February 2015

Since it is now March, we reckon we should put up a small blog about the things done or experienced in February here in the Arizona.  

We are still enjoying our stay here at Stu and Jo's.  They are such good hosts.  We try to walk on most days but Don, depending on what he is involved in, sometimes doesn't but knows he should. Since March is going to be "baseball" month we didn't involve ourselves in that yet in February.  More details here in the March edition of the blog.

Another of the Parks down here that we walk in.  It is about a half mile from Stuarts.

Stuart finished his ceiling in the living room and Don cleaned the carpet so now we will be helping him to move the furniture back into that room from all of the other rooms where it stored. He is really a craftsmen and you would have to see it to know just how much so. One of the painters who does homes for DR Horton, whom Stuart works for, came and helped him spray the paint. It is beautiful and makes the living room almost feel like a Celestial Room in the Temple. Lois asked him when he was going to start the gold leaf!!  But it really is nice. He, Stuart, just loves to work on projects like that and he said that he was almost sad that it was over. Now he is going to start on the Kitchen, but not sure just when.

The Ceiling (Some color balance issues from the lights.  It is all satin white.

Detail workmanship...we think it is quite "temple like".

On February 26th we were able to see Kent and Kristine along with Jay and Margaret Hicken and Bob and Pat Hicken. They are Don's cousins (of course Kent is his brother!) We had a delightful afternoon with them as we had not seen Jay and Bob and their spouses for some time. We had lunch (late) at the Outback Steak House in Gilbert.  Bob and Pat live in Gilbert as do Kent and Kristine. Bob is a counselor in the the Gilbert Temple Presidency.
Jay and Margaret still live in Providence, next to Logan and was here staying with Bob and Pat and doing some cabinetry work for them. Jay taught Woodworking at Utah State University, where he retired. After eating we stayed around for a couple more hours just visiting and then we noticed the dinner crowd starting to arrive so we needed to vacate the premises. We sure enjoyed the afternoon with them.

We enjoy our meetings with the folks here in the Willow Canyon Ward and have come to look on many of them as "friends". We were certainly warmly welcomed back when we came. Many of them remembered us from last year. I guess this is our ward when we are here. This weekend is Stake Conference.  The Stake Center here is about a 15 minute drive from Stuart's place and is located on Pat Tillman Drive in North Surprise.

We include this photo of the Phoenix Temple at night. It was done with a cell phone, but Don is planning to go over at night and do some "better" photos.

A cell phone night picture of the Phoenix Temple.

JoAnne is the President of the Primary and doing a great job.  She says that she really enjoys it. Of course, Stuart is still on the High Council and so he is at church with us sometimes and sometimes not. He also says that he likes it because he gets to go meet the people in the other wards when he visits and goes on Ward Conference Sundays. He has gotten to know the Stake much better. One of the branches in the stake is 1 1/2 hours away.

Until next time...God bless.