Mark and Michelle Plus Five

Mark and Michelle brought their family to town for a school reunion, a family reunion, a family dinner and other fun stuff.







It was nice to see them again and I'm sure they all enjoyed the delicious food at the family dinner at Mom's.


















Fun time for all the kids to play together!!

A Reunion With My Mission President

On our recent trip to Phoenix, I had to reach out and see my Mission President. It was fun to see Presidente Mortensen again. It brought back a lot of great memories and made me grateful for the time I had to work with him.

I told him we would take him to dinner, my treat, and he could choose anywhere he would like to go. Where do you think he chose out of all the restaurant choices in the greater Phoenix area? He chose to go to Manuel's. A little hole in the wall Mexican food restaurant about 5 miles from his home. Ah, what a reminder, eating Mexican food with my Mission President once again.

It was a great time.

?!?Enjoying?!? the Arizona Heat

It sounded like a very hot idea and it turned out to be an extremely hot experience when we took a trip to Arizona in August. We saw the thermostat register 115 degrees a couple of times, but I was slow on the draw and could only capture a reading a couple of degrees lower. But, by the time it reaches 113 outside, what's a couple more degrees anyway? HOT IS HOT!!!!


We have now become official Isaksen family wedding stalkers. Six years ago to the day, we were in California attending Heather's wedding. More recently we went to Idaho for Brittany's wedding and now here we went to Arizona for Darin's wedding. It was nice to meet his sweet bride, Lisa, and to participate in the family dinner the night before the wedding day.




How great for the Isaksen family to all be together in one spot and have a family photo taken.


We were looking forward to attending a temple session at the Mesa Arizona Temple after the 9 a.m. wedding ceremony.




It's always such a fun thing to see the newlyweds come out of the temple and pose for pictures.






Debbie shares my "love" of hot weather (both of us wondering why anyone would actually want to live there...) and was trying to cool off herself and her grandkids by sharing capfuls of chilled bottled water with them.


The reception was very nice and we enjoyed visiting with all of the Isaksen family one last time before we all went our separate ways.





We definitely didn't let the heat get the best of us.

Making Rolls

When Jeff and Sarah came up recently for a visit, Sarah insisted we have a roll-making class. She chose to make regular dinner rolls with her batch of dough and Rebecca wanted to make cinnamon rolls. Jeff and Brooke got in on a little of the action.










Here are some photos of other things that went on during that weekend.






This last set of photos is of the Excell family.











We're so glad they came up to spend a few days with us and we always love it when Rebecca's family joins in the fun whenever someone comes to town.