Who wants to be my BFF?

Katie, Kimberly and I had a whirlwind trip to Chicago this past weekend. I had a blast. One of the things we did to make us laugh was look at every stranger we met as our new BFF. We journaled our happenstance meeting with them. Cracked me up.

I think we wound up with 20 new BFFs. It made it a little easier talking to people, knowing that we could then add them to our book.

Above you see Penny, who I believe is from Valparaiso, IN. She is a single mother of two teenagers, a boy and a girl. They are her niece and nephew that she adopted when they were 5 and 7 (or something like that!!). What a dedicated mother she is. We had a great visit while riding on the South Shore Line which travels in to Chicago from Indiana. (We actually had a motel in Indiana. . .40 minutes south east of Chicago . . .a great bargain of a room). We had nearly 40 minutes to visit and I REALLY liked her; I think if I lived near her, we truly could have been BFF!! ((Penny, if you read this, I mean it!! Pinky Promise.))

Here we are sitting atop the Grey Line Double Decker Bus. . .We took an abbreviated tour which should have lasted 2 hours but wound up being about 1/2 hour. . . We stopped to ride up to the top of the Sears Tower and when we got back down . . the Tour Bus was gone with no others scheduled to come to that location!!! The girls tried chasing one down with me huffing and puffing, but to no avail. In spite of this, we totally loved our experience on foot in downtown Chicago.

Tomorrow we leave for Kimberly's BYU Graduation!! Now, THAT makes me feel . . . . .proud, happy and a little old.

Fifty What!!

This is my husband in action. We played a few little games following lunch today and I caught him going to some length to "get-that-ball". I showed it to Eric and suggested we make a poster out of it for hisPT office. Then when Leigh goes in for an adjustment, Eric could use it as a visual of things to avoid, if you don't want your knees and back to hurt. Actually, Leigh loves seeing the yard being used by the children and grand children and he loves to help them improve their skills. He couldn't be happier than when out in the yard with the kids.

I know, it just doesn't seem right that time marches on, but it does. It was a crazy week so we got together this afternoon for a birthday dinner/cake/icecream. I had lots of help blowing the candles out, which proved to be pretty funny because they were the non-extinguishable kind and they kept flaring up again. I got more than a little "raspberry" splatter from those cute little boys. We did not actually have the candles on the cake (but sliced bread), which was a good thing, as there was too much spit flying trying to keep them blown out. The cake, which Joslin baked was hot from the oven and we didn't want to risk the candles melting all over it.

We enjoyed a nice Stake Conference this morning and enjoyed the speakers very much. We received a challenge to involve ourselves in service to the community more often, with no expectations. I see that as good advice.

Quick catch up

We did spend Easter up in Utah with our oldest and youngest children. We actually stayed at Kim and Austin's. I cooked some stuff for her since they both are so busy with work and school. I'm glad they found it tasty. Becky and Tom were in Orem, as well. What a fun time we had.
The week prior we spent a little time with Hampton (bearded dragon), Daisy (big dog) and Cocoa (little dog) at Justin and Stacy's while they were on a Greek Vacation. I have some pictures and will try to get some on the blog later.
We have SPRING and Leigh has been so busy working out in the yard. It has really paid off as it looks so nice. We replanted some Iris and hope they will pull through for us.
On May 17 we will be traveling to Rocky Point. We are looking for up to four people to come and spend a little time with us from the 20th to 23rd if anyone is interested. Justin and Stacy will be with us for the first few days. We hope it is warm.