Tom & Sharilyn

Sea Life Park

Hawaii throws flowers at our feet every day!  ha ha!  I love it when plumeria are so plentiful!  We made six leis last week for missionaries that were going home and now we have made two more for Tom & Shar's arrival!  We gathered blossoms mostly off the ground around the BYU campus!

 We had such a fun time with Tom and Sharilyn here.  It was a quick trip and they said "Not enough time in Hawaii but too much time away from the kids."  Ha ha  We can all relate to that.  We're thankful Andrea could watch the kids so they could come.

Beautiful Laie

We always have such fun playing this game - made & invented by a
couple senior missionary brothers.

Little Chirpers

We have a little house pet that lives behind the quilt that hangs on our wall.  I named him Chirpers.  Did you know that geckos are little chirpers!   I like their sound.  It was sad day on Friday because we opened our front door and ...well, have you ever had your finger pinched in a door as it slams shut?  Poor little Chirpers was there in the pinching place, flattened like a pressed flower ready for a scrapbook.  Sad day.  But as it turned out, that evening we heard him again behind the quilt.   I guess the flat one must have been a friend of his.

Ham radio license!

Exciting day!  I just passed my ham radio exam!!  Yahoo!  And so did Debbie Day!  Pheww!  It was labor intensive evenings learning all that material but I loved it!

I love walking to work on mowing day!  These beautiful Egrets flock around the mower with their hungry appetites! 

Such of cute picture of Chris at the Mission Settlement today!

Aj, me and Hui Lam ready for an assignment :)

Painting flowers

Hibiscus near the ticket office

Flowers in Hawaii are so generous to us.  They bloom everyday.  We pick them to make leis and put them in our hair and we don't worry that we are picking the bush bare...new flowers come out the next day.

I wish all of life were a garden.  So much of life is strewn with rocks and thistle so we just pull the thistle and paint flowers on the rocks!  ha ha

It's not always as it seems but these gardens do seem to just grow on their own.  Our gardens back home need us to help them grow in their little piece of space and we need them to help us have a little peace in our space.

Thank you God, for little things
That often come our way...
The things we take for granted
But don't mention when we pray...
The unexpected courtesy,
The thoughtful, kindly deed...
A hand reached out to help us
In the time of sudden need...
Oh, make us more aware, dear God,
Of little daily graces
That come to us with "sweet surprise"
From never dreamed of places.
(poem by Helen Steiner Rice)

Twins Graduation!

Such an exciting time!  Two more Master's Degrees added to the family!  Since they were graduating on the same day and so far from each other, Andrew & Hannah decided to surprise Andrea and come to Washington! He came with robes and all so they could be together on their graduation day!

Surprising Andrea at the airport!

Such a delightful happy day to gather with some of our children and grandchildren!

We love and miss our amazing family!!!

It was a beautiful sunny spring day in Spokane.

It’s not happy people who are grateful, it is grateful people who are happy.”

My Easter Song

Easter Sunday

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful the Lord God made them all.

I’m thankful for bright and beautiful and wonderful things. Especially our family is bright and beautiful and wonderful to me.

We had a delightful family chat today!

One to give & one to keep: Hot Cross Buns for Easter.

What a wonderful general conference we've been so blessed to enjoy. We are so blessed by the Savior and His teachings and His messengers who are trying so hard to awaken in each of us the truths of life. I endear their words into my heart.