June

And the school year is over!!  Jacob was happy about that to say the least! 

Top:  Thea, Ashley, Regan, Violet
Bottom: Ella and Brynlee

I bought flowers for our front patio.  I was in Home Depot and these dahlias....I LOVED them! this picture does not do it justice!  Looks much better on my phone.  

We did our annual Valiant Activity Day camp on the Monday after school was out.  We had a fun time.

A few days later I went to Orson Gygi's for a sour dough bread demo.  The bread was great!  

Jacob and Jaxon do Cars and Coffee on the first Saturday morning of the month.  Jaxon made sure to get the whole day off so they can hang out.  In the evening we went to Catheys for pizza and a movie.

My friend, Shanae, had a bday and I took her to lunch.  I wanted pizza, but it was only on the kids menu.  I ordered a house salad and it came out with miniscule pieces of tomato and cucumber along with this weedy type of lettuce--the kid that looks like you went over to the field next door and picked it. 

Joy, Erin Bastian Grover, Me
Stan Bastian, Aunt Pauline Bastian

 

On Saturday, June 14, mom had a cousins reunion.  They are the grandchildren of Wilford and Leah Bastian.  All of their children have passed away--so it was mom and her cousins and their children.  

Grandpa Bastian was the oldest of 8 children and most of them had 6-8 children.  Mom is the 2nd oldest in her family and Uncle June is 15 years younger (Uncle Del Mar is only 7 years younger) than her.  June had 8 children and his youngest, Stan, is just a year older than me.  So that is the crowd Joy and I hung out with.  It was really fun to visit.

Greg Neher is an elder from my mission.  We have kept in touch over the years through Facebook.  He was called as a mission leader for the Lima Peru West mission and starts in July.  He was up here from Arizona that week to be set apart for his mission.  He and his wife had a casual open house on Saturday evening so I went to say hi.  It was so good to see him!  

When I left my  mission I took home a package for him to give his girlfriend Maren.  Maren, her friend Elizabeth, their families and our family became friends.  Maren and her husband, Stuart, are just finishing their mission as leaders of the Lima Peru Cusco mission.  It was fun to talk about what Maren has been doing and about his adventure about to begin!

The next day was Father's Day.  I bought socks (Jason was with me to pick them out), 2 shirts and some shorts.

He didn't really like the shirts, but kept the shorts.  

Father's Day gift giving was a bust

In the afternoon Jason's family came over for Father's Day dinner.  We all gave Randy ESPN so he can watch BYU sports.

It was a hot day so Meilin and Marshall went out to get wet.  Jacob ran around with them.  It was funny to watch Meilin try to squirt him and then he'd get her.  

The Day Break community hosts a summer concert series on Monday nights.  There was a Beach Boys tribute band and we went to hear them play.  It was a great night for it!

The only thing was it was LOUD!  I couldn't even talk to Jason.  The group sang some songs better than others, but it was fun.

   

On June 20 Mom went in for 2 small biopsies on her breasts.  They felt they got them out with clean boarders.  It was same day surgery and Kristina was in town to help the first few days.  Mom has since been feeling better, but tired.  Overall it seems to have gone well.

  

That night Jacob was with friends and the Cathey kids were at Laser tag at the library so we got together with Tom and Wendy to play games.

The following week was Jason's 56th birthday.  He received a watch charger from me and soda and Hot Tamales from Jacob.

Jacob trying to be sneaky

 That night we had everyone over to celebrate birthdays.  

Rob, Jason, Meilin, MarySue and Lilly 
blowing out candles

Saturday morning we went with Mylee to the Taylorsville temple as she received her endowments.  We then had lunch at Jared's.  In the evening we did dinner with Catheys and they invited a few people they know from playing frisbee.  Skyler, Hannah and .  Afterwards we played games.

The drinks Skyler and Hannah brought
kept over fizzing when opened

  

I had to take this shot.  The most
dessert I have ever seen on 
Wendy's plate.  

I can't believe June is over!

May

May began with Fast Sunday.  Going to Argentina I was in a district of 8 and all of us were assigned to the same mission.  I've seen all of the elders and my comp from my group except for 1...Elder Dale Inkley.  He is not on social media and hard to find.  

A few months ago a young couple  moved into our ward.  They introduced themselves and when they mentioned that their last name was Inkley I asked if they were related to Dale.  Dale is Matt's dad.

The Inkleys blessed their baby at the beginning of the month and Dale came.  It was fun to reconnect!

Riley and grandma, Regan and Aunt

Activity Day Mother daughter activity. There weren't as many girls as we have had in the past, but we had fun.  

Melody, Jessica, Sophie, Thea and Shannong

Lindsey and Stephanie

When I moved into the house these were growing under the pine trees.  As the trees got bigger the flowers became dwarfed and no longer bloomed.  When we redid the yard I dug them up and replanted them to see if they would bloom again.  They did!

Mid May we had a nice weekend and invited Catheys over for s'mores.  The girls all wore their grocery sacks over their hair and we had a fun time!  Jaxon wasn't there because he had to work.
 

We got together to celebrate Emma's birthday.

For Mother's Day I received some See's candy.  Oh, so yummy!!

Elias had a 16th birthday party at Classic skating.  They invited friends from school, the bike team, parents etc.  They had a fun!

On May 19 we went to Jacob's choir end of year concert.  They did a great job and it was fun to see Jacob perform!

On Mother's Day my mission president passed away at the age of 95!  He was an amazing man and so loving.  His wife passed away 16 years ago.  

I went to the funeral, saw friends and his son Adam, who was 17 when they came to the mission.  We took a few group pictures.  Because I was only with him the first 9 months of his 3 years there were elders there that I didn't know.  I knew most of the sisters.

Elsa Zayas Shields, my trainer

These make me happy looking at them.

Back in October the 4 Runner began to sound like the muffler had fallen off.  Found it was the "donut" that attaches the exhaust pipe to the engine had become unattached.  We took it in and they fixed it.  

In April on our way to Capitol Reef it happened again, the bolts came off.  It was frustrating considering it had just been fixed less than 6 months earlier.  As I wrote in April's post we got it fixed down by Capitol Reef and the guy said he double bolted it.  

We are now in May and hearing same noise...look and bolts are coming off again!  Jason and Jacob bought some epoxy, Jacob crawled under the car, put the bolts back on and put epoxy on them to try and get them to stay attached.  We'll see.  

School is out the end of the month--in a few days.  Jacob is happy!!