What is Normal? When Will It Be? COVID Continues.

I know it has been a couple of weeks since we posted and a lot of things have happened.  The work on the temple continues.

Scaffolding going up around the Angel Moroni

Asbestos removal.  There has been a lot of this.  They look like spacemen, or is it COVID 19? 

The son at the top of the Angel Moroni.  It was quite a site.

The Spring flowers are being removed in preparation for the summer flowers.

The flowers are unbelievable but almost over.

The Zone continues to work from our apartments and we are getting better at doing WebeX  meetings.

Utah is beginning to open up and Alea has come back to Utah to resume her work at Kohl's.  We spent a fun Sunday together with dinner and a walk around a very vacant Temple Square.

Alea, ready to return to work.  Notice you cant see Moroni, he is covered with scaffolding.

We had bought airline tickets to go home for Shaylin's Graduation, and of course the flights were cancelled, so we drove home to Mesa.  We are continuing to work with the zone online, but now we are doing it at the church because we do not have WIFI at home.

Vermillion Cliffs

Arizona here we come.  Back to the heat for a couple of weeks.

Shaylin and all the 2020 graduates have had a very interesting graduation.  It has been drive by honking parades, virtual Seminary Graduation, virtual High School Graduations.  Some feel they have been cheated out of tradition, but they have had more recognition and parties than any other year I have ever witnessed.  It was nice to share her graduation on a comfortable, cool couch, instead of hard metal bleachers in 98 degrees.

Shaylin and friend Kalie masked for COVID 19

Virtual graduation on the big screen at home.

Grandpa and Grandma with the Levi quilt.  Her graduation gift.

Levi quilt, I think she liked it

The house was decorated so cute.

We went shopping the day after we got home as there was no food in the refridgerator.  The very next morning we woke up to warm milk and everything in the freezer melted.  Our fridge had DIED!  Of course it was Sunday so we took what was salvageable over to Heidi's and filled her fridge.  Monday May 18 Bob, Heather, Heidi and I drove to Snowflake to help paint Valerie and Dave's home on the property they are going to sell.  We spent a full day there and got a lot of it done.  Valerie's surgery was again postponed till June 3!  I want to be here to help her, but they had better not postpone it again.  She had just had her preop blood work drawn and her test for COVID 19, when they called her and told her no surgery on the 20!  Gurrrrrrr, I was not happy and neither was she.

Bob had a cortisone injection on Wednesday for his sciatica and then dealt with the after headache and feeling lousy for a couple of days.  He is doing better now.
Part of the trip home was to help take care of Warren.  He has gone down quite a bit and is now being helped by caregivers and Hospice in their apartment.  He was very happy to see "His Missionaries"  He is such a great man and has brought a lot of joy to Mom and all of us.

Corona and Buffalo and Gnats, Oh My!

This is quite late in the week, but there are a lot of pictures we wanted to share, so here goes.
The bathroom leak did not prove to be as bad as they thought, so no cutting of the cement.  We did not move, but remain in apartment 209.  We have ordered a air purifier to help with the musty smell, and it is getting better.  The weather has been nice so we keep the windows open a lot.  Thankfully the flowers are still blooming and brightening our days.

I love this shot of the temple from the North East, even though you can see the crane in the background.

Tree blossoms

Justin had his 45th birthday!  How could this be?  Time goes by so quickly but we have surely been blessed with a wonderful family and Sonshine.  Heidi and Wynn also celebrated their 23rd  wedding anniversary.  Even though we are far away it is nice to get together weekly on a zoom meeting or webex and see each other and even play some fun games together.

Our family zoom get together

Scavenger hunt with precious rolls of toilet paper.  So fun.

Our zone webx Sunday School Class

The construction goes on with the temple and they are now putting scaffolding around the spires.  Things are coming down and going up.

South side of the temple.  They are down about 20 feet from ground level around the temple foundation.

The buildings on the east side coming down.

East Side of temple building coming down

Securing the 4X8 plywood to the crane for its trip to the roof of the temple

placing the scaffolding around the spires on the west side.

Looking up so high at the crane and the scaffolding

We were able to get to the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Building and get this picture looking North to the Conference Center and to the buildings coming down.

You can see the beautiful wooden wall about ready to go.

 

We enjoyed the flyover of the jets from Hill Field as they flew over to show support for the hospital workers.  It was quite a site and quite a sound.

The jet flyover

Saturday we took a trip with our friends Dave and Sandy Briggs out to Antelope Island State Park.  It was a nice break.  I had always wanted to go there.  They have some nice beaches and camping, but mostly billions of biting gnats.  We were covered with them and when we got back to our apartment and got in a tub to drown them, the water was black with floating gnats.  Yuck.  We also had a $10.00 buffalo burger that was just OK.  We probably ate a bunch of gnats with that too.  The Buffalo were very interesting to watch.  I have never seen so many of them in one place.  There had to be hundreds of them.

Just one of the huge beasts on Antelope Island.

A sign right next to the road where we watched a guy go close to the buffalo to take a picture.

Crazy guy, what's worse Coronavirus, or death by buffalo?

Bob trying to smile despite the gnats

Bob and Debra at Buffalo Point with the Great Salt Lake behind us.

Just a few of our "friendly" gnats hitching a ride on Debra's back

If you look close you can see them in Debra's hair and flying around!  YUCK

Dave nd Sandy Briggs arms flying to keep the gnats away!

 

Mom and Warren are having a very hard week.  She fell and we were worried about a possible fractured pelvis.  Thankfully no breaks just very sore torn muscles.  Warren is going down and sleeps about 18 hours a day.  They "celebrated" their 3rd wedding anniversary May 5.  We saw their wedding 3 years ago by way of face time as we were serving at Deseret Land and Livestock Handcart Mission and this one by way of face time as we are here in Salt Lake Headquarters Mission. Bobs' sisters are going to take a week at a time to be with Mom and Warren.  Heidi has been carrying the load of three people and we are so grateful to her for her amazing help.  They also have a caregiver coming in for 2 hours a day to help out.

We went out to Saltair, an old resort on the great Salt Lake and then drove to Tooele, another place I had never been.  It is interesting what brings us pleasure in these Covid-19 times.

Saltair.   The only trees for miles around.

We got some very happy news Monday night, Shaylin Mayhew made the BYU Cheerleading team for next year.  She is a very talented and sweet young lady.  We are proud of her and love all of our amazing family.

 Shaylin's very Blue celebration!  She is a BYU Cheerleader.  Shaylin, Kyen, Brenan Mayhew.