September

My nephew Rock Shill returned from his mission from El Salvador/ Belize.

This is one of my favorite family traditions-the airport welcome home bonanza.

Just last month we were sending his brother Luke off on his mission.

They missed each other by 3 weeks.  

This is Rock sharing some of his thoughts as we had our "well done" dinner.

Tom's older brother Ross Jr. passed away from brain cancer.

He was 59 years old.  This is his beautiful family.

I knew Ross and Lori before I knew Tom.  Ross was our family's home teacher and a young men leader to my brother Clint.

We loved Jr.  He was always so good to our family during some difficult times.

Pall Bearers

It is always so nice to have a place to meet together after the services.  

We had a beautiful meal awaiting us back at the church.

This was one of the pages of the funeral program.  I love this quote by Ross.  

He was a loving, thoughtful and extremely generous soul.  

Well our Summer bear became an adult in September.  

18 years of beautiful smiles.  

The Churro Thief made it's debut to help celebrate.

This food truck is a joint effort between Tom and his partner Chase Judd.  

If your scratching your head thinking --food truck.. churros??
I am right there with you but 

I have to say that it has been fun to see how excited Tom is about a new project. 

 It has been a learning process, building the truck and Saturday cooking and tasting sessions.

Meg has been hired to make all the toppings ahead of time.  Boston Cream, Chocolate Mousse,

Brown Marshmallowy Butter, Farnsworth Family Hot Fudge and Dulce de Leche.

Ike will be taking orders at the window.

Part of Tom's excitement for this food truck is that it will provide

some responsibility and involvement with the kids.

These cousins sang at church

"I Need Thee Every Hour" 

and it was beautiful.  They harmonize so well.
Music is definitely blessing our lives.
Isaac may disagree as they belt
out Broadway every morning as they get ready for school.

This guy hit his one year mark as a missionary.

He is happy, healthy and loving Brazil.  

I am so grateful that he has had this opportunity to serve and grow into a man.

We still have puppy Fritz and despite not being dog people, 

we love him... most of the time.

Azbrainfood starts back up in September.  

This is our 7th year and we are going strong and able to feed

almost 2500 school children each weekend.
We are in every Mesa public school that needs us
and parts of Gilbert, Fountain Hills, Tempe, Chandler and Scottsdale.

Chiquita banana donates around 2500 bananas once a month.

Every week Alpine Valley Bread Co. donates about 900 loaves of bread.

Sue and Eric go and pick it up in her trailer every Thursday morning.

Pastor Dave (in orange) leads the recycle gang and keeps us all laughing. 

There are so many different church, retirement and business groups that come together

to help make a difference in a child's life.   

August

We celebrated our nephew Luke in August.  He is the last of the 3 amigos (Rock, Cole and Luke) 

to leave on a mission.

Rock gets home on Labor Day and Cole has a year left.  Just 2 years now

until they are all reunited.

2 years ago when Rock was leaving

We all wanted to get a last picture with him but we were never all together.

Luke has been a great buddy to Isaac.  He helped feel the void when Cole left.

He has always had a piece of my heart.  I am so grateful that I got to be a part of his growing up.  I held him when he was just a little glow worm with the biggest roundest eyes and brightest smile.

  

We held another family Tie and Ice-cream night in his honor.

It also happened to be Luke's 18th birthday so we had 

to have a birthday cake to go with that ice-cream. 

These are the cousins that have followed the example of their older cousins.

Luke shared some very tender experiences that have shown him how the Lord answers prayers

and blesses those that turn to Him for help. 

 I still think about the things he talked about and 

am grateful what he taught me.

Waving for the pictures we are sending to Rock, Cole and Annie on missions.

We sang this beautiful song at the closing of the short program.

Luke opened up a lot of great ties. 

We love you Luker!  

 These first days of school sure come quickly.  

It really feels like I was just doing this.

This is the last year of elementary school for Ike- 6th grade.
He was ready to get back at it.  He loves to be busy and learning something.
Ike is playing club volleyball this fall, strumming the Bass, playing piano at church now
and a dedicated pen pal to his missionary friends.

We had a much happier first day of school with Meg.  

No nervous tears, just her beautiful smile to start out sophomore year.

She is still taking piano and voice lessons, dedicated exerciser and is in the high school show choir.

Almost on a daily basis I will still hear, "How can I help you Mom?"

Summer has run out of fingers to show how old she is...

a SENIOR!  

Less than a year in the home nest.
Summer is taking piano, voice and some Broadway rep dance.
She is attending a missionary prep class every Sunday evening....just in case.

 The weekend after school began, we attended our
 nephew Zach and Sarah Collin's wedding in the St. George temple.
It was a beautiful sealing.

We had a free night to take in a show at the amazing Tuacahn theater under the stars.

What a way to enjoy Beauty and the Beast.  

I kinda fell in love with St. George.  

Oh and I lost my mind and resolve in August.

We added a puppy to the family.

His name is Fritz and he is the little brother Ike never had.

He has enjoyed celebrity status and a lot of visitors

...some of whom he terrorized with his

puppy bites.

  

Naughty Fritz got put in time out after this occurred.

Most of the time, he is my shadow.
I move- he moves.