Temple Baptisms with the Missionaries and Sister Padgett!

It was such a fun evening being in the temple with Kathryn Padgett who did baptisms for the first time!  She was baptized a week ago and the missionaries were able to attend with her.  (Once a month they have this opportunity to go to the temple with a recent convert.)  The Mission President, President Collins, performed all the baptisms!  I think this is such a neat thing to do!  We saw A LOT of missionaries there and it was fun to see elders that have served in our ward in the past!  (Elder Manalansang and Elder Hopkins)  It made me get excited about Brooke's mission being around all those missionaries--especially the sisters!  That missionary spirit is contagious!  Katelyn also went with us because she was wanting to do baptisms as well, so she got to be a part of all that, as well!  I'm so glad she got to go with us!  After, the elders didn't have anywhere to go for dinner, so we took them out to dinner at Dickies.  They said they wanted BBQ, and Kristen Maskovich said it was good BBQ.  It tasted wonderful to me!  It was really enjoyable to visit with the missionaries at dinner and to get to know them a little better. One of them is from Germany!  (I can't remember his name.  The other one is Elder Johnson from Florida.)  I'm so grateful for the opportunity that just fell into our lap today, to attend the temple with this sweet sister.  She had such a great experience doing these baptisms and I'm so glad that we got to be a part of it!!!

Katelyn's Engineering Project...

Katelyn is building a bridge for her engineering class... it was fun to see it take shape this weekend.  It isn't finished yet, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take some pictures of her work in progress.  She has ALWAYS loved building and creating things and is LOVING this engineering class!  She really enjoys this kind of stuff! 

Stephanie's Baby Shower!

We celebrated Stephanie's (Van Wie/King) sweet little girl Maeve tonight!  It was so fun to hold her!  She is so tiny!  She looks exactly like Stephanie!  It was fun to see her and catch up with her.  She's doing well and loving the mommy life! 

Young Women Medallion Recognition Dinner with Katelyn!

It was a really nice evening tonight at the Nally's home.  Katelyn finished her Personal Progress and earned her medallion last month and was recognized at the Stake Young Women Medallion Recognition dinner.  She got a cute plaque of the Phoenix Temple to take home!  I'm so glad that Katelyn was able to do the Personal Progress program and that she has righteous desires!  She has definitely grown in spirituality and developed good habits because of this program.  I love Personal Progress!

One Last Day...

I took Megan, Todd and Brooke to lunch at Cafe Rio and we had a really nice visit together over our lunch!  We weren't in a hurry and were able to have a nice visit!  Brooke has a sore on her tongue so I got some funny shots of her putting salt on her wound!  She's such a funny bird!  I'm gonna miss her while she's gone for 18 months!  (At least we can call now!)  After lunch Todd had to go, but Megan, Brooke and I went to the BYU Bookstore and got some fudge.  Our eyes were WAY bigger than our tummies and we ended up with a lot!  We shared, but it was still a lot!  I said good bye as I had to catch a flight out in the afternoon.  It was hard to say good bye!  I don't like good byes.  We had such a fun vacation up here in Provo and it was so fun to just be together!  It didn't even matter what we were doing!  We got to do some fun things, but we had a blast just chillin' together too!  What a fun Spring Break-- we made some great family memories this past week! 

Meg Got Accepted to the Utah College of Dental Hygiene!

We had some great news this morning as Megan received her acceptance to the Utah College of Dental Hygiene!  She is super excited.  She'll have a 20 month program which will end right around the same time Todd finishes at BYU so it works out perfectly! 

Brooke and I had a blast shopping all day together!  She had to go to school for a review session later on in the afternoon, so Megan and I (and her sister in law, Annaz) went up Provo Canyon for an afternoon run.  It was easy going downhill but coming back up was a killer!  Later on that night, Todd, Megan, Brooke and I went to the Cannon Center for dinner and came back to Todd and Megan's after.  We played Shanghai Rummy again and enjoyed our last night together!  I'm gonna miss these guys when I leave tomorrow!!

Happy Sabbath!

Natalie texted these pictures to me this morning!  These turned out so good and Natalie did such a nice job styling mom's hair!  Happy Sabbath!!! 

Bill, Mac and Kate drove home to AZ today!  I stayed in the hotel until checkout at noon.  Then I went and picked up Brooke, CC and another friend from their Stake Conference at the Smith Field House.  (If I'd known in time, I would've gone with them, but Brooke called me right before it started and said she hadn't known about it, or she would've told me.  I wasn't ready when she called.)  We all went to lunch at the Cannon Center together.  It was yummy!  Brooke and I went to her dorm after and took the BEST Sunday nap I can remember in a long time!  It felt so good to SLEEP!  (I can't even remember the last time I took a nap on a Sunday!)  We went to Megan and Todd's house for a really good roast dinner!  Megan is such a great cook!  Tanner came over for dinner as well.  We played Shanghai Rummy and Code Names-- girls V. boys.  Girls won!  And I won Shanghai Rummy!  Another late night, but we had fun!  I'm staying at Megan's for the next couple days to help Brooke do some mission shopping! 

Family Pictures!

It was a long day!  We woke up at 5am to get ready for pictures!  It was just me, Bill and Mac at the hotel and Katelyn and Brooke spent the night at Megan's to do hair together this morning.  Pictures went really well.  It was cold and foggy, but NO RAIN!  We took our pictures out at Vineyard Beach in Vineyard.  (It's on Utah Lake out by Saratoga Springs.)  It was super pretty, but we'd planned to have the snow capped mountains in the background, but because of the clouds and fog there was no such animal!  I think the pictures turned out really well though.  Tia showed them to us on her camera before we left.  She's so cute and is expecting a baby in June!  She was a lot of fun and kept things moving!  It was a beautiful location with the clothing we wore with those reddish grasses!  I loved the location!  So pretty and nothing like what we've ever done in the past for family pictures!  I feel like it is a pretty unique setting and will be so fun to put up in our house when they're all finished!  Below are some pictures of Brooke with her Minnesota Flag... I thought it would be fun to get a few shots of this before her mission!  Todd actually took all of these... I didn't think to get any on my camera as we were shooting.  Everyone was starved after the shoot because no one thought to eat anything before we left, so we took everybody to Kneaders for breakfast afterward.  The photo shoot took less than 2 hours and it went really fast!  It was a fun day of relaxing, watching more basketball, going mission shopping with Brooke and having a Steak, Chicken and Potatoes BBQ later on for dinner!  (Tanner also came over for dinner.)  Bill did a great job and the meat tasted amazing!  We rented Aquaman and regretted it!  We had fun making fun of the movie the whole time though.  We guessed several times what was going to happen and what they were going to say next-- pretty funny!  This has been such a fun trip!!

Our Official Family Pictures by the One and Only Tia Rose!

Here they all are!!  I'm so happy with the way they turned out!  It was a beautiful location and it was a lot of fun!  The rain even stayed away, although it was very chilly that morning!  Thanks Tia!!!