On The Road Again

Today we flew out early for St. Louis.

 Because it is my favorite person in the

whole world's mission, I told her we would fly in 

early so she could show me around her fair city

 and maybe get me to the temple.  Yeah!!

We should get to St Louis around 3:30 PM, perfect.

Our first stop was Minneapolis, where naturally our flight

 was delayed.  We ate lunch at a T.G.I. Friday's and I 

walked around the airport taking pictures and looking for 

souvenirs.  I like to pick up a t-shirt or something for Courtney.

I wanted to get her this happy Snoopy, but he wasn't for sale.

He was so cute with his little suitcase and toy airplane.

Welcome Minnesota!

A couple of bears, goin' fishin'.

They are soooo cute!  Just hanging around,

so to speak.

So we didn't even take off until 5 minutes

after we were suppose to of landed in 

St. Louis.  So I called Sister Clark and told 

her we'd get in as soon as we could and I would

call her.  She was so kind, said we'd do as much

as we could fit in.

Wal Mart

I don't know why this upsets me so badly, but it bothered me 

enough to take pictures, and I've done it on more than one

occasion.  I quite like Wal Mart, I know a majority of people

do not, but silly me, I like getting things for a better price.

Back in Utah, I used to hit the local Wal Mart, at least

once a week, sometimes even more.  So naturally when

I came to Canada and found that there was a Wal Mart

just down the street, I was ecstatic.  But my excitement was 

short lived because this Wal Mart is and always has been,

a mess!

And I mean, a mess.  Dirty, unorganized, items stacked 

everywhere, like in the carts above.  Aisles are narrow and

almost impassable especially when you come across carts 

like in the above two pictures.

Then I came across this in the toy aisle.  Granted I later

found out they were moving shelves and rearranging.

But this isn't the exception, this is usually the rule.

Yuck!

Dear Wal Mart,  take back control of your

Canadian stores,  Please!

April ZLC

We had to put off ZLC for a couple of weeks because 

of General Conference and the girls being here.

So, when we did finally have it, I knew I had to keep 

with the Easter theme.  It was so much fun.

I hung onto Courtney's flowers as a centerpiece, I put little

nests of grass for each elder with a foiled wrapped chocolate

egg at each place setting, complete with fun napkins.

It looked pretty cute, as did the table in the kitchen.

Then I added fortune cookies to tie in the food.

Plus, fun treats to snack on downstairs during the after lunch training.

I bought the candy for fun and decorating, I'm hoping that the elders 

will eat it all up.

The elders' hands are washed and they are ready to eat, but not

until they sing, for me!  They started by singing, For the Beauty

of the Earth, complete with harmony,  then they ended with . . .

Sister Campbell, you're so great,

and we love you very much. 

 It was very touching, not to mention hilarious.  I love them too!

I asked the assistants what they wanted for lunch, they suggested

hawaiian haystacks.  So that's what we had.  It makes it so much

easier when a suggestion is made.  Deciding what to have is half

the battle.  There was still a lot of work and last minute chopping but

trust me, it helped.

I fixed, rice (lots and lots and they ate it all), chicken gravy with

pieces of chicken, shredded cheese, pineapple tidbits, chopped tomato,

diced celery, green, red and yellow peppers, chow mein noodles,

rolls and butter.  They ate almost everything I put out.

And for dessert, we had gourmet Peep s'mores.

Purple peep with Reese's cup

Green peep with Reese's cup

Now this, this is the true story.  It takes me up to two days to get all the

dishes washed and put away.  Crazy huh?

And that's using paper plates and plastic cups.  Wow!

Shiny shoe contest, if I forget or don't do it, I hear about it.

They don't come right out and say anything, they just drop subtle hints.

These shoes were very shiny, very nice.

Training is over, time to put away the tables and chairs, everyone helps.

Getting all lined up, I'm still trying to figure out my camera and

get the very best photo.

It takes them a minute to stop being silly and get serious for picture

taking.  They all put out their cameras and I take all the pictures.

I insist they take one good one, for posterity.

Then I let them take a silly one, whatever they want to do, 

as long as it's appropriate.

Hilarious!

Baptisms and a Little Bit of Heaven

I did some finagling and got the girls in on a baptism

session with one of the wards here.  That's how

it works, they give each ward a date and the ward

usually fills all the spots very quickly, but this happened to 

be an outlying ward that has a small youth group.

So we put their names on the list.  When we got

there, the youth were all sick, so they gathered a few

adults and a couple of new converts and brought them

down.  So the girls were able to do 15 names each as

well as myself, I did 15 names.  It was a wonderful 

experience with our girls.

Even though the sun was harsh, we had to get some pictures

in front of the temple.  Then we went home and I made a little

piece of heaven for our dessert.

This is Pavlova, I've fixed it for Courtney before and we just had

to have it again, because it's soooo heavenly!

The meringue turned out perfect, we added lots of yummy

sweetened whip cream and delicious fresh fruit.

Then, we wrestled! 

It's The Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny came a few days early,

before the girls had to go home.

These cute little guys showed up in their buckets and they brought

colored bubbles too, pink ones!

Lots of yummy easter candy, foiled wrapped chocolate eggs,

pastel M & M's and my mom's favorite, marshmallow cream eggs.

Rolo eggs and Reese's peanut butter eggs just to name a few.

Along with the easter bunny and yummy candy, we

had to dye easter eggs.  I had pre-boiled the eggs, so they

were ready to be decorated.

The girls even let me help decorate a couple.  I like mine a solid

color and dark, so I put them in and let them sit.

The girls really showed their talents and artistic ability.

Especially Courtney O, she has an amazing eye for art.

Very talented indeed.

They dunked

and wrapped

and came up with some fun ideas and designs.

As you can see, Courtney takes her eggs very seriously.

We snuck up and got a glimpse of the REAL easter bunny.

The girls passed on sitting on his lap, I don't know why though?

He is so cute and cuddly looking.

When we got home, the girls found that the easter treats had

been delivered and they were all over the house.

They searched and searched and found everything,

except for, one purple egg, can you see it?

Thanks for playing along ladies and letting me have some fun.

Holidays just aren't the same without family around.  I'm glad

we were able to share this one with the Courtneys.