Spencer Made it to Sierra Leone :)

Well Spencer made it to the mission home in Sierra Leone!

What a relief! I spent all of  Tuesday waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. He is only 6hr ahead of us and so I kept checking and hoping for conformation that he left or that he made it. I had my mom check her e-mail a few times and I kept checking his mission blog to see if they posted a picture. Well finally about 4:30 our time there was proof that he made it and I could relax. :)

I just love the kid so much and worry because he is such a 3rd world country and we know nothing about it. ( we were told not to look into it much or we would be scared.) I know that the Lord is protecting him and My faith is very Strong on that  but I am a worry wort.

For those who would like to see and find out what is happening in Spencer's mission their blog is http://www.sierraleonefreetownmission.blogspot.com/

Here are the pictures that were posted.

Yeah for Missionaries!

Love ya Spencer!

Spencer In the MTC

Yeah! He made it and is Alive!

Here is his first letter to let us know he made it.

Hello Mother. I have made it here to Ghana Safely. All is going well. They gave us a few short minutes to send a quick email saying that we made it ok. The plane ride was good. Long, but good. I was able to sleep most of the way. We all made it through customs ok. when they picked us up the stuffed all of our luggage into one van and all of us elders into another van. It was super packed and VERY hot in there. it was a cool to see all of the people on the street trying to sell stuff to the cars that went by. It made traffic pretty slow though. but we made it. The MTC doesn't have a lot of AC. only in the Chapel. That is now my new favorite room. :)  I was still a little tired when we got to the MTC but after a nights rest I'm doing well.

 

 It is super hot here! I don't think i have ever sweat so much in my life while just sitting down, or even sleeping for that matter. The meals haven't been too bad so far. This morning we had a hot dog for breakfast with some onions and some sauce on it. I guess that is pretty common here.  And i guess you could have called it a hot dog bun. but it surely wasn't. it was just a big piece of bread that had a slice in it to place the hot dog.

 

My companion is Elder Ihejirika. He is from Nigeria and will be serving there after our stay at the MTC. We all got paired up with elders from Nigeria or Ghana. There is about 5 or 6 of us that will be heading to Sierra Leone together. All American except one, i think. They are all so awesome. They are all so willing to wait on us and serve us. They are really nice and awesome. I felt bad because when we were unpacking our things I have like triple the amount of stuff as my companion.

 

It isn't as sunny as I thought it would be, but that is because of how humid it is. It covers the sky. They said that it isn't always like this. So hopefully I will get to see some blue sky in a little bit. They said it might rain in the next day or so. so i guess we will see how bad it really is.

 

Well, my time is up and we have to go back to class now. I love you all a lot! I'll talk to you soon.

 

Love Elder Jones

Then we got another E-Mail :) (we were told the he would not be able to e-mail us so we are grateful that he can) 

 He told us that he is getting used to the heat. That he got to go to the Temple. and is just doing well. He sent some pictures and I am just so excited for him. I miss him tons and cried when I saw these just cause I knew that he is doing what he is suppose to and is actually there.

LOVE YOU SPENCER! 

 

Elder Spencer Jones

Wednesday the 21st was spent with Me, Mom and Spencer finishing all the last minute things to get Spencer packed and ready to go. We made 2-3 trips to Wal-Mart (we found out that Spencer had a secret love with Wal-Mart or that he was just going to miss having one). They covered Mom’s bed with all of his stuff and his suit cases. Mom worked her packing magic and got everything in. We sent him with 2 things of peanut butter, toothpaste, shampoo, and a lot of other things that we did not have to send DJ with. :)

We got ready and then Went to dinner at Red Robin for Spencer’s “Last Meal” then we went to President Richins office and Spencer got set apart. I had been holding the teas in all day but by the end of the night I just could not hold it in anymore. President Richins did a great job and gave Spencer a wonderful blessing. Mom got to put his tags on him and then we went home.

When I got home I changed into jammies and lost it! Complete sobs as I lay in my bed. So I just pray and prayed and prayed until I felt better. I know that Heavenly Father is going to watch over Spencer as he is in such a 3rd world country and that he will watch over me and my family when he is gone.

I woke up the next morning with my eyes super puffy but ready for the day as much as I could be. I was hoping I could be all cried out. :)  I got ready and then asked Spencer what he wanted for breakfast. He wanted his favorite French toast and some sausage. I headed to the store to get the sausage when I saw an accident. It was the car in front of me so I stopped and made sure they were OK, called the cops and waited until they arrived. In the meantime friends and neighbors saw that I was there and call to make sure I was OK. I told them it was not me but I was grateful they thought of me and offered to help. After that I continued on my trip to Bowman’s for sausage and then returned home. We had breakfast finished a few last minuet things (Spencer took another trip to Wal-Mart) and packed up the car and went to the airport.

We got there and went down to the ticket counter and got him all checked in. A very nice man helped us and gave Spencer some advice on his transfer and how to do some other things. We were doing good on the crying font until Mom started and then we all kind of lost it for a second. We pulled it together and went over to the side to wait for Brooke and Logan to come. When they came Brooke started crying and then Spencer and then it was a cry fest.

We finished taking pictures and then we went up to the security line. We gave our final hugs and Lost it again. We followed him through the line and until he made it through security. There were a couple of other missionaries in line with him so it was great that he had someone with him.

Even though I am going to miss him terribly Spencer is going to be a GREAT missionary! He is going to help so many people and touch the lives of so many more. He will face tons of new challenges and experience’s but he is young and brave and will accomplish a lot.

It is going to be weird not to have him around and I am going to miss his since of humor and a great friend and brother.

San Francisco 2012

We started March out with a bang. Me, Mom, Dad, Spencer and Skyler went on a road trip to San Francisco. We had so much fun!

We got up early on Thursday morning and left the house about 7 am. We stopped at Maverick in Farmington to get gas and Mom saw Casey from Chanel 2 new doing a report and went up to him and was on TV. It was funny because she was in her jammies. We had to give her crap since she would never let us out of the house in our jammies and she was on TV in them. :)   Then we just kept driving. The weather was not the best on the way there. We stopped in Winiamucha to get gas and lunch and there was a sideways wind/hail storm. It was crazy! Spencer had some super high winds Dad started driving after Reno so he could drive Doner’s Pass. It had snowed over the pass and they were requiring chains on all cars. So we pulled over and put chains on (a first for all of us) and drove 30mph. it was so crazy. We did not even need the chains. We left more snow in our driveway than what was on the road. We even asked them how much snow was on the road to see if we even needed chains and we told them we were from Utah and drive in snow all the time but the just said that Chains were Required. Oh well, we made it. We saw some way cool animal life along the pass also. We got in to California and found this farmers market and they told us of a great place to eat dinner. Oh my it was so so good. It was an Italian restaurant. We all loved it.

Then we drove some more and finally got to our hotel. It was a nice hotel. We had all of us in the same room. We were a little squished but I was still wonderful. We had a Great view from the room. We could see the Bay Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge and a lot of other places. That night I did not sleep much. Dad and his snoring kept me up. I then learned for the next nights what to do (sleeping pills and ear plugs ) then we got up really early and got ready for a fun day of adventure In San Francisco.

We started out our trip at Alcatraz. We were on the first tour. As we were standing in line Dad ears perked up. We looked at him and asked what’s up. He said that he think he hears Swedish. And he did there was a group tour and he got to talk to a lot of people in Swedish. It was fun for him and for us to see him use his Swedish. It was also great to see him explain about the church and why he was there and how he learned Swedish and to tell them that Spencer was going on a mission to Africa. It was really cute to see him have so much fun.



On  The Boat over to Alcatraz



 At the main entrance on the island. now a hike up to the jail. it is not bad i just remember the first time we came and we had grandma and grandpa with us and they could not do it very well. :) we all did just great! plus there was such a great view out to San Fran.

 Inside one of the Jail cells. It would be so uncomfortable to have to stay in one of those everyday for years.We all really loved the tour, the history and the fun guy we met that told us all sorts of cool stories that were one part of the audio tour. he told us that it is really possible that you could swim across to San Fran. so maybe some of the escapees actually made it to freedom. :)

 Here are some of the sea lions at Pier 39. They were so much fun to watch. We ate lunch here at the pier and window shopped. I got scared by a bird as it jumped on my table and gave me this scary look to  give it my food. everyone around me laughed as i jumped and screamed but they were all on my side and Spencer helped me scare it away.

We then walked up hill a few blocks and caught a bus. to take us to the Exploratorium. When we got on the bus it was not super full but then 2 stops later a whole school field trip got on. it made it super crowded. we rode the bus to the end and got off to walk the rest of the way. We have decided that we LOVE walking in San Fran just to see all the houses. They have so much character and they are so beautiful and interesting.

We get to where they said the Exploratorium is at and we did not think that it was it so we started walking around and we found this wonderful collum thing. it looked like we took a trip to Rome. It was beautiful!

 We Finally found the Exploratorium. OH MAN! We LOVED it! It was so so COOL! It is a whole thing full of science experiences that you can play with. Totally hands on and we all had fun (even mom and dad)!

 This was in a section of the museum about violating social norms. it was so much fun.

 We Played with the bubbles for a long time. it was so much fun and we got some really big ones :)

 This was so funny of Skyler. I don't remember what the propose was but it was funny!

After we played for a while, we caught the bus back down to the Pier and went to the Aquarium and played and watched some fish. Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

On Saturday, Spencer and Dad went to the Oakland Temple to do a session and I drove all by myself(well with Lola the GPS) to Martinez to get my car fixed. then I picked the boys up and we got mom and Sky and headed into SF and we went to Golden Gate Park. We rented bikes and rode around. It was a great Idea but we were out of shape and SF is up hill both ways. then we went to a science museum. we saw some penguins being fed and we went into the rain forest section and we were all grateful that Spencer was the one going to Africa. humidity is a killer.

Then we went to dinner. I was able to pick one restaurant while we were there. I got online and did some research and picked a restaurant from Diner Drive-in's and Dives. and i found one that was good priced and the food looked good. We went and LOVED it! It was so so yummy!

After that we rode the trolleys/cable cars all around SF and we stopped at China Town and did some shopping. We were really tired and did not stay long but we did have some fun riding the trolley/cable cars. I think we took them everywhere they they could run. It was a lot of fun. We learned that the breaks for the Trolleys/Cable cars are nothing but wood.(2x4's) and they change them out every 5 days. At one point when we were stopping it smelt like a campfire. :) We really enjoyed learning about them. When we were done with went back to the Hotel.

The hotel we were staying at had this "Gateway"ish mall across the street. I saw a store from the window that I had heard some friends talk about and wanted to see what it was. So, me, mom and dad went over there. Spencer and Skyler went to the pool to play.

The store was called H&M and oh my we LOVED it! and there were some other fun stores there also. but i was getting late and we were hungry so we scoped out what they had there. Spencer and Skyler got some hot dogs, Dad got a shake and onion rings, mom got a salad and i went to this little Italian place and got the Yummiest things Ever! I got a Butternut squash ravioli in a brown butter sauce with crispy sage. HEAVEN!!! seriously i could eat it all the time. no one else would touch it, they were totally missing out!
Then we went back to the hotel and crashed.

We all slept in on Sunday and then got everything packed and ready to go. We took a trip over to the Temple to get some pictures and see the visitor center(Spencer wanted to see the cute sister missionaries.)  They had given us directions to Fentens, which is the ice cream parlor that is on the movie UP at the end when they are counting red and blue cars. :)

It was fun to see this.

We then went back to SF and got some pictures of us in front of our favorite places and on Jones Street. :)

After that we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and went to Muri National Forest to see the Red Wood trees. On the way up there we got stopped for a little while for traffic to go down the mountain but then that got backed up. we were so confused and so were the construction workers. and then we found out a semi was trying to go up this very small very curvy road and blocked traffic.once he got out of the was and the traffic cleared up we were able to make it there. it was so beautiful and quiet and the temperature was just right. The trees were so tall and beautiful. We actually bought a Sequoia tree and brought it home. I am hoping it will look like the trees we saw.

We then started the drive home. We got to just outside Reno when we decided to stop and spend the night and drive home in the morning.
The weather was much better on the way home. we did not have any real problems excpt that Spencer ended up with a speeding ticket.We felt so bad for him. but it won't effect him to bad since he is leaving for Africa and by the time he comes home it wont be there anymore. :)  We got home about 4-5 pm on Monday. we shower and put stuff away and then went to bed.

It was a Wonderful Family Vacation!!

Fireworks/4th of July

So begining June 27 DJ and the whole family started working at a fireworks stand. We had 2 stands in Clinton. One at the walmart and one at the Macey's. DJ ran the Walmart one with Spencer and a few neighbors and Mom rand the Macey's one with Skyler, Me, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa and a few other people.

Lets just say the whole thing was crazy and none of us want to ever do it again.

So on Monday we were suppose to get the fireworks at like 8:00 am and then spend the whole day setting up and getting it ready and maybe get some sells in. Well we showed up at 9:00 and no fire works. so we just chilled and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited until 7:00pm when our fireworks finally showed up. we did inventory and moved stuff into each tent and begun set up. well we did not even get done until 1-2 am at the Macey's tent. DJ's did not have some of the stuff he needed and so it made it even harder and they did not get finished until 4am.

Tuesday we started selling and finishing getting everything ready. it was a pretty good day. My mom left to teach a scout Merritt badge class with Skyler and left me and Kaylinn to run the stand. Dj needed some help and so I went over and he sent a kid over to Maceys to help kaylinn. the whole day there had been a breeze which felt nice to help cool things down. Until about 6 and the wind got really powerful and started blowing everything over. DJ was selling some aerials to someone and this stand fell over on him and the fireworks went EVERYWHERE! they were rolling down the street and there was nothing that we could really do. I quickly ran back over to my stand to help and it was not as bad as DJ but it was still a mess. Our Aeriel's fell on kaylinn. I felt so bad. we got to work picking them up and had them mostly done when another huge gust came thought and the stand and fireworks almost fell directly on my head. luckily there was a nice man and lady there to help up hold the tent up so it would not blow away. The wind felt like a hurricane!( not that i have been in one but i have seen movies with it.:) ). we did find out that there was a micro burst of 60-80 mph winds. As this was going on and we were all holding on for dear life i texted my parents HELP! the could not do much but it was all that i could thing of doing. I called Grandma and Grandpa and they came and helped right away. When my mom and dad got the message they were a little confused because in kaysville the wind was not even blowing. they believed us but just did not understand all the trama.
I felt really bad, DJ's tent the metal poles started to bend a little so he had to call the people and have them come and fix it. We also found out that it was super windy in Layton and the tent there had problems and that part of the roof of KFC blew off and fell and smashed some cars and some trees were broken in half like toothpicks. It was really crazy.

Wednesday Thursday and Friday I had to work at my real job in Logan. But I did get a phone call from my mom on Wednesday saying Help! They had another windstorm that blew like the day before. My mom was like "I believed you but now I understand" Her stand was not that bad but DJ's completely blew over. ( so these stands are pretty sturdy and are held up with 10-20 20gallon filled water barrels. it has to be Strong wind to move them) So DJ had to wait a day til he could get a new tent and get some new fireworks that were not damaged from the water and the wind.

They stayed pretty busy. On Saturday we had a family reunion and We were all grateful for Adam and Sammy and Kaylinn for helping mom out that day. they were pretty busy.

Sunday we did pretty good. mom's stand closed early. it was just so so hot. and i don't think that any of us have seen so many tattoos in one day. lol it was kind of funny.

Monday sky, Spencer and I slept in and I made french toast and we slowly made our way out there. It was OK it was steady. we closed by 6 and then had to take everything down and put it away and clean up and so we did not get done til after 9.

Dad, Skyler Mom and I claimed up on the roof to watch the Kaysville City fireworks and then DJ had a few that we lit off. As we were on the roof we could see so many people lighting off fireworks. it was kind of cool. the hard part was that we were trying to figure out what type they were.

It really was not the best 4th of July and it was a crazy week that none of us want to relive.

Ragnar Relay: Wasatch Back 2011

Yeah We all survived Ragnar!!! June 17-18 was the Ragnar relay: Wasatch Back.

Just some information about Wasatch Back.. It starts in Logan and ends in Park City. This year it was 191.7 miles. The Wasatch back is a relay running event. Most teams consist of 12 runners. each runner has a different amount of miles to run and difficulty of the run. There are 2 vans. Van 1 has runners 1-6 and van 2 has runners 7-12. there are exchanges where one runner passes the slap bracelet to the other runner and then there are major exchanges where Van 1 finishes and Van 2 starts. They keep going and going until they finish. the idea is that as Van 1 is running Van 2 is either eating or sleeping and when van 2 is running van 1 is eating or sleeping. This really does not allow much time for any of that though. Also most teams have to provide 3 volunteers to help out for the race. now volunteer is a iffy word for this because they are part of the team but if they don't show up to their scheduled time the team gets disqualified. now that puts a lot of pressure on the volunteer. plus you can have 2 drivers.

I love the Ragnar motto "Run, Drive, Sleep? Repeat" it is so so true.

This year our team was #756(of about 1100 entries) and the name was "Top Run". Now I say "our" team because it was a family event this time. Melinda, Logan, and Spencer Ran the race and Me, Mom, Grandma and Grandpa were volunteers.

Mom got an awesome volunteer spot and helped Monday before the race and put together packets for the vans. Grandma and Grandpa went to the starting line and where helping out up there. they had to be there at 1:30 am to 7:30ish am. then I had a water station on leg 11 up trappers loop and handed out water or power aid to the runners as they started a very steep incline. I had a blast! I met some fun ladies and cheered a lot. i got to see some of the fun and interesting costumes... the guy in the speedo(yuck) the bear bum viking,(yuck) and some of the cute ones. my time was from 12-5:30pm.

Melinda was runner #3 and she did amazing!! her three run miles were 5.6 4.9 3.6=14.10 miles. Man we love being her support team. it is so much fun to cheer her on and drive ahead a little bit and wait and cheer again and do it again and again. on her second run we were able to do this and it was fun. we were cheering for this other guy to, just randomly, and then this SUPER HOT guy ran by. Oh Man!! he was so hot and so buff and worth dreaming and drooling over. Mom totally hung out the window and cat called at him and he had this smile on his face( we could not tell if it was.. ya i know i am hot or i can't believe this lady just did that) sadly we never saw him after that.

Logan was runner #8 and his miles were 3.4 7.0 5.9=16.3. he did great! we got a lot of pics of him running(down below) we got to cheer him on also. it was super fun. Him and Specner were in the same car and they had a good time and lots of memories.

Spencer was runner #12. Oh man can i just say how amazing he did and how proud of him i am. he had 3 very hard runs and he kicked but. his three runs were 4.7 6.9 6.9=18.5. i think that they were mostly all up hill with rough turaine and other crazy things. now because of the difficulty of his runs we were not allowed to go along and cheer him on. on his second run he ran right past Aunt Shireleens house and since that is were we were staying i was so excited to go out and cheer him on. i went out at 4 am and started cheer for every person that came by. since it was dark i could not see who was coming so i cheered for everyone.. one guy told me that i was crazy and to go back to bed. well i was out there for 30 min. and i never saw Spencer. so i called his phone to see if someone in the car would pick up and Spencer did. My heart sank! I missed him. he ran past just before i got out there. but then they came back to aunt shirleens and ate and slept a little and so i got to give him a hug. Since he was #12 he was the last on and had the one to run into the finish line. He had his buddies on the Davis high xc team that he was trying to stay a head of on this run and he was so awesome and came in and stayed in front of him. :) when he came to a specific point the rest of the team could join him and they could all finish the race together. it was awesome! i am so proud of them!

so the fastest team to come into the finish line was the BYU XC team. there total time was 18:38:18.7.. now that is super fast. My mom was talking to them after and they were so nice and gracious. The Davis High xc team came in at 20:29:09.8 and was #3 and #4 team to come in was Spencer's coach and their time was 20:37:21.2

Top Run came in at 31:58:14.5... Yeah I think that it is amazing!

It was so much fun to participate and be part of the team without running :)

here are some of the pics that i did get to take....

Snapshot of Spencer... Tired, sleep deprived, and sore!

Love ya Bud!

Logan getting ready to run


Logan running

one mile to go on his last run!

Aunt Shirleen Brooke and Me in the back of Grandma and Grandpa's car watching Logan run

The team after they finished (minus Buzz and Anne Brough)

The support team :)

Adam after he finished! :)

Lagoon Day 2011

Oh June 9th was Dad's Lagoon and the day before Nils left to go back home. So it was our last big family event. We had a lot of fun and really appricate dads company for putting it on. We took lots of pictures and had lots of laughs.

Here are all the kids getting read for Jet Star

Brooke Logan Spencer on the "Egg Beaters"

Brookie got super squished.

Me Skyler and Nils

I think that Nils had a lot of fun squishing skyler



Skyler Nils Logan and Brooke on the Bumper cars

Me Skyler and Mom on the Tilta Whirl

We got it going so well. It is one of mom's favorites.

Logan Brooke Spencer Skyler and Nils In line for the Rocket Re-Entry

Me and two cute little girls on Samari

Nils Skyler Logan Brooke and Spencer on Samari

Nils and Me on the White Rollercoaster

Skyler and Spencer on the white Rollarcoaster.

ok, so as the ride got going I heard these Massive Girl screams I started laughing so so hard cause i thought they were coming from skyler but there were some gils in front of him. :)

Nils Logan Brooke and Spencer(skyler on the other side of spencer) on the Tidle Wave

Dad Mom and Me on the Tidal Wave

Spencer and Skyler on the Swings

Me on the Swings

Ok so we went over to Raddle Snake Rapids after dinner and everyone but mom rode it. now we have been on that ride so many times but none of us have ever had that much fun on it. I laughed so hard my side ached. we really did not want to get wet but ya have to ride this ride. well the boat spun in circles the whole time it was crazy. everyone kept moving up and down and to the side and every direction just not to get wet. it was so so funny

and of course we got dricnched by the water fall

all of us after words

All WET!

So since they were already wet they decided to go on the Cliffhanger.

oh boy that was a mistake. they got soaked! it was funny watching them.

This is an after Picture. Soaked from head to toe.

they are all squizing out their clothes, socks and shoes and a waterfall of water came out. they were so so wet!

Trying to dry off in the sun

Riding Wicked

Dj and Skyler on the Spider

Me and Skyler on the Wild Mouse

Brooke Loand and Skyler on the Music Express

Dj and Nils

Me and Spencer

Me and Skyler

It was a super fun day!