Summer events in June

The highlights of the month were seeing family. We had a delightful visit from Julia & Austin and their cute little Dallin who just turned 2 years old. He brightens our home so much. Vivi’s children adore him, and he loves playing with them. While they were here, they performed the special musical number for their ward Zoom Devotional. It’s nice that you can do Zoom from anywhere.

Earlier in the month, the Area Seventy gave the direction that although some wards are opening for church meetings (In other places like Utah and Texas), we were not going to open for some time. They also didn’t want us to hold “Zoom Sacrament Mtgs.” Two weeks later, that restriction was completely changed. Now they want us to meet with our wards weekly over Zoom for a Sacrament meeting. Other meetings like RS, Elders Quorum, YM/YW, SS, will be held once a month and Primary on the 5th Sunday.

On June 22, Seth, Tiffany and boys arrived from Dallas. It was a joyous reunion after having them gone for one year. They are staying with the Vance’s. If it wasn’t crazy enough over there, Tiffany talked Ondalynn into helping her paint her kitchen cupboards. It’s been a huge project, but it looks great! Sunday afternoon they all came to our home for visiting, dinner, and games. We enjoyed an evening of seeing some of their photos of their Europe adventures, but we’ll need another night to see the rest.

Saturday, June 27th, we enjoyed a lovely Brunch with the nine stake presidents and their wives, the mission president and his wife who were leaving after 3 years of service and his counselors. The Area Seventy and his wife have us to their home each year to express their appreciation. They have a beautiful, amazing yard where we gathered for visiting and eating. We feel blessed to associate with such good people. It was our first gathering with friends. We sat next to the temple president and it was fascinating to hear updates from him.

We love our good friends, BJ & Kenneth Lansford's. They live just down our hill a little ways. We are their ministering sister and brother, but mostly they are our friends. We have stayed in touch, either in their home or over FaceTime nearly weekly during the year of this pandemic. It has been a blessing to them, and to us. We love them so much, and they keep us laughing with their great stories.

May Memories

May is the most beautiful time of the year. I love the azaleas, the rhododendron, the roses, and all the beautiful variety of flowers and colors. It is always spectacular during this time of the year. Mother's Day is typically the height of the flowery season and we can't get enough. Because we are on stay-at-home orders, still, we don't drive around as much, and I know we're missing so much of the beauty. But I walk in my neighborhood daily, without listening to anything so I can connect with nature and relish every minute in God's beautiful world.

We enjoyed driving to Sandy on a beautiful day to get acquainted with the Vermuelen family, who were recently baptized in our ward. It was wonderful to begin a sweet friendship with them.

Elliot turned 9 and Austin & Julia both turned 30 this month. On Sunday, the 31st, Julia's birthday, we got together and had a fun Zoom birthday party for Julia with her sisters and me. Meredith organized some fun games through Kahoot to play together.

We donated to the Gresham Parks, at Main City park to have a paver with our name and the symbol of the Angel Moroni, put in on the sidewalk. We're happy to contribute, and the missionaries have been volunteering hundreds of hours over the years to beautify the Japanese gardens there by city park. Crismon has also participated as a volunteer.

We are so happy we can now invite our single sister friend, Leslie Jenkins, to join us for our home-church each Sunday. We invited a single brother, Gary Walker, too, and they loved being included in a family setting. Little-by-little restrictions are being lifted, but our county has the most COVID-19 deaths, so we haven’t moved into Phase 1 yet.

We have greatly missed our Vance family in Vancouver. Finally, on Mother’s Day they came over for dessert. It had been 3 months since we had seen them. We each wondered if we would hug each other, but when the oldest, Sydney, walked in she gave us the biggest hug, and we were SO happy to hug everyone.

Janelle graduated from James Madison University with a Masters in Speech and Language Pathology. She is now working at a rehabilitation psych facility mainly doing swallow safety. The girls have been begging for a dog. They kept saying they couldn't get a dog until Janelle finished her Masters. They did add a cute dog to their family called Bonnie.

Seth was promoted to the rank of full professor with indefinite tenure at the Univ. of Oregon. He will be the Director of the Undergraduate Journalism Area beginning in September. They arrived in Dallas on Monday, June 1st. We are so excited to have them back in the USA!!! They will come to Oregon in three weeks! Jackson applied to work at 1 Password, [an app for your phone or computer where it manages all your passwords. You only have to remember a master password and then you have easy access to all your passwords]. On his own, he found the job opening and applied. To his parents great surprise, he was interviewed by 3 of the top people in the company, and he ended up getting the internship/job with a nice salary. Now to finish his last year of high school along with a real job. They couldn’t hire him until he turned 18, which he did the first part of June.

Sydney invited all of us to participate in a family lip sync competition. We were so impressed with the amazing videos everyone came up with. It was so fun, and a welcome diversion from the pandemic.

Memorial Day we gathered at the Vances’ (the first time to their home in 3 months) for fun at the park and then a BBQ. We loved being together. We are staying well, planted a garden, and doing lots of yard work. I love FaceTiming each day with Emily and baby Elise. She's so cute!!! Emily is a wonderful mother, and she is blessed that Elise is such a good baby.