All Children and Most of their Families Have Come to Visit Us This First Year

We have so loved having each of our children come visit while we have been on our mission

First, for her birthday in September, Michael gave Brittany a trip out to see us and the rest of the family.  That was so neat!  We were able to monopolize her one day, taking her to lunch, to our office, and then to see the Discovery Zone.

She then spent a couple of days in Provo, where we were all able to take in a Temple session to do sealings. We had planned to do the Provo City Center Temple, but when we went in after taking photos outside, we learned that we had missed the last sealing session.  So we went to the Provo Temple which was fine, too.  It was so fun having her here! That was such a generous thing for Michael to do, and we just loved it sooooo much.  It was hard to let her get on the plane.

Then Clay came for just a few days to help Daeshaun, his "godson", get settled in school.  They spent a night on the floor in our place, and then were able to get him all settled.

Bryan had work downtown one day and popped up to see us. 

And Heather came up, too, when she had a meeting downtown. 

It is always fun "showing off" our kids.

We even had John Morgan here when he came as an interpreter in 

Hiligaynon for General Conference.

When Clay came back and brought his family came over Christmas break, we were able to show them our offices (see the post about their visit) and host them for lunch at the Nauvoo Cafe.

And then Adam kindly made a special stopover here in February while doing work in Sacramento. He looked so good.  He was able to have breakfast with Bryan and Heather, go skiing with Bryan, and then join us for Saturday evening at a rather lame Mexican restaurant.  But the company was great.  In between, we helped him shop for garments and then stopped and got some Dunford donuts for him to take back to Sacramento.

Ben came for just 24 hours in October while on a job recruiting trip.  This has led to his being hired by a new company where he will be located in Denver.  They plan on all moving there over the summer.  And then he was able to spend a night and a day with us in May while here on business.  He was able to see Heather and Bryan in Provo also.

Finally, as part of the family reunion, Matt took time out of their busy schedule to come visit us as well.

At the Plaza fountain

And in our old offices

And looking at all the missions in the world

And visiting our new offices!

Adam and his family were able to come before they went back to Sweden

Ali wasn't with them that day., but we had been with her earlier at the COB while Jill celebrated her birthday.

Having the family come to visit has been just a sweet part of our mission experience!  

The Wonnadunoveritte Reunion

Just before our family reunion at Bear Lake, we had a fun evening reunion with Jill's siblings and their families - Bert and Chris, Skip and Sheila, and Joy and Willi.  It was held at a nearby park.  We prepared pulled pork sandwiches and then everyone brought food.

Besides visiting, each family member put a leaf with their name on it on the correct limb of the family tree that Bert made - it was so awesome.  

Maggie, Natalie, and Bryan

Tana and Chris

Eden and Brooke

Heather, Adam, and JD

Joy and Stacy

Rowan

Bryan, Markus, and JD

Brian, and Tracy

Joy and Heather

Bryan, Markus, and Heather

Willi and Joy

Adam

Peter

Tana

Skip and Sheila

Caroline

Brooke

Eden and Tana

Alison, Adam, and Heather

Wendi

Elizabeth

Bayleigh and Willi

We also did a watermelon explosion experiment that didn't quite work.  A series of rubber bands were put around the center of the melon.  Eventually, the pressure is supposed to cause the melon to break open - it just wasn't happening, so Bryan and Adam hit it on either side at the same time and it popped.  The little kids just scrambled to it with their hands are started digging out the watermelon and eating it as fast as they could!  It was so funny!!

Bert helps as a few more rubber bands are added!

We visit the Church's print shop.

One of the interesting things we were able to do with our MTC activity group was to have a special tour of the Church's print shop.  It was so interesting all that goes on there 

Receiving instructions

These are giant containers of ink that is used for the printing.  

A giant roll of paper that is attached to the machine below to print the Ensign magazine

This is the whole process of printing scriptures  using one of rolls above.  After it is printed, there is a machine that folds each section and prepares it to be sewn together. 

These gold bars are rubbed along the sides of the scriptures to gild the edges.  They even stamp out sacrament cups.

Duncan's Ordination and Baptisms with Clay

June 10th was Duncan's birthday and that meant that he was able to be ordained by his dad on Sunday afternoon.  We have only been able to attend a few ordinations for our grandsons, so this was a privilege for us.  

It was so great being able to attend this along with Ingrid, John's mother, his bishop (of course - on the back row), his young men's leaders and the Deacon's quorum president (on the front row).   

A hug from his mom!

And hugs from Nana and Bapa.

The family (minus Elizabeth who was nanny-ing in Connecticut.  

Then the next Saturday, we were able to take Duncan and Clay to the temple to do some family baptisms for the dead.  It was so special being able to be with Duncan the first day he did baptisms and to have Clay join us.  Afterwards, we went to Chick-fil-a for breakfast!