May 2015 in Kensington, MD / Washington DC Temple Mission

Happy May, Everyone!

This is a choice I have decided to make everyday - in spite of how I may feel physically.  I choose to be happy. This has become my response when I am asked, "How are you?"  I am happy.

And here we are again at another Brookside Apartments birthday party.  This is my friend Joslin from Singapore.

I like this picture of the temple with the storm clouds in the sky.

And I was proud of my fancy photography.

My friend, Sue Slade.  She is leaving the mission in a few weeks.  And I will be extremely sad.  She has been a delight to get to know.  She and her husband, Wayne, are a wonderful couple and have been great neighbors in our building.

My traditional Mother's Day fuchsia from Michael.  A bird tried to build a nest in it. 

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit with my good West Linn friend, Verdene Fairchild, while she was visiting with family in this area - on Mother's Day.

A wonderful Mother's Day visit from Brad.

He wanted to fix dinner for me.  He fixed an amazing roast dinner.

But then it is time to say good-bye long before I am ready.

The High Priests put on a lovely program and dinner for the sisters on the next Monday evening.  It was fabulous!  This is my friend and Visiting Teaching Companion, Helen Hansen.

This is our Bishop Mieremet and his wife, Miriam - wonderful people.

We had such a good time.  The food was great; the program was great; and the company was awesome.

Happy Birthday to us.


On the evening of Michael's birthday, he wanted to go for a walk to our nearby Safeway store.  It is a lovely walk from our apartment.  The businesses along the way had some beautiful potted plants on the sidewalk - which we enjoyed very much.  It was a beautiful night for a walk.  And what did we buy at the store?  A Hershey candy bar.


I loved this little picket fence.


So pretty.


And even more pretty.

My friend, Pam Lewis, and I decided that we needed (wanted) pedicures so we walked to the little local salon and treated ourselves.  We always have such a fun(ny) time together.  We laugh a lot; and the sisters who own and operate the salon had a good time with us as well.  They were laughing with us - but maybe they were laughing AT us.  So fun anyway.

I have always picked up pennies when I see them on the street, parking lot, etc.  And then when I found this little poem, it just reinforced my habit.  I love the thought that an angel in heaven is missing me.

My blog would not be complete without at least one picture of this beautiful edifice.  I hope I never tire of seeing it everyday.

My friend, Pam, and another friend, Kris Wasson, went to the 

Patuxent River State Park to see this glorious display of azaleas.

If I recall correctly, there are over 200,000 plants in this garden!

Beyond beautiful!  It just took our breath away.

Out to dinner with our friends the Lewises at the "Pickle Deli".  They have a pickle bar with many types of pickles and pickled vegetables.  And then they have a great menu with awesome service.

And here is this crazy foursome in the parking lot.  We don't do very good selfies.

This is the beautiful 2 1/2 mile boardwalk in Ocean City.  This was my birthday present from Michael.  It is about a three-hour drive from our apartment.  We left right after our Saturday shift.  This was taken about 1:30am.  There were stores and restaurants that were still open!

This was our room - beautiful.  I loved the floors.


I was so excited to see the sun come UP over the ocean.  


 We had to get up about 5.  Yes, I actually got up; we took some beautiful pictures; and went back to the room and went back to sleep!


This was the boardwalk about 5:30am Monday morning.  Looked very different from the night before.  We did see quite a few runners, though.

We only walked along the boardwalk on Sunday after we had gone to church - picking out the places where we wanted to shop and eat the next day.  I really wanted to take this chair back home (to Oregon).  However, not only was it too big to fit in our car, but it was bolted down!  And besides that, it probably wasn't for sale.

Beautiful sky, beautiful beach and a very handsome man.

Unbeknownst to us when our plans were made to go to Ocean City, there was a car show in town that weekend.  It was a hoppin' place when we arrived.  It took us an hour to go three blocks because the fancy cars were showing off for the crowds lined up along the streets; thereby, causing traffic jams in all the intersections.  The fun cars were everywhere even though the 'show' was already over.  We may not have seen the show, but we certainly saw a lot of fancy cars in those three blocks and also parked in the hotel parking lots.  It was really quite fun.

Everyone was happy to talk about their 'babies.'

Wow!

We wanted to eat here because the name reminded us of Kim's favorite place to eat in Provo when she was going to BYU.  Well.....it didn't even come close!

An amazing sand artist - with a message.

A quadro-copter - looks like a UFO.  We watched the owner play with it for quite a while.  He is a real estate agent and uses it to take aerials of his properties.  It was fascinating!

I asked him to put his hand by it so you could get an idea of the actual size.

Enjoying the day.

We saw these three red, blue and green guys walking up and down the boardwalk.  When I had the chance, I asked them why they were dressed that way.  Their answer, "why not?"

Kind of a large anchor.

Appropriate, don't you think?

The tilt-a-whirl - has always been my favorite ride at the fair.  But with age, I now don't feel so good when I ride it.  :(

Beautiful, beautiful beach!  The sand is so soft and the waves are very calm.  Not at all like our rugged Oregon beaches.  Both beautiful - but different.

I was so excited when I found these shells.  I thought Kim would be very proud of me.  She is the expert shell-finder.

Of course, I had scoped out this place on Sunday to return to on Monday.  I had a really good time in there.

I thought the grandkids would enjoy this store.

A daytime shot of the sand artist with his message.  I thought his work was very impressive.

Those machines you can see in the background are vacuums!  They actually vacuum the sand, picking up the trash and spitting out the sand.  Although, there was really very little trash on the beach.

On our way back to Kensington we stopped at Assateague Island and went through the visitors center.  There are herds of wild horses on this island.  Hopefully, before we go back home to Oregon we will get to see them.

We had such beautiful weather while in Ocean City; but we went through pouring rain during both the drives -  there and back.

A sort of funny story:  On the way to Ocean City, the windshield wipers on the car gave out.  We stopped at a Walmart (hooray for Walmart) to buy replacements.  We had to put them on in the pouring down rain!  I wish we could have taken a picture.  I'm sure we were a funny sight, with me holding one umbrella over me, standing as close as possible to Michael, and holding another umbrella over him as he replaced the wipers.  We were laughing so hard!

Happy Birthday to me!

Isn't this just the cutest wooden sign?  It is fun to move the pictures around and add new ones.  Thank you, Kim and family.  I love it.

This is such a fun picture.  We enjoy looking at it and having other people enjoy and comment on it as well.  Thank you, Heidi and family.

Beautiful bouquet from Brad.  They were lovely for many days - and a beautiful vase which now has yellow roses (from Michael) in it.  Thank you, Brad.

Fun jacket and black short knit pants from Vikki and family. It is always fun to get new clothes.  And Vikki does such a great job of choosing them.

We enjoyed a fun birthday phone call from Jeffrey and family.

We are so blessed to have such wonderful children and grandchildren.

So many fun cards and even a box of delicious flavored popcorn and candy from Andy Farley (Brad's roommate).

AND a really cool purse from my Oregon friend, Kristi Kelly.  It is perfect for day trips rather than having to carry around my big bag.  Thanks, Kristi.

One of the sister missionaries, Janice Van Slyke, made a peanut butter cake for me.  She is really good to keep me in the bite-size Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

And THEN....a perfect ending to a perfect birthday....Michael played Phase Ten with me!  Doesn't he look like he is having a great time?

Pemberley on Pond

Each year on Memorial Day one of the evening shift coordinators invites the workers from their shift and the senior missionaries to come to a BBQ at their beautiful home which has amazing grounds and this lovely pond.  They were the coordinators when Brad was serving at the temple before he moved to Blacksburg - and he too had been to this place.  It was fun thinking about the fact that Brad had been there - and very special that the coordinators remembered him fondly.  

My friend, Vickie Jackson, posing for me.  She has since returned home to Ogden.  She is missed.

I was fascinated by these flowers on the temple grounds.

Picture of the side of the temple and the beautiful grounds.

We had a fun Relief Society activity learning to make balloon animals.  This is SueAnn Workman, and she got the exquisite balloon hat because it was her birthday that day.

As you can see, I wasn't very good at making the animals.  The swan was the only thing I made that was recognizable.  The purple things were supposed to be dogs.

And one more picture of the temple.

We are so happy here, serving in the Lord's house.  Each day in the temple is a beautiful experience, enriching and strengthening our testimonies.

We love you all!

Remember who you are!

Elder and Sister Cannon in Washington, D.C.