Quotes of the Week

 In His love, He crated a plan, a plan of redemption and happiness to open to us all the opportunities and joys we are willing to receive, up to and including all that He has and is.

--D. Todd Christofferson

The Savior will lead and guide you in your personal life if you will make time for Him in your life -- each and every day.

--Russell M. Nelson

Prayers are answered ... most of the time ... by God using other people. Well, I pray that He'll use us. I pray that we'll be the answer to people's prayers.

--Jeffrey R. Holland

The Saviors healing power is not just His ability to heal our bodies but, perhaps even more important, His ability to heal our hearts.

--Brent H. Nielson

Moving Excells to Utah; Visit Jacob's Family in Omaha

We had gotten home from our Hawaiian cruise vacation Sunday morning. After getting all his stuff unpacked (and the ornament hung on the tree), Glen settled in for a long winter's nap, only to wake up a few hours later feeling absolutely horrible with a fever, head congestion and achy body. 

This was NOT good timing to be getting sick as he had promised to help Jeff and Sarah load their moving truck and drive it from Las Vegas to Utah. 

Of course nothing would stand in the way of his helping them, so the next morning we were off to the airport to take a flight to Vegas. Thankfully, Glen wore a mask the whole time we were gone.

The plan had been for us to get to Vegas, help load the U-haul, drive part way home, and then drive the rest of the way home the next day.

Sarah picked us up from the airport and stopped on our way to her home to pick up a lunch take-out order. We saw the moving van parked out front when we arrived at their home.

After hearing how sick Glen was, Jeff and Sarah had loaded the truck by themselves (yes, Sarah is a Superwoman!), only needing Glen's help to get a few of the heavier items on the truck. 

Imagine our shock and surprise and feeling of gratitude that my sick husband only had to lift those few items for them. They were definitely our angels that day!

Notice the beautiful weather in Las Vegas... It was not so beautiful in Utah. A big storm was rolling in and we were not very excited to be driving through a snowstorm. 

Glen gutted it up and we drove the whole way home that same day. He was one exhausted and still very sick and fevering, achy, nose-running man. 

The thing that propelled him to keep on driving (besides me actually staying awake the whole way to help him stay awake the whole way) was he just wanted to get home and get settled in the basement in his recliner to recover from this horrible illness. 

Thankfully, it did not settle in his chest and coughing wasn't an issue for him. 

As soon as the four boys got home from school, Sarah loaded them in the van and she was not far behind us on the road heading to our home. Jeff stayed behind to finish out his work week, planning to join his family on the weekend.

We got home before the storm hit and were so thankful we were not driving in the snowstorm the next day. 

Dallas has the first part of the week off work, so he and Rebecca were willing to come over and help Sarah unload some of the truck's contents into our garage. 

Sarah had asked a few of her friends to come over in the evening to help get the heavy stuff and the rest of the load out of the truck.

Dallas returned the moving van and that was another big help

It was a big relief for Glen to have them do that project so he didn't have to be involved in any part of it. He said he was feeling way too weak to even lift anything. He kept telling me how sick he was. Poor guy!! I kept waiting for his germs to infect me...

Sarah's family stayed with us a couple of weeks until they could finalize the sale of their Vegas home and sign the paperwork for their new home. 

We enjoyed the perk of Sarah's meal planning and preparation. Lots of yummy food!!

Shockingly, by Wednesday Glen was feeling so much better. On Thursday he was declaring himself all recovered and was able to go with me to do our regular Thursday afternoon ordinance worker shift at the temple. 

It was hard to believe how quickly he had gotten sooooo sick and then how quickly he had recovered. Strange--but a huge blessing.

Because on Friday we had a flight scheduled to go to Omaha and visit Jacob's family for a few days. 

Jacob picked us up at the airport. Laurie was busy with the girls practicing their parts for their violin performances over the weekend.

That left us with the boys that evening. Luke and Logan chose HuHot Mongolian Grill for dinner. I love the wide assortment of vegetables, meat and noodles that are available for the choosing. Then what each person selects is given to the chefs who grill it all up to perfection. 

Once back home, we played a rousing game of Yahtzee. Just to shake it up a bit for our last game, we  used 10 dice instead of 5. That way there was a possibility of getting more Yahtzees, which put an interesting twist on the game.

This is only the second time we have been to Jacob and Laurie's home since they moved back to Omaha. I enjoyed so much looking at all their Christmas decorations and being in their beautiful home once again. 

The next morning Logan and Claire had big plans for Glen to play Nintendo Switch with them after breakfast.

Then we were off to a school to watch Logan play a city league basketball game. Jacob was their team's coach. Logan is on the far left in all three pictures.

Emma went off with a friend and we met up with her later that evening. The rest of us chose a restaurant in town--Upstream located in the old market area of Omaha where we enjoyed some delicious food.

There was a super fun, colorful, old-fashioned candy store nearby. Despite the absolutely freezing weather, we walked there to take a look around.

Then it was time to go to the Omaha Symphony Christmas Celebration--starring Emma and Claire!!

The girls have been taking violin lessons and their teacher is in the symphony. She arranged for her students to be part of the lobby performances before the show. 

It was such a wonderful evening of beautiful music, singing and acting. The Christmas theme was so fun and festive. Towards the end of the evening, Emma and Claire's group came on stage and performed one number with the symphony. 

It was so beautiful and they acted and performed just like professionals. It was impressive. The violin students came back on stage at the end to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with all the professional performers. So cute! So fun! Such a wonderful production! I LOVED IT!! 

I loved it so much that when Laurie said she had two tickets the following evening and wondered if I would like to go with her, I jumped at the chance.

Laurie and the girls had to be there early for an afternoon performance, so Jacob and Glen drove me to the symphony that evening and I got a ride home with Laurie and the girls.

There were bassoonists performing in the lobby in one corner and when they were finished, the violinists were doing their performing in the main part of the lobby once again. 

It was another evening of delightful entertainment, with the culmination being when the violinists came on stage. So fun to see the older students performing and then so cute when the younger students walked on stage to join in with the older students. 

Emma was so sad when the performances were over. A lot of time had been spent together with the other students and they were going to miss being with each other. Such a bonding experience it sounded like--especially for the oldest students who would not be coming back next year.

The night before we left Omaha, we went to dinner with the family at Lazlos Brewery Grill close by Jacob's home. The food was delicious. It was our last hurrah before we headed to the airport early the next morning. 

We thought it had been extremely cold in Utah for the previous month. The weather report for Omaha made us all the more excited to leave beyond-bitterly cold Omaha to come back home to cold Utah.

This was reminiscent of the time I watched Jacob and Laurie's children in the dead of winter while they went off to enjoy a Caribbean cruise. The temperature all week was -35 degrees. I never got warm the whole time I was there.

After experiencing that amount of cold, I was definitely happy we were not sticking around to see what -45 degrees felt like.

Quotes of the Week

 Whenever we show Christlike love toward our neighbor, we preach the gospel--even is we do not voice a single word.

--Gary E. Stevenson

The Holy Ghost can assure us that we have been forgiven. As we sense joy and peace, guilt is swept away, and we are no longer tormented by our sin.

--Dale G. Renlund

I learned in a profound way that deliverance from our trials is different for each of us, and therefore our focus should be less about the way in which we are delivered and more about the Deliverer Himself. Our emphasis should always be on Jesus Christ!!

--Amy A. Wright

Remember that your most important identity relates to your divine nature as a child of God.

--Dale G. Renlund

Back in Honolulu; Touring the Island; Dole Whip; Airport; Home Again

Saturday morning we exited the ship and waited for Mike and Glen to pick us up after they had rented two vehicles.

We were sad Mark and Michelle were not going to our Utah destination with us because they had to be taken straight to the airport with Yakima, Washington as their final destination.

Once Mark and Michelle had been dropped off at the airport, the rest of us decided there was plenty of room for all of us in the big van Glen was driving, so we had Mike return his rental car so we could all be together in one vehicle for the day. That was a great idea!!

Our first stop was Pearl Harbor National Memorial. As we waited for our assigned time to be taken out to the memorial, we walked through a museum where we saw displays about what had happened when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. 

We saw replicas of the white memorial built over the sunken ship USS Arizona.

We took a boat ride out to the USS Arizona Memorial.

Our next stop was lunch at Anna Miller's.

This is what happened when I handed Andy and Amanda the camera to take our group photo.

The waitress came along and offered to take it for us.

Off we went on a drive to the Honolulu Memorial located in National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific located at Punchbowl Crater near the center of Honolulu.

There were beautiful maps all through the memorial. It was interesting to look closely at them to see they are made out of sand. Amazing!!

The grounds were beautifully manicured.

We took a walk up to the top of the bowl and took a look out over the city.

We got back in the car and took off for another scenic outlook.

It was SOOOOO windy we about got blown over. The locals had told us the big winds were definitely out of the norm.

We took a tunnel ride right through the mountain. 

We had some time still left before we needed to get to the airport for our late-night flight. 

When the suggestion was made to find a Dole Whip before we left the island, Glen was sure we were close enough to the Dole Plantation to be able to get that delicious treat one more time before we left Hawaii.

How thrilled we were to get there 20 minutes before it closed.

Look at all of us happy people with our sweet treat. 

A sad story was witnessing a woman who tried to get into the plantation just as it was closing. She was denied entry twice--even after begging to just let her get a Dole Whip. That was all she wanted. SAD!!

I had such a good time that last day in Hawaii. I was sad Mark and Michelle had missed all our fun activities. We learned their trip home was fraught with difficulty. It was not as easy for them to get home as it was for us. 

We had an uneventful flight home--although it was an overnight flight and we hardly slept at all. We arrived at our destination without incident. 

Dallas had been willing to pick us up in the early morning hours of Sunday. 

Our vacation officially ended when Glen hung the new ornament we had bought in Hawaii on our Christmas tree.

MELE KALIKIMAKA!!!