Lots of Excitement!

My Saturday started out rather routinely.  Started the laundry, cleaned the floors and bathrooms and ran some errands.  About 1:00 p.m. Neal was out in the front and back planting more flowers for the patio and the front porch.  The temperature was perfect with a slight breeze so I sat down on one of the patio chairs and closed my eyes for a minute when I heard jets flying over the house.  Apparently Hill Airfare Base Pilots were out practicing maneuvers and what a show they put on right over our house.  There were four jets and they kept circling around and coming back in different formations.  You can never get tired of the jets.  I just love them.  It was almost like being at the 4th of July parade.  The event last for about an hour.  I was able to capture a couple pictures.

They were so close that sometimes I almost felt like I could reach up and touch them.  So exciting!!

Not long after the jets were gone and I was just settled back in my chair when Sprout started barking like crazy (nothing unusual there) but this was much more intense.  All of a sudden we saw four policemen come across our lawn and jump over our 6' fence!  It was quite a sight to see.  There were patrol cars going up and down the area behind our house and one out in the front.  The police also jumped the pool fence and had their guns drawn and their bullet proof vests on.  Two of them stood on either side of the restroom door and with their fingers counted off one, two three and then burst open the door.  They did the same thing on the other side of the pool at the storage room.  Wow, just like on TV!!!!  Well this search when on for nearly 4 hours.  They asked Neal if he had seen a girl with a white long sleeve t-shirt come anywhere in the yard of over the fence.  Neal told them that he hadn't seen any thing.  The police told us that they were chasing down to people.  They had captured the guy but the girl had taken off and got away and they were on the lookout for her.  They didn't say she was dangerous but their intense behavior led me to believe that she could be.  I don't know if they ever caught her or not but we sure locked our doors that night.

I walked with my friend Mindy and told her what happened.  She was gone all day Saturday so missed out on the excitement.  She commented that we are now living in the "Hood".  We laughed and laughed!!  Our quiet little neighborhood certainly had a busy and exciting Saturday.

 

Many Beautiful and Thoughtful Surprises

 Mother's Day rolled around once again.  It seems to do that every year.  :-).  Lynda Ann told me about a talk that was given at their RS by their Stake President.  She is going to try and get a copy of it.  But, this is the essence of the talk as she remembered.  And now as I retell it, it may lose some of what was said but I think we will get the gist of the message.  It was good for me to hear and probably good for every parent who feels at a loss when their children don't stay close to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  

The Stake President talked about how a light house is a permanent fixture that doesn't move or go looking for the ships out at sea.  I shines its light and as the ships find the light they can follow its beam to safety.  He then related that to mothers (and fathers).  We are the lighthouse in our children's lives and can shine our light and hope and pray that our children will follow it to safety.  But, our Heavenly Father has given us all this wonderful gift of free agency and everyone has to use that free agency how they choose.  He also reminded us that Our Father in Heaven is the perfect parent and he lost 1/3 of his children.  We, as parents, can't be playing the "what if" game.  We just have to be steady in shining our gospel light and let our children have their free agency.  

I'm sure I haven't done justice to the Stake President's message but what I gleaned from what Annie told me, it is a wonderful message for me.  I've spent many hours playing the "what if" game with the Maxfield children and it doesn't lead to any solution, just a lot of frustration with no answers.  This talk was a good reminder to me and to Neal that we have to let our children have their free agency, love them unconditionally and keep our light shining.  

Back to Mother's Day.  When Mallory, Annie and I were in Tennessee I saw a sweatshirt that I considered buying and then talked myself out of it.  I love it and have regretted not buying it ever since we left Tennessee.  Unbeknownst to me, Lynda Ann found her receipt, got the phone number of the shop and ordered the shirt for me.  I was thrilled - beyond thrilled.  To think that she would take the time to research where we had been and at what shop that shirt was at was certainly going beyond the extra mile.  

Don't you just LOVE it and it is my color!  This is the logo on the front of the shirt.

Then to my surprise, there was another gift with it.  This is a sewing needle holder!  Yup, it holds your sewing needles so you don't have to put them down every time you have to leave your stitching to do something, which happens to me often.  You put this little magnet (about the size of a quarter) on your sleeve or somewhere on your shirt and when you have to put the needle down you simple put it on the magnet.  That way you don't lose them and you don't drop them, etc.  Could there be a better gift?  I doubt that.

The back side.

This cute card from Mallory.

My next surprise was a card from Neal with a pedicure in the future!  

Then I had another surprise on top of that.  Emmi had Mallory get me a gift card for the Habit!  I love that place and Emmi remembered that.  What a sweet heart to think of her Gam.  

I am a truly blessed and loved wife, mother and Gam!!!  And the message that Lynda Ann shared with me from her Stake President just made my day a very happy and calm one.  

A Nice Mother's Day Surprise

 Found this on the front porch this afternoon.  A beautiful bouquet of flowers from Jamie with this note:

I'm so grateful that Jamie and I can still be close to each other and be able to talk and be good friends.  I miss her greatly.  

New Visitors

 I really should have a little farm of my own where I can take care of animals.  I love going out in the morning and filling up the peanut holder for Chip, Dale and Nancy (actually we've counted up to six squirrels!) scampering through the trees.  Also filling the two bird feeders for every kind of bird and taking care of Quick and Quack who come by every morning and evening for some bread and duck food.  Thanks again Emmi for the duck food.  They love it!  And I'm sure it is much more healthy for them than bread.  And to add here that Sprout goes out with me to feed the animals and he thinks when I'm feeding the two ducks he should also get a bite of bread every now and then.  He gets very anxious.  

In case you are wondering, this is Dale.  You can tell by the anatomy!

Quick and Quack

And we also have two new visitors that have taken up their home in the Chip and Dale's tree nest!  Yup two woodpeckers, which are Ozzie and Harriett (and if you don't know who Ozzie and Harriett are you can look them up). The moved in some time a couple weeks ago and it has been so interesting to watch the battle going on between the squirrels and the woodpeckers.  The woodpeckers have quickly won the battle for the nest and, I think, have already laid some eggs.  The male sits on the nest all night and then some time mid morning the female come and they trade places.  I've loved watching this whole scenario.  It was also very interesting watching them clean out the squirrel nest and building their own inside the tree.  They were throwing all kinds of leaves and twigs out of the nest.  Fascinating.

These are the Northern Flickers which are common for the State of Utah.  Woodpeckers are protected.

This is Ozzie, the male.

This is Harriett, the female.  If you look to the right of the tree you will see Chip trying to get to the nest but Harriett will have nothing to do with it!  First bird I've seen the squirrels not have the upper hand on.

The female guarding her nest.

Often times in the beginning and they were cleaning out the nest we would see them taking a rest and just guarding the entrance.  It took the squirrels a couple weeks to finally get the idea that they weren't going to get the nest back for a while.  

I love Spring and I love nature!

Tennessee cont . . .

 Thursday morning began with a little more sight seeing around Gatlinburg.  Of course there always has to be a picture with a huge black bear carved with a chain saw!

And of course the huge chair.  Mallory always gets a kick out of the fact that my feet don't touch the ground or even come close!  

There was a museum of salt and pepper shakers that we had to go in.  I don't remember how many sets of salt and pepper shakers they had on display but it had to be in the well into the thousands.  It really was amazing.  They also had some for sale as you came out of the museum and I bought a couple sets and so did Mallory and Lynda Ann.  Seriously, how could you not buy some?!

And then to top it off they had the United States in Salt and Pepper Shakers.  Oh my gosh!!!

After we left the museum we headed for Sevierville where they had a petting zoo.  All three of us were excited and looking forward to petting and feeding some zebras, ostrich, goats, reindeer, llamas, camels, etc.  As we entered the zoo area there was a huge goose right in the middle of the driveway.  We had to go around him.

Annie feeding the deer.

Mallory feeding the deer from the outside of the fence.  You could go in with them but they would get very aggressive wanting the food you had in the cup.  They weren't mean just very pushy.

Mallory feeding the zebra mule.

All of the animals were very tame and very friendly.  

This little tiny baby goat was premature and only weighed 1 pound.  But seems to be surviving and gaining weight.  

This is when I found out that deer and I don't do well together.  I am so allergic to them but didn't know it until I got out of the pen.  And then it was too late!!

You can see that they just literally swarm you when you are in the pen with them.

I was having a great time until I notice that my hands were starting to itch really bad.

My eyes started to swell and the hives started on my hands, arms and legs.  I could barely see out of my eyes.  It was horrible.  Annie got me on Benadryl immediately.  It took almost the whole rest of the trip for the swelling in my face to go down.  I lived on Benadryl and allergy tablets for the next two days.

But even with that mishap, we had a fabulous time and mostly enjoyed the petting zoo.  At least now I know that Bambi and I cannot be close friends!

After the zoo, we headed to Franklin where we checked into our hotel for a short time to relax before going sight seeing.

We had dinner at a fun little place in Franklin and then wandered up and down the Main Street.  It was closing time so there weren't many places open but we had fun just browsing.  One of the places we found that looked very interesting was the Tin Cottage.  We for sure put that on our list to visit the next day.  If you look close you can see that my face is still all puffy and swollen.

We then went over to see the Franklin Temple where Mallory spent a lot of her time on her mission.  She loves this temple.  It's small but beautiful.

Friday morning we toured more of Franklin and bought lots of souvenirs.  

I can see why Mallory loved Tennessee and everything about it.  She especially loved the people.  The one thing we all noticed was the completely different mission Mallory had compared to the area that Abby served in.  Franklin is very wealthy and everything pristine.  Los Angeles on the other hand is the opposite of rich and not nearly as clean.  But I would guess that maybe the Latino people and area where Abby served were very humble for what they had and that they were in America.  

Friday evening found us in a horrific rain storm.  We had to sit in the care for a little while because you couldn't even see the street to drive.  The rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was blowing the rain sideways.  

We also had a chance to have dinner with Jeffrey's sister, Shannon, and her husband.  They wanted to eat at Jefferson's.  The food was delicious and it was fun for me to get acquainted with Shannon and hear about her being adopted.  Like Annie, she has quite a story of finding her biological family.  Didn't turn out much better than Lynda Ann's experience.

We also visited the Tennessee Nashville Mission offices.  

By the end of the day we were ready for a good nights sleep.  Saturday morning was a planned meeting with a sweet elderly sister that Mallory help convert to the gospel and has continued to keep in contact with her since she has been home from her mission.  Now there is also a story to this that connects Neal to the family as well.  I'll do my best to accurately put the genealogy together.  Inga is the sister that Mallory got so close to on her mission.  Inga's son married a girl from Utah named Katie.  Katie's father is Doug Miner.  Doug and Neal were friends from grade school on and Doug is part of the study group that was formed in high school.  Doug used to live in Salt Lake and has since moved to Tennessee where he lives with Katie, her husband and Inga in Inga's home.  Mallory and Neal didn't connect the two until a few years after Mallory returned from her mission.  I'm not sure how that conversation went or how it all came together but somehow Mallory and Neal put two and two together and realized that Doug lived with Inga.  Crazy!  What a coincidence!!!

Me, Katie and Doug Miner.

Mallory and Inga.  She is from Germany and was there during the war.  Has some stories that she says she will never share.  Too ugly.  

Gary, Katie's husband, Mallory, Inga, me and Lynda Ann

We had such a wonderful visit with them and it was so fun to get to meet Inga.  Mallory loves her so much.  

After our visit, we headed to the airport, turned in the rental car and waited to board our plane for home.  What an amazing and fun filled trip.  Lynda Ann is such a great trip planner.  I think we experienced and saw everything we could have possibly fit in while we were there.  Tennessee is a beautiful place and such a fun area to see and experience.  Thanks to Mallory for serving her mission there and to Annie for planning this amazing graduation trip and to both of them for inviting me along!!

Yup.  Drove to the airport in the rain.

I had to put this in because I just loved how they slaughtered my name.  That is why I usually say Susan because they can't mess that name up!

As Mallory said, "I left my heart in Tennessee!"