Families Are Forever

                                                          Families Are Forever

     We just had the sweetest experience this week. All of our children and grandchildren came to Missouri to spend some time with us.It was so great to be  to together, it doesn't happen often enough since we are all so spread out.
     Most of them got here Friday night. Saturday we spent at the Crown Center in downtown Kansas City. It was built by Hallmark, (hence the CROWN center.) Since Kansas City is the home of Hallmark Cards. There are many places for families to spend time together. The little kids loved Kaleidescope, which is an area where they can make their own greeting cards, create a puzzle, paint glow in the dark pictures, make gift boxes, all kinds of creative fun.

    Then we went to lunch at Fritz. Sounds weird, but another fun place there. It is set up like a railroad car, and the food is delivered on a rail system overhead, dropped on a platform, then lowered to your table. The kids got such a kick out of it.

   After lunch we walked across the street to the Union Pacific Depot. It is a beautiful building, and they have a wonderful model train exhibit there. We all enjoyed that as well.

Legoland

All Legos(except Nathan, Rachelle& Kailani)

 Then back to the Crown Center for Legoland. That is quite the place. I have not been to the one in California, but this was lots of fun. I don't think we even saw everything because everyone was so tired.






  We got to share Lacey's birthday with her that day, and we went to an Italian place, Carrabas for her birthday.
 
  Sunday we went to church, and to all of the local Church Historical sites, The Temple Lot, the Community of Christ Temple, and our Visitors Center, and Liberty Jail. They seemed to enjoy the sites, I'm sure the little ones weren't as excited, but they do have places to play at the Visitors center. There is such a special feeling there, and it is very family friendly. It was so great to spend time together in this special place.

Our whole beautiful family at Liberty Jail

An Exciting Week

                                                            Exciting Week


    It's hard to believe that July is here already. It was June that went out with a bang though. On Friday June 26th early in morning we had, what they call wind sheer. It is when the wind velocity changes at right angles to the wind direction. (Don't you just love Google). Anyway, when My Elder and I got up in the middle of the night, we noticed that the power was out, but promptly fell back to sleep. He got up at 4:30 to go to the Mission Home to pick up the missionaries that were leaving, and their baggage, to take them for one last visit to the Temple with President and Sister Vest. Elder Crow said that all of the way there a lot of the lights at intersections were out, and trees were down all over. Meanwhile, when I got up at 6:30, the power was still out in our apartment. It was a lot of fun getting ready in the dark. I wondered if I would look like a clown, since I had to put my make-up by flashlight. I drove to work on some back roads when I realized that none of the lights were working. I did not want to stop at every intersection. Holy cow, on these back roads there were trees down every where. On some of them, trees were blocking the road. I also saw 2 trees fallen on houses and cars!!

    When I did get to the office, there was only 1 Senior Elder there, so he said that I might as well go home. One of the couples in the office are local, and they had a tree fall on their house.

This is the Carlson's house

     Our power did not come back on until 11:30. I was worried about our food in the fridge and freezer, but everything seemed to be fine.
    Then on Wednesday, July 1st a tornado touched down just a few miles from us. The sky got black and the wind and rain started, it was unbelievable.

       
         Last night, July 6th we had such a strong rain storm that we ahd to cancel family home evening because several of the couples could not make it. The weather here is crazy!! Of course most people say that this is a very unusual year.
        On the 4th of July The Elders were going to go fishing, and we Sisters decided that we wanted to join them. We went to Far West to a beautiful pond there. We had a blast! Sister Arnold, our mission nurse cought the most fish, but I was right behind her, so the women ruled that day!!

         That night we went to the Community of Christ Auditorium to hear The Brett's a family group from Branson perform. They were great. After that was the fireworks in the big open park that the church owns behind the Visiotrs Center.  What a great 4th of July celebration!!