Mesa Temple Open House

 This weekend we had the opportunity to attend the Mesa Temple open house in Mesa, Arizona.  I have wanted to attend an open house all my life.  It took a lot of work to make this weekend happen.  My parents are in the middle of moving, so we disrupted their schedule and drove down to Phoenix on Saturday morning.  Edward also had a NICA bike race in Phoenix.  It ended up being perfect timing for us to also visit Susan and John at their new house.  Jonah, Sonya's oldest just happened to be staying with John and Susan so we were also able to visit with him.

Saturday, we arrived at Craig and Blair's house in the afternoon.  We dropped off my parents and then headed to Edward's race ride through.  Nolen and I went on a three mile run while Edward practiced with his coach.

We then drove over to the East side of Mesa to have dinner with John and Susan.  I am so grateful to have them in my life.  We had a wonderful time visiting then drove back to Peoria to sleep at Craig and Blair's house.  Nolen had so much fun playing with Turbo!  

Sunday, we woke up early and drove over to the race.  It was a 25 minute wait at the gate just to get in.  So frustrating.  We finally got to the start line and they moved the start of the race back to 8:30 because so many cars couldn't get through the gate in time.  Edward had a tough race.  I think his heart wasn't in it because he was really looking forward to seeing his cousin, Logan.  Logan didn't show up until 3:00 on Sunday, so had a very short visit.  

 

After the race, we stopped and go doughnuts then had fake Thanksgiving with Jared, Faith, Logan, Craig, Blair, Mom, and Dad.  It was delicious!!  Blair made such great side dishes and Craig made stake! Best fake Thanksgiving, EVER! Craig read everything he loved about my Dad.  He remembered so many great moments in our childhood.  It was so fun to relive those moments through Craig's memory.  My dad really is a special person.  He seems so tough on the outside but so soft on the inside.  He loves all people and will help anyone.

Monday, I got up early and did a two hour exercise with Craig.  He really is one of my favorite people on this planet.  He makes me so happy.  He is always trying to help others be happy.  After our tough work out, we packed up and headed to the Mesa Temple.  WOW!  It was amazing.  I can not express in words just how beautiful it really was inside all the different rooms. There was so much color!  Purples and greens and soft creams were everywhere.  I loved that my boys had the opportunity to walk through a temple as a child.  

This is my dad's grandma's house.  It is on Kimble street just down the road from the temple.  My mom's grandmother lived across the street!!  Her house was gone and there was a dirt parking lot in it's place. 

The last Hurrah!

 This last week, I decided we needed to do a last hurrah before everyone goes back to school.  This summer just flew by.  We did a lot of fun things; however, it was all over in the blink of an eye.  

We started our week at Top Golf with the entire family.  Everyone really loved it and we all did pretty good. Of course, Stephen was the real winner.  He is literally good at everything he tries.  He is naturally talented at all sports.  And yes, I am extremely jealous.  

Wednesday, I had arranged for my parents to take the boys to Cliff's Amusement Park here in town.  Nolen missed it so much from last year.  He begged all summer to go.  I looked at the calendar and saw that the only day they could go was Wednesday.  Yikes!  So I bought my parents and my boys tickets for the day.  Their best friends, Titus and Dylan joined them for the day.  Dylan was too scared to ride the rides so Nolen and Dylan spent the day at the water park while Edward, Titus, and Elsa rode all the rides.  They barely spent any time at the water park.  My parents were completely beat by the time they got home.  I am so glad they could take them.  So much fun!

On Thursday, we met up with some of our friends and went to play in the river.  We had so much fun.  The water was smelly and really high so that made for a fun day in the sun.  Both boys were so tired from our fun all week, that by 2:00 they were ready to go home.  We went home and loaded up Edward's bike for Mountain Bike Club.  He had a BLAST!  But as soon as he got to the parking lot, he crashed and broke his pinkie!  AH!  I have him all signed up and he will see if he can ride for the rest of the season.  He wants to do all the races and he loves biking.  OH I really hope this works out for the best.  

My dear old Dad is always looking for ways to help the community.  The road near our house is filled with weeds.  He decided to take the boys down to chop the weeds near the road.  It was tough work but we got it done.  He even drove all the weeds to the dump.  Talk about an amazing human!  I sure hope my boys see how hard my dad works to make this world a better place. 

Sharla drove through and dropped her dogs off with us.  OH how Nolen just LOVES dogs!!  He wants to be by them all the time.  And the dogs are FINALLY allowing him to play with them.  He has done all the work from taking them out in the morning, to feeding them, to picking up their dog poop.  We did witness the dogs cornering a baby rabbit, capturing it, then eating it.  Gross, but such is the circle of life.  Poor baby rabbit. 

Lastly, I have been working on putting our house together for the last two months.  I could no longer handle the echo so I ordered some sound panels and forced Stephen to help me put them up.  We need a few large carpets and to put some things on the walls, but so far the sound panels seem to have helped!