The Nuckolses, from the Del Mar Stake, invited us to go to dinner with them one date night. They have recently returned home from serving as mission president and wife in the Dominican Republic. After conversing with them, it made us all the more happy we are in the best place ever!!
Rebecca likes to bring her family here on vacation over the UEA break from school in October. It was time for their yearly visit. We could hardly believe it has been a whole year since we have seen the grandchildren. Our occasional FaceTiming with them has helped it not seem quite as long between visits.
On the day they were due to arrive, there was a baptism in Temecula we really wanted to attend. A young man was baptized weeks earlier and his parents had been learning about the church and meeting with the missionaries and were both being baptized by their son this particular evening.
As we kept charting Rebecca's course and her estimated arrival time here, we got the brilliant idea that if we drove to Murrieta, our paths could intersect at the new Golden Corral that we had seen being built. It was a masterful idea!!
And it worked!! We got to see Brooke, Caroline, Spencer and Madison (Dallas and Rebecca, too) for a few short minutes before we then went to Temecula for the baptisms while the Golden family got back on the road headed to our home.
Seeing Caroline with the princess crown on her head that her mother used to love to wear really tugged at my heartstrings.
When we got home, the kids were anxious to show us which stuffed animals they had brought with them. At one point I saw Glen sitting next to two of them reading a book. It made me laugh as it looked like he was reading them a story.
Caroline walked over to see what her grandpa was doing as I was grabbing the camera. Perhaps if she had been perched over the back of the couch looking at the book with him/them it might not have seemed quite as funny.
There is only one thing I ask our children for each year--in the form of a gift--and that is an updated family photo.
Rebecca had feverishly worked to acquire a matching wardrobe for each member of the family. Dallas had brought his photographic equipment. They were ready for us to help them make my yearly request a reality.
A few test shots for Dallas to adjust the lighting.
Madison would NOT give up her bear, which made us so glad her bear was actually in the right color scheme.
Then Brooke and her once-was-white bear jumped in the photo.
Brooke has become quite the poser for photos these days. We were finding spots to take photos all around the house and the yard
Snapped a few photos of us with the grandchildren.
We moved to another spot in the back yard to try and see if we could get in a spot where Glen's head was totally in the shade.
The progression of Madison's bear from a stuffed toy to a full-fledged member of the family makes me laugh.
After our couple of hours of photography Sunday morning, we took the beautifully matching Golden family to the sacrament meeting Glen had randomly selected for us to attend.
Rebecca had requested one that started in the late morning and Glen searched out our options from all the wards in the 6 stakes in our mission and picked one. We are always amazed at what happens at the meetings we attend as something unique and special almost always occurs.
At this particular ward, a couple was asked to speak. She talked about serving her mission in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission--which is the very same mission where Dallas served.
Turns out they both served there at the same time and they remembered each other. Dallas was able to tell her about seeing their mission president, Randy Benson, on several occasions since he lives in our stake and right around the corner from us back home.
I have shared with the family how many times we are called on at the last second to speak in the meetings we attend. Rebecca was really enjoying herself when she saw the bishop slip us this note. At least we had a 10-minute warning this time.
There were some kid-size palm trees outside the church building, so I got Madison to pose for a photo by them.
Next thing I knew, Spencer jumped right into the group of trees all ready for his photo. Earlier in the day he had been more eager to play than to pose for a picture.
Caroline opted out, but Brooke was a willing subject.
The Golden family grouped together for us to try and get a good family photo. Madison became so obsessed with wanting her hair up in a pony tail she would not put her arms down no matter how much we begged her.
She finally caved and was using only one arm to hold her hair in a pony tail.
Apparently Spencer reached his limit with the photography session...
so we called it quits and headed home for Sunday dinner...without getting the perfect pose.
The grandchildren loved what they found in the cupboard. Glen bought cheese balls telling me they were "for the grandchildren" and then he ended up eating half the barrel of them himself.
There was something else the grandchildren really like to eat.
It was their grandpa's French toast.
We all needed to eat a good breakfast because we had a morning hike planned. We had such a great time with Abe's family that Glen wanted to take Rebecca's family on the same hike.
Looking for lizards occupied the grandchildren's attention, when they weren't busy climbing the tree.
And even while climbing the tree, they were still looking for lizards.
Brooke was a bit obsessed with trying to get juice out of a cactus.
They were all thrilled to find a lizard on a bench.
We were all a bit disturbed to find a freshly dead big bird behind another bench. Within minutes, two park rangers arrived on the scene and called in to report the death.
On our way back past the same bench, we saw the bird had been removed. Spencer had been carrying a stick with him on the walk and he stabbed it into the ground where the dead bird had been.
As we were walking away, he said if he had a hammer, he would have gotten another smaller stick and made a "t". So cute!
Our hike continued on into Annie's Canyon.
The path got narrower...
and narrower.
There was a place to gather the group before heading off into the slot where Dallas was headed.
That's where things got really narrow and we had to climb.
Whew!! We all made it out alive.
I just slipped once and scraped my little finger knuckle on the sandy rocks which drew blood. The grandchildren avoided holding that hand for the rest of the day.
Spencer had a little fall as he was running up these stairs.
Just like Newland, these kids wanted to go through the canyon a second time. Glen and I waited by the sign since our knees were screaming at us to not try it a second time.
Brooke, Caroline and Spencer made it out in record time and found little stumps to rest on while waiting for the rest of the family.
Madison was so tired she was bent over double and panting when she reached us.
On the way back, we took the trail down by the water. New territory for us as we hadn't walked that way before.
Madison had gotten her second wind by this time and we could see our destination on the horizon. We had parked in the neighborhood by the houses. I was sure glad I'd grabbed some water bottles on the way out of the house.
We drank those as we drove to Oceanside Harbor to see the sea lions. There were only a few making their appearance while we were there.
It was so relaxing sitting there with the grandchildren watching the antics of the sea lions. Fun way for us to spend the morning before Glen got busy spending the rest of the day reading and answering the missionaries' letters.
After lunch, Rebecca's family went to spend the afternoon at a beach up north and had dinner at Chili's while we spent the evening with our senior missionary couples.
We had a record number in attendance. Our missionaries (young and old) are the best!! We love them all and appreciate the things each of them do to help the work of the Lord move forward.
