Upper 90's in AZ this week!!

Well, We had a fun time in Lake Tahoe. (Darin, Tres and I). It was a skiers paradise. We had fun snowmobiling especially. This is the snow bank along side the road, more snow than Ive ever seen in my lifetime. So beautiful up there. Now Tres is on crutches, and gimping along at school. He is doing great in 5 weeks. His goal is to walk by the time we are in Newport mid-May. Presley is talking up a storm. She says "gross" and "sick" appropriately and pushes all the kids down in Nursery. But she folds her arms and closes her eyes when its time to say prayers...shes the best!!! Tatum is applying for a 911 operator and dispatch for Mesa PD. There were lots of applicants and only 4 openings. They pay triple what she is making now, and she has had to go through lots of testing and interview processes. Needless to say, she has passed all of her testing and is now in the background phase, which bro-in-law Jeffs(dawn's husband) office is over. YaY! Hopefully soon we will here if she has the job! p.s. she just bought a cute little Jeep Compass that she loves! Dana is getting ready to go to Mexico for a trip, and my friend Grace just moved to Newport beach, so I will get to visit ALOT. Tres is finishing up his Sophmore year the next few months and really wants a car...hahahaha Hope you all are well...Love you and miss you all! Jill

Doing Good

My foot is doing good and being a big bother.  I got a kneeling scooter so I can get around better than the crutches.  Ron and Shane and Abbie are definitely coming the middle of May.  Jill and family is in Lake Tahoe this week and they are getting record snow so hopefully they don't get snowed in.  Wednesday was the zone activity and the Elders had a big race/treasure hunt down at the DC Mall.  Our job was being the life-line clue helpers and bringing the food.  They had a good time and the blossoms on the trees were in bloom so we got some good pictures.  Tomorrow the Senior couples are taking a van to Gettiesburg PA to see the battlefield.  It will be fun to get together with the other couples.  We have 2 baptisms on Sunday in the French branch and Dad will do one of them.  The Elders got permission to watch the BYU basketball game last night so we had 2 over for popcorn and cookies.  Sorry, they lost but it was a good game.  The weather is bouncing around for the  70's to the 40's but there are tons of trees in blossom and it is so pretty.

Accident

Well, sorry to say that as we were leaving the temple today I stepped off the curb and fell and broke my ankle.  For you medical types, I broke by Fibular and my Tibial.  I can't put any weight on it and the first try on crutches was trying to go from the parking lot to the buiilding door of our apt.  Not too successful.  They put a splint on until the swelling goes down then the doc will put a cast.  We figure that Dad can still assist the Elders (if he can figure out how to work the GPS) but I will probably be stuck in the apt for awhile.  The Stake Primary Pres said she would do the French Primary anytime I needed her and I had planned to feed several sets of Elders on Monday that I wiill have to cancel but hopefully I will get into see the orthopedic doc early next week and get a real cast so it won't hurt so bad and I can walk.  I can simpathize with Tres on how inconvenient crutches are.

Busy Day

We are having a great experience.  On my birthday we spent the afternoon going with the French Elders to teach discussions.  These people are just soaking up the Gospel.  The highlight was in the evening when we taught Emmanual the Plan of Salvation.  It was in French but we knew the ending.  They taught him about the pre-existance, what happens after death and the 3 degrees of glory.  When he heard it his face just glowed with excitement and happiness.  He wants Dad to baptise him later this month.  He calls Dad, the godfather because he is a 'holy man'.  He is from Camerone. Another investigator, Ony (he is very tall and we call him the basketball player) calls Dad, 'Papa'.  Last night after 2 sets of meetings we took a man to the Addiction Recovery Program.  Boy, the Church has great resources.  It is a great program.  We are getting invited to lots of dinners which make me very uncomfortable because the people here have so little (and it is traditional African food) but we accept with gratitude.

Dad asked me who I was writing to and I told him, 'the blog'.  He said that was not very nice to call you kids The Blog.  We love and miss you. Write to us.  Love Mom & Dad

Great Birthday

I am having a great birthday.  Dad took me to lunch and bought me an orchid plant. Thanks for ya'll calling and wishing me a happy birthday.  And we got a key-card to enter our building.  Wahoo!!  Couldn't ask for anything more.  Thanks kids.

To Grandma.

The Brown LaFlesch Family (hehe)

Lauren & Zoe are doing well. The are renting a condo in Scottsdale and neither one of them sleeps in there room. They fall asleep every night in the living room watching a movie together. Zoe has a small job at a bagel deli shop near her condo and loves it. They will transition her into serving soon, tips will be good. She is going to Scottsdale Community College and hopes to get on the Nursing School wait list after this summer.

Lauren is a massage therapist at Elements Days Spa. It is about a 1/4 mile from her condo, so that is great. She loves her job and is doing so good. She continues going to AA and working on the 12 step program. She loves being involved and is asked to be a speaker at many meetings. Her group has been doing so well, they were asked them to speak New Years Eve at a Tucson branch that was really struggling to keep sober at all. She really loves helping people. Neither of my girls want to be in a relationship. I am not sure if I should be happy or not. I like that they are waiting til they have there lives more together to get involved, but worry of course. I always worry!

The triplets are doing good, they love to tell everybody they pass that they are 4, they are all 4. They get such a big response they love it. They got to ride in the back of Jason's Dads truck while in a parade. They got to wave at everyone and got so much attention, Cash is a natural. He laughs every time anyone says hi back. The boys just got done playing flag football. It was funny for sure. Lucky would cry every time he got his flag pulled. He really didn't want to play football and was always looking up in the air or stomping on leaves. His passion is race cars so we decided to get him a kart for kart racing. Jason's friend from college has a Porsche shop and sets up a race track in his parking lot for his 5 yr old boy. So we are going to take the kids down and let them start. Lucky is a natural and loves it. Cash had his ups and downs. He is so fast that he loved that but he tends to tackle and it was only flag. He also didn't want to play again if he got hurt or his feelings got hurt. So maybe we will try t-ball for him. Lily loves her dance class and just started a hip hop class. She is very good and has only been doing it about 6 months. 4 yr old hip hop is so stinkin cute. She had her first performance in December and has her 1st hip hop performance on 5/14. Not sure if we will be able to make it because we leave at 4 pm that same day to Florida for a Disney Cruise vacation. Zoe and Jason's Mom are going with us. I am so excited for that.

I am still in school although I keep changing my mind on what I want to do. Right now, there is a program at ASU that combines a Law Degree and PhD is Psychology. But who knows what I will end up with. I almost just want a degree now so that I have ANY DEGREE. I am in Organic Chemistry this semester and I actually like it. Real Estate is going good and Jason is loving it. He is keeping busy right now.

Jill and I are trying to plan a girls trip to DC and New York. I really like girls trips, I had a lot of fun when we went to visit Tahna and New Orleans. But DC and New York shopping... that sounds like a lot of fun too!