Week of July 11-17, 2021

Highlights:

Spiritual

Sunday was good and we were able to give Alice a ride to church again, this time we picked her up at the stake president's house. Sacrament Meeting was good. Primary was a bit of a challenge since the teacher I teach with didn't show up...and she was supposed to teach. Another sister came in to help me and we made it. I was also set apart for my calling. 

I was able to attend the temple on Tuesday morning and perform initiatory ordinances this week. That was the last ordinance I was able to perform in March of 2020 as well. It was so very special to be there on my regular Tuesday like before. I was so blessed to even see the same sister that would always greet me with the biggest smile. I hugged her and thanked her for her smile and told her that her smile kept me going through the last year. What a great blessing it is to be able to be back in the temple. 

My daily morning foundation of General Conference talk(s), prayer, scripture study and Come Follow Me study continues each day. I completed the Book of Mormon and started reading it again. 

I have indexed 9930  records and reviewed 69,882 records so far this year.

Family

The Wilkins Family

As we Marco Polo'd on Sunday evening, Sam was enjoying a yummy smore. Mike had made shrimp and veggie kabobs for dinner, and then left some coals so the kids could make the first smores of Summer. Sam loved the shrimp! They had a pretty good July 4th. The neighborhood fireworks show was not as fantastic as last year but very good. Mike interviewed at a staffing agency. Allison is working more since it's temple shut down. They are hoping to paint their bathrooms this next week. 

Adam continues working and likes it. His friend Michael gets to go with them to camp too. Grace is so excited to go to Camp on Monday! She is all ready to go. She also got some exciting news. On July 29 she will be attending a Madrigal Retreat at school. She will also be going with her best friend Katelyn to St. George on August 4-6. She has had to make some schedule changes for school. Josh's soccer coach moved to another soccer league, since this one was having honesty issues. He is all signed up in the new league and can't wait to start playing again after camp. Josh and Adam love Ghost Pepper Potato Chips and he is all stocked up ready for camp. Sam got burned last week while doing some firework experimenting. He ended up getting some blisters. He is looking forward to his week as an only child and has a list of wonderful things to do with Mom and Dad. 

The Ethan Rice Family

Ethan spent another Monday through Friday in Pennsylvania. Cameo is busy preparing to put on a baby shower for a friend. Kaylee spent the week with her friend Madeline and attended a fun soccer camp. 

Wade had a fun evening chasing fireflies in the back yard. 

The Doran Rice Family

Doran and Amber had another busy work week. They are keeping up. Kelsie had a good week at Girls Camp. They even got to go to Camp LoMia! Kooper stayed here on Friday. We watched movies, he swam, played with playdough, built Legos and talked a lot with Papa about rock collecting. 

Morgan

Morgan started a new job this week and is doing well. 

Kayty

Kayty had a good work week this week. She had lots of overtime too. She spent some of the money to go see the Chicago Cubs play the Diamondbacks. Dad and I dropped her off downtown and had arranged a pick up spot, but then discovered when we came that part of town and streets all around were closed off. We ended up waiting for her to walk to us. While we waited, there was a pretty amazing fireworks show from there. It was amazing with all the downtown buildings echoing the loud noise and reflections from the glass. 

The Nathan Rice Family

Another fun and busy week for Nathan, Jessica, and the girls. Nathan now has a bike and rides to and from work every day. He spent a lot of time getting the garden tilled and prepared for Winter gardening and got many varieties of pumpkins planted. They attended a fun swimming party on Saturday and spent Saturday evening fishing at Bartlett Lake. 

Dad's Garden

Nathan shared some pumpkin plants and Dad got them planted in the pepper garden. Citrus so far is doing well and we hope no roof rats alter that. 

Other highlights

Rain. A typical monsoon has been happening with dust storms and evening rain! The morning jogs are humid but the cooler air is so nice. 

Dad installed new weather stripping around the front door. It keeps the heat out and is so much easier to latch. 

Dad also volunteered to help at the grocery food distribution and we paid for lots of grapes that I washed and stemmed and they are now out turning into raisins on our courtyard patio.

Christmas in July included completing the painting of my ornaments, and watching the movies Elf, The Santa Clause 1, and The Grinch. I also cleaned to Christmas Music on Saturday. 

Not so highlights

I had a great dental checkup UNTIL he looked at X-rays and saw infection developing around a root. Though I have no pain, I didn't want to wait until we might not have dental insurance and made the appointment with the endodontist for next week.