January chill

Our house became a "chill" when these darling children left us on January 15th. It's way too quiet now, but if there is a mess, I know it's mine! They brightened our lives so much. Every day was a delight. Little Christian would say the blessing on the food, "Please bless Grandma and Grandpa" and then always announced immediately at the end that he "blessed us." So cute! We had to grab one more picture with Evelyn, Christian and Hudson before they headed back to Arizona. Hudson seemed to grow up before our eyes, always doing something new each day. He was so proud of himself to get into this plastic tub.

The Vance's furnace went out and they spent nearly two weeks trying to stay warm until the part arrived and finally got fixed. Fortunately our temperatures were fairly mild compared to the Arctic Blast across the country. 

In Minneapolis, Seth's family have been out of school not for snow, but for life threatening cold, for the 4th time this month. Today the wind chill factor was -40. Brrr! The boys didn't mind as they spent a day at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Professor Seth stayed busy prepping for his class at home.

Also, Dallin's family has had negative temperatures, too, with severe cold and snow in Indiana. Earlier, while searching for their Christmas tree, that warmed up with hot chocolate.

 

 

Then you have the William's children ice blocking, Arizona's version of sledding. What a contrast! Tiffany responded to this photo that she thinks she'd take Arizona style right now.

Oregon is now in a severe drought. We should finally get rain tomorrow after 15 straight days without rain, which is not like an Oregon winter. We have relished the clear days and bright sunshine, but we need the snow in the mountains, just like they do in Utah and California. Severe weather conditions hopefully can humble a country to seek God's help.

Utah did have plenty of snow for the Johns children to enjoy. They have year-round school, so their Christmas holidays extended a few weeks that gave them plenty of time to build a snowman and then warm up with hot chocolate and snuggling with Mom during story time.

Our 39th Wedding Anniversary

Can it really be? Where have 39 years gone? It has been a "Wonderful Life!" I'm so grateful I was lead to marry such a choice companion as Crismon. On January 16th, we celebrated our 39th Wedding Anniversary by attending the temple. We saw the 2nd "new" temple film that was just beginning to be shown that week in about 12 temples across the country. We are so very grateful for our temple marriage and the joy we have in our posterity! Oh, those grandchildren are so cute! This picture, taken at Bear Lake, June 2012, is missing four of them. The family group picture is missing Bryan who was at Boot Camp for the Army, who is funding his medical schooling.

For the record, as of this date we are blessed with 9 children and 21 grandchildren.

Ondalynn & Gary Vance; Sydney, Julia, Bryson, Isaac and Paxton.

Seth & Tiffany (Gee) Lewis; Jackson, Addison, Preston, and Asher.

Alice-Anne & Gary Johns; Kenna, Spencer, and Elliot.

Vivienne & Brett Caudle; Clark, Daisy, and Kaeley.

Dallin & Janelle (Otteson) Lewis; Dorothy, Ruby, and Norah.

Meredith & Bryan Williams; Evelyn, Christian, and Hudson.

Crismon & Danielle (Swain) Lewis.

Julia & Austin Doutre.

Emily Lewis.

Reliv Conference in San Franscisco

The weekend of Jan 17th & 18th we were in San Francisco for a Reliv Impact Event. Instead of a national conference in Feb, they are holding 2 shorter conferences on the west and east coasts. We enjoyed having wonderful people join us. Joyce & Romeo Betita and Linda & Ernie Wilken from Gresham. April Reynolds from League City, TX and her mother Dorothy Ferguson, and her sister, Susan Olsen from CA. Jill McGrath and her daughter, Jesselah, from Ridgefield, WA and Richard & Debra Larsen from Bountiful, UT. (two missing from this picture).

We were recognized on stage for becoming new Senior Directors and were asked to share our thoughts about our St. Louis trip and training. Also, recognized for earning the cruise to the Bahamas in April, being #8 out of the top 25 distributors in volume of sales for Nov. and Dec. of last year. Because the cruise lands over the General Conference weekend, we decided not to go. We will be given some cash amount, but probably not the full value of the trip. I'm updating this post on Feb. 20th. We just learned this week that we were 1st in the nation in volume of sales for the month of January. This took us totally by surprised. We feel it was a generous gift from above to receive this wonderful bonus.

We snapped a picture of Crismon with Ryan Schmidt, the president of Soy Labs, and the Executive Director of the Missouri Plant Science Center. He had come to Portland last fall and we had the privilege of driving him around. He has been instrumental in helping to further the science of Lunasin and the tremendous benefits to the body, and the partnership with Reliv to get Lunasin in the form of LunaRich out to the public. We really enjoyed learning more about this breakthrough in nutritional epigenetics. It will become a buzz word in the future as more and more people are introduced to its incredible health benefits, and the possibility of taking control of our health which in the past was determined by our genes. Reliv is now known as "The Nutritional Epigenetics Company.