Almost home!

We say goodbye to paradise... and look forward to family visits!



The Recife Temple...
The gardens...

and the fountain;

The Brazil Recife Mission... President and Sister Emerick.


And say hello to America the beautiful, to children and grandchildren...
Our welcome home sign made by the Groll family and displayed by Brayden and Spencer. We played tennis, did some walking, saw a soccer game, played lots of catch with the twins, enjoyed piano playing, reading, scripture time and family prayers.


Davis, Andria and Brianna get ready for a Rook game. Meanwhile, Jeanette dips out double-decker ice cream cones.


To top off our visit we got involved in Christian's Eagle Project plans and made sample puppets with him for his project proposal.

We had an adventurous trip to Connecticut via plane and train, lugging lots of luggage.


We took a hike together. This tree was up-rooted, but is still growing. We avoided toe catchers, found some blossoms and a great view of New Haven. From the top of the hill we could see Jared's lab.
The special crown on top of Kelly's head seems to be attached to the end of Matthew's hand. Hmm... could it be two fingers?



Whitney and Katelyn enjoy blowing bubbles in the rain after a trip to the dollar store.



New Sunday clothes for Matthew, Whitney and Katelyn... and Easter Sunday smiles!
It is heavenly to be with family! We look forward to seeing more families!

Small Snail that likes to glide in the rain.

It is always fun to take pictures on the temple grounds. There are six full-time gardeners who keep the grounds looking beautiful. There are a variety of flowers, shrubs and trees.
We can see this fountain from our apartment window. The temple grounds are an oasis of beauty in the midst of a big, busy city.
The temple is an oasis of peace and truth in a world of trouble, turmoil, and deceit.
Now as for the snail, it is small and nearly all white and it glides across the wet sidewalk. A small reminder of the variety of creations in the world.

Snails can be beautiful

It`s coming, and it`s big. Well, maybe you can guess how big by the size of the blades of grass and the curb. The snail has traveled a long way to get here. It started in the middle of the street which is way back behind, at the other end of this curb. We watched it progress as we were doing our morning exercise. We looked for it each time we made a circuit around the temple grounds. It crossed the street successfully. It managed to go up to the top of the curb. By that time we were finished with our exercise. I just had to get a picture, so I got our camera and went back out to find the snail.
The reason this photo is a bit fuzzy must be because the subject was moving so fast? Imagine if you were carrying your house on your back; you would think this was a fast house moving job.


I took lots of photos, trying to figure out how to take close-ups with our camera. (I told Andrew in Japan when we bought the camera that I was just an aim and shoot photographer, so he didn't need to confuse me with details. Now I needed some details.) I tried push and turning buttons and knobs to improve the picture. I also had problems trying to keep the camera steady. If I rested it on the curb, it was too close. I was not willing to lie flat on my stomach on the pavement of a parking stall to take the picture. I could not even look at the viewer to see if I was aimed right. So I went home thinking that none of the pictures were any good. I determined to get at least one good snail picture. The next day I looked up on the internet how to adjust our camera for close-ups. For more than a week we did not see any snails. Then we saw only a couple of small ones. [See the next blog.]
Just when I decided I would have to settle for a shot of a small snail I down-loaded all my pictures from the camera and discovered that I had some pics of the big snail that would at least be interesting. Now you must understand that "big" is a relative term, but this snail was at least 3 to 3 1/2 inches long and about an inch wide.

Old Church and Good Ice Cream

This post was meant to be second in the series; I might learn how to blog eventually.
This church was rebuilt or remodeled several times. The original was built in the 1500's.


Olinda has a great ice cream shop, and we ended our visit with a treat. Left to right: W'Andre (a young man that volunteers in the Family History Center), Elder Davis, Sister Davis, Elder Ron Burrup (Sister Sheran Burrup is taking the photo.)

Snails or Olinda (which means Oh, beautiful)

(This was supposed to be the beginning of the Olinda blogs.)
It is a good thing that I can dig into past photo files since my attempt this morning to snap a picture of a nice big* interesting snail was less than acceptable.


These photos were taken last October, when we visited Olinda for the third time and remembered to take our camera and use it, and Elder and Sister Burrup took lots of good shots too. Olinda is an old city, founded in the 1500's. It has beaches, hills, old cathedrals, and a lot of tourist shops. We hailed a taxi to get a ride from the beach to the top of the hill. We tried a couple of different taxis, but they would only hold four people plus the driver, and we had five in our group. Rather than pay two taxi fares Dad decided to do a fast walk to the top. We saw the church pictured in the second part of the series, and by then he was at the top. Quite the exercise! (Dad and I had a tour of the church before and were even shown an inner room with all the costly robes and apparell. This time, even with a guide, we could not go in that room.)



Some streets are quite steep and most are cobblestone, or asphalt over old cobblestone. This picture includes a view of Recife in the distance. While I was checking out great vistas, Dad checked on the size of mosquitoes in the area. With his aversion to mosquitoes and allergic reaction to their bites, you would think he wouldn't get within ten feet of one if it could be avoided.



Actually, we talked him into this pose. (You can determine the size this critter yourself.)
*Big in this case means about three inches stem to stern.

It is about time that I put up a post. This picture was taken at the Christmas Social for women temple workers. It included a program, a short play, some choral music, and a game. Then we got to eat. As you can see there was a variety of food. With lots of refills and new things to sample waiting in the kitchens.

The monkeys like to play hide and seek. It is hard to spot them up in the trees. They travel in groups. There were actually four in this group. Can you see three in one picture?

It is amazing how they survive in a city of three million people! We do live near the river and they probably use the folage along the river for their monkey highway. Time to say goodbye. We hope to see them again.
Love, Grandpa and Grandma