It was a busy week socially this week with several of our neighbors. On Sunday my dear friend Christine invited me to go to church with her family and then to lunch at her parents afterwards. The occasion was the farewell to her younger brother Dan who is leaving to go on a two year mission for the church in Hawaii. (For those of you who don't know Utah is the world headquarters for the LDS church and a large proportion of the population here are Mormon. Serving an overseas mission is a tradition and "right of passage" for the young men in the church when they turn 19). Thank you to Christine, Jill (her Mom) and Dan for including me in this special celebration.
Our next door neighbors Shaina and Edwin own & run a deli/cafe called Maxi's in a commercial area near the airport. On Monday another neighbor Cheryl, friend Cheri and I went out for a "girls lunch" at the deli. The place was very busy we when arrived at 1pm. We had a lovely long lunch and by 2:30 it had quieted down enough that Shaina was able to come and join us. (Here's some pics of Shaina taking Cheri's order, and Cheri & Cheryl - hmm lot's of "sh" sounds in their names!)
On Thursday we had our neighbors across the street over for a BBQ. Matt & Cathy both work at IM Flash with Mark (although in different sections). They brought some lovely California wine for us to taste. We ate outside on our deck, watched the sunset on the mountains and then the twinkling lights as night set over the valley. It was a lovely evening of food, wine and good conversation.
On Friday, Christine and her husband Brad invited us over for dinner and a games night. We had some delicious Alaskan Halibut that Brad had caught himself on a recent fishing trip to Alaska with his parents & brothers. We then played a board game called "Settlers of Catan" - a new one to us involving strategy and "empire building". It was a pretty close game but Brad's superior skills err I mean superior luck won out in the end.
Thanks everyone for a week of fun and good company! (Sorry there weren't more pictures to show we were too busy having fun to remember the camera!)
This week is my friend Cheri's 50th birthday. (Not sure if she wants that publicly known -but hey, I'll be there soon too!) We celebrated with a girls lunch at a new gourmet pizza place called Pizza 419 in Provo.
This evening we were privileged to take a tour of the latest LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) Temple right here in Draper. Mormons meet each Sunday in their local Church meeting house for regular church services to which children and all visitors are welcome. The LDS temples (which are much fewer in number than churches) are reserved for special forms of worship (endowment ceremonies, marriages, learning and ceremonies for the dead) and are normally open to only adult members of the church who have been deemed worthy of temple privileges. However, before each temple is dedicated, it is open to the general public for tours so Mark and I were able to take a "peak" at what goes on inside. Here we are with our neighbors Brad & Christine outside the beautiful white granite building.
On Friday night we had dinner with our neighbors Matt and Kathy. Matt and Kathy both work at IM Flash (where Mark works) but in different sections. They both worked for Micron in Boise, Idaho before transferring here to Utah, although Matt is originally from Colorado and Kathy from Indiana. We found that they keep a very good cellar of Californian wines!
Their pet parrot Asa joined us for dessert!
