We finished off Zone Conferences and got home late Friday evening and then headed to the airport to pick up our son Ethan and his wife Camee early Saturday morning. We headed into Sacramento to have brunch and to show them some of our favorite Wide Open Walls murals.
All four of us agreed that we would try to adopt the messages on this sign as our new mantra
Then it was back to the airport to pick up our second wave of visitors. Our son Preston came along with our son Alex, his wife Allie and two of our darling grandchildren, Hannah and Porter.
Due to the bad air in Sacramento, we headed straight to our home, where the air was much better. Luckily, the only thing the kids, big and little, wanted to do was swim and it was warm enough, and I heated the pool hot enough to allow them to enjoy it.
Ready to hit the pool
We went to dinner that night at our favorite place in Cameron Park, which was convenient since we had to speak in the El Dorado Stake Conference that evening, so we went there and the kids came back to the house.
These were some common sights at our house over the next few days and I loved it.
I loved finding Porter's giraffe resting in my copper mugs!
Scott has a pretty stressful job, day and night, and no one can loosen him up like his boys. Not even me.
In between continual mission work, we were able to sneak away for some fun. We went to Apple Hill one afternoon. It is one of my favorite places in our mission, especially this time of year.
We also spent an afternoon at Top Golf which was a blast!
The kids loved the arcade way more than they loved golfing
We had fun playing games after the kids had gone to bed, and just loved being together. We had to say goodbye to Ethan and Camee on Wednesday because she hadn't spent Thanksgiving with her family for two years because she was on her mission for the past two years. That afternoon, Allie, Hannah and I went to see the musical of Rudolph. It was darling and got us in the Christmas spirit.
We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving with just the seven of us.
Hannie loves sleeping on our floor when she comes to visit, and one night I came in and she had the snake she got for her souvenir haloed around her head and she looked so darling. Also, I don't love this picture of me, but Porter looks adorable, and I had to document that he actually liked, even loved me this time around. When he was a baby, he loved me, then we left and he didn't see us often. Of all of our grandkids, he is the only one who really hasn't cared for me and hasn't wanted much to do with me. Alex and Allie have felt so bad, and I have told them that I know he is going to like me someday so I wasn't worried about it. My goal this time around was to get in his good graces and I was thrilled that I succeeded. It took a minute or two, but he warmed up to me and was darling, and now I believe we are very good friends again, which I'm very happy about!!!
We said goodbye to Alex, Allie, Hannah and Porter on Friday, and I have said it before and I'll continue to say it for as long as we are here; I love it when they come and I hate it when they leave. But I am SO grateful that we are close enough that they can come! We absolutely loved every minute of having them here and had such a wonderful time with them.
Look at Hannah's face, she doesn't like goodbyes either! We got to keep Preston here for a few more days and then he had to leave on Sunday. We get to see him again in about a month, when finals are over!!!
We definitely know our way to the airport. We wish we had kept a running tab of how many times we have gone to the airport. In this week alone we made 5 trips, and had one more to make on Monday. Scott says we might be on someone's watch list, I would imagine there is no one that goes to the airport, with hardly ever getting on a plane, more than we do.
Sunday night we had a great New Member Fireside. We started having these firesides 3 months ago. We hold a fireside on the 4th Sunday of the month and we invite 3 recently baptized new members to speak and tell about their conversion. We invite the missionaries to invite their friends they are teaching, recent converts, less active and active members to come. It is one of the best meetings we have, the spirit is so incredibly strong when new members bear testimony and share their experiences. We have had it in three different Stakes so far, and this time we did it in the Folsom Stake and had it at the church by the temple. We had about 320 people there and it was amazing. The missionaries are so excited to come, they work hard to get friends to attend so they can attend. And they have to come with a member, and so that gets members involved and excited about missionary work. As we were sitting on the stand before the meeting started, it really wasn't very reverent. Missionaries and members were coming in and greeting each other they hadn't seen in a while, and as I sat there and watched these greetings it made me think that this is what heaven is going to be like. We are all going to be so excited to see people we love that we haven't seen in a long time, and I think there will be joyful noise there too. We loved this meeting and can't wait for the next one.
On Monday we welcomed two new missionaries to the mission. This was our 6th trip to the airport in a week. We got two new Hmong speaking missionaries. The Hmong language is taught at the MTC on it's own schedule and is 9 weeks long and so when we get Hmong missionaries they always come in a week before the rest of our new missionaries. It is so fun for us to get Hmong missionaries because one of our dear former missionaries, Sister Cha, teaches them in the MTC and so we get regular reports and updates from her on how they are doing, and I know she talks up the mission to those coming here. It is fun when we finally meet them, because we feel we know them and they feel they know us because of Sister Cha. Elder Seely and Elder Swainston are terrific and are going to be great missionaries.
They jumped in with both feet. Elder Swainston headed down to Stockton and Elder Seely to North Sacramento, where the next day he was able to participate in the marriage of two couples who had to get married in order to get baptized this coming Saturday. He arrived just in time to be here for 7 baptisms that will take place Saturday. That's not exactly common place, but we aren't going to tell him that. We want him to believe this can happen every transfer!
We have much to be thankful for. One of my favorite gratitude quotes is: "The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see". How grateful I am for the beautiful life I have been blessed to live. It's not perfect, and it's definitely not easy, but looking through the lens of gratitude it truly is a beautiful life. Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday because it is all about gathering and gratitude and reflection on all of our blessings. We have been and continue to be abundantly blessed and for that we are humbled and very very grateful!
