The last daily blog post

I determined to post a picture every day in 2012, then when 2013 rolled around I realized Kevin looked at my blog every week to know what was going on at home (in addition to lots of emails, of course!) so I decided to keep going until his mission was done.

Technically he still has a couple of days, but I won't be here to update, so this is it for now.  Look for occasional updates here and there.

Below you can see what happens when airlines sell their meals for ridiculous prices.  I bring my own food!

The first thing I thought of this morning . . . .

. . . when I woke up was not that this is the month of my birthday, for which reason I always love September, but this is the month Kevin comes home!

In honor of that, I'm actually going to look at the pictures on his disc and choose one instead of throwing a virtual dart at the disc.

Funny boy.  I can clearly see he is in NO way touching that beautiful girl.

Random Kevin picture

After that last one with the peeling . . . "something" . . . on his leg, I'm a little nervous.

This looks much nicer.  It's a chocolate tie, maybe for father's day or maybe it was for his birthday.  I'm going to assume the police badge is a toy, not that he took this picture while sitting at the police station.

Random Kevin picture

 

Ugh and double ugh.  This canNOT be peeling skin, but I don't know what else it might be.  Some kind of Brazilian after-sun lotion that dries to protect the burned skin??  And what was Kevin doing to get so badly burned below his shorts?

September 2, 2013 update:  Kevin wrote a letter and said YES, that is his skin.  He and his companions played soccer waaaaay too long that day.

Random Kevin picture

Have you noticed I'm posting more Kevin pictures?  I haven't been taking my camera everywhere with me like I once did, and other times, like tonight when I wanted to take my camera with me to the food bank service project, I couldn't find it.  I'm pretty sure it had something to do with an eleven year old daughter.

So, compliments of my dear son, here is another picture and below it my comments.  No matter what.

Okay, this didn't turn out exactly as I hoped.  I went back to the disc and tried to turn the picture 90 degrees, but it wouldn't go.  Maybe this was a special panoramic picture?  While I was messing around with the first picture, I looked at the ones on either side of it.  Look at this terrific picture!  And to think I'm going to see that bay soon . . . .

Because I see a sitting backpack in the first picture, I'm going to say Kevin and his companion and perhaps some other missionaries or church members or other people they met in the area went for a pretty serious hike on their weekly day off.  What a payoff!

Random Kevin picture

Whoo boy, I'm going to take a guess here.  How about the post office or consulate or wherever American guys living in Brazil have to go to get continued permission to "teach and preach and work as missionaries do"?

Random Kevin picture

I'm going to say this is a picture of someone Kevin and his companion met and are teaching.  Pretty nice looking house, and all that green . . . !

Kevin's mission conference

Kevin sent several group photos today and this was my favorite:

Click on it since it's kind of small.  You can see Kevin in the third row from the front about center in a light gray suit.  Happy, good-looking kid, isn't he?

Not-so-random Kevin picture

This morning I was looking for an interesting picture for a discussion topic with one of my elementary school-aged students and this is the picture I came up with:

She asked about the banana leaf (I assume that is what it is?) and we looked at the incongruity of the really rough exterior of the building and the high-end front door and side lights.  I told her what Kevin is doing in Brazil (sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ) and why (he loves Jesus Christ).  Then we talked about the unspoken theme of the picture.  The next thing I knew she asked me to please close my eyes for a count of ten, then she'd have a surprise for me.  Here is the surprise:

Pretty, pretty princess, right?

Kevin Mystery Picture

The girls and I made a batch of homemade ice cream today.  Dh never even knew.  Boy, was it good.

Let's see what Kevin's been up to, shall we?

The good part is that flag is hung correctly even though it may not look like it.  But they are all pledging allegiance to . . . a bottle of orange juice . . . ?  A squeeze container of honey?  A Mountain Dew?

A patriotic celebration!

This morning was our breakfast at the park.  We started off singing The Star Spangled Banner a'capella with lovely harmony.  Such good singers we were. :-)

There was a LOT of food and everyone enjoyed eating and chatting, and then there were gunny sack races, throwing games, and a water balloon fight.  It was a great start to a wonderful day on which to be proud of our country.

Random Kevin picture

In straightening up for the weekend wedding, I came across Kevin's disc (ahem . . . again).  So here is a completely random picture and afterward, my comments:

Oh my.  I have no idea what to say about this because I don't know what it mean.  "Questions for Two"??  Maybe Kevin and his companion held up this sign on the street to let people know they could stop and ask a Mormon missionary any question they wanted to know?

My student Iris in Peru . . .

. . . met Elder D. Todd Christofferson today at the MTC in Peru.  Iris teaches Spanish there to new English-speaking missionaries, mostly from North America.  Elder Christofferson is in Peru to help create a new stake--the 100th in Peru!

Here are most (all?) of the teachers in the MTC there.  Iris is the third from the right.

100 stakes in Peru!  I had no idea the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was so widespread in that country.

Greeting a Mormon missionary at the airport

The son of one of my friends came home from his mission today.  James was preaching the gospel in California for two years and today his mission was officially finished.  He's a nice boy and my girls and I were happy to join his family and friends at the airport when he arrived.

source

 

{James isn't actually one of these missionaries.  I forgot my camera today.}

 

Greeting James at the airport was a milestone for *me* too.  Kevin received his mission call about the same time James did, although Kevin left several months later due to his needing a visa to travel to Brazil.  Now that James is home, Kevin is the *very next* missionary in our ward (congregation) to come home.  I can't exactly say two years has flown by, but I'm a bit shocked to realize he's more than 20 months into his mission and will be home the first week of autumn.  Well, autumn in the northern hemisphere. :-)

Just the kind of pictures a missionary mom DOESN'T like to see . . . .

Kevin says he was watching the ground and missed seeing an open overhead garage gate (will have to find out exactly what that means) and this was the result:

What you can't see, because you are looking only at the front of him, is his MULTITUDE of such scars all over his head under his hair.  When he was little he was always falling, hitting things, and cutting his head.  I'll bet he has at least five scars under his hair.

Anyway, this one is a pretty good one.  I hope it heals quickly and without incident.

Mystery picture from Kevin 3

What will it be this time??
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Oh my.  Umm . . . he's a soldier in the war for independence from Portugal?  And that man to his left made the sword?

Mother's Day 2013

This has been a pleasant, low-key day and just delightful.

It started off with breakfast in bed complements of Caroline.  Next was brunch with waffles made by Bill.

Then was probably my most-anticipated gift, which was a Skype call from Kevin.  We might have misunderstood what his mission president said.  Perhaps he said 40 minutes, but we talked for an HOUR and forty minutes. :-)

I thought he looked great.  His hair was longer and in a parted-on-the-side style that makes him look older.  His face looked thinner and more angular.  The boy might be growing up on me.

I made it to Church just before the meeting started and at the end they asked all the women to stand up to receive a small gift.

The last part comes tonight for dinner.  I asked my mom what she wanted to have for her Mother's Day dinner and she said slow-cooker roast and vegetables.  I ran to the store last night and bought a big roast along with carrots and potatoes.  My house has been smelling incredible for hours!  We are waiting until David and Alicia get here, then we'll sit down together to enjoy it and each other's company.

Random picture from Kevin 2

Here is a random picture from the disk he sent recently, followed by my impromptu comments:

I'm going to guess this is the street right after one of the heavy rains so common to southern coastal Brazil.  Knowing Kevin, I can't decide if he waded out into it or not.

Random picture from Kevin

I'm going to  load a random picture from the latest disc he sent from Brazil.  Whatever it is, I'll make up a comment for it.  Here goes . . . .

Hehe!  Okay, this reminds me of the Sinclair dinosaur (you know, gasoline is made from petroleum, which is old dinosaurs), which I always liked a lot because one of my ancestors' name was similar to Sinclair.

It's a good thing I love my missionary!

That would be my son Kevin who is serving an LDS mission in Brazil right now.  He has a birthday coming up and put in his request for a few items.

A month or so ago the letter postage rates went up about 5%, from $1.05 to $1.10 for international mail from the United States, so based on that, I figured the $16.95 I paid to send a "small flat rate box" at Christmas time would probably run me a dollar or maybe two dollars more this time.  I want to point out his box is just a little bigger than a VHS video box.  It's not a big box you can put a pair of shoes in.  Imagine my surprise when THIS amount is what showed up on the computer screen!

I paid it anyway because I wanted to get those things to Kevin for his birthday.  And because he's coming home in just over 6 months this is the last package I'll send.  So Kevin, take a look at the list in the first picture and you can see what is in the box.  Oh, now that I look at it, I see I forgot to list a small extra item you'll like.  It's green.

The only thing that made me happy at the post office today was finding out there are now international "forever" stamps and they are ROUND!!  I've never seen a round American stamp before.  It's not just the printing that's circular, the stamp you peel off the backing is also circular.  Very cool.