Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Home Sweet Home

What a great reunion with our wonderful children and grandchildren! Wasn't this such a fun banner on our garage. I should have gotten a better picture of it before it was taken down. I always have so many regrets when it comes to taking pictures! (Even though Scott thinks all I do is take pictures, I always feel like I didn't get the ones I wanted.)
BUT at least we got the most important picture - us with the grandkids! We also had a fantastic barbecue, THANKS for the fun party and Welcome Home Pete, Angie and BJ, David and Angela, and Sarah and Joe. Like Dorothy says: "There's no place like home!"

Abby, Lizzie, Scott holding Elise, Quintin, Eli, Jonah and me!
My children came the Saturday before and scrubbed the house and made this cute banner. I guess a whole army of friends from the ward came and pulled weeds out of the flower beds and garden spot and planted flowers! It looked so beautiful. I will take a picture of that sometime and post it.
Grandma getting to know Missy Elise Kristine Allen! (She was born just a few weeks into our mission)


Hanging out in the kitchen with friends and family catching up on the last year! That Pete, he always has to make a face! We love you Pete! Thanks for doing your best to take care of our house and dog! We were so happy to see Dutch still alive and the house still standing :) PS Pete, the driveway looked FANTASTIC!

Monday, August 15, 2011

Driving Home to Utah!

I can't believe it's been 4 weeks since I last posted! It has been a super busy time rearranging and de-cluttering and de-junking our home! Not to mention catching up with our grandchildren, children, parents, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. So I will start with our trip home!

We drove home by way of Dallas and then up to the Oklahoma City Temple. We also went and saw the monument they built in Oklahoma City for the bombing victims at the Federal Building, it was so beautifully done. Why is it taking them so long with the 9/11 monument in New York City? Unfortunately, I packed away our charger for the camera and didn't get too many pictures of the trip home. Funny side note, the alarm on our clock/radio that we packed away, kept going off, we finally had to unpack a bunch of stuff to get to it to turn it off. I just figured that it would be fine once unplugged, I didn't realize it had a battery in it!
We spent our 2nd night in Colby, Kansas where we stayed in a hotel that was worse than the Bates motel!!! The next day we drove to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and had a wonderful reunion with Scott's parents. Karen and Kyle and Jayne were there and so was Clark and Wendi's daughter Sydney. It was a very nice and relaxing 24 hours, wish we could have stayed longer! We then drove on to Vernal and saw Dad and Lu. My dad is now in a Care Center and that was very hard to see him there but I know that Lu has done all she can to take care of him.


Beautiful skyline of Dallas, Texas



Our trip was a long drive, about 8 hours each day the first 3 days and then a 3 hour drive to my dad's and 3 1/2 the next day to Farmington. We did stretch it out but it was okay. Unfortunately the Monday before we left I started having some kind of wierd pain in my stomach that we are still trying to figure out what it is. I had such a bad attack in Vernal that we made an appointment with Dr. Hibbard and that was the 1st place we stopped when we got into Farmington. I've had 2 expensive tests on my gallbladder (that's really what I thought it was) but they were both negative and this week I'm having a test on my stomach to see if I have an ulcer. Scott and I have been doing some research and think it might be what they call the "MS hug", let's hope and pray it's not that because I don't think there's an easy fix for that! Luckily it's not every day and it lasts only an hour or two, not all day long like the first day I got it.

Life with MS is always a big unknown adventure!


Here's Sister Carrie's bear watching as we drive from Houston, Texas to Farmington, Utah. Sister Carrie, if you're reading this I want you to know that I love your bear and am taking good care of it for you!
Below is Elder Stringfellow tying Hermana Maxwell's bike to the top of our car! OH HOW WE LOVE AND MISS THE MISSIONARIES!!!