On a personal note...

Our daughter and son in law, Andrea and Mike, and three of our adorable grandchildren were able to visit us this month.  They are the farthest away, they live in Virginia, and so they are the last of our kids to come and check up on us.  We were so thrilled to have them here and had a great week with them.  If you read this to keep abreast of our mission activities, fair warning: you may want to stop reading right now and come back next time.  This is mostly a place for me to record our mission experiences, but it also serves as my personal journal, and this is going to be a post about the visit from the Bergeson family.  It overlapped with a lot of mission things as well.  They were able to come to a district meeting, and two zone conferences, and they went to the Bay area one day when we had a very busy mission day.  But we (especially me, Scott had to miss several of our outings) also were able to give them a good feel for our new home town.  

The excitement of welcoming our family at the airport never gets old!

Adjusting from East coast to West coast time can be rough, especially when their journeys started in the middle of the night, East coast time!

We saved our p-day for their first day here, and we started out their first full day at our favorite breakfast place, thanks to my friend Lisa.  You can't beat a place with the name of Bacon and Butter!

                                                                                                                                                                             Pop and Libby faking asleep

Next stop was the new R.C. Willey store that opened that day in the boundaries of our mission.  It was fun to see Scott in his pre mission element, if only for an hour or so. 

Sam was barely a year old the last time we saw him so I was worried he wouldn't remember us.  I don't know if he remembered, but it didn't take long for him to warm right up to us.  I consider that a mission blessing!  We hit it right off!!!

We went from there to Old Town Sacramento.  We visited The California Railroad Museum, a very quirky toy store that the kids, and Mike, loved.  And walked to the Tower Bridge.  

This toy store had it all, something for everyone, and then some.  It even had a replica of the 'ask Zoltar' booth from the movie BIG.  We had to stage a photo that looked like Libby wished to be big, and poof, there she was!

                                                           
Not to be outdone, Mike found a video game from his childhood, and was in heaven.

James had a hard time making a decision on his purchase, and Sammy just wanted every ball in sight.

Old Town Sac and then we finished the day with a stop at Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates

Thursday morning we said goodbye to Hermana Sumner, we sure do love this darling sister. 

Then it was off to the North Sac District Meeting.  From there we parted ways with Scott, who stayed to do more work, and we headed to the Crocker Art Museum.  It's a great museum that I had been to before, but I had never seen their awesome kid rooms.  The kids had a great time, as did the adults.

After the museum it was back to the airport to pick up 'Uncle Preston'.  He flew in from Utah for the weekend. He figured it was cheaper for him to buy a plane ticket to Sacramento to see the Bergesons, than it would be for him to get himself to Richmond.  We loved having him here for the weekend.  

Friday we went to the office to show them where we 'work' and to meet some of our senior missionaries.  Sister Skank is wonderful, she loves to crochet and when she found out three of our grandchildren were coming, she made them these darling crochet giraffes.  They loved them and I've never seen anything so adorable.

The kids are comfortable in the President's office.

Once again, Scott had to stay behind, but we went to Fairy Tale Town and showed them around downtown Sac.

               

              

Friday night we went COMPLETELY out of our element and went to Monster Jam at the Golden 1 Center.  We've never been to a Monster Truck event, and I can probably say with certainty, that we never will again (unless another grandchild wants to go), but when James says "This is better than cake, and better than Santa" what is a grandparent supposed to do? He did change his tune a bit after it was over.  It was still better than cake, but not quite as good as Santa.  We did have fun and it was a new cultural experience for us.  #goearthshaker

Hands down, the kids very favorite thing was swimming in January.  Well, swimming anytime, but that it was January, and James' school was cancelled because of snow, made it that much sweeter. They now think a mission is the best because you get to swim.  I didn't have the heart to tell them we have never been in the pool or hot tub unless family is here.  We'll let them keep thinking of missions in the very most positive way for a while longer.

My favorite thing was just having these cute faces in our home for a week.

Highlight for James, after Monster Jam and Swimming was finding the cleaning supplies and cleaning windows, mirrors, and especially the vacuum.

We did sneak away on Saturday night for an adult only dinner, and then we had to say goodbye to Preston on Sunday.

It's also a must to eat lunch outside at Selland's, it's especially nice to eat outside in January! And we made a run up to Placerville.  We also had our assistants and office elders over for dinner.  Libby may or may not have a little crush on all of these Elders.  

The rest of their time here was spent with us at Zone Conferences and doing other missionary related things.  It has been such a blessing for us to have each of our married children be able to attend a Zone Conference with us and introduce them to our missionaries.  And of course, Ethan and Preston are well known and loved by our entire mission.  We are all in this together, and for that I am very grateful.  We had a wonderful visit and loved having them here so much.  Come back soon!!!

We also had a visit from our friends and Centerville neighbors, Elder and Sister Joel and Marilyn Hale.  They have been serving a mission in Oakland and were on their way home.  We are on the way and so they were able to stop by for a visit.  This is the third mission they have served, two in Ghana, and this one in Oakland.  They are an inspiration.  Marilyn said they keep going so other couples will realize they can do it too.  And missionary blessings aren't bad either!