Wednesday, February 18, 2015

I am just a smidgen late this week with my entry!  Been a busy week.....

We left the Kentucky Louisville Mission and headed to the Tennessee Knoxville Mission.  We, of course, had to stop by the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory!  We love going there.

And we took a bit of time and attended the Kentucky Louisville Temple.  Always love going here....or any temple for that matter.

We headed over to the Asheville, N.C. Zone Conference.  It was a pretty drive with the icy trees and bushes in the mountains.  

Bless this Elders pea-picking heart!  This was a shirt that the Elder's father had given him.  He is almost finished his mission.  He was 'flexing' his arm one day and the sleeve ripped.  He decided to 'match' the other sleeve.  He doesn't want to get rid of the shirt because it has meaning to him since his father gave it to him.  He only wears it when he knows he won't be taking his suit coat off!

We 'found' Sister Echols at the Zone Conference here.  The 'other' Sister Echols (twin sisters) is in the Ga. Atlanta Mission.  We love them both!  How fun to see them!!

Elder/Dr. Allgaier gave a presentation at each of the Zone Conferences.  A power point on good health care practices, how to stay well and how to take care of yourself.  He was also able to follow-up with those missionaries he has talked to in the past few weeks, etc.

We had been on the road for 2 weeks.  Laundry still has to be done.  This particular Hampton Inn has a laundry facility.  I got to crochet while waiting for the laundry to get done.

We LOVE our Blue Ridge Mountains/Great Smokey Mountains.  As we headed out of the mountains and back toward Knoxville we noticed this in our rearview mirror!  Great shot.

 These VERY LARGE crosses are quite common as we drive the highway.  I am sure they are very costly!

From the Tennessee Knoxville Mission we headed over to Mt. Airy, N.C. for the weekend.  This is still in our mission so we didn't have to get permission to meet Tina and the kids.  How fun to see them again.  We got to go to Gene's for dinner.

On Saturday we went downtown 'Mayberry' (also knows as Mt. Airy).  The kids had never really been down there.  We visited the JAIL and locked ourselves in for the foto op!

We even played a couple of games in our hotel room.

We attended the Mt. Airy Ward on Sunday.  It was good that we got to spend some quality time with Spencer before he leaves on his mission in two weeks!

We had a family dinner at Sharon and Lester's home after church.  Faye and Ronnie drove up from High Point.  It was an afternoon of reminiscing the good old days.

Lester has a band and a 'band room' in a building next to their home.  Garrett was in 7th heaven being able to play the drums.  And he did a great job too!!

The GIRLS with a little selfie!

On Monday we drove from Mt. Airy down to Charlotte where we stopped at the new home of Thomas and Laura.  How fun to have them close.  I made a doily for Laura and Marja Airaksinen.

They prepared a lunch for us which was delicious!

Then it was on down toward Peachtree City.  It was snowing for Tina and the kids as they left Mt. Airy and headed back to Maryland.  It was raining for us in Charlotte.  Until we got to northern Georgia....there is was rain mixed with ice.  A little tricky in spots.

We made it safely back to our apartment.  It was good to be home.  Now to 'settle in' for a couple of weeks with no major traveling!    Interestingly enough.....we were suppose to be in the Tennessee Nashville Mission this week.  Those Zone Conferences got cancelled because of a General Authority visit (Elder D. Todd Christophersen).  That mission got a lot of snow with the storm that came through.  Good thing we trip was cancelled so we didn't have to drive in the weather!