Living/Loving life in the moment - Loyelyn Lewis Aceves

 Yesterday we attended the celebration of life for one of Paul’s cousins in Taylor AZ. I didn’t know her but it was so wonderful to hear about her from her siblings, children and grandchildren. What an impactful life she led by taking advantage of living/loving in the moment with her family. Paul comes from an amazing, loving family heritage. We don’t see many of them very often, but it’s a wonderful time when we do. Paul and I drove over with Jim and Anna Lou riding along. We listened to a good book going and coming back which made the drive pleasant. The funeral dinner was beautifully done with some of the best BBQ pork sands/salads/ham and beans/brownies ever! Covid was forgotten for this event.

Pics: Anna Lou, Sheree and Judy - the living Roger's girls. 2 of the grandsons sang the Primary song, Pray, He is There doing a beautiful job singing and playing the guitar and Ukulele.

These are pictures I took on a morning walk with Paul and Jim.  I had never before heard of this area being called Bellybutton USA.  We saw some other fun and pretty stuff on our walk as well.  

May birthdays starring...the Smiths!

Life gets busy with missions, sports and just life in general...but we finally got them all birthdayed!  

Happy #19 Kaebri, Happy #9 Trigg, and Happy #13 Zade!  Lots of good things happening with these kids.  So proud of all of them and happy to see them moving forward in great ways in their lives! And love them all lots!  I know their mom is busting her buttons proud of them too!  

We also got to watch Trigg play his last game of the season on Zade's actual birthday!  He's a great little player and loves to slide into home...even when he doesn't have to!  
 

Happy Mother’s Day!

Hey everybody! Yippee 👏 

So excited about our new deebot droid house elf!  No more trying not to walk barefoot on the floors. All of that red dirt, etc. will get slurped up!  And I don’t even have to have a 🐶.   Cockroaches will starve.  Thanks to all for this great gift🥰❤️

From school-so cute and each so unique!

Ross and Jenae made these for the Lillywhite Mother's and one for James too.  So Pretty and perfect present for this stone loving family!  

Kaebri's temple endowment day at the Cedar City Temple

 It was a beautiful, windy Cedar City type day. We had to be there at 2:45, the whole group could only be up to 16 people because of Covid concerns. After all of the last group left we went in. Kaebri and I went with some lady temple workers to get dressed in our temple clothes and so she could go through the initiatory work and get the new name. I went to get the new name and then waited (I was her excort) for her. Then she and I got to meet with one of the assistant temple matrons and have a lovely talk about the initiatory and the garments and other things about the temple that were very helpful in preparing Kaebri and a great refresher and updating for me. Then we joined everyone waiting for us in the chapel and went up to do the endowment session. There was much sanitizing of hands and some pretty big changes in the way tokens were given, but it was still the same teachings. Some updates included more participation from women, which was nice to see and probably long overdue. After we all went through the veil we enjoyed a sweet time in the celestial room. After that we met outside for a few pictures and then went to Milt's up Cedar Canyon for a nice dinner and visiting time. It was a wonderful day for Kaebri and all of us be together and celebrate this great event in her life and in her mission preparation. So glad we could go back to the temple finally for this special event. I have missed the temple and hope it won't be long until it will finally be more accessible.

Great date night fun - Happy Earth Day!

 

We walked Dog Town Wash up and back for the end of our date night.  It was as beautiful as ever with wild flowers blooming and rocks being so amazing and full of variety.  An owl hooted to us on the way back as the sun was getting low.  The sounds of water flowing over the rock and frogs croaking added to the wonderfulness of it all.  I love getting out and enjoying the beauties of God's creations.  It's a drink of water to a thirsty soul. It fills me to the brim and overflowing.   Happy Earth Day to us from Heavenly Father!

 Date night walk a few weeks ago.  Jenny's Canyon at Snow Canyon.  

A Wonderful, Joyful day for Bean (and us)!

 I can't think of much that could have made this Sabbath day any better.  We started out prepared with all things in readiness for things to take place later on (food preparations that Bean and I took care of yesterday mostly).  It was a beautiful day weather wise.  Paul and I got up and took a walk in the cool of the morning and listened to scriptures for the Come Follow Me lesson and a podcast to go with it.  I made a really nice breakfast and Paul got off to his meetings.  Even though our fridge went out on Friday, thankfully we have a freezer and old fridge in the garage that are taking up that slack until we can (hopefully soon) get the part to have the fridge fixed completely under warranty.  We went to church and I got to give the opening prayer and for once I didn't get all choked up and could say what I felt I wanted to without having too much emotion get in the way.  The speakers today were YSA that Paul and I have both worked with and seen good things happen in the process.  They both gave wonderful talks from the heart.  And it was just a good day to greet many as they arrived.  

Afterwards we got home and I did some YSA computer updates and then called several that we hadn't seen in a while and was able to get some moved out to where they are now and invite some that are still here to come and join us.  Hopefully they will.  Then we had a wonderful, simple dinner of grilled salmon, rice pilaf and broccoli.  (I didn't over eat all day).  

Then we went down to the church so Bean could get re-baptized/confirmed.  He has worked with two bishops in his SA Ward and with our home stake president toward this for quite some time.  And today, April 18th, 2021, was the big day when it could finally happen for him! Both bishops, the counselors and their wives, the stake president and two other men who have been very influential and meaningful friends to Bean, and the high councilor of their ward, all of our kids, spouses and grandkids except Beacher and Jem, Derek and Trigg, Jay and Brynn and girls were able to come.  Kaebri set up Zoom for those not able to attend and took care of everything for that for us.  And Grandma even felt able to attend.  So much wonderful love and support was there for Bean.  Bean's bishop did a beautiful job of conducting the meeting.  Paul did the baptism and confirmation.  Christie and Brady were the witnesses.  I gave the opening prayer and Kris Johnson gave the closing prayer.  It was a wonderful meeting. (Tavin is on his mission, so he missed it.)

All of the family came to the house afterwards and the evening was beautiful and cool.  We sat outside and enjoyed cheesecake/and or brownies with many toppings and an evening of visiting.  Bean did his eat and run thing.  He's not much into sitting around talking with a big group, but I do think he was touched by their support in being here for him at this special time.  

Sarai brought down some sweet thank you notes and cute little things she made for Paul and I (for her birthday presents) which we read before she and her family headed up the hill.  

It was a pretty much perfect, best ever, shout for joy day! (Should have taken more pics, but I was too busy just enjoying the day.)

 

April - Christie #33, Essie #7, and lot of other fun!

Christie, Moss and family were in the middle of moving to a new house right during her birthday.  We dropped something off in kind of a hurry so as not to get in the way of their hard work!  Another long evening we went down to see the new statues at the Town Square!  On a Saturday afternoon, Paul, Bean and I took our bike up to Pine Valley to ride the bike trails/road.  There was still some snow to impede some shady spots, but it was still a lot of fun!  

Easter came the same day as General Conference!  What a wonderful day and way to remember our Savior's wonderful sacrifice and all of the blessings that come to us through it!  
 

On the last day of Easter Break we took a drive to Seegmiller Peak on the Arizona Strip.  Almost got stuck one time, saw some new scenery and enjoyed a picnic lunch looking at these cool rocks.  The cute lizard is on our front porch!  Paul made it, of course.  

Sometimes I take some wonderful walks on the Red Hill behind our house.  It does my soul good.  It did this little bird's soul good too - he was singing away! 

 

This Saturday we took a couple of hikes.  We wanted to do Spring Creek, but there were so many people there that we went a couple of canyons down and did Camp Creek instead.  The only other person we saw there was a Zion Park ranger there doing a check on it.  We did about 6.9 miles there in and out.  Then even though it was late afternoon, we went back and did another few miles into Spring Creek after some of the crowd had clear out.  All in all, it ended up being about 10 miles.  We haven't hiked that much for a long time because of Paul's bad foot.  He stuck out the pain and enjoyed it in spite of.  

We had another family dinner and it was good again.  Ferf and Ryan livened things up by bringing 2 new cars for people to take rides in.  Kennis worked on teaching Tasia to learn stick shift on the new Jeep and Ferf and Ryan showed us what it's like to ride in a brand new very FAST car!  And everyone is so glad to start getting to know the Jem child at last!  Knick names are coming for him - Jem Bob, Jemster...

Some more stone art ala the grand kids artistes (to go with Paul's big lizard).

And here's our Sweet Essie, such a cutie, on her 7th birthday, and our last of the April birthdays!  She said it was a great day and especially loved going out for dinner with her dad and having a giant bear pancake made especially for her!!!

March birthdays - Ferf and Sarai and Joel (celebrated) and other March fun!

 Ferf is so busy that trying to find time to celebrate her birthday must have just been too much of a chore.  We just dropped by a gift that afternoon and wished her a happy birthday on the front porch.  She didn't even have any birthday ideas...so a nice card and some green bills and chocolate pretty much had filled the bill.  Happy #43 Ferf!  We love you! 

Joel and Sarai both had birthdays in March too.  We got to enjoy Joel's (#7) at his house with the Randall's and Bryan's folks were there too.  We celebrated with Saria (#10) at our first after-covid family dinner!  

                                An evening walk at Snow Canyon....finally, longer evenings!

A great Saturday morning - a bike ride in Snow Canyon and soccer games for Eliza and Kai!