Happy Birthday To Glen...and Clint

The purple trees are in bloom all around us. There is one in front of our mission office church building.

These multi-colored flowers were blooming right by the mission office door when we first arrived here the first of July. They are in bloom once again.

 Cute love note from Eli.

Date night at Oceanside Pier. It was very entertaining watching the photo shoot going on below us. While the one girl was being photographed, the standing girl was taking selfies of herself (was that redundant using selfie and herself in the same sentence?).

We spoke in the Carlsbad stake conference during the Sunday session.

Sam, Kathy, Clint and Wes were coming to visit us and made a special effort to arrive in town for stake conference. They were a little late to the meeting, but they made it in plenty of time to hear our talks.

I was so happy to have them here. I quickly recruited them to play my new favorite game with me. (Thanks again to Andy's family for introducing me to the game!!)

We played it every night. They tolerated it. I loved it!!!!

Wes had a nice run of beginner's luck and almost beat me 95-96.

Glen insisted on cooking everybody breakfast every morning--even on his birthday. Sam's family left for the day to go sight-seeing while Glen worked on reading and answering all the missionaries' letters.

He did take a break to go with me to do our weekly grocery shopping. When he discovered his favorite candy, Starburst jellybeans, were on sale for a mere 49 cents a bag, he went back to buy 4 more bags! Best birthday present ever!!!

It just made my day to see Elder Radford at the front door bearing gifts of a birthday balloon and a birthday card. I knew it was all his wife's idea and he was just doing her bidding. She was sitting right out front in the car watching it all play out from the comfort of the car.

My only regret in this priceless photo is that Glen is not wearing his company apron to greet his well-wisher. Now that I think about it, he should have been wearing his company apron because he was grilling meat for Sam's family for dinner that evening. I guess Sam qualifies as family and not company.

Glen was able to give himself the best birthday gift ever of completing all the missionaries' letters on his birthday. No carry overs to the next day. Hurrah!!

It made it easier to enjoy going to the Mormon Battalion with this group of missionaries the next day. No letters left to read and answer hanging over his head when he got back home.

We have been working on getting all the older missionaries to the historic site (complete with Mexican buffet lunch right before).

This makes it our last and final trip with older missionaries. The Mormon Battalion is half a block down the street from this restaurant. You can see the Mormon Battalion building in the far right window in this photo.

Well of course we played Qwirkle on our last evening together. Sam even got in on the fun the second and third evening. And I mean FUN!!!

The next morning Glen did his usual nice guy thing and cooked Sam's family breakfast once again before they headed off on their way back home. It was the right thing to do considering it was Clint's birthday that day.

Little did I realize when the trip was planned that their visit would span two birthdays. I'm sure Clint considers our spirited games of Qwirkle more than enough gift to him from me. I know I was sad when they left knowing it will be a while before I get to play my favorite game again.

We had a new missionary training follow-up meeting with these four missionaries and their trainers.

Here are some birthday greetings to Glen.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños mi amor!

Zone Conference Week, Date Night at the Safari Park

The third week of May was zone conference week. As always, I breathe a big sigh of relief when I see the stake Relief Society sisters. It assures me food is in the building and we don't have to worry about what we'll be feeding the hungry missionaries.

One of our sister missionaries always comments on our matching clothes and gives us the thumbs down if we aren't matching very well. This particular day she gave us an excellent review on our matching skills.

Even more than I enjoy our matchiness in this picture, I enjoy our photo bomber even more!!

Our whole zone conference was centered around The Book of Mormon. With a subject as powerful as that, it was a very wonderful thing to focus on for all the teaching and training throughout the conference.

The missionaries enjoy a good photo pose. Not sure I'm loving all the poses, or expressions, as much as they seem to enjoy them. 

The assistants did a great job setting up and taking down everything at zone conference. They also did excellent on their training. Now it appears they are getting things taken care of for the rest of the day.

It is always a big relief to get the first zone conference behind us. They usually seem to get better and better as each day goes by.

Nothing better to relieve the stress than by receiving some adorable love notes from the grandchildren.

Going for a sunset stroll by the beach is another great way to unwind. Since we had to leave for Murrieta early that morning, we hadn't been able to do our morning walk and had really missed it.

Second day of zone conference was with the San Marcos, Escondido and Del Mar zones.

Glen was exhausted by the end of that day. We had a missionary struggling with issues and wanted to go home and Glen was losing sleep over dealing with that problem.

Third day of zone conference was at the mission office building with the Vista, Fallbrook and Carlsbad zones.

At each zone conference, Sister Kopenhefer had 72-hour kits for each companionship to take back to their apartment. This has been an area of concern for me and I am happy to know that every apartment will now have a kit in case of emergency.

I think the assistants were breathing as big a sigh of relief that zone conference week had successfully come to an end as we were.

But, alas, our hopes of getting out of there at a decent hour were dashed. Glen was tied up for a couple of hours afterward as he talked with various missionaries who were struggling.

We had planned a date night at the Safari Park and had hoped to head out as soon as zone conference was over. Turns out we got there around 6:00 instead. Despite the delay, we were able to enjoy the delicious free meal they had set up in various places around the zoo.

It was their member appreciation evening. Everyone who qualified got a paw print sticker and got to eat the meal and participate in all the after-zoo-hours activities.

The elephants were our favorite of the evening. One was pestering another one and they were having quite a bit of interaction with each other.

With the good food, the bongo drums playing and the relaxed atmosphere, it was almost like being on a cruise.

If nothing else, it was a wonderful way to get in some more exercise. We sure spend a lot of our days sitting in one church or another or sitting in the car, so when we can be moving around outside, it is always a treat.