Our Missionary =)

Some of my friends have written that they loved seeing what Brittney and Heather have been up to, but wondered about Brianna and Nathan. So I decided I'd blog about them and use some pictures that they've sent (or members from Bree's area have sent!)

Brianna is having the time of her life, and is so happy being a missionary! She loves to teach and has had some wonderful experiences!  She's also been able to use her music alot and is singing or playing the piano or someone's guitar almost weekly.  Every week in her emails she talks about how glad she is that she made the decision to go on a mission. Here are a couple of quotes from this week's emails- the first to her president, which she forwards to us, and the second in our family's email:

"I love my time to study each morning, and I enjoy our companion studies as well. I love the scriptures!! I have learned SOOO much on my mission and would have felt completely inadequate going throughout the rest of my life w/out having learned what I now know. I never would have known the difference, but now that I do... I am SO grateful for it. I love my testimony and know it will only continue to grow and strengthen every day!"

"I love being on my mission... I hope to come home the same fun Bree... but SOO different as well! I'm amazed at how much I've learned, even something as simple as applying the scriptures. I just love them. I love being able to listen to a talk and as someone quotes a scripture I know where it comes from. I love the gospel and love the growth of my testimony!"

Here are a few recent pictures of our girl. Her name-tag used to say Hermana Toone, but I noticed she now wears a Sister Toone tag since she's serving in English areas. She loves when they find Spanish investigators though, and says that Spanish has become the language of her heart. =) She's been in Cheney since the end of January- and it's only her 2nd area! She thinks she'll be transferred in August and serve in one more area till she comes home November 17th. (Yay!!)

Here's member friend Celeste on the left (who sent us these pictures!), Bree and Sis. McNaughton, with new converts Echo and her daughter Heather (in front.) The next is with another of Echo's daughters. Her son Dustin was also baptized.


The rest are Brianna and Sister DeMarco- first at Zone Conference, then on P-day, and with friends.



                                             We love her new shorter hair-cut! =)

My Biggest New Fear!

I have to say that staying with Brittney for almost 3 weeks made me much more aware (and scared of) creepy crawly things!  She wrote a post on her blog about our spider adventure, which freaked us both out, but was pretty funny after the fact.  

So I came home and Curt left for a week at Scout Camp.  I was sitting here in the corner of our room using the computer, and finished for the night.  As I turned around I saw, out of the corner of my eye, my most hated creepy crawly thing of all- what I call a Moustache Bug!  And it ran right under my bed!   Aaaaagh!  They are so fast and feathery and just plain gross!  I've never seen one in my room before, but we've had them downstairs, and in the garage.  In fact, last week I saw one crawl under our fridge in the garage, which means now every time I run out to get something out of the fridge or freezer, I have to turn on the garage light and watch where I step with my bare feet!

So , here I am freaking out, trying to find a big shoe and a flashlight, and of course I can't find either one!  What is it about flashlights- they never work when you need one!  By the time I had a working one, one of Curt's big shoes, and a wad of toilet paper, and dared kneel down and look under the bed.....of course it was nowhere to be seen.  I ran around making sure the dust ruffle wasn't touching the ground anywhere, so it couldn't climb up onto my bed in the night.  I refused to think that it might be able to climb the legs of the bed- too slippery for sure!  And then as I'm standing there debating what to do next, here comes a moustache bug running (they're so fast!!!!) from under my desk toward the bed!  I got it with the shoe, scooped it up with the big wad of toilet paper and had it in the garbage before I even quit squealing.  (Nathan was sleeping in the next room- it's a wonder he didn't hear me and come running.)  But then I'm standing here thinking, okay, was that the same one, and he went under the bed and around the edge of the wall and out from the desk???  OR.....is it a new one that just came out of the vent that's under the desk, and he was heading to meet his friend (wife??) under the bed!  Nathan said the next day..".maybe he was heading HOME to their nest under your bed!"  Well needless to say, I said my prayers in bed that night- no kneeling by the edge! and am now sitting at the computer- days later- with my feel still up on a box of file folders.  Haven't seen a bug since, but you never know- one could run across my bare feet as soon as I put them on the floor!  

Last night Nathan and I did some research and discovered that my moustache bug, as I've called them since moving here, (since I'd never seen them before,) and they're feathery.....ew, did I mention that when you mash one, all the legs keep going?  And they leave a brown stain on the carpet!  Anyway, when I googled Moustache bug....I didn't see anything familiar.  Nathan's friend calls them Thousand Leggers, so I googled that and I there it was!

We found out it's actually a House Centipede!  Didn't know centipedes could be so fluffy and fast!  And we found out they're beneficial to homes cuz they eat other undesirable things....but I don't think so!! Now it makes me wonder what else is under the bed that it was feeding on, and did it lay eggs in my room?  I did NOT like learning that they could go anywhere- I wanted to think they were only on the floor.  Here's more info if you're interested!

                     http://bugguide.net/node/view/25

Well, even with my feet up on a box I'm itching all over just talking about it. So I won't be making friends soon with the House Centipede! =)

The Rest of My Utah Trip

Here it is- time to go back to Pennsylvania, and the last 19 days have flown by!  It's been a wonderful visit, and we've seen lots of people and places, and just enjoyed each other.  What a good family we have!  Here's us on Sunday night after Bob and Kathy's meeting.  Matthew and Claire came to play games with us, and then we saw them the following week too.  Bryan had fun watching for Matthew in the choir broadcast that morning, and they did a good close-up of him.  Hope all these Salt Lake "kids" keep in touch!

On Monday night we went to Millcreek Canyon for a fun FHE cookout.  It's the canyon where Heather and Jake got engaged and is beautiful.  I love that you can be in Utah mountains in less than a half hour.  Bryan loved playing in the fire- he'll be a good Boy Scout some day.

The next day we took a little road trip to see more Toones. First we stopped in Tremonton where we were able to visit with Conne and Greg, Darrin, Trent and Lisa and their 3 cute kids. (Forgot to take pictures there, and their newly remodeled house and yard are beautiful!) Then we went on to the farm and had a delicious lunch with Sherm, Peggy, Steven, Fred, April and Ben (and his 3 kittens.) It was fun to see everyone and visit for a few hours. 

 

That night we stopped in Millville and spent the night with Margo Miller. We missed Bob who was traveling- they've been good friends of ours since college. In the morning we ran over to see their daughter Charlotte and Mark and their 5 kids- so cute. It was a great little road trip- just gone about 24 hours, but did lots of visiting in a short time.

Wednesday night Jake had tickets to the Days of 47 Rodeo at the Energy Solutions Arena (Delta Center to us) where the Jazz play. Interesting to see how they turned it into a dirty rodeo arena. Pres. Uchtdorf was there, and his grandson was one of the calf ropers. Fun to see him in casual "rodeo" clothes. =)

Thursday we took the boys to the Children's Discovery Museum at the Gateway.  Such a fun place!  Bryan just ran from place to place, and Matty was fascinated by the water exhibit.  

That night Jake and Heather took Grandma and I to see "Footloose" at the Scera Shell, which was a fun musical.  We had great seats right up front, and it was a beautiful evening to be outside.  I stayed overnight with my mom, went walking with her in the morning, and helped with some chores.  Brittney and boys came down and we picked up Tootsie for a yummy lunch at Los Hermanos.  Then we headed to BYU to tour the new Hinckley Alumni and Visitor's Center and shop at the Bookstore.  Always great to be on campus.

Jake worked late on Friday so Heather came over to play games, and we "girls" did some shopping on Saturday.  Then that night we attended a cello concert on Temple Square called "In Toone with the Past."  It was a distant cousin playing Curt's great-great-great grandfather's cello that he brought from England and across the plains with him.  He told John Toone's story and played some beautiful Hymns and classical pieces that John probably played.  "Come, Come, Ye Saints" brought tears to our eyes, and it was just nice to be there.  Matthew and Claire sat with us, and we enjoyed a bite to eat in the Garden Room at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building afterwards.  Nice evening of culture!  =)

I spent the night in Jake and Heather's new home and went to their ward with them in the morning.  Looks like it'll be a great place for them to live.  The Yospes had us over for dinner and they're such a nice family- we had a great visit with Jake's parents, brothers and sisters in law and nephews and niece.  Jake even got a haircut from his Mom while we were there!

Last night we had a family dinner at Chris's with her family, Grandma and part of Jaymi's family and ours.  Wish we'd had more time to visit!  It's been such a fun time, and now it's time to go to the airport!  Looking forward to being together at Christmas in Pennsylvania!  =)

Here I am at Brittney's house, and she's convinced me I need to start a blog. I have to admit I love reading hers and Heather's, but who knows if I'll ever have anything to say! It's a fun way to keep a journal though, and I've never been very good at that. So here we go...

It's been a great vacation to Utah so far! I'm certainly loving being with these sweet little grandsons! =) First we celebrated the 4th of July with family, food, fun and fireworks. It started with a patriotic program at Heather's work, visit to the Sandy City celebration, continued with a picnic on Grandma's patio (and a concert of her new organ playing!) and ended with watching the fireworks from Stadium of Fire.

We helped Heather and Jake move the next day into their new home, and it looks like it'll be a great place for them to live. It's nice to have both our married daughters live within 10 minutes of each other! Here's the tired couple after cleaning their old condo....ready to move on, and a picture of their beautiful new house!

Our next adventure was to take Bryan and Matthew to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point, which is an easy 5 minute drive from Brittney's house. None of us had been there, and we had such a fun time! They were celebrating the museum's 8th birthday, so there were extra fun things for Bryan to do.

The next day, we met Grandma in Lehi and did a little shopping, which the boys love, of course! The cart in the aisle at Kohl's kept them entertained quite a while.

Then we ate at Applebee's and went to visit my sister Chris and her cute kids- little Shay is getting so big! She was wearing a little dress I had sent her- what a cutie.

A couple of days later Grandma and I went to the temple, and then took advantage of her monthly lunch at Chuck-a-Rama with her sisters-in-law, and it was fun to see not only Aunt Colleen and Aunt Madeline, but Joyce and Bob Wold from Mesa. She's my favorite cousin and we were excited that they were in town for her nephew's wedding, and her brother's return from being president of the Cape Town, So. Africa Mission. We attended their homecoming last Sunday and had prime seats on the 2nd row smack in the center, since Mom, Don and Jean and Dan Marshall got there an hour early to save them! Probably a hundred of their missionaries were there and sang their mission song, and Elder Christofferson (their friend and neighbor) was presiding and spoke at the end. It was packed to the back of the cultural hall, and took 14 Aaronic Priesthood holders to prepare and pass the sacrament- they did an excellent job. What a special meeting!

Here are a couple more picture of cute Bryan- showing off his little bike, and being King Benjamin at Family Home Evening. He taught us to love each other, don't fight, and serve! =)

That's my first week in Utah! Lots more has happened since, but I'll have to write later. This will be fun to blog!