Our son, Ryan, Opened A New Woman's Center and We Picked Up a New Car

Stacy and kids came back through St. George from their Spring Break ski trip up north 

and stayed with us Saturday night, March 21. Tom and Jake had flown back to Mesa earlier in the week 

(Tom, to take the scouts on a camping trip, and Jake is on the baseball team) 

and Syd is finishing the semester at BYU. 

I directed the INSTA-CHOIR Sunday morning - 

The Lord My Pasture Will Prepare - 

and Stacy came to the 9 AM meeting to sing with us. 

We had a large choir with several visitors and they sang beautifully and brought the spirit to our meeting.

I had prepared ahead of time a chicken Florentine and a marinated veggie salad,

so when we got back from church, we boiled the fettuccine and broiled the garlic bread, ate, 

then piled into Stacy's SUV and headed for Mesa.

Why did Roger and I go to Mesa?

Two big reasons:

Ryan, with the talented decorating help of his wife, Emily, just opened his new Woman's Center.

Ryan has outgrown the office where he has been operating his Urogynecology practice. 

He found an existing building that had been a spa, completely redesigned it to potentially house two more doctors, as well as Dr. Kelly Kantaris and himself, Physician's Assistants and physical therapists.

Check out his website:

www.TheWomansCenter.com 

We were so impressed with this beautiful new facility!

It incorporates Ryan's innovative and efficient ideas of how to provide the best of care for women 

and it will make them feel comfortable and at ease as they are being treated.

These two have been working very hard to bring Ryan's dream into fruition.

There are still several things to be completed, but they are up and running in this new, state-of-the-art facility. 

Monday night for Family Home evening, Stacy invited Ryan's family over for dinner.

Our wonderful Aggie friends, Mike and Kathy Cranny, who are big potato farmers from Oakley, Idaho, 

and have a second home on our block, had just given us a large box of wonderful spuds.

We brought some to share and we fixed a big potato bar.

While we were in Mesa for two days, we got to see Jake pitch and get a double in a baseball game, 

catch the end of Luke playing T-ball . . .

(Max usually plays, but he hung out with us 'cause he had a little bug.)

. . . have fun with Stacy's and Ryan's families and . . . 

(drum roll, please) . . . 

. . . pick up our new car!

Roger has been studying the internet for a few months, we have test driven a few cars 

and we narrowed it down to which car we wanted.

He found this 2014 used Lexus ES 350 with just 14,000 miles on it in Chandler, Arizona,

which is not far from where Stacy lives in Mesa. 

We drove home in it on Wednesday morning, 

and we are thrilled with it!

We donated our 2000 Maxima, with its 240,000 miles, its squirrelly front end, zero shocks 

and meat grinder noise when it runs, to the National Kidney Foundation KidneyCars. 

It has served us well!

We loved our quick trip to Mesa!

We brought home our new car, some grapefruit and oranges that Roger picked at Stacy's, 

some yummy salsa verde and some more great memories!

BYU's Young Ambassador, Sydney, Shines!

Roger and I have looked forward to seeing Sydney in concert with the BYU Young Ambassadors ever since we learned of her acceptance to the 20-singer/dancer group last spring.  

We saw her perform in two numbers at the BYU Homecoming Spectacular,

and we were excited to see the YA's full show. 

Roger and I, Missy and Ellie and Mindy, Addie and Jeff drove from Mindy's home in Highland to meet up with Stacy, Josh, and Jake (Syd's boyfriend from England).

We had yummy salads and sandwiches at Cubby's,

and  Addie colored herself a beautimous hat!

We then drove to the BYU campus to see the show.

We scanned the page where Syd is listed in the program.

Syd was Cinderella in the duet "Do I love You Because You're Beautiful"

and the soloist in "Embraceable You."

Here are this year's Young Ambassadors with their director, Randy Boothe.

This is the only pic I can find of Cinderella Sydney singing with the Prince.

The program was wonderful - 

so fast paced and high energy and such a brilliant showcase for truly great talent.

Each of the 20 kids can really sing and dance and are individually featured throughout the program. 

And the 10 musicians in the Young Ambassador Band were excellent.

Huge hug from Grandma Pam after the show

Here are some of Syd's supporters who could come.

Mindy, Jeff and Addie had already gone when we took the pic.

Grandma and Grandpa are so very proud of our sweet Sydney.

Addie loves Cousin Cinderella!

Ellie's fantasy Birthday Weekend just kept getting better!

I was so pleased that Patty and Hal got to be there!

Our three wonderful daughters with Sydney

Cousins Sydney and Josh are our first two grandchildren

and they have always been buddies. 

Here they are at Missy's wedding.

Then. . . 

. . . and now!

Josh leaves for his LDS mission to Hong Kong, mandarin speaking, in June.

This is a pic of our little Ellie Smith with Syd's friend, Ellie Smith, Miss Nevada.

Apparently Ellie has watched the Man in the Mirror -  BYU Young Ambassador video a lot, and her heartthrob 

is its soloist, Elijah Homas. She was pumped!

This mother/daughter are attached at the hip!

None of the successes Syd has had would have been possible without Stacy's huge support and sacrifice.

The following weekend, the BYU YA came to St. George to do a matinee, 

then an evening performance, on Saturday, March 14.

Sydney's whole family drove to our home in St. George from Mesa and arrived about 1:30 AM. on Friday night.

It was the beginning of their Spring Break, so it began with them staying with us over the weekend 

so they could see Syd in the show. 

The YA travel in a bus, and left around 6 AM Saturday morning from Provo to come to St. George. 

Syd got permission to stay with us Saturday night, 

then drive back with her family to Provo late Sunday afternoon.

They performed at the Cox Auditorium for the Celebrity Concert series.

These are the lucky family members who cheered Syd on in the matinee.

Sydney with "little" brother, Jake

A big hug from twin brother, Max

Syd loves her Grandpa Roger!

In the last number, they sing, "Brotherhood of Man," and Syd represents France.

Syd is posing with friends, YAs Moniica Hawkes (former Miss America, Charlene Wells daughter) and  Kooper Campbell.

The Young Bunch

Proud parents

I was so glad Syd got to see Uncle Ken and Aunt Kay.

This loving granddaughter makes us so happy.

We all went to eat at Habit Grill between shows.

Tom, Stacy, Roger and I decided to get last minute tickets to see the evening performance.

We hadn't seen it from further away, and there were a handful of tickets in the back.

Chatting afterwards in front of the venue

We were pleased that Doug Alder and his wife, Elaine, were at the evening show.

Doug Alder was a popular professor of history at USU when Roger and I were students there and he was our bishop in our student ward who interviewed and gave us recommends for our temple marriage.  He was Dixie State's (it is now, DSU) President in the mid 1980s,

 and he is a well-known historical teacher and speaker in St. George.

Sunday, one of my Bucket List dreams came true.

A year or so ago, I picked out a pretty arrangement of, "Did You Think to Pray?"that I thought, 

"Someday, I would love to sing this duet with Sydney in church."

After talking to Stacy before they came, she convinced me to arrange it.  

"Do it, Mom! You may never have a better opportunity."

So, they put it on our Sunday Sacrament meeting program, and after 11 PM Saturday night, after her performance and helping take down equipment from the program, Syd came home with us and we sang through it. We ran through it with my accompanist of the choir, Beverly Bradley, at 8:30 AM the next morning, 

then sang it at the 9 AM Sacrament meeting.

It was one of the thrills of both of our lives!

We were both feeling the song, feeling our love for each other and feeling the moment.

They spent the afternoon with us.

I had previously fixed some honey balsamic pork that we ate on Grandma Tobler buns with tomatoes, pickles and chopped cabbage.  Londyn helped me make a corn and avocado salad and we had Grandma Tobler potato salad and homemade brownies for dessert. 

After chatting and napping all afternoon, it was time for them to head up north to drop Sydney off at BYU, and stay with Grandma Sherry and Grandpa Grit and to have a ski get-away. 

I had a touching realization and moment in time when 

Stacy was sound asleep on the couch 

and there was the happy, noisy chatter of the family going on, all around her.

About a month ago, Mindy did the exact same thing on that couch, 

with her little ones interacting with us, as she was blissfuly snoozing.

It brought me back to when I used to return to my parents' home, and I would relax and go sound asleep on their couch while my little kids were happily playing with their Grandma and Grandpa.

It was like, "Ahhh, I'm home."

Tears came to my eyes, remembering. when I saw my girls doing that exact same thing. 

Oh, how time gets away from us.

So many deep and treasured memory-makers happened these past few days.

My love tank is overflowing.