June 8th And before

Today, June 8th, is our grandson Max's 2nd birthday.  He is Maren's youngest son.  In honor of him I posted this video that Maren sent of him showing his parts of his body that he knows.  He is such a cute boy, but Grandma's are not prejudice.  

 On the 29th of May we went with the Wounder Warriors to an evening event at a special amusement park they have here called Morgan's Wonderland.  It is designed so that handicapped people can participate in the rides and amusements that are offered.  You can see that Nathan was able to ride the train with all of us without getting out of his wheelchair.  They kids really enjoyed the playground and Nathan was interested in a Wheelchair soccer teams that they presented at the gym there.  Below here are several pictures of our time at Morgan's Wonderland.

 

 They had a sound playground where the kids could play all sorts of instrument type things to make music.  They kids really liked this as Nathan's kids are very creative.  They also had a regular playground that was designed so that those in wheelchairs could go right up on the play equipment.

 We have had several zone conferences in the last two weeks that we have had to attend throughout the mission to speak at as missionary office couples.  On May 30th we went to Eagle Pass which is on the border of Texas and Mexico.  As I had never been to the Mexican border before I had to get some pictures of the border.

Just across the river there is a large Mexican Flag that you can see for a long way.

This is a picture of part of the bridge that goes across the Rio Grande River to Mexico

This is the entrance to the bridge crossing over into Mexico to the town of Piedras Negras

 On the 31st of May we had the kids like we do for most weekends.  After cleaning the church  and going to buy some cheap swim toys, we went to the Northstar Mall and I bought a swimsuit so that I could go swimming with the kids and help Maggie get into the water.  Nathan took the kids to the lego store and bought some legos and then we had lunch and went home to swim.  Senior missionaries can swim!!

Can you recognize the Teen age face on David?

 

Maggie and I both had ruffles in the front of our swimsuits so we took a selfie but mine aren't showing too good and I still have a hard time smiling in a selfie.

 Then we went home to the pool and swam.  The boys swam for about 3 hours that day but Maggie was tired and didn't want to swim and went back to the apartment with Nathan.  Larry was off trying to figure out what he could do about our car's transmission.  He found a place that said they could fix it so we decided that was cheaper than a new car.

 On June 4th we had to drive a car up to the Oak Hills section of the mission in Austin for zone conference and to take a new car to some Elders.  One of the Sisters there, Sister Davis, needed a ride to San Antonio for a doctor's appointment.  Despite that beautiful smile, she is the one in the center, she suffers from rheumatoid Arthritis.  We had two cars to drive back and so she road with me.  She was so fun to talk to to and we had a great time.  She is from southern California.  I started talking to her and wasn't looking at Google Maps like I should.  Sometimes it switches routes on you without looking.  We were planning on going home on the Freeway as usual, but we ended up having a lovely ride through the back country of Texas that was very beautiful.  So we learned a new way to get to Austin.

Sister Davis with the threesome that she was working with.

Our Selfie.  Me, Sister Turpin, Sister Davis and Sister Greenall.  Sister Greenall is a visa waiter hoping to go to Brazil eventually.

 Most of the week was spent doing mission work this week.  The other office couple was out of the office all week so it was a very stressful week but we were able to survive.  We had two zone conferences and Larry had three more accidents to deal with.  The one day he went home saying that he had more to do going home that he had when he came and we worked all day.  Thursday was Bingo night and then Friday was Mission leaders conference where we had to feed the participants and I spent two days getting all the supply orders together for the zones that had ordered them so they could be picked up at the conference.

Friday night we had the kids overnight again.  They wanted to go swimming and so we went swimming from about 6-8 p.m.  Nathan slipped out of his wheel chair and was able to sit on the side of the pool and dangle his feet in the water.  He is trying to be able to do more and that was a first step.  Maggie was tired and would not get in the water and spent the entire evening holding her beach ball because she did not want anyone to play with it but she did not want to get in the water either.  A group that were holding a party on the barbecue patio took pity on her and offered her food hoping it would help.  She liked that but she did not quit whinning that night.  I think that she was tired.


Saturday we went to clean the church again.  David had a practice for a young men's sacrament presentation during that time then we came home and ate lunch.  The kids made their own pizza's with english muffins and everyone enjoys that except Sammy.  Then we filled water bottles and went to the park.  It was about 95 that day so it was hot but we were able to see the Blanco side of Phil Hardberger Park.  We have three very nice parks within about 10 minutes of our apartment here.

After that Nathan and Larry both took naps because Nathan was tired from trying to sleep with both Sammy and Isaac in his bed and Larry has been fighting a bout with gout this week in addition to all the other we had.  The kids and I went to the pool.  It was about 2:00 p.m.  The kids swam all afternoon.  They did not get out except for the occasional bathroom break until about 7:30 p.m.  Larry and Nathan woke up about 6:00 p.m. and went to get Pizza.  Sara showed up for a while after work to bring clothes and blankets for the kids as she was working in the morning early.  We ate Pizza by the pool and then went home to get ready for bed.

I saw the lady that had fed Maggie the cake and she said is this the same child you had last night.  Maggie decided for some reason that now the boys could use the beach ball and that she could get in the water and had fun all day.

Today was Sunday and so we went to church in the morning.  We had a couple talk in church that are moving to another ward.  She talked about the importance of Music in our lives and for setting the stage for feeling the spirit.  She also read from the For Strengh of Youth pamphlet that talks about how to pick music that is uplifting but one thing that she mentioned was a study that they did with mice.  They played Johan Strass Waltzes for some of the mice.  They played disharmonious music for some other mice and then they left others in the quiet.  After several weeks they tested their ability to find their way through a maze.   The mice that had listened to the Straus music did the best.  The mice that had listened to the disharmonious music actually had trouble executing the maze and so they concluded that music can affect the performance of how you think about performing certain tasks.  I thought that was interesting.  I had to take Maggie to the bathroom during the second talk so I did not get most of it.

This is Isaac in the swing, but when was swinging in it she fell asleep she was so relaxed even though we were pushing her quite high!

 This afternoon we had lunch and watched several church productions for Family Home Evening.  The kids really liked the animated Matt and Mandy shorts from the Friend.  There is also an animated short about Presidents Uchdorf's mothers experience about leaving her children one the train to find food and coming back to find the train gone and then she prayed and was able to find the train after in another section of the train yard.  Maggie is just fascinated with that one and replayed it several time.  Nathan also found the children's Book of Mormon Stories from the Books online.

After Family Home Evening Maggie and I went for a walk and the boys built legos.  Maggie had the children's song book and as she cannot read she decided by the pictures what the song was we were supposed to sing.  She sang me the Let it Go song from Frozen and then she thought of several song from primary that we sang.  Then she started making up her own songs and singing songs about what was happening to her.  She talked the entire walk.  I concluded that she is related to her Grandmother and has the gift of gab!