Week of August 11 - 17, 2019

Highlights:

Spiritual

Sunday was a special day as family gathered for the blessing of Emma May Rice. In attendance were Jessica's family including Grampa Bob, Grandma Jody, Ron and Lorrie, Lorrie's sister Heather and her kids Kale and Samara, Jessica's brother Josh, Cynthia and Wyatt, and Josh's long time friend and his new wife. From Nathan's side of the family were Grandma Dorrie, Dad, me and Kayty, and Doran, Amber, Kelsie and Kooper. It was wonderful to have so many family able to attend. We truly missed the rest who live far away, but as I saw Emma wrapped in the same blessing blanket that Allison, Ethan, Doran, Morgan, Katelyn, Nathan, Adam, Grace, Josh, Sam, Kaylee, Wade, Kooper, Anna and Ellie were blessed in, I could literally feel the hugs and love from them wrapped up in that blanket.

I attended a session at the temple on Tuesday morning. Dad attended sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

Dad worked all week on his first stake talk, preparing to give it next Sunday.

I completed the August Ensign magazine and read the Book of Mormon and listen to General Conference talks daily.

I have indexed 15,555 names and reviewed 36688 records so far this year.

Family

The Wilkins Family

From Allison's Blog on Sunday...

They survivors the first week!

So we celebrated with shaved ice.

On Monday Adam goes back. And I start my new job. I will be working a total of 9 hours per day and taking care of my family/house on about 3 hours of sleep each day.

It's going to be rough.

So we spent the weekend cleaning and de-cluttering to make my time a little less stressful.

Hopefully.

I spoke via MarcoPolo during the week a couple of times. Adam likes school though has no fourth-period class yet. Lots of other students are in the same situation. Grace loves school. She was disappointed to not get into Musical Theater class, but she is in an algebra class that meets only one period per day so she instead is in orchestra learning the viola. Josh likes school a lot. He still has to be very careful with his head. Even a minor bump seems to give him tremendous headaches. He will sit out soccer for another season till everything gets better. Sam likes school, especially the swings!

Saturday, Adam was able to serve with his musical talent:

Saturday Day

If you look close, you can see that Adam played the piano today at a baptism, and he did an amazing job.

Seeing him share his talent with others makes all the fights over practicing the piano when he was younger (and, boy, were there fights back in the day) worth it.

Saturday night, Adam sent a brief message and video of them at a park swinging.

The Ethan Rice Family

The family went to a skating rink last weekend. Wade preferred climbing but Kaylee did really well at her first time on roller skates.

Later in the week, they shared how their garden is doing.

The Doran Rice Family

First week in their new digs went pretty well. They visited with Nathan and family on Monday night. Evenings are filled with homework for the next day and getting ready for bed but they are doing well.
They shared dinner with Nathan and Jessica on Friday night and came here on Saturday for loads of laundry and then some spaghetti and swimming.

Morgan

Morgan and Aimee are doing well.

Kayty

Kayty had a good week and is now almost completely not sore from her Grand Canyon adventure. 

The Nathan Rice Family

Things went much better this week. Of course, it was wonderful to celebrate Emma's blessing day with so many family members on Sunday! The week was filled with work and some box unpacking for Jessica. She has done so nice, but boxes packed for years sure do take time to get unpacked and put away. She completed unpacking their office and feels like the other things can come in time. Girls are doing well and growing happy and healthy. Ellie and Anna came by on Saturday night while Nathan and Jessica went out for a short date night and Ellie is just talking up a storm! Sentence after sentence! Nathan is very, very busy at work. While he hired on as a design engineer, he works as an analytical engineer working on heat stresses, and doing many many complicated calculations that change often. 

Dad's Garden

No honey but bees seem to be surviving the heat. 

Other highlights

Dad had a job interview in San Diego on Friday, so he flew there Thursday. After the interview, he did some work at the San Diego temple before returning home. He said the temple is beautiful inside.

Not so highlights