Surprise - Its Elder Norton

On Friday 13th April we joined up with some family to watch Elisha Garrett star in a local production of Saturdays Warrior.  I remember watching the movie as a child so it was really interesting to go and see it live. It was a really really fun night and Elisha was great. Some of the other preformers not as good but of course it was only an amatuer production so for what it was it was fabulous.

On Saturday 14th April Michael and Jason went snow skiing all day which they loved except it was a little blowy.  The rest of the children and I went indoor swimming with the Garrett Family which seemed a little crazy as it was snowing outside.  We had loads of fun though.  Every half hour though the life guards blew the whistle to get us out of the pool to put more chemicals in.  I am not sure if that was a good thing or not!

With Jayden Garrett at Indoor Pool

Anyway that night I had arranged with Shane Farr an elder from our ward back home to meet up again with him and his family.  We knew we would meet his wife Erin and their 1 year old daughter Alice  (I dont think she is named after Alice Springs but it would be a nice coincidence) and also meet Shane's parents and some siblings.  Jason and I can remember mentioning to each other a couple of times when he was serving in our ward that he and his companion Elder Norton were really great missionaries.  They seemed to be really hard workers, very happy to serve others and helped our children feel the joy of the gospel which is always a bonus.  Our children loved it when they would come over for dinner and they also introduced us to scripture baseball which this day we muck up the rules but we still have fun!

Unfortunately we were running a little late which of course puts me in a little tizz (as I really dislike running late) Anyways I cant control everything hey??? So things were a little rushed and then we all excitedly went to the door and were greeted by Elder Farr and as I saw most of the children hugging him I could hear they were a little excited about something else which I thought may have been because of Alice, but further down the hallway I could see another taller figure ....it was Elder Norton!!! Yeah what an absolutely lovely surprise for us.  Thanks Andrew for coming up that way to see us.  Turns out the Farr family sort of just adopted Andrew whilst he had been at BYU (as he is from Arizona) SO he had just become part of the family!!!

It was such a lovely night catching up with these guys and meeting their beautiful family.  Alice was adorable and very friendly which my girls loved! My children enjoyed karaoke and checking out some of the guns they had in the basement and Daniel went absolutely croppo over Shane's mums homemade yeast rolls as he ate 6 and took one for the road.  (Very friendly accomodating people!!!) We found out Andrew was definitely part of the family as a few of them were teasing him about any prospects for marriage and I think he was considering two options at the time but I can now offically say as of November writing this post he is engaged and getting married in January....Good for him.

And of course we finished off the night with a game of scripture baseball which I think everyone totally striked out BUT of course had lots of fun!!!

 

Joanna and Alice