Stake Youth Conference--Trek

Every four years we take the youth of the stake on trek, to honoe our pioneer heritage in the church.  This time around, we had 157 youth.  It was the largest group we had ever had.  It was hard, it was a struggle, but in the end we overcame!

The stake presidency

Pres. Williams' family

My little pioneer

July 18, 2014 Seventeen Years

Yes, we have been married for 17 years.  We celebrated with a trip to the Homestead.  It has become one of our favorite places to relax and enjoy.  We love the food and the surroundings, and this time they had the addition of new water slides and a lazy river pool, as well as miniature golf.  It was so nice to celebrate being together and remember how happy we are together, after all these years!

The grand hotel grounds.

The lobby where they serve tea and snacks every afternoon.

The grounds are so beautiful.

Our room.

Our Lillie girl all ready to have fun.

Mini golf.

The lazy river.  It was so relaxing.

We rented a cabana.  Worth every penny, with a couch, water, waiter and a TV!

Dinner the first night.

Bowling too!

Yummy dinners.

We had such a great time.  Exactly what we needed.

Fourth of July fun with friends

We had a great night with friends from Capitol Hill ward.  The Atkinsons, and Stephanie Soper.  

Elder Paul Kauwe

Elder Paul Kauwe, our nephew, came to recover with us from April 13- May 27, after he had an appendectomy.  It was quite an ordeal and frankly, a miracle that he survived, and we are grateful to have been so close by that he could be released to us to recover, then have him pick-up on his mission again.  He will now serve another two 6-week transfer and go home in September.  Elder Kauwe was serving in the Pennsylvania Philadehia mission, and he was in the Seaford ward, in Delware when he had his appendectomy.  Seaford happens to have been only 2 hours away from us, so we could easily and readily pick him up.  You will remember from our blog on Saint Patrick's day, we went to visit Elder Kauwe two days after the surgery.  He convalesced with the bishop of the Seaford ward for about two weeks, before he was strong enough to come here and finish up his recovery.  The whole thing was actually a miracle.

Elder Kauwe was actually feeling much better, but he needed to just rest, regain his strength and get his digestive system back in order.  After having his appendectomy and cutting out about 8 inches of his intestines, his body needed to relearn how to digest food again.  This was why he needed to be released to recover with us.  It would not be a burden on the other missionaries in his mission when he needed to rest and exercise a good portion of the day.  The missionary department said he needed to get a clean bill of health from a doctor, be able to walk five miles in a day, three days in a row, and be able to keep a 10-12 hour day before he could return.  Elder Kauwe certainly had his work cut out for him and we were happy to see his progress.  He did all of it on his own and we are very proud of him.  

Besides having him exercise each day, he did need to rest, so he rested on our couch a lot.  Which was good for him.  We know it was boring at times, but he needed to regain his strength.  Here are some familiar poses we found Elder Kauwe in as he rested.  He watched TV, played games Lillie's iPad, and watched movies.  Perfect resting activities.

Sometimes during the week, we would take him into DC and he would walk around the museums.  On Thursday evenings he attended institute.  On most days, Lillie found a friend in her cousin Paul.  She often played games with him, including tag, in the house!!  She loved having Paul a.k.a Elder Kauwe stay with us.  She will miss him a lot.

We also wanted to make his stay with us enjoyable, so we went out to eat a lot, and was able to take him  to some of our favorite restaurants.  Here is one picture of him at the Melting Pot, a fondue place, where you cook your own food fondue style.  He gained his appetite back little-by-little and in the end was eating steak, his favorite, everytime we went out to eat.  We are proud he gained some weight back and was able to work on his diet while he was with us.

We also enjoyed having someone new with us to have family home evening.  He taught lessons, said prayers, and we welcomed him in with the HELLO song and then on the last night with him, we sang him the GOOD-BYE song.  He was such a good sport as we enjoyed family home evening with him.

Elder Kauwe got better over the weeks with us.  He got his strength back, walked 5 miles a day for three days, held his food in him, and could stay out the entire day without getting exhausted.  He was ready to go back.  We had a doctor sign him off, and wrote to the missionary department to ask for permission for him to be reinstated.  He got the okay, and was to report back to his mission on May 27.  We decided that it would be fun to take a trip to Philadelphia and see the sites.  So that's what we did.  We got a hotel and decided to stay a day to tour around the city and area where Elder Kauwe was to serve again.  It's a great city, with a lot of history.

Here are some pictures from our trip together to Philly.  First pictures of our awesome hotel suite.  It had a kitchenette and a separate sleeping area for Elder Kauwe.

We went to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

We learned about the signers of the Declaration of Indpendence.

We also decided to take a "Duck" tour of the great city where Elder Kauwe will be a missionary.  It was a fun little tour that took us to see the main attractions in and out of the water!

Upon returning to our hotel from the day's activities, Paul got ready to be set-apart as a missionary.  His family participated via skype.  The next morning. We got up early to take him to the mission office and drop him off.  He is now a great missionary in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission.  We are so happy for him!

White House Easter Egg Roll

A friend of ours from church was able to get us tickets to the White House Easter Egg Roll.  It is such a neat tradition here in DC, we had wanted to go ever since Lillie was old enough to appreciate it.  But getting tickets can be very difficult.  One year we thought about camping out for the tickets, when they used to give them out at the ticket office.  Now they have an online lottery, for which we registered this year, but did not make the cut.  So we felt so happy when we got tickets from our friends at church.

It began with waiting and waiting in a long line.

There were throngs of people attending the event...in fact the news said over 30,000.

We met up with some other friends from Church, so Lillie had some friends to run around with.

And Lillie was thrilled to see one of her faborite actresses from the Disney Channel, from a show called Jessie.

It was a fun day, but it was exhausting!  Lillie enjoyed herself, though, so that's all that counts!