A Saturday ride with friends.

Dave and I went on a 24 mile bike ride with Scott and Steph Bauer.  We rode the Ogden City Parkway trail.  It was pouring rain at times, but we had a great time.

 

 On the way back we stopped at Kneaders for breakfast.  I refused to take off my helmut.  My hair would have looked pretty disgusting, between the sweat and rain effect. So yeah, I looked a bit strange eating with it on.  But whatever.

Family Time

Since moving back to our old house, we have been able to have lots of wonderful family time again.

 

 

 Two weeks ago we celebrated the birthdays of these two beauties.  I was even able to use our ice cream maker, which has been in storage for the past seven months.  We all missed eating homemade raspberry ice cream.  It is a family favorite, for sure!

 

Family time wiped this little guy right out.

It was a near-perfect evening.  The only improvement would have been to have Steph, Jared and Shad with us.  Someday . . .

Back to real life . . .

The second half of August was a very emotional one for me.  As things fell through on the sale of our former home in Pleasant View, we ended up moving out of our apartment in Salt Lake City and back to PV.  The great part of all of this is that we are back near our family.  But I am having a little grieving moment about having to leave the city.

 

A few of the things I will miss:

 

 The view from our balcony.

 

 

 Walking down the hall to throw out our rubbish. 

 

Being within walking distance of the temple, family history center, and great shopping. I loved my 5 minute walk to the grocery store. We walked to all kinds of fun events downtown as well.

 Walking to the most wonderful little eateries.

My morning runs along South temple and 1st Avenue.

 

Never having to weed "my gardens", haha.(Also never having to mow the lawn or shovel snow) 

 

 

The 5 minute walk to "church" at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

 

We will still be serving in the homeless branch.  It will just be an hour commute instead.

I know there is a reason for everything and although I'm sad, I'm also happy about being able to spend so much more time with the fam.  So, it's all good, just an adjustment again.  Urban life was fun while it lasted.  Back to suburbia now.

Killing time

Holly and Cody sold their house.  The day they had to be out of it I drove up to help them.  Holly said it would help the most to take the kids somewhere so she could finish cleaning.  She gave me three free passes to the Treehouse Children's Museum in Ogden.  So that is where we headed to kill a few hours.  It ended up being so much fun.

 

 

 

Afterwards, as we were walking through "Fat Cats" arcade to go back to our car I noticed that they had a 99 cent special that day for the bumper cars.  So what the hey, I let the kids have a go at it.  Olivia even got to drive her own.  Haha, her eyes kind of make her look like an alien in a spaceship.

 

They were the only three kids riding the bumper cars, which was nice.

We stayed away long enough for Holls to get her old house cleaned up.  And we had a great time!

The Rio Grande Branch Presidency

A week or two after moving to Salt Lake City we were called by our Stake President to serve in the Rio Grande Branch, which serves the people who live in The Road Home homeless shelter.  The people we serve with in this calling are amazing.

 

 

 President John and Shelley Garrett, Elder Van and Sister Betsy Peterson, Dave and I, Scott and Becca Stowers, and Phil and Carlisle Carroll.

 Shelley is the Relief Society President, I am RS secretary and ward organist, Betsy is a service missionary, Carlisle is RS 2nd Counselor, and Becca is RS 1st Counselor.

 Dave is Branch Clerk and Executive Secretary, Scott is 1st Counselor, Van is a service missionary, John (Pres. Garrett) is the Branch President, and Phil is 2nd Counselor.

We met at the Garrretts home for a cookout.  There is one other missionary couple, the Stewarts, who serve with us. But they were not there that night.  There are only the six couples who are not homeless.  Everyone else in the branch lives at the homeless shelter.  So far, since we only meet for Sacrament Meeting at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, we don't have any others who serve in callings in the branch.  We are hoping to be able to get our own building to meet in this coming October.  When we do that we will be able to hold other meetings as well.  Even though we are moving back to Pleasant View soon, Dave and I have decided to continue to serve in this branch where we are so very needed.