Our 15th Grandbaby is here.........

We became proud grandparents again yesterday when Jeremy and Rebecca's 4th little boy entered the world 4 weeks early, weighing about 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long. Not bad for a month early. His name is Foster Graham Holdstock. We will have to wait to see him for about 8 more months!!! That is one thing that is hard on a mission.....missing special events with your children and grandchildren. You other grandparents will have to agree with me. From the couple of pictures we have seen he looks strong and healthy and very handsome to us!!! We are proud of our family.......

Our "Get To Know Florida Get-Together"......

The Hogge's, one of the Senior couples, hosted a "Get to know Florida get-to-gether on Saturday. They gave each Elder a tourist hat and a necklace. The Sisters got necklaces. Needless to say, the Elders looked quite silly but were good sports and wore their hats the whole evening. We ate BBQ hamburgers and played a game of Jeopardy with facts about Florida. We had a great time.

This is the Blacks and the Kynastons. The Kynastons are going home to Boise, Idaho this coming Friday.

This is Elder Holdstock doing the tourist thing.

Elder Holdstock and Elder Dalling make a fine looking companionship.

Today we had Elder Knickerbocker, Parry and Paulos for dinner.

LIFE IS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!

My gourmet chef.......

I caught Tim throwing spaghetti at the cupboard tonight to see if it would stick. That means it is cooked enough. I guess we are ready to eat!! He is getting so good at cooking.

Midnight message.......

It never ceases to amaze me how the spirit directs the Lord’s work. Yesterday I submitted a baptism for a 9-year old boy. The Elders had written a number over the top of another number for the baptism date, making it 1 month prior to when he was confirmed. I looked to see if Elder Black had the baptism and confirmation that far apart. He is the one who lets me know that an individual has actually been baptized. The Elders had put 8 August and Elder Black’s said the 23 so I thought maybe the information hadn’t gotten to Elder Black for a couple of weeks. During the night when I got up to use the bathroom, the spirit told me to check that baptism record closer. I had already submitted it to Salt Lake. When I went to the office this morning, it was the first thing I did. I called to check with the Elders on the “real” baptism date and they told me the 23 so I’m not quite sure why they submitted it as the 8th but I made the change and will call Salt Lake. If I hadn’t followed the prompting I received in the middle of the night, it would have forever been recorded wrong.

Home sweet home......

This is a picture of the clouds yesterday morning. There are such beautiful clouds here. I just missed the little bit of pink in the sky. This is the pond about 15 feet from our dining room window. It is looking across the pond to the Dalling's apartment. We will miss all of the beautiful scenery here when we go home.

Another dinner with our great friends.....

On Labor Day the Dallings hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the 5 couples. They have become very dear friends to us so we wanted you to see who they are:
This is Elder and Sister Dalling from Rexburg, Idaho. They work in the office with us. She is the mission secretary and he takes care of the cars and bikes.

This is Elder and Sister Black from Murray, Utah. She is legally blind and croquets baby blankets. They work with the Coral Springs Ward and teach English classes to investigators.

This is Sister and Elder Holdstock. She is the referral secretary and he takes care of all of the finances.

This is Elder and Sister Kynaston. They are from Meridian, Idaho. They take care of the apartments and she helps with the missionaries' medicdal problems. This Elder and Sister Hogge from Anchorage, Alaska. They are the employment specialists.

Our Sisters are on fire.........

Sister Keller (a Spanish Sister) told me about having a baptism for she hoped 9 on Wednesday evening. Then the family of 4 said they wanted to just watch and would get baptized another time. She was disappointed so planned on the 5. The mom has been dragging her feet but the husband and the 8 year old were anxious. Just as the meeting was starting the family came in and the little boy went up to Sister Keller and said, “I’m getting baptized tonight!” Sister Keller said “No, not tonight.” He said, “Yes I am.” She went to the mom and said that he said he was getting baptized. She said “Well, that is what he wants and he is insisting on it.” Sister Keller asked if that was okay and the mom said yes so Sister Keller took off to find the Elder to give him an interview. A few minutes later the Bishop found Sister Keller and said that Brother so-and-so was getting baptized. Sister Keller said, “No it is the son who is getting baptized.” The Bishop said, “No, the father is also.” The little boy had come out of his interview and said, “Dad, I don’t want to get baptized alone. Will you get baptized too?” So she had to find the Elder to do another interview and they were both baptized, making a total of 7. She has about 4 more scheduled for next week. She is on fire!

Tim, the repairman.........

As we were coming home from the office on Thursday, Tina called and said her VCR and DVD didn’t work since her daughter painted her room and put linoleum down. We said we would go see what was wrong on our way to exercise. She had a very tiny cluttered hot bedroom on the second floor. I’m surprised she hasn’t fallen down the steep stairs. She had 3 dogs and a cat in her room with her, some of them on the bed. There was also the dog’s dish with food in it up on her bed near where she was laying. Her daughter’s dog barked the whole time we were there. Tim had to slide the dresser out from the wall. It had a bookcase unit on top of it with the TV and tons of pictures of cats and dogs. I was afraid he was going to knock something off and break it. He couldn’t see behind the dresser because it was so dark so he had Tina hand him the table lamp. As she did, it fell apart and wouldn’t work! Fortunately she had a spare light bulb in her drawer and we put the lamp back together and used it to see behind the dresser. He was able to hook up the CD but the DVD has a double image. He was sweating like a hog by the time he finished.

Breaking into a car...............

We found out this week that one of our missionaries from Puerto Rico had all of his clothes taken from his dryer at the MTC 2 months ago and has only had 2 shirts and 1 pair of pants to wear. We along with the Dallings purchased him 3 shirts and 2 pair of pants from Penneys. Dad and I sneaked to their apartment near Miami Friday morning and put them in the trunk of their car with a note on the car seat saying to look in the trunk. We got the key from Elder Dalling who is over vehicles. The missionary was very excited and thought some of the other Elders had done it. When he found out they didn't, he called Sister Kynaston (who is the one that informed us when she did his apartment inspection) and asked if it was her. She said no, "It is someone who loves you. You're job is to stop worrying about who did it and be thankful." It was a fun thing to do.
We celebrated our hump day yesterday and are now on the downside of our 16-month mission. We also celebrated our 40th anniversary! We celebrated by doing what we do best together, clean house, grocery shop and laundry........and as a bonus we went out to Applebee's for dinner. Tim is just as wonderful as he was the day I married him, if not more so. He has been a very gentle, kind and loving husband. I'm not quite sure how I caught him but it was a GREAT CATCH! Someone up above must have been helping me.

Exercising with Tina..........................

When we got home from the office today we called Tina to tell her we would be going to exercise in about 45 minutes. She said, “I’ll hurry and get ready.” We thought maybe she would decline. She is trying to get ready so she can go to the dr tomorrow morning. On the way over I said, “Are you going to exercise?” She said “I can’t exercise!” So I wondered what she was going to do. I told her there wasn’t anywhere to sit but she went anyway. As soon as we walked inside she said, “There isn’t anywhere to sit.” She sat down on the weight press bench. Part way through using the bicycle, she came over and stood next to me and wanted to talk but didn’t stay long because her feet hurt her. After 10 minutes on the bike I did my treadmill for 20 minutes. When I had about 4 minutes left, she came over and wanted to know when I would be finished. I think she had enough.

Exercise with who?.........

So I have decided that I need to go to the exercise room here in our apartment complex and do some exercising (stationary bike and treadmill). I went about 4 times last week and went over in the rain tonight. I ran into our 88 year old lady friend walking her dog and stopped to see how her doctor appointment went today. I told her I was going to exercise. When I got home the phone rang and it was Tina saying that she wants to go exercise with me on Wed and Thurs and Saturday. Now that ought to be interesting!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll keep you posted on how she does on the treadmill or better yet, at weightlifting.