Mystery flower...

We are always planting stuff in our small garden space... like veggies, plants, flowers... some grow great while others.. well... just don't make it. We have severl pots on the patio that have lovely plants in them. ... and one little skinny planter, that we never got around to replanting... until it decided to grow something on it's own! At first we thought maybe it was just a weed, or a cilantro gone wild... so we just kept watering it and it grew into this really beautiful purple flowered little plant. We have no idea what it is or where it came from, but it sure is cute. It's starting to get some seed pods on it so hopefully we will have more of these in the future. Thank you garden fairy...

from Brazil...

Here's our weekly email from Brazil...

Oí famíliaIt was fun talking to everyone on sunday and elder camargo really liked talking to mom. He still reinacts when he was talking to her. (mom note here: I only talked to him like for a minute and he gave me the phone number to call and I said nice to meet you and complimented his english. I would love to hear his reinactment!) Yesterday we had interviews with the president and it went really good, up until he totally burned us and we all are sinners and we need to repent. He was mad yesterday beause he gave some missionaries some references of people who pretty much are asking to be baptized and the missionaries never went to their house. During the week at the chapel in the center, people go there because there is a program so people can find jobs and stuff. Pretty much everyone is really acceptive of the church and we already have their address and phone number, but the missionaries never contact them. In my interview i got the green light and he told me that the burning was not pointed at our companionship. I already figured that it wasn´t for us because we work faaarrr away from the center and everyone who is asking for a job there. President is a good guy and i respect him alot. He also filmed every companionship teaching a lesson which was kind of nerve racking. Practices are good, but they are way different then going to a persons house and teaching. But all in all yesterday was just fine. ...Did anyone find out where jd is serving in brazil? ... That´s about the highlights of the week so i guess i´ll talk to everyone later.Tchau Elder Lewis... I´m at the crappy computer place again so i can´t send pics this time.

THE Phone call...

I actually kind of had a Mothers' Day weekend... lots of fun... and Sunday was the highlight with the family and yummy food and THE phone call from Brandon! He sounded great in English AND Portuguese and we talked for over an hour! I think we asked him a hundred questions... we were just so excited to hear his voice and hear all about his mission. I'm happy to report he is in a good area, doing great, having fun, has a great companion, eating a LOT of beans and rice, has good living conditions, fluent in the language, healthy and working hard to spread the gospel! Thanks Brandon for the great phone call and for your example of service! Love ya!

A HAPPY little mama

We had the phone on speaker so everyone could hear.

We called Dustin and Aimee on another phone so they could talk to him.

Everyone got to talk!

Just chillin after a great day. Thank you Steve and Teresa for letting us invade your house!

Shopping Spree...

Well... it really wasn't QUITE a shopping spree... we would have had to spend a LOT more time and money... but on Saturday, me Kristin and Krislin flew to Salt Lake just for the purpose of shopping... Our destination: The Wood Connection! We woke up early to catch the 7:00 flight, but on our way to the airport we got stuck in this...

There was some kind of really bad accident and the freeway was completely stopped. The warning sign wasn't posted soon enough and we were stuck! Needless to say we did NOT make the 7:00 flight, but we got on the next one.... and we had plenty of time to eat Cinnabons!

We made it to our destination and had a great time. We bought some lovely stuff and then went on to our next stop... lunch. We didn't want to waste any time so we stopped at Wendy's. I haven't been to a Wendy's in a long time and it was pretty darn good! Anyone who knows me KNOWS I like chocolate rootbeer (try it ... it's yummy!)... so I noticed they offered ice cream sodas.... so I ordered root beer with chocolate (they didn't even make fun of me) and it was MOST yummy! After our tummies were full we went on to the Quilted Bear. It was very busy and had a LOT of stuf.... but we noticed that half the store was stuff we had just seen at the Wood Connection and quite pricey! So we left with more ideas than purchases. Then it was back to the airport!

Empty suitcase...

filled trunk!

We did meet our goal of filling up the three empty suitcases with our deals and we made it safely home. I can't forget to give a big THANKS to our chauffeur for the day... my brother Dan!

Happy shoppers back on the plane. We can't wait to go again!

from Brazil...

Here's some excerpts from Brandon's last email. We can't wait to talk to him on Sunday!

Oí família!Transfers were this week, this was a 5 week transfer this time and my companion and i stayed the same. It´s all good because me and elder camargo get along well. We had a miricle this week and this is partly why we didn´t get tranferred. This sunday we had 23 investigators! Woo Whoo! We did a gincana Thursday friday saturday and sunday. A gincana is just a bunch of games. We also had another talent show and the band showed up this time and we had a ton of people there. We also had a ping pong tournament, people here like to play ping pong but pretty much only our church has tables for it. So now were going to get the elects out of those 23 people and do some baptizing.That´s pretty much all that happened this week. ...I also got the packages from kristin and dustin. They were just at the office in goiania waiting for someone to bring them to anápolis for a while. I had to beat the other elders with an ugly stick when i opened them up. But good to hear that others are on the way! Amerian food is GOLDEN here. I got some pretty nice offers for some stuff but i decided to eat the food instead.That´s pretty much it so i´ll talk to you all on sunday ... don´t forget. Tchau! Elder Lewis

WOW... 6 months already!

Today ... Brandon has officially been on his mission 6 months!!! He's a quarter of the way through... it's just amazing. Congrats Brandon! You're awesome! So to celebrate this occassion... I thought I would post a picture of him as a little boy, but most of that stuff is still in boxes and tubs... but as Trent and I were going through a few pics last night we ran accross this one... My future missionaries... Aren't they cute! I used to dress them alike ... a LOT... but it was fun and they were always people stoppers wherever we went with their happy smiles and adorable dimples....

What cuties!

Here they are as teenagers... still smiling with cute dimples... hmmm... and still dressed alike!

Here they are just a little while before Brandon left... smiling, dimples... and... hmmmm.... STILL kinda dressed alike.

Thanks Brandon for your service and example to all of us, family, friends and your brother... maybe the next picture of you two together you will both be smiling, with cute dimples and dressed alike in missionary atire! I can't wait to take that picture!

Cannibals at our house...

I haven't posted in a while and it's basically been a slow news week... but that's OK. Mike has been busy demoing (is that a word?) more baseboards and tile. So Saturday we were working away and stopped for lunch. (this is where I get to the cannibal part...) Sometimes Mike lets one of the birds join us... (not very often and usually when we are finished...) So... we were eating leftover wings and pizza and well... here is a picture of Kiwi (one of three cannibals in the house) eating wing bones. The other two birds eat chicken and eggs too.. so I call all of them cannibals! A bird eating bird is just wrong in my book! Kinda eerie! Kiwi almost looks like she is enjoying eating those wing bones just a little too much! But have no worries... I AM the cook in the house and if any of our birds gets out of line I DO threaten to cook them!