** THE TOYS ARE LONELY . . . **

Hi again, Alert Readers! The toy box is looking forlorn and lonely this morning.  Rory is not coming today. She and her Mama and Daddy have flown back east to meet some of Andrew’s family. Rory’s toys are looking desolate. They seem to be asking, “Where’s that cute little girl who plays with us?” Oh well . . . there’s always next week!

We had a lovely Mother’s Day. We don’t get out of church until 4:30 (groan!), so the family came over at 5:30 for dinner. EVERYONE was here: our whole posterity! Kristin, Chris, Ali, Andrew, Rory, Nick, Emily and Trevor. My goodness! There are not very many of us, but we love each other, and we are growing! The men fixed the food: Andrew, who loves to cook and is a GOOD cook, made Argentine empanadas. These are not the sweet Mexican empanadas; these are made with meat. We had beef, chicken and ham and cheese ones. YUMMY! Chris made two delicious cheesecakes. Again, YUMMY! OH! And, fun!, we watched our DVD of our Santa Monica 1^st Ward roadshow “Circus Daze”. Our grandkids had seen it before, but it was NEW to Andrew and Emily- and a riot for all the rest of us too! We were all falling on the floor with Denny’s “I’m turning into skin and bones!” part. Had to play it twice! 

That DVD made us very nostalgic for “the good ole days”. Those 27 years in Santa Monica were the highlight of our lives. Working in the youth program was our joy. We couldn’t do it anymore. It was truly physically demanding. What a shame . . . we loved those kids!

We are missing our Sunday School kids. It is good to be back among the adults after a really long absence (our illnesses, etc), but there’s something very special about working with the youth. We love teaching Gospel Doctrine, and hope that we will get to know the adults in the Ward now . . . . BUT we miss those special kids! I love to get a hug from them in the halls.

Last Tuesday night was fun. Our Ward Relief Society had a very special Mother/Daughter Activity. I invited Krissy, Ali and Emily to come. It meant a lot to me that they came. There was a short program and then CRAFTS! Ali and Emily had signed up to embellish some summer flip-flops. CUTE! All four of us made photo blocks. We painted rather largish blocks of wood black and then Mod Podged a photograph onto it. Then came a nice black ribbon bow! Emily tied our bows for us and they are really beautiful! Her little girls are going to have cute hair bows, I bet! My block has our wedding picture on it- in black and white, of course. It looks really nice sitting in our bookshelf. Emily did a black and white photo of her wedding day too. Ali did one of her cute little family, and Krissy made one with Rory! All of them turned out really cute. And EASY! *** After the crafts, an ice cream sundae bar opened! Oh my . . . all kinds of toppings for ice cream! It was soooo good! We were only there for about an hour and fifteen minutes. PERFECT! It was so fun to be with the girls. I love them!

NEWS! I am going back to serve in the Temple on Wednesday nights! I am still having too much pain in my left knee to STAND, but I can volunteer in the laundry from 3:00 – 6:45 PM, and then go to the Recording Office until all of the ordinances are recorded (usually about 9:45 or so). Sister Milly Pike (who has been the volunteer running the office on Wed nights) is moving to Idaho, and they needed someone to take her place. Luckily, I’ve been serving in the office for nearly a year, and have been trained on all of the jobs and machines- so I can come in and take her place!  J  This will require me to train the two sister ordinance workers who come in on Wednesdays, but I think it will be fun. If another office opening occurs on Tuesdays, I would like to take that one too. That will put me in the Temple the same times as Denny.

MORE NEWS! John and Elaine Wallace and four of their kids (Daniel is staying home) are coming over Memorial Day Weekend! YAY! It will be so fun to see them! Elaine told me not to worry about “entertaining” them. We really don’t know much about childrens’ play places around here. They have rented a place to stay. And it has a community pool!!!! That will be fun for them. LOVE LOVE LOVE the Wallaces!

Must go. The laundry is screaming my name. I wish it would just wash, dry and fold itself!  . . . sigh . . .

Love to all, Sue J