Grandma Herbert's

We spent our last day in Utah in Mapleton at Jason's parent's house.  Debbie has a wonderful garden that my children love spending time in.  Usually we are their for the strawberry harvest.  This time it was corn.

 

And of course we played with every toy she has. 

 

They were also fed many different varieties of "ice cream on a stick".  We love our time in Mapleton.  Even if it is just for a couple hours on Sunday morning.

Food Storage

Denver doesn't have case lot sales.  Truthfully they don't even really have "sales".  It has kind of hurt our budget.  While at my mom's house I glanced at her mail and saw that Reams, Smiths, and Maceys were all having their case lot sales that week!!  I could have died.  We threw $300.00 dollars at our food budget and made the kids put their feet on cans the whole way home to Denver.  Yay for food storage!!

Shannon

Oh... what to say about Shannon.  I have wondered what I wanted to write in this post for a while.  I didn't know if I wanted to tell our whole story about how we met Shannon and the impact she has had in our lives, or if I wanted to keep those sacred details to ourselves (and our journal).  I think I will try a mixture of the two.

 

Shannon Elliot lives in our West Jordan ward.  I met her through Cub Scouts.  Her son was a member of my pack when I was the Cub Scout Master.  When I met her she was not active in the church... and hadn't been ever since she was baptized when she was 12.  Shannon is the most wonderful, sweet woman and we became fast friends.  As the months went by she slowly started coming back to church.  At the time Jason was the Gospel Essentials teacher in our ward, and Shannon and I attended her class each week.  Our friendship (including hers and Jasons) continued to grow as we discussed and learned the gospel together.  There were a list of reasons that moving from Utah made me very very sad, leaving Shannon was one of those reasons. 

 

You can imagine our gratitude and excitement when Shannon called me a few weeks ago to tell us she was going through the temple to receive her endowment!  Oh, how good God is!  We knew we had to be there.  The gospel is true.  The atonement is real.  It can change people.  It is an enabling power that can help us lift up our lives and our ambitions to become the people God knows we can be.  Jason and I were so grateful and humbled to be with Shannon in the temple that day.  It was beautiful.

 

Shannon is a strong woman who is doing a great work for the Lord.  She touches the lives of many and is building a strong foundation for her children and family.

It was also wonderful to be in the temple with so many members of our old ward.  The turn out to support Shannon was better than ward temple night. :)  As we left Jason said, "that is the first time I have been home sick... seeing all those people in the temple...  those are good people... that was a good ward."  If you know Jason - for him to say he is home sick is HUGE and just goes to show what a wonderful ward we came from. 

Cousins

My little brother Michael and his sweet wife Brooke had their first little baby a few weeks before we went to Utah.  I was so sad to not get to see her for several months - so I was thrilled when this unplanned Utah trip happened.  They named her Caroline and she is such a doll.  She is the cutest baby and they are the sweetest parents - they will do such a great job!

 

Since we had all the grandkids there we of course had to try and get a picture.  I think we did pretty good this time. 

And a silly one:

 

Mille was there and wanted a picture with the girls (Millie is my cousin - but is the age of my kids - so she fits in better as one of their cousins)

 

My girls were THRILLED to see Caroline - they are so into babies right now. 

And of course we got to see how BIG Eddie is getting.  Little babies do not stay babies for long... it is so sad missing these babies growing up.  Eddie is so cute and happy - such a great stage!

 

Wheeler Farm

When we go to Utah if we do nothing else we always seem to at least fit in Wheeler Farm.  We went with the Toblers, and although I hadn't planned on taking pictures - when the kids started climbing their favorite tree they asked for pictures to be taken.  Especially Brock - he was apparently in a picture taking mood and kept doing different poses.