Surprises

Look at these beautiful beans! 

Mayra Tepoz asked her mother to mail them (from Mexico) for me!  

Her mom and dad grew them! 

Rosa Tepoz and her baby Jade (born Dec. 23rd).

Grandpa is pretending that Jade is Ellie.

Mayra preparing plantain bananas to fry for our dessert. 

 

Mutual Night (with one yw and three adults).



Jessica's first crocheted beaded sock.

Terry - making progress on her wash cloth.

Tiffany finally getting the hang of chaining the yarn -

we were mighty proud of this chain.

Alondra is a pro by now.

 

Preparation day...

Five loaves of bread ready for the oven (plus the roses Jeff surprised me with and a freshly baked oatmeal cake with pecan/coconut broiled topping).

 



This is Brother Ward - a less active member of our branch.

He is very cordial and welcoming to the missionaries (he showed us photos of past missionaries on his fridge).  He took his certificate of ordination to the Aaronic priesthood out of his wallet and showed it to us. He says his health challenges keep him home bound. 

Cigarette smoke was heavy in the air and liquor displayed on his shelves.

He took a photo of us to add to his collection.

He loves tigers - can you tell?

 

Saturday we drove to Princeton for a Senior Missionary outing.

After meeing at the local ward building for lunch we had an art presentation by Sister Dixon (who has a degree in art), then we drove to the Princeton University Art Museum.

We enjoyed the beautiful architecture on the campus.

 

I felt like I was back in Rome viewing all this art! 

We are not really into art museums, but we did find some pieces beautiful to look at.

 



It was a delight to see this original Frederic Remington bronze sculpture!  I was an art docent for Sara's 4th grade class and did a presentation on Frederic Remington and here before my eyes was one of his pieces! "Remington's technical virtuoso was truly demonstrated in this piece... with only six of the sixteen hooves touching the ground."

Claude Monet

Vincent Van Gogh
The Tarascon Stagecoach

These pieces were so whimsical, they made me laugh.



 



These little guys looked like a lot of fun to play with - too bad they were behind glass.

 

Zoom up on the 2nd photo below and read the plaque.

 

One last photo to capture the week.  Jeff did the grocery shopping for me and when I went to put the groceries away, I found a sweet surprise. Can you find it, too?