Our Mission Farewell

Bert and Marie Gould and Rosalee Ferguson had a Farewell Open House for us. We had a nice time visiting and saying goodbye to our good friends. We appreciated the delicious cookies and good conversation. We will miss our friends and look forward to keeping in touch!

Our six kids and their families came home for our farewell. We had family pictures taken by Kiahna Williams. It was quite a fun photo session with 13 adults and 11 grand kids.

Here is a picture of us with all eleven grand kids! They each have such cute personalities. They had so much fun playing in our backyard catching lizards, riding the train, climbing on rocks into the "grand canyon", and making up all kinds of fun games. We will miss spending time with them!

On Friday night the older kids slept out in a tent in the backyard. Before morning they all ended up inside except for Cater...he is a trooper! The younger kids wanted in on the action so we set up a pup tent in the living room for them.

On Sunday was our farewell. Neal and I spoke in Sacrament Meeting and my grand kids and primary girls sang the song "The Holy Ghost." They did a great job! After church it was nice to have all of our family over including my sister and brother and some of their families. The kids got a nice cake with a Swedish flag on it that said "Best Wishes." We sure had a good time visiting with everyone.

A rare picture of my sister, brother, and me (Carolyn Richmond, Bill Blake, me)

On Monday Carol, Allison, Steven, and Rebecca and their families drove to Corona Del Mar to spend a day with me at the beach. They all know how much I love the beach! We had such a relaxing day playing in the sand and swimming in the ocean.

I love the water and had fun jumping waves with my grand kids. Ben loves the water as much as I do!

Group shot on the beach!

While the kids played in the sand the adults had a good time visiting and playing Frisbee!

The kids had so much fun looking for sea shells and playing in the water. I am so glad that I got to spend the day relaxing on the beach with some of my kids and grand kids before I left to Sweden. That night we went to Balboa Pier and then to a fun Mexican Restaurant. It was sure hard to say goodbye to Alli, Rebecca, and Emily and their families. We will say goodbye to the Utah kids when we go into the MTC.

On Tuesday I traveled with Carol to Barstow. Neal met us there with Lily so Carol could drive her to Utah. Neal's sister Noni is going to watch her for us while we are on our mission. Lily has been Neal's little buddy, it was sure hard for us to say goodbye to her! We enjoyed spending our last weekend in Ridgecrest with family. Now we are off on a new adventure to Sweden!