Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Celebrating Our Siara


Some fun girl time in North Carolina!

Today is Siara's birthday! I am so blessed to be the mother to some really amazing people. Each came with their own unique personalities and talents and qualities. I have loved every stage of their lives but I feel like the real reward for motherhood is moving into the friendship stage with them when they become adults. 

So here are some Birthday thoughts (and awesome childhood pictures!) of my daughter who is also my dear friend...
Some birthday posts for Siara's past birthdays:
click on this and this and go here.

If you are still interested, here is the story of the day of her birth.

And, the frosting on the cake--a  funny story about our spunky gal.






Saturday, March 21, 2015

Grow old along with me...

...the best is yet to be.


We celebrated the 32 year anniversary of the Andrew and JoAnna Gale Covenant Commitment and Marriage for Time and All Eternity a few weeks ago. The hubs flew out here to the  frozen East Coast for Valentine's Day and then I flew out to the West Coast for an Anniversary Rendezvous in sunny California for an early celebration of our special day.

Toasting our Anniversary with Water!

According to a helpful website the traditional gift for the 32 year anniversary is "Conveyances" and "Lapis"...
"For instance, if a couple is celebrating 32 years of marriage, one of the traditional gifts to present for this occasion is a lapis -- a semi-precious stone that boasts a deep blue shade. Other traditional gifts for a 32nd anniversary include modes of transportation." 

Then they go on to give gift suggestions for the husband:
"To honor your 32nd wedding anniversary with a gift of conveyance, surprise your wife with a new car. Choose an automobile in her favorite color, and include features that she'd find useful or appealing, such as an interior with the light-colored leather she likes best or a five-disc CD player. Smaller and less-expensive 32nd anniversary treats can include car air fresheners in her favorite scent, floor mats embroidered with her initials or a GPS system."

My thoughtful husband looked this up and explained it all to me in one of our daily phone calls. (This is how we keep our coast to coast relationship going--communication!) He was telling me that the two options were some kind of blue stone and modes of transportation. He said there was a surprise coming in the mail and I assumed it wasn't a car, (though I guess it could be a car air freshener) but then I said "Oh, did you find a blue rock? Are you sending me a rock?" Which actually I would be thrilled with--I'm always keeping my eye out for pretty rocks.

"A rock? Why would I send you a rock?" he laughed.

"Well you said the 32nd Anniversary gift was a blue stone-- it's some type of rock or something and mode of transportation. I assume you aren't sending me a Vespa or a unicycle or a donkey--so that leaves blue rock."

"Just keep your eye out for a surprise in the mail." he said, rolling his eyes (I'm assuming that last part--since we were talking via phone--I can't say for sure).

A few days later, this arrived:

A beautiful lapis stone necklace. 
Better than a rock. 

But that was not the end of my guy's thoughtfulness...
These beautiful roses arrived on my doorstep the actual day of...



...and then,

he held to tradition and gifted me with a mode of transportation.
And it's lapis blue! 

(well, it's Twilight Blue--but close enough)




 Love is what you go through together. James Thurber

The View From My Window



It is Spring but I guess Mother Nature didn't get the memo...


No Winter lasts forever,
No Spring skips its turn.
April is a promise,
That May is bound to keep.

I'm going to keep that in mind while I am shoveling snow today.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Mission Birthday


One of our missionaries celebrates a birthday today:
Elder Gale turns 19!
Here he is with his current companion and a young man they recently
prepared for baptism:


And here they are at the Los Angeles Temple last week: 

These two remind me of Elder Kessler and Elder Green 
from Saturday's Warrior...

In his email this week, he told us about a new exhibit at the visitor's center
there at the LA Temple. It is all about missionary work and they
have all the name tags of the missionaries currently serving in the area.



Here is an experience he shared this week as well:
"We got  a phone call from Julio saying that he was taking us out to eat, and that he was there! We got ready super fast and went out to Pollo Inka with him, a Peruvian restaurant. It was such a cool dinner. Julio was telling us about how he heard stories of missionaries who would go to poor members' homes in Guatemala (where he's from) and give everything they had to the missionaries and not eat themselves. He said that he always wanted to give his all like that, and that even though he always gave us the same stuff to eat whenever we came over to his house, that today was a special day because we were eating good food in a restaurant and that he was finally sharing his best with the missionaries. I seriously just looked at him and his wife across the able and cried. I am so blessed to know as good a man as Julio. He is such an example to me of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. As we were walking out of the restaurant, the sun was starting to set and it was raining, and there was a beautiful rainbow across the whole sky, and we all looked up at it in amazement, it was seriously incredible...
We got home and grabbed our bikes and went to visit the Reyes' family since we couldn't last week. We watched "The Restoration" with Juan and at the end he looked at us and said "now I finally understand who Joseph Smith was, he was just an honest man looking for truth from God" and it was awesome. He said he was learning slowly, but that little by little he's beginning to understand our message. We answered a lot of his questions and he's coming along! He also said to me "What part of Argentina are you from? You're from Argentina, right?" Always an awesome compliment to get when you're trying to learn someone else's language! "

It makes my Mother Heart happy to know that my son is serving among such amazing, loving people there--and that he is learning and growing in that service. 

I still can't believe how fast time flies--I'm pretty sure our little Sammy was 
picnicking in the park with his sister just yesterday:




Happy Birthday Scott!

 It has been awhile since I updated this little family scrapbook on the internet. I like to pop over here from time to time and look at our ...