John and Christine's Adventures: September 3rd through September 11th:

September 3^rd through September 11^th: Much of this last week has been spent trying to find places to put the clothes and the things we need to use on a daily basis. We are almost there and we are starting to feel like we are not living out of a box or a suit case. I spent a few days building shelves in our daughter’s garage, partly so we could have some place to put empty suitcases and boxes of genealogy stuff that we want to start going through and partly to help her to have a more organized garage. Saturday was fun--we started with blueberry pancakes

Willa likes blueberry pancakes.

and then went to the baptism of grandson #3, James Lever Norman, aka Moose. Mom gave the baptismal talk and had each grandchild in attendance hold up a letter of the word baptism and then she explained what the letters stood for. Luke, Charlotte’s youngest didn’t want to help so grandpa was letter M.

Moose and his dad, our oldest son, John Jr., notice the tie!

John and Moose ready to go.

This says it all.

Then we went to John and Jill’s home for a scone bar. I helped make scones for the first shift and then I ate too many.

Scones and more.

In the afternoon, we went to the birthday party of grandson #4, Miles. We mostly helped get ready and then Charlotte, his mom, did the party.

Miles took a tumble and has quite the shiner.

The birthday party in all it glory.

John and I resting during the birthday party. Remember we had just eaten a lot of scones.

We took Moose to distribution and bought him a quad for getting baptized and to Seagull book for a scripture bag. Bill and Mary Jane McBean, Alex’s parents and Miles' other grandparents, flew in for the birthday party and took us all to Chuck-a-rama for dinner. President Crayk, I knew you would appreciate knowing this little fact.

Dinner at President Crayk's favorite restaurant, Chuck-a-rama.

Sunday; we drove to Mount Pleasant to give our report. It was bitter sweet to drive around and go past the house we sold while in Bolivia. After our reports, we met with the stake president and he said he might like us to come back in November for stake conference. Mom will be in California, so I don’t know if he will ask just me to come. We stayed the night with dear friends, Mike and Merlene Ellington. They went to China with us as English Teachers our first year there. Monday; We went and got our checkups and physicals for our next mission. Since we had to come to Mount Pleasant to report, we thought it would be easy to also see the last doctors and dentists that we saw when we did our papers for Bolivia. I think we are both pretty healthy and they will probably let us serve another mission. In the afternoon we went to the dentist. We both needed a little work so he made room for us the next day to get it done. Monday night we did the Family Home Evening for Mike and Merlene and 2 other couples who regularly meet together. Merlene cooked Chinese food and we had a great meal and then we were able to show some pictures and talk about the temple in Cochabamba. It made we cry to talk about all the special experiences we had there.

Dinner with Mike and Merlene and their friends for FHE.

Tuesday; We got our dental work done and also visited the dermatologist. We are going to live. We then went to the Manti temple and did initiatory and a session. It is always nice to do a live session. We went to dinner with Kirt and Julie Saville in Provo on our way home. Kirt and Julie are friends we met in China and then ran into in Bolivia. He sets up internships for BYU music students. He reported that every one of the BYU students raved about their experience in Cochabamba. He said that several said it was life changing. Two of them liked it so much, that they want to return next year.

Julie and Kirt Saville with mom at dinner.

I said good-bye to Ginny and her two beautiful daughters. Sam was recruiting for Ernst and Young at some BYU function. Wednesday; I worked on the shelves and mom went and met Kirstin and Ginny and their kids at Thanksgiving Point and then she went to Kate’s home to help her for the rest of the day.

Xela, our daughter Ginny and Willa.

Kirstin, our daughter-in-law, Emme and Rigby.

When mom finally got back to Charlotte’s home and when Alex, Charlotte’s husband, got home from his ward missionary work we had an announcement party. Charlotte gave everyone a can of silly string and then everyone was to spray their can when she said go. If the string was pink she is going to have a girl and if it is blue she is going to have a boy. She has 3 little boys so you can see in the picture what she is going to have come the spring.

I hope you can see the string is PINK.

Just for Jack Hoopes, not only have I had a Crown Burger, but Centerville now has an In and Out Burger and I have already been 3 times. Just a note, our daughter-in-law Jill, entered a contest for the state fair, where you are given fabric and you have to make a quilt out of all the fabric. Here is her quilt. It won second place.