Weekly Reviews August 20, August 27, & September 3rd

I have three weeks to catch up on, since we have been out of town. Some of you know most of what we've been doing, since you were doing it with us, but for my own personal records and for those of you who haven't seen us lately, here is the rundown. Feel free to skip the stuff you already know about!

Friday (August 11th): Tanner went on a date with a girl in our stake who returned from her mission the same day that he did, and he had fun. Sam arrived that evening and he stayed until Sunday morning. They all watched a movie that evening before going to bed.

Saturday (August 12th): In the morning I did some Cub Scout planning and I watered plants for a ward family who was out of town. Then I went to the temple with my friend Wanda, and another sister in the ward and her two older girls. The sister in my ward and I were proxies for baptisms (I did three of the family names Jared sent me) and Wanda and the girls were proxies for confirmations. Actually, I was a proxy for confirmations for the same three women as the baptisms. We were with a group of people who were doing family names and it was actually really sweet to be there. I felt such a strong and beautiful spirit!! It was really wonderful and I am glad that I got to go. When I got home, everyone was gone because they had all gone out to get pizza for dinner. Snickers was really happy to see me!! A really big thunderstorm blew in before they got back and they all had to come running in to the house through the rain. While I was gone to the temple, Tanner mowed the lawn and after I got back I cleaned the kitchen floor.

Sunday (August 13th): Sam left that morning so that he could attend church in his ward. Tanner went to church with us but he also attended the YSA meetings so he was at church a lot of the day. One of Frank’s clients had an emergency so he had to go take care of that. I did some indexing and made dinner for everyone. The day seemed to go by really fast.

Monday (August 14th): This was a busy day because we were getting ready for our trip. I did laundry and we packed our bags. I also took Seth to get a haircut and Frank and I went to the store to pick out a shed. We found what we wanted and bought it, but had it held there for the guy working on our house to pick up later. Tanner worked on going through the rest of the stuff in his room so we’d know what to put back in storage.

Tuesday (August 15th): We took some things to Goodwill and also took all of Tanner’s things back to the storage unit (except, of course, for all the things he had packed to take with him back to school.) Then Frank drove Seth, Tanner and I to the airport to catch our flight to Utah. It was raining really hard and traffic was bad but we got there with enough time to check our bags, go through security, and buy something to eat before we had to board our plane. Our plane was nice—it was pretty new. Our flight was pretty uneventful (in a good way) and we got in a little bit early. We flew in over Provo and it was cool to look down and see the “Y” on the mountain and the Provo Temple and so forth. When we went to pick up our rental car, it was actually ready for us!! That was definitely nice for a change. We drove to Scott’s house and then took him to dinner since it was his birthday. After that, we all drove down to Dad & Mom’s house. We visited with them for a while and then Erick & Liz came over (they were in town and staying at Dad and Mom’s house too) and we stayed up pretty late talking with them too. Tanner went with Scott back to his house and they went to a movie and then stayed up pretty late playing games together. When he got into his suitcases, he discovered that the top few layers of things in both of his suitcases were soaking wet—they must have sat outside in the rain for a while before being loaded onto the plane. I spent some time the next morning drying all of his wet clothes for him.

Wednesday (August 16th): Scott took the day off so he could spend time with us and originally he wanted to go to Lagoon but I woke up with a slightly scratchy throat and a headache, so I didn’t want to do anything too exhausting. I was worried about getting sick because we were leaving for Arizona on Friday and I knew I had to do all the driving on the trip because the rental car was in my name. So instead we drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon and went on a very short hike at a place called Temple Quarry Trail because that was the area where—you guessed it—they got all the rocks for the Salt Lake Temple. It was beautiful and peaceful up there, with a gentle breeze blowing and not too hot. I really enjoyed that! There were rocks of all sizes all over the place that reminded me of the Salt Lake Temple because of their coloring. It was really cool. After that we went back to Dad & Mom’s house and we all went with them to their ward party, which was a dinner and swimming party at the Lehi community pool. We had hot dogs with lots of different sides and all the food was really yummy. After the dinner part, Mom & Dad went home and Scott also left because he needed to get some laundry done and go to bed. Tanner, Seth and I stayed for the swimming part and I was really impressed with the pool which was large, had two diving boards, some climbing walls, and 2 big waterslides. Seth LOVED the water slides!! I decided not to get into the pool because I thought I would get too cold. The water was actually quite pleasant but it was only in the 70s so I knew when I got out of the water that I would be cold. And even without getting wet, I started to get cold before we left so I am glad that I didn’t get in the water. Tanner got in the water for a little while but mostly he and I just sat and talked while Seth went back and forth between the pool and the water slides. We got to bed pretty late again.

Thursday (August 17th): We spent most of the day doing laundry, repacking for our Arizona trip, and visiting with family. Amanda came over that day and stayed all day and in the late afternoon Erin and her family arrived for a visit. We got to see baby Harvey for the first time and he is adorable! We had a fun evening visiting with them and holding Harvey. That night we went to Amy’s house to spend the night since we were leaving for Arizona the next morning and she was coming with us. Guess what? We got to bed pretty late again.

Friday (August 18th): We got up pretty early so we could get out the door relatively early. We didn’t leave as early as we would have liked, but we did get on the road about 9:30. I was taking some luggage out to the car when some of Amy’s neighbors stopped to talk to me—they thought I was Amy! It was pretty funny. They were really surprised when I told them I was not Amy! Anyway, we spent that whole day driving to Arizona. The trip went well and we were happy to get there safely. It was a long day since we didn’t get there until about 8:00. I forgot to give Seth his medicine that day but he actually did really well, especially considering he was stuck in the car all day and he didn’t have a lot of his usual things to entertain him, such as the DVD player. It was really exciting when we got close to Phoenix and started seeing Saguaro cactus!! I love them!! I really wasn't sure how I would do driving for 10 hours since I haven’t done that in years and years, but I did fine. I was definitely tired when we got there but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to drive that long. It helped to have Amy to talk to! We checked into the hotel and went to bed.

Saturday (August 19th): We had a super busy day. First we went to the Mesa City Cemetery, where we visited the graves of Jana, both the Johnson and Pew grandparents, some of the great grandparents, and some aunts and uncles. After that, we drove by Grandpa & Grandma Johnson’s old house and the place where Grandpa & Grandma Pew’s house used to be (it was torn down and there is a mini storage place there now). I was happy to see that Grandpa & Grandma Johnson's house looks well cared for. I hope whoever is living there loves it as much as we did! After that we went to the Mesa Temple and went through the Visitor Center there and took some pictures on the temple grounds. It was beautiful, although quite hot (but not too uncomfortable). While we were at the Visitor’s Center, we saw this movie about God’s plan for the family, which was particularly poignant for me after just visiting the cemetery and going by my grandparents’ old house. I do miss my family members who have gone on to the next life, but it wasn’t really sad for me to be visiting the place where they lived because I know I will see them again someday. I can remember the good times I spent with them and I can be happy instead of sad. It’s the best!! After the temple, we met with Tanner’s mission president and his wife and it was really fun to meet them and to visit with them for a while. Then we went to see Uncle Joe & Aunt Amy. I am really glad I got to see them—I haven’t seen them since I went to Mesa to go to Grandpa Johnson’s funeral over 17 years ago. From there, we went to Uncle Bruce & Aunt Gay’s house for dinner. After dinner, they had invited all of my cousins and so forth who live around there to come over for a visit. A lot of them couldn’t come, but I did get to see Jillene and some of her kids, Matthew and his family and Aunt Conny—all of whom I hadn’t seen since grandpa’s funeral, so it was really great to see all of them again. Seth had kids to play with, which he enjoyed. Plus, Uncle Bruce took them all outside to a woodpile and shone a black light around and found a bunch of scorpions so he and Tanner got to see a lot a scorpions which they thought was cool. (He killed the scorpions after that, so that they wouldn’t sting anyone.) We enjoyed visiting so much that we stayed pretty late and once again got to bed pretty late.

Sunday (August 20th): Tanner wanted to go to church in Casa Grande, so we drove down there for church. Funny thing was, he forgot that the schedule had changed since he was there, so instead of meeting at 9:00 am, they met at 11:30 am. The ward who met at 9:00 am was also a ward that he served in although he was only there for one transfer so he didn’t know very many of the people in that ward and not very many of them knew him. One of the guys he taught and baptized was there, though, so that was cool. We went to sacrament meeting in that ward and then hung out for a while until the other ward started at 11:30. In that ward nearly everyone knew him (since he served there for 9 months) and a lot of people were excited to see him (and he was excited to see them too, of course). We only stayed for sacrament meeting in that ward also because there were people who weren’t there that he wanted to visit. We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting those people and they were all really sweet people and they all love Tanner! (One couldn’t make it to church because she had knee surgery and another didn’t make it because he just got back from a long trip and he was too tired.) It was really nice to meet these people, but I admit that I was pretty exhausted after driving all over the place all day. We got back to the hotel with just a few minutes to spare before we had to leave again to go to the new convert devotional that they have there once a month. Amy stayed with Seth at the hotel so that he wouldn’t have to go to another meeting. (He spent nearly two whole days visiting people he didn’t know or going to church meetings. It must have been incredibly boring for him, but he behaved really well and hardly ever complained. I was really pleased with that.) I went with Tanner to the devotional, and it was really good. Afterwards he got to talk with a lot of the missionaries who were there and it was really fun to see them come up to him and give him a big hug! I think one of the wonderful side results of doing the Lord’s work is that you come to love the other people you work with so much. It’s like no other feeling in the world. I’m really glad that he got to have that experience of working with others to do the Lord’s work. 

Monday (August 21st): Amy, Tanner, Seth and I were still in Arizona. We visited the Gilbert Temple and watched the eclipse from there. We shared our eclipse glasses with some of the workers who were there washing off the temple and spraying plants with insecticide. (The temple was closed, as most temples are on Mondays.) Then we met a few missionary friends of Tanner to have lunch. I bought lunch for them, since they are poor missionaries! J After that we went back to the hotel and I took Seth swimming in the pool for a while. In the evening, I took Tanner to visit with the ward mission leader in his last area, where he picked up his sombrero and an A&W mug that he had left there. Then we went to visit another couple who work in the mission office.

Tuesday (August 22nd): We began the drive home. On the way out of Phoenix we stopped to see the Phoenix Temple (which is gorgeous!!) and we also drove by Amy’s house that she lived in while they were living in Arizona. Then we drove to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. The drive was absolutely beautiful!! We left the hotel later than we planned and the stops we made in Phoenix also took longer than we had planned so of course we got to the Grand Canyon later than we had planned also. After hiking along the rim of the canyon for about a mile taking pictures, visiting a small museum and gift shop, and watching a movie about the Grand Canyon, it was getting close to sunset. Originally, I was hoping to get to the hotel before sunset because I don’t like driving in the dark, especially on unfamiliar roads. At this point, though, I knew that I would be driving in the dark anyway, so we decided to stay and watch the sunset over the canyon. We weren’t able to find a really good place to watch it, but it was still pretty. We had a 2 hour drive to the hotel in Page, AZ after that and although most of it was on winding mountain roads with warning signs for deer and elk, we didn’t have any trouble. The roads were not very busy, either. For most of the drive we were out in the middle of nowhere and there was hardly any traffic, which I appreciated. At one point Seth needed to go to the bathroom and we were nowhere near any towns, so we just found a place to pull over at the side of the road. We were glad for a chance to get out of the car there because the night sky was absolutely magnificent!! There were so many stars and we could see a big wide band of the Milky Way stretching from one side of the sky to the other. It was so beautiful and I will never forget it! We finally got to the hotel around 10:00 and still had to get some dinner, but we finally made it to bed.

Wednesday (August 23rd): We were staying at a Courtyard Marriott in Page and it was really large. They even had a full service restaurant. Normally, free breakfast is not included, but when we checked in the lady at the desk said that the manager was feeling nice and decided to give everyone free breakfast in the morning and gave us a voucher for our breakfast. So we all got to eat a nice breakfast at the buffet for free, which was really nice. After packing up, we headed to a gas station to fill up as well as to put air in the car’s tires because I had a warning light that one of the tires was low. That seemed to fix the problem and the light has not come back on since then. We drove the rest of the way back to Mom & Dad’s house that day, arriving around dinner time. (We didn’t get an early start and we lost an hour in time since Arizona is not on daylight savings time, but Utah is). We stopped briefly at the visitor’s center for the Glen Canyon Dam as we were leaving Page. The whole area around Page is really pretty with orange, pink, and white colored rocks. I expected the Grand Canyon to be more desert-ish than it was too. It was actually really, really pretty!! I would like to go back someday and spend more time there. We also stopped in Beaver, Utah to get some ice cream and to buy some cheese for Mom & Dad. Anyway, I was glad to get back to Mom & Dad’s house and to have a home cooked meal!

Thursday (August 24th): I didn’t wake up until nearly 9:00 that morning!! I must have been more tired from all the driving than I realized. We didn’t do much this day except wash all the mounds of laundry we accumulated on our trip. I don’t think I even stepped out of the house all day, and I know I didn’t drive anywhere, which was really nice!! Tanner wasn’t feeling really well so we just took it easy. Hans and Griffin arrived that afternoon also and they are staying at Mom & Dad’s too. It was fun to have a chance to visit with them. They arrived in Utah while we were in Arizona but drove up to Idaho to see the eclipse and to stay with Erick’s family for a while.

Friday (August 25th): I arranged to meet a friend who used to live in Maryland in downtown Salt Lake City for a visit before going to pick up Frank at the airport. Seth and Tanner came with me—they walked around the City Creek area and found a playground to play at while I visited with my friend at a restaurant. Then we all went to the airport to pick up Frank. Of course, we were all glad to see him! We got back to Mom & Dad’s house in time for dinner. Afterwards, Amy & Nate came over for a visit and so did Scott. Tanner went back to Scott’s place with him to spend the night that night.

Saturday (August 26th): Frank and I got up pretty early because we were invited to go to a wedding. It was for a sister missionary who served in our ward nearly 2 years ago. It was really nice to be there. When we went up afterwards to congratulate her, she gave us big hugs and said “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!!!” She got married in the Draper Temple. We saw another sister who served in our ward there, too, and got to talk to her for a while. After the wedding, we came back to Dad & Mom’s house in time to watch the BYU football game on television. Amy came over to watch with us and so did Tanner and Scott. BYU played Portland State and BYU won the game 20-6. It was a pretty good game. Afterwards, we went to the store to buy a wedding gift. We all went to the reception together, including Scott and Tanner so both of the sisters who served in our ward got to meet them. The reception was nice and the parents of the sister who got married were happy to meet us. We got to visit some more with some former missionaries, too. For the refreshments at the reception, they had Belgian waffles with strawberries, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. They were really yummy!!

Sunday (August 27th): That day we got up early again because we wanted to go to the Conference Center in Salt Lake City to see the live performance of Music & the Spoken Word. Tim was singing in it, of course. Frank couldn’t find his wallet that morning so I drove down there and back (thankfully, I found it after we got back to Dad & Mom’s house). Anyway, it was really awesome to attend a live performance of the Tabernacle Choir and I admit it made me cry. There was just a really incredible spirit there. It was also cool to see how many people came—I think a whole lot of them were non-members, which is great!! After that, we drove straight to Amy’s ward to attend Sacrament Meeting. Dad & Mom’s ward meets at 9:00 so we had missed their Sacrament Meeting because Music & the Spoken Word is from 9:30 to 10:00. Besides, Amy was speaking in her Sacrament Meeting, so we got to hear her talk. Dad & Mom and Hans & Griffin came too. We only stayed for Sacrament Meeting because by then we were all really hungry and Frank also needed to find his wallet. The last time he remembered having it for sure was at the reception the night before, so we drove back to that church building and he asked around but no one had seen it. We came back home and looked some more. Seth kept saying “maybe it is under the bed” and when I looked there, that’s where it was!! We are just really happy we found it. Mom made a delicious lunch for us and then most of us took naps. That evening a bunch of family came over and we had a fun evening visiting and eating yummy desserts.

Monday (August 28th): We helped Tanner move into his apartment (Heritage Halls). When we went outside that morning to start loading up the car, we found a note on the windshield from one of Mom & Dad’s neighbors. He had backed out of his driveway that morning and into our car, which was parked on the street! There was some damage to the front driver’s side of the car. So we had to call the rental car company and they said we had to get a police report, so we had to call the police to get that done. Then when we returned the car we had to fill out an incident report. The neighbor admitted it was all his fault so hopefully we won’t have any hassles over this. Anyway, we did all that later that day because we didn’t have time to do it then. We had to be at Tanner’s apartment at noon. We helped him unload all of his stuff and then we tried to put his bike together (it had been taken apart for shipping) but discovered that there was a piece missing. So we had to take it to a bike shop to get a replacement piece, and they finished putting it together. Then we had some lunch at the Cougar Eat, did some shopping at the BYU Bookstore, and went back to Tanner’s apartment to help him unpack most of his stuff. He stayed there that afternoon to do more unpacking while we headed back to Dad & Mom’s house. For family night that evening we went up the canyon and made s’mores. Tim’s family, Amy’s family, and Shellie’s family all came, along with Daniel and his girlfriend. (They brought Tanner with them, since they live in Provo.) It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday (August 29th): Tanner spent the night at his apartment. Although 3 of his roommates had moved some of their things in, he was the only one who was there that night! Frank went to pick him up that morning and ended up taking him to get his new student ID card and his ROC pass (for football games and other sporting events). Meanwhile, I got laundry done. After they got back, we went to Thanksgiving Point to see the gardens they have there. They are huge, with lots of different areas and all of them were beautiful! They have a new garden called the Light of the World Garden, which has a bunch of statues of Christ. It was really awesome!! We rented a golf cart to get around the gardens because Frank didn’t think he could walk that far and that was nice for all of us because it was a hot day and as I said—the gardens are huge. After we finished at the gardens, we went to the Curiosity Museum which is also at Thanksgiving Point. That was more for Seth, and he did enjoy it. We didn’t have a lot of time there so we didn’t get to do everything but Seth had a lot of fun so it was worth it. We had planned to have all the adults get together for dinner that night at Dad & Mom’s house—everyone brought their own food. We took Seth to Tim & Rachelle’s house to hang out with cousins and then picked up some cheese steak sandwiches for us and for Mom & Dad on the way home. Scott came down to join us too. It was another nice evening of visiting, and not so noisy without all the kids!

Wednesday (August 30th): We went to Temple Square that day. Frank's sister Dawn met us there and spent the afternoon with us, which was nice. We also met a friend of Tanner’s there—a lady he helped reactivate while he was in Casa Grande. She is really a lovely lady and we enjoyed meeting her. We visited both Visitor’s Centers and also went into the Tabernacle and got to hear the “pin drop” demonstration. We had a late lunch with Dawn before heading back to Lehi. I took Tanner to buy a few things he needed and we also went to Deseret Book where I got these cool temple passport things (to record what temples you have visited.) That evening Frank and Tanner drove back up to Draper to meet Scott and they went shooting together. Then Tanner spent the night with Scott.

Thursday (August 31st): I went to lunch that day with Amy and our high school friend Paula. That evening we had some family pictures taken by Utah Lake. Anna took them, so I’m sure they will be good! We came back to Dad & Mom’s house and Frank gave father’s blessings to Scott and to Tanner. We had to say our goodbyes to Scott after that. I took Tanner back to his apartment that evening and this time all of his roommates were there so he got to meet all of them. They are all recently returned missionaries but he is the only one who went to college before his mission. The rest of them were going to freshman orientation all day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday so we never met any of them. He says they all seem pretty nice. The guy in his room with him is from Texas and served his mission in Argentina. The others are from Oregon, Colorado, and Utah (2 from Utah). They served missions in Bolivia, England, France, and Raleigh North Carolina.

Friday (September 1st): We picked up Tanner at his apartment and took him to buy some groceries and a few other things he needed. Then we helped him get all his groceries put away and then went to lunch. After that, we said our goodbyes to Tanner and dropped him off on campus where he was meeting some friends from his old ward, including his former roommate. I think he went to a dance that night; at least, he was planning to do that. When I texted him yesterday to let him know we made it home, he said everything was going well there, but I don’t have any details about what he’s been doing. Anyway, that evening Amy’s and Tim’s families came over to visit with us one more time.

Saturday (September 2nd): We had to get up pretty early because our flight home was at 9:30. The flight went well and we didn’t have any problems. When we got home, it was raining and it was also only in the 60’s so that was weird. After we got home we unpacked and then went out for dinner since there was no food in the house. On the way home, we stopped at the store to get some milk and some food for today. I will buy more food tomorrow. I spent the rest of the evening doing things like going through all the mail and sweeping and vacuuming because the house was a mess. For some reason, the house has been infested by flies! We noticed several flying around last night and killed a bunch and then this morning I killed a bunch more and we killed more after we got home from church. Plus I opened the door to the deck and shooed a bunch more outside. We have no idea where they are coming from!!

Sunday (September 3rd): Today we went to church as usual and it was nice to be back in our own ward. We talked about the martyrdom of Joseph Smith in Sunday School today and there was a really strong spirit there The teacher mentioned that one of the reasons that the members of the early church had so much opposition is because Satan was trying to stop the gospel from spreading. I thought about our visit to Temple Square this week, and particularly about looking up at the huge church office building. I smiled. Satan may have done all that he could to stop the Lord’s work, and I’m sure he is still doing everything he can to stop it, but it can’t be stopped!! In spite of all the hardship and trials of those early struggling saints, the church has grown and prospered and filled the whole earth. I just love thinking about that!! This afternoon after we got home from church Seth went down to the basement to look for some Legos and reported that there was water on the floor down there. Frank investigated, and discovered that the hot water heater is leaking. Looks like we are going to have to get a new one. Not great timing, but it’s 24 years old, so we’ve been expecting that it would need to be replaced any time. We are actually very fortunate that it lasted that long. While we were at church we got some text messages from Scott. He was ice blocking with some friends yesterday and his block tipped over and he fell off, and then his friends ran into him. He’s been hurting a lot so he went to urgent care today and found out he has bruised ribs and a sprained knee. He is okay, but has to stay home from work to rest for a few days.

While I was gone, all the other work on the house was finished. We now have a shed in back and new doors, including a new screen door in front. We also have new boards around the garden plot in the backyard. Everything looks really nice. We’d still like to get a patio put in soon. I don’t have pictures of the new doors and such yet, but I will try to get that done for next week's post. 

Throughout the last few weeks, we have been reading the news stories about Hurricane Harvey whenever we get the chance and seeing many pictures of the devastation and flooding in Texas. We are very sorry to see so many people suffering, but very grateful that Ben's family, Curtis's family, and Jared are all safe and particularly that Ben's family didn't have to evacuate or have damage to their home. (Thanks for all the updates from Ben and from Curtis, too!) I'm sure it will be a while until life gets back to normal, though. We will continue to pray for all of the people in Texas.

We are grateful to be back home and that we found all well here. Especially we are grateful that the water heater waited until we got home to start leaking!! We would have come home to a disaster of our own if it had done that while we were gone. We are also grateful that we got to see so many of you these last few weeks--we love you!!  We are looking forward to getting back into a normal routine now. Summer is wonderful and I am sad to see it end, but fall is probably my favorite season, so bring on the apples and pumpkins!

For some reason, blogger will not let me add pictures to this post, so I will do another post with pictures from our trip later.