NOVEMBER 2022

We had a hard time keeping Scott in town this month...

He started out by heading down to Phoenix to cover Elder Uchtdorf as he revisited his old stomping grounds at Luke Air Force Base and all around the valley.

Scott also met up with an old Deseret news friend, Brad Rock at the Mesa Temple Visitor's Center where Brad and his wife serve as missionaries.

While Scott was gone, I had Dana come up from Phoenix to visit me!

We went to the Aquarium up in Draper and had a wonderful time exploring there!  

The aquarium was just beautiful and we spent about 2 1/2 hours there.  So many amazing tanks to look at!

We also went to Bean Museum, got BYU ice cream, went to church, made earrings, watched "Mrs Harris Goes to Paris" and talked non-stop.  The last day Scott and I took Dana out birding...and she said this was her favorite activity of all!  HA!  I get it!

 Scott headed back to Brazil for the Belem, Brazil Temple dedication.  Here he is joined by translator Vanessa and photographer Scott from his work.

Of course, Scott had the camera and found a few good birds like this southern Lapwing.  So interesting.

He went with the photographer on a river cruise to get some pictures of the area.  Really interesting carved bulwark on this boat.

And really beautiful sunset by the ocean there.

Meanwhile back in Provo I was holding down the fort.  We had a great Native American day at school and the kids loved learning to shoot with our bow and arrow...

...and playing in our own teepee.

I had to hunt for birds alone for another week and luckily for me, this American Avocet came close enough to shore that I could actually get a good shot!  Super hard with the small lens I had at home.

Scott was home, but worked all of Thanksgiving Day at the Missionary Training Center covering the devotional and service project there.

We joined LeAnn and her family for a traditional and VERY TASTY Thanksgiving meal later that afternoon!  I should have taken a picture!

So, for our family, we had the kids come over on Friday and made our own CHINO BANDIDOS THANKSGIVING DINNER...YUM! Bree made Jade Red Chicken, I made the Emerald Chicken, Black Beans and Fried Rice and McKenna made famous Snickerdoodles to complete the authenticity of this meal.  Oh, and we tried Salad Quesadillas as well and they turned out pretty great!  

A new meal tradition??

We did not plan to make another trip to Arizona this year, but our dear friend Dennis Williams passed away before Thanksgiving so we hopped on a flight down there so we could be at a Monday morning funeral.

We had time the afternoon we arrived to use our reciprocal passes from Thanksgiving Point Gardens to go to Desert Botanical Gardens, normally about $30 a ticket.  Yay for free!

It was a beautiful place and we saw some really cool birds there too!

                                This is a Curve-billed Thrasher

This is a Verdin

                                This is an Anna's Hummingbird

And these are the people we went to see and support.  In the center is Terri Williams, Dennis's wife and our dear friend.  L to R are the Kiggins, Rodgers, Cherry's Kings, us and Karalee Darrow, one of our RMs in the area.  We love these people so much!  It was a beautiful funeral celebrating an incredible human who is now blessing those on the other side of the veil!