April 2022 (including Easter)

 I started showing homes to Bob and Melissa Brady on April 1 and they closed on a house on April 26th!!  Such a pleasant process with them.  They knew what they wanted, we found it and it all fell into place perfectly!  So happy for them!

Celebration lunch at Los Hermanos in Orem!  Marissa painted this beautiful picture of their new home for them!  So happy for them!

I did a volunteer shift at T-Point for the Tulip Festival on opening day.  Things were just starting to pop open! I was a water watcher which meant I kept little kids from going in the fountains.  It was really boring and the one group of kids I had to gently remind to not get in them looked at me like I was the wicked witch of the west!  I didn't volunteer for that position again.  I did volunteer to be a golf cart trainer which was pretty fun and busy and I did a shift cutting tulips for bouquets for guests.  I really like volunteering because I get to pick and choose what I do and I get to spend time in the gorgeous Ashton Gardens!

Some of my Easter decorations and our Easter dinner!  I didn't get too many pictures of Easter but we had a fun group; Joni's gang, Garrett, Louise and their two kids (so fun to have a baby in the house), Becca, Eric, Hannah's family and us.

Joni made this beautiful and delicious cake!

Violet and I made cute little gingerbread (graham cracker) houses for peeps!

Cute grandbaby, Vera!

Look at these cute little San Antonio Easter bunnies!

Another one of my volunteering assignments has been to glue caterpillar chrysalis's onto string so that they can hang in climate controlled glass booths until they emerge as butterflies!  It's a very brainless and tedious job, but I kind of love it!  It's fun to see them wiggle and know that there are little bugs inside each of them transforming into something beautiful!

My ERA office had a special office zoo day at the Hogle Zoo.  I took Violet and we had a fun time.  It was cold and rainy so we didn't stay long, but what we saw we enjoyed.  It was a fun one on one date with my little girlfriend!  ERA served us lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs at the start.

I love her yellow rain jacket and red boots!

The polar bear was awesome!  He was doing his afternoon exercise swim.  It was a perfect polar bear day, cold and dreary!!

Our family friend, Kathy Kinney, came up and spent the night with us on Sunday, April 24th.  She and I met her sister and some of her sister's family at the Tulip Festival on Monday afternoon.  They rented a cart and I was the driver/chauffeur/guide!  It was a fun adventure and they all loved it!

Hannah, Chase and Violet took a fun family vacation to southern California!  They stayed with Seth and Kim for a couple of nights and stayed in a hotel in Newport Beach for a couple of nights.  The main event for them was taking Violet to Disneyland and the beach!  They all had a blast.  Hannah sent me some pictures and I love them all!

Riding the ferry to Balboa Island!

We had a fun Brazil missionary reunion on Friday, April 29th, in Provo.  We are so happy we live here so that we can go to things like this!  We got to attend an endowment session at the Provo City Center Temple with President and Sister Thomas and some of the young missionaries who served in Brazil with them.  That was really special.  Then afterwards, Mike and I went to dinner at the Olive Garden in Provo and then to the reunion at a stake center in Provo.  The Barrett's, Passey's, Sherman's and some of our other senior couple friends were there as well as a few of the younger missionaries that we knew.  It was a great turnout and a lot of fun catching up with people!  We have some great friends and great memories from our short time there!

President Tom and Sister Ellen Thomas

April was a beautiful month with lots of Spring events and beautiful flowers and trees!  I love Spring and everything that it brings!  I love General Conference which is the first weekend in April and all the messages of love and hope that we hear during those two days of talks from our church leaders!  President Nelson, our prophet, gave a beautiful talk on how to gain spiritual momentum.  He suggested these 5 things:

Happy April!  Bring on May, the month of Sue!!