Balloon Festival

June 28, 2014

Another great year for the balloon festival!  We love watching them go up and love the balloon glow on Saturday night!  So fun.  This year, McKenna was in Spain, Garrett was with his friends, Kimber and Addison took off on Jeff and I, leaving us only with Leighton.  Good thing we have her for a few more years!  

Another Cattle Drive

June 28, 2014

Saturday and another cattle drive for Kelly, Jeff, Addison and this time Leighton!

 

 

 

After a while, Leighton got a little tired of the horse and Kelly took her with him on the 4-wheeler.  He even took her for a little paddle boat ride on a pond.  Kelly is Leighton's new favorite friend!

Missionary Maps

June 2014:

Mom has a missionary map in her office and kept track of all where all her posterity has served.  Before McKenna left, she gave me a map of my own that we had framed.  I can't wait until mine looks as well traveled as mom's!  OK, I can wait...but it will be fun watching it grow!

There She Goes!

June 23, 2014

Early Monday morning, McKenna said goodbye to Panguitch valley for 18 months.  We left at 8 am, arrived in Circleville to get set apart by President Mike Dalton and traveled up to Salt Lake City.  Enough time for lunch McKenna picked her favorite restaurant - the Garden in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  We love that place!  All the flags were hanging from the ceiling for the soccer world cup.  We were seated under the Spain flag and our waiter served a mission to Spain!  I considered this all a good omen!  They displayed a card on our table, "Called to Serve".  A woman from Africa approached McKenna and asked if she could have her picture with the future missionary and wished her luck.

After lunch, we headed to Salt Lake International Airport.  McKenna received help at the kiosk to check in from a true Spaniard!   Even more good luck!  Next she checked on her suitcase and we headed up the escalator to security.  That was it!  When we got up to the top and saw how close we were, there were a few tears and a few more pictures.  I can still feel her hug!  It felt that good!  A few more tears and goodbye and she bravely set off for her new adventure as a  missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!  There has been such a peace since that day.  I wouldn't ask for her back even if I did want to be with her.  She is where she needs to be, doing what she knows she should be doing, and she will be blessed for eternity for her service.  We love you McKenna!  You will be a wonderful missionary!

As soon as she went through security, I really wanted to text her to tell her to be safe, be careful around strangers and to have a safe flight...nope, not going to happen!

Typical McKenna - already making friends!

 I put an app on my phone so we could track McKenna's plane to Spain.  Needless to say - we followed it all the over.  By the time we went to bed it was just heading out over the Atlantic.  And yes, I woke a few times in the night to check on her progress!

Packing

June 22, 2014:

Packing for McKenna...finally!  She did it and even had enough room left over for her pillow!  She was one happy camper!  McKenna, Garrett and I took the largest suitcase to the hospital to weigh.  It came in at 51.5 pounds!  Pretty good - we re-arranged just a couple of things and by the time we got to the airport it came in at 48.  51-75 pounds you pay $100 so we were pretty happy campers!

 

Zion - Pine Creek

June 21, 2014:

The girls decided to take dad and Garrett to our fav hike in Zion.  Pine Creek.  We went there last year and loved it so much!  And Addison remembered her shoes!  After a couple of hours relaxing and catching polywogs in pine creek we all decided that the crowds up the main canyon in Zion weren't worth it.  We skipped the shuttle and just came home instead!