To Ella

To Ella. That's what my sister wrote on a "Welcome Home to Tooele" poster when my brother came home from his mission. She wanted to make sure he knew how to pronounce it. While my brother was out serving my parents moved clear across the country - from the south to Utah. Now instead of living 5 hours flying time and 3 hours driving time away they live only 5 hours driving time, unless you break down. We get to see them (and be spoiled) so much more!

Some of the other activities we did while visiting were:

* Stay up until midnight most nights talking, watching movies, and playing SCRABBLE. We are going to have a major Scrabble competition come Christmas.

* Have a sewing lesson at Guelita's house. Tia Chacha taught the girls how to sew yoyo's with these new nifty devices. Eve's smiling because they are so much easier and quicker than the 'old' way! Guelita then taught them some basic embroidery stitches to sew a sampler.I just love this photo of Abby and Guelita.Ira thought messing with the toys was more fun than sewing.Don't look so excited about sewing Debbie!Oh, that's lots better! We missed having my cousin's girls there. But they had a very good reason for skipping out.

* We visited with Avi and Yaya where the older girls got to hear more of Avi's story. You can read my sister's writing of that here, here, and here. (In that order!)

* Visited with Jen. Next time we're going to leave the kids with our husbands and we are going out for lunch!

* Ira got a death grip on Grandpa's ice cream sandwich. He didn't let go until it was all gone.

* Had a great paella dinner cooked by my dad. My parents invited a super nice family over. The wife designed a logo for my mom. Did I say they were super-duper nice? She brought me an antique table that her mother had painted - the legs are white, the top is red with Pres. Hinckley's B's written all around. So CUTE! It matches perfectly with my shelf of bee and beehive related items. Their youngest boy has the exact same birthday as Ira. Even cooler is their nicknames are also similar. They call their boy 'Charlie Brown' because he has a rather large head compared to his body (though I didn't think so) and we call Ira 'Buster Brown' because he's, well, brown. Here's a picture of who Sara calls 'the darkies' of the family - My brother Pere, Ira, and Sara.* During lunch break at the conference I went to Day Murray Music and spent so much time looking through all the great sheet music that I missed one of my classes. Oops! I had to get new piano lesson books for the girls and I picked up a new collection of ragtime pieces, Enya's 'A Day Without Rain' piano book, and the vocal/piano music to "Be Still, My Soul". So pretty when it's not sung by me!

Now it's back to our daily grind. But I'm feeling refreshed and raring to go. Good thing too - school starts on Monday.