Aaron and Claudine's Wedding

Don't you love Ken's hair this way?
This is a rare moment.... us dancing!












At this poignant moment of the ceremony, Laura dropped Tanner's cheerio container and it rattled and rolled all the way into the pool. Luckily, Claudine and Aaron never even noticed. Of course 99 % of the guests did!











No cake smashing into that pretty face! A teasing, but well manner groom he was.









Wasn't Claudine a radiant bride? That's Suzanne's Lilly in her arms, cheesing it up.

Disney Days Plus

Recently we spent a long weekend in Orlando. 3 days in the Magic Kingdom one on one with each family. One day with the Henrys, one day with the Engels, and one day with the Peltz's. This ride on the Jungle Cruise with the Jackson, Lilly and Suzanne worked well because it wasn't "in the dark".












This is Tyson (7) and Tate (4) Henry. The park was packed. I think every school district in Florida had the same long weekend as Pasco and Hillsborough counties. We arrived on Friday morning at 8am for a "Character Breakfast" in the Crystal Palace and stayed until 6:30pm. The Henry's stayed for the parade and fireworks, a full 12 hours of Magic! I was asleep by 8pm in our Maitland hotel where Ken had a pharmacy conference. Woke up the next morning with killer shin splints!



The weather was perfect, not too cold, not too hot. We'd never seen the park decorated for Halloween before.




Switched hair stylists and salons to help revamp my look for Aaron's wedding next week.
I love my hair! We have an amazing stylist, and I'm keeping her a secret.

Happy 4th of July, Portugal style!

Enjoyed an evening visit with President
and Sister Henry and old friends from
Florida, Marc and Juli Bernhisel. They
were enroute to Barcelona, and Czech.
to visit President and Sister Slovacek.

Beauty All Around

This is the Douro River looking westward toward
the Atlantic Ocean. We enjoyed the quiet beauty
of the gardens. This is an image we don't want to
forget!

The Farewell Inspection Tour

I'm not going to show you their sparkling apartments, only their sparkling smiles!

Elders Sand, Blankenship, Warby, Cibrian and French having fun in Aveiro.

Elders Spiel and Whitaker in their Ovar garden paradise.













Elders Krumm, Canguia, French, Zacheu, and Doty working hard as usual.
















Elders Winters, French & Curtis showing off their pin maps.
Their apartment is the cleanest so far.

Going Forward with Faith.....

We are busy inspecting missionary apartments the last 4 weeks here in Portugal. We have made a few wrong turns, but seen even more of the beauty of Portugal. It's wonderful getting to visit everyone 2 on 2, one more time. We love these faithful servants of the Lord!

After all the wrong turns, we finally went out and bought the mission a GPS system. President Henry wanted us to buy it, try it out, then teach them how to use it so the new mission President won't have to make so many wrong turns next July. It's really like a Liahona. It requires faith, especially when you don't have any clue where you're going. Isn't that true of every step we make as we progress in life? We never know the outcome, but go forward having faith that if we do our part, the Lord will guide us along safely. Don't you just love the Gospel?

Feeling guilty

This may not look as yummy as it tasted, but believe me, it was delicious!

Feeling guilty.....

Staying home on Sundays is a rarity for us. Being sick is not fun, but we made the best of it. I made my traditional potatoes,ham,onions and egg hash for breakfast(going to fast next Sunday). Since they don't have hickory smoked anything here in Portugal,except for Oscar Mayer bacon, I had saved up some bacon grease to flavor the onions and ham before adding 4 potatoes and 2 beaten eggs. Topping it all off with generous shakes of pepper, garlic powder and salt made it taste just like home. At least that's what Elder French said. Personally, I couldn't taste much of anything, just a bit of salt.

First Attempt

After reading a dozen or more blogs today, I feel compelled to join the throng. Suzanne really opened my eyes to the whole blogshere. I'll be happy if my family checks in from time to time. The truth is, staying home for 2 days because of a cold, has given me a bit of extra time to experiment.