Home MTC Day 1

What a fun sight to see 

as I walked down the hallway this afternoon!

Dan was up with Nick at 6:30 to workout together,

then they hit the links and I went hiking to the first river on Mt. Oly.

I haven't been hiking much in Utah this year and the first ten minutes were ROUGH.

I told myself I could turn around at 20 minutes.

But then, by 20, you guessed it, I was feeling better.

A great metaphor for missions and everything else in life that's hard.

Last night Nick printed out his schedule for the week and we made a plan to fit in 

his favorite meals, golf times, his second rabies shot, personal study and more.

I really like making a plan. 

Nick does too so this home MTC thing might end up being really fun for me.

OMBU Korean BBQ for dinner.

(The thirty-something guys behind us were talking all about their missions to Korea and somewhere in South America. I'm sure Nick's nametag sparked their discussion.)

Nick really likes his companion! Yay! 

He's from Montana And was very surprised how different Nick looked from his photo.

(Slicked back his hair to meet mission standards back in March!)

They're the only two in their district going to their mission.

Two others in their district are going to the West mission.

And the other eight are going to Peru.

While Nick had his second three-hour block of classes,

Dan and I went to sweet Soleil's 1-year-old birthday party at Sheree's home.

Soleil wasn't interested in eating her cake at all.

I loved how no one rushed her. Her parents were content to just let her figure it out.

And the rest of us just enjoyed being a part of it.

The whole large family and friend party all sat on the lawn for at least fifteen minutes watching her toddle around, eat the paper pompom on top of her party hat and not wanting anything to do with the strawberries or cake. It was so fun and entertaining!

No one gets tired of watching a baby. Especially surrounded by family in such a beautiful setting.

Sheree has planted so many beautiful flowers from seeds, 

"plugs" and tubers. She has a beautiful cutting garden spread throughout her yard!

Not to mention blackberries and raspberries, peaches, cherrys and more!

She even found sunflowers without the black centers in bright yellow and pale yellow.

So beautiful!

We got home when Nick's class ended at 9:00 p.m.

He worked on his music playlist with Dan some more and tweaking the setup

between the oooolllllldddd classic ipod (brick!) with tons of music

and transferring it to a memory card for his bluetooth speaker.

We ended the night with family prayer.

I thought about it on my hike, how we haven't had family prayer in a long time and wondered how something that was such a strong habit got forgotten.

Then I remembered that Nick has been at college for a year and we hadn't forgotten at all.

It's just been a while since one of our kids have lived at home.

We prayed together and it felt extra familiar.