More Valentine Day Photos; Play Date With Rebecca's Family; Visits From Missionaries; Mom's Birthday Dinner Party

Let's start this blog post with a continuation of Valentine's Day photos. Abe's family enjoyed celebrating the heart holiday.

I am enjoying looking at this photo and not just because of the cute kids in the foreground. I am also enjoying the background which is of Abe and Klarissa's new home which we haven't seen yet.

Newland lives life to the fullest. He reminds us so much of Abe at that age.

Sarah's little Jonah is getting bigger all the time. I love this action shot of him playing in the sand.

Glen and Brooke went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. Brooke requested dinner at Cafe Rio afterward. 

After a 3-year absence, we once again have season tickets going to Hale Centre Theatre with Dad and Mom.

 Rebecca's kids had Presidents' Day off school and so they came up for a visit.

 Brooke liked to show me her expertise on taking selfies.

Since they were coming up in the morning, we thought it would be fun to feed them a French toast breakfast as they hadn't had that in a long time.

Spencer loved playing Risk with his grandpa while Rebecca, the girls and I worked on puzzles.

They left and we then welcomed Nadia Terron for a visit.  

She was so kind to bring me a bouquet of flowers.

We have been enjoying so much having Glen work from home. It's nice to have him around so much, and it's also been nice he hasn't had to travel at all. 

Until...he had to attend a Utah Manager Council. 

It was a two-day, two-night conference. It was held in Sandy--30 minutes from our home. All managers were required to stay at the hotel those nights.

I took advantage of him being gone one of those nights to go to dinner with Nani at Texas Roadhouse. It has been our tradition to go to dinner during the week between our birthdays.

Since we hadn't been able to do that for the 3 years I was gone, I had been promising Nani we would go. When our birthday week rolled around a few months ago, I was having a rough recovery from my first heart surgery and told her we would do it later.

Well, later finally rolled around and it was about time!!

Glen had me waiting in the parking lot of the hotel so the second his conference was over, he could jump in the car and we could be on our way to go see the BYU vs. Santa Clara basketball game.

We met another missionary for a pre-game meal--Cody Merrell and his girlfriend Kierstin. They became engaged a few days later. 

Our stake held their annual Relief Society Women's Conference on a Saturday morning. I peeked into the cultural hall on my way to the chapel. I was happy to see they just had chairs set up and not the room full of tables. I felt like that simplified it a lot for the women in charge of decorating.

It was a great meeting and a delicious lunch afterward. I really enjoyed visiting with the women sitting near me.

On the big display table set up along one wall, I was impressed with the painting Janette Todd had done of the Savior. She used her son-in-law as the subject of her painting. I am always impressed when artists can make people look real.

That evening we were headed off to Provo again to go to La Jolla Groves to have dinner with Baylor and Elise Romney.

He was one of our assistants in the mission. Glen is taking full responsibility (that's how I see it) for Baylor deciding to sign on with BYU's football team as one of their quarterbacks.

Glen pestered Baylor so much the last part of his mission to choose to go to BYU over any other school. It has been nice for him to play with his younger brother. Now his youngest brother has signed with BYU to play after his mission. The Romney brothers will be able to play together for a year.

We arrived at the stadium quite early to find the whole student section was filled. Students had camped outside in the cold for two nights so they could be first in line and have the assurance of getting tickets to the game.

The senior basketball players on the team were honored at that game.

The score was close with BYU staying ahead of Gonzaga. What a victory for them as Gonzaga is usually the winner. Not this time!!

At the buzzer, the whole student section swarmed down from the rafters to storm the court. It was a jubilant celebration.

We attended the family birthday party held at Mom and Dad's home. It was fun to see Kaelyn and Dennis's baby Randy for the first time. He looks just like his three sisters.

Seth and Kenna's baby Aksel looks a lot like his older brother Terje.

Cheryl's baby Charlotte looks like her daddy Jason.

It was a soup fest that night with everyone bringing a different kind of soup. Nani made a soup that calls for pasta, but she puts the pasta on the side so the gluten-free eaters can eat her soup. This made for a very happy Madison as she kept eating bowlfuls of only pasta.

Time for dessert and the blowing out of the birthday candles. It is such a highlight for all the little people.

It was so fun to watch Madison's face as she was expectantly waiting for her name to be called as one of the birthday people and to watch the smile on her face when she heard her name.

We had another visit from Jared and Lexie Hopkins. They brought us some homemade cookies and we learned they are expecting a baby. How exciting!! This will be our first mission baby--meaning baby born to two of our missionaries who married each other.

Our bags were packed. We had successfully managed to stay well leading up to our much-anticipated cruise. HURRAH!!

Despite the news about the coronavirus spreading in various parts of the world and two Princess cruise ships quarantining their passengers because some of them had it, we ventured forward with our plans.

We had been receiving regular updates about the situation from Royal Caribbean cruise line and they were not canceling the cruise or banning Americans from getting on the ship, so off we went.

Couldn't help but laugh when Abe sent out this funny meme to the family.