renovation.  Stan is hard at work and fixing all the drywall right now.  I got a lot done on the trip and was able to purchase and pick out a lot of the things that are going into the condo to fix it up like new.  Stan says it will look like new when he is finished.  There is still a lot of accumulated stuff that belongs to past tenants in the storage room, so some time while I'm up here, I've got to go through all of that and get rid of it!  Megan came up to Provo yesterday on a road trip with Lauren Ney and Rylie Grover for Kayli's sealing and reception, so she's up here too.  She's staying with me at the Butler's house.  She went to the sealing today, but I couldn't as there was too much to do on the condo and that's the whole reason why I came up here and I only have 2 days to get it done before I go back to AZ, so I didn't feel like I could go... but I would've loved to go to the sealing!  It was at the Provo City Center Temple.  Later on, Megan and I drove up to Sandy for the reception and that was really nice!  It was so good to see Kayli and Jimmy and how happy they are!!



Bishop's Day at Camp!

Camp was a blast!  We got to see all the skits and participate in some fun ward time and just visiting and enjoying the company of the girls and leaders.  Jamie Livingstone did such a great job as our ward camp director!  The girls all had so much fun!  It was a fun day.  It ended with our ward's testimony mtg. and then we had Italian sodas and Krispy Kreme doughnuts!  Yum!!