Education Week and Emmett

In August, Carl and I flew out to Utah, where we attended BYU Education Week and enjoyed being with 19 month old grandson Emmett (and his mom and dad).

Here we are visiting the BYU Art Museum.

After the Art Museum, we enjoyed some BYU Creamery ice cream.

Andy and KayLynn are such good parents. While there, we learned they are expecting a baby sister for Emmett in early February. (Lower right: Andy at work.)

We had fun with Emmett at the Children's Natural Curiosity Museum at 

Thanksgiving Point. His favorite activity was water play.

On another day, we toured the first class Dinosaur Museum , also at Thanksgiving Point.

When Andy was home on Saturday, we took a stroll through the scenic gardens at Thanksgiving Point. 

The second Saturday we were there,we took a drive on the Alpine Loop to Wolf Creek Reservoir. Emmett's favorite activity was splashing in the ice cold water.

Another fun water place for Emmett was Utah Lake.

How we enjoyed being with this little family during the times we weren't on the BYU campus.just watching Emmett play was so fun. 

On Sunday, we peeked in on Emmett in the church nursery and our son Andy, giving one-on-one attention to a special needs young boy in Primary.

Our yearly tradition, when we come out to Education Week, is to buy Emmett a BYU Cougar shirt. (When Philip 

picked us up to drive us to the airport, Emmett wanted to drive the car.)

Here we are, spending our last few minutes with Emmett, 

Other folks we got to see during our trip to Utah were KayLynn's parents and grandparents, our grandoggie Indie, and Carl's sister Beverly, our nephew Paul and his wife, and our son Philip, who is attending college and working in Utah.

We also had a mini reunion with one of the sister missionaries from our N.Y. Rochester Mission, Katelyn Johnson.

And we unexpectedly ran into one of our Elders from the mission, Tyler Robertson.

It was a special treat to have a reunion and dinner with our N.Y. Rochester Mission President,Jack Christianson, his wife Melanie, and several of the wonderful senior missionary couples who served with us on the office staff.

(A few photos from Education Week itself will be on the next "catch-up" blog post.)

A few Summer 2015 events

I'm still playing "catch up" with this blog. So, here's our hot Houston summer!

We started off with "Zoobillee", an evening event put on by the Houston Zoo for its members. We took the school age  grand-kids.

It was an adventure riding the shuttle bus from the downtown parking lot to the zoo.

The kids participated in a scavenger hunt, finding different species of animals.

For our annual summer "theater date", I took the local grand-kids to Alvin Community College's production of "Snow White". 

They loved going out to lunch after the show.

In June, we all  together at Lauren and Dan's home to celebrate "Father's Day.

A few of the great fathers in our family who were there, besides Grandpa,were our son Jeremy

and son-in-law Dan. (We missed our other great dads-- Brian, Mark, and Andy.)

I always enjoy watching the littlest grandchildren play with each other at these family gatherings.

In July, we  braved taking the shuttle, from the high school to Centennial Park, for the 4th of July firework show with this group.

But it was well worth it.

Fourth of July wouldn't be complete without my annual "Sweet Baby Rae" photo shoot. (and isn't she the sweetest!)

Still busy with our home remodeling project, we squeezed in only one beach trip. With shark sittings and high bacteria counts in some parts of Galveston beaches, that was O.K.!

Philip flew into town, for a two day visit, just in time to celebrate his 27th birthday with family.

Spring Surprises (and an engagement!)

Spring brought a few expected surprises.

First was Philip's surprise visit. With his airline job, he flies for free, so he can pop in anytime. We took him and Lorelei to the zoo. Buying a grandparents Zoo membership has already paid for itself. We love going to the zoo whenever we feel like it.

We ate lunch next to the giraffe enclosure. Philip wanted to put a piece of lettuce on top of his head, walk close to the giraffe, and see if he would eat it. I talked him out of doing that. 

After the zoo, we visited Jessica in her classroom at nearby Poe Elementary.

This daughter is an amazing kindergarten teacher.

Philip loves seeing his nieces and nephews. We had dinner at Lauren and Dan's home at the end of our zoo day, and Philip flew back to Utah the next morning.

The grandchildren always look forward to surprises from the Easter

Bunny, including the usual Easter egg hunt on Saturday. 

The babies, Rae and Ben, were more active participants this year.

They both needed a little help from their parents.

Dan and Brian do a good job hiding all the eggs in our backyard each year.

Since General Conference  fell on Easter weekend, all the men went to the  Priesthood session. Dario, who is now 12 years old, attended his first Priesthood Conference with his dad, grandpa, and uncles. Going to Diary Queen afterwards is a tradition.

Our final Spring surprise (an expected one ) was Jessica's engagement to Cameron in April. He joined Jessica on her trip to Utah, where she was running a marathon, and proposed to her on a hike up to

Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. 

Since the engagement, Cameron has graduated from medical school, and is in his first year of residency in Dallas as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. 

He is a very fine young man whom we already love, and we are looking forward to the wedding in early November.