Mowing Day!

 Perfect weather to mow a lawn...or acres. Looks WAY better. So NICE!!

Jeff

Another Ranch Day

Just another beautiful day at the ranch!  The weather is getting cool, and the animals are looking nice!  I love the evening sunsets!

 

Cousin Fun

The kids' cousin, Danyon Gedris, is working at the MTC.  Talmage was lucky enough to run into him!  He sent me this photo to brighten my day!  So happy for these little blessings!  Talmage is doing well!  It's about time to fly down to St. George and start his first area!

 

Final Co-op Open House

It is hard to express how much joy our co-op has been to us in our homeschool journey!  The kids have made so many friends!  They have taken so many wonderful classes!  Most of all, I would say is the great families we have come to love!  I have had the privilege to be the chair of the co-op for the last 5 or so years.  It has been a lot of work, but so worth it!  The ladies are my good friends!  It was worth driving out each week to spend the day with them to finish out the semester.  It was quite crazy, and honestly way too much of a hassle to continue, but I'm grateful we finished out like we did.  Amanda Hull is taking my place and several other wonderful ladies are stepping up to fill in the needs of the board.  We never would have started homeschooling if we didn't have the co-op to join.  

It was an emotional night! Amanda even had a parting gift to me from the ladies.  Seriously, made me cry!  Pamela was so sweet to set that up.  We will miss all of our wonderful friends!  We also look forward to arranging time to spend together in the future!  Just because we moved doesn't mean we can't still be friends!

 

Ranch Kids

Sandra had fun taking photos of the kids during our ranch day!  Just missing the oldest :)

Oh, and there is actual photo evidence of Jeff petting a Bison.  It doesn't happen very often!  Really, she was just looking for more cubes ;).

 

Bye-bye Elder

We had the kids say good-bye at home before we took Talmage to the airport.  Poor Lorna was really sad.  One of the photos the kids are pretending to be sad... I'm not sure how sad everyone really was, but it is a change that's for sure.  This is the last time Talmage and Grant will see each other for over two years!  

When we got to the airport, we got his luggage all weighed and checked in.  We had a bit of time to hang out before it was time to head into security.  Talmage will be serving the Lord as he goes to St. George, UT.  This is a blessing to Talmage as much as to the people.  We are excited to see him learn and grow over these next two years!  We love you!

Oh, and a bonus, we got a text with a photo of him while at DFW airport.  Such a cool surprise!  Now time for the in person MTC for a couple weeks then onto the mission field!

 

Last Meal

For our last night together, we let Talmage pick our dinner location.  He loves IHOP so off we went.  The dinner was super slow and a bit frustrating, but we had a good time anyway.  They offered us free hot chocolate to make it up to us so that helped.  It made for a good memory :)  

 

MTC Life

Online MTC is kind of nice.  Talmage does zoom classes and has breaks to eat and visit with us.  It's been fun to see him learning and growing.  He is loving being a missionary so far!  He is trying to be obedient and wake up on time and go to bed on time.  It's a bit of an adjustment for the family, but a good one :).  He is tired and ended up taking a nap between classes one day!

Now that Talmage has a nice short missionary hair cut it was time to update his missionary photo for facebook.  I think the photos turned out nice :).  He will be flying out before we know it!  

Little Elder Williams

Grant got his mission call today!  It was awesome because Talmage is still home for the opening!  He is very excited about his call to the Idaho Pocatello Mission, English speaking.  He starts his mission on February 14th!  He is really excited about his call!  This is where Jeff's dad grew up.  It was fun for him to talk to Grandpa and for Grandpa to be excited about Grant visiting his "old stomping grounds."  Now time to prep Grant with everything he needs :)!

Flat!

On the way home from the Chiropractor, I hit a metal lined curb and totally blew out the tire on Pepe.  Ugh.  I had 5 kids with me, and Jeff was gone to Arlington.  I found a nice guy at the local tire shop to give me a hand.  Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out how to get the spare out from under the truck bed. That meant we needed a tire repair.  They didn't have my tire there, but there was a tire shop down the road that had something that would work.  He drove me down there and I bought a new tire and then he drove me back and put on the tire.  It was a great blessing.  

When I talked to Jeff again, he told me what I should have done... the tire should have gone to Discount, since it was still under warranty, so no cost to us.  Also, the tool we needed to get the spare out was behind the back of the backseat.  Let's just say that the day could have gone a ton better.