Goodbye to the Smith's

April just wouldn't start out right without the traditional April Fool's joke!  Much to my shock, David colored my milk turquoise!  Later that night, he fell asleep on the couch reading his scriptures so I pasted up his toothbrush with a little Eucerin hand cream, woke him up, encouraged him to go brush and get in bed.  I went to bed laughing as I thought of him brushing.  He came to bed........not a word from him....... then a few minutes later he said, "Where did you get that awful toothpaste?"  I guess he got the last laugh because he didn't even react to MY joke!

We watched many hours of General Conference during this month.  Here we are stopping for food between the sessions.

Here's a view of us after watching Women's Conference with the camera propped on the TV!

Our friends, Vance and Diane Fryer and their son Caleb came to visit from Indonesia.  We knew them when they lived in Viet Nam.

 Diane shared this picture of me and her from when she came to visit us in Cambodia.  If you have heard me tell the story of the women who fed us fish soup, she is the one next to Diane.

It was a month of doing things with Elder Scott and Sister Karen Smith for "the last time".  Their mission was about to come to an end.  Our last outing in HK together.

 We went to Macau to visit our sister missionaries there.  Sister Jona Calusa in the pink shirt was a domestic helper attending our branch.  I was privileged to get to help her submit her mission papers and now she will be serving in our branch when she comes back to Hong Kong.



We took the girls to lunch at a fancy hotel.

These fish were their favorite dish!

We then visited the famous standing wall.....

 Unfortunately, the crowds were horrible!  We could hardly move!

 The ice cream was a welcome treat!

The missionaries sang a beautiful arrangement of Savior Redeemer of My Soul at all the meetings where Smith's gave their final remarks.

Then it was two solid weeks of birthday parties...... 

.......and goodbye parties!

Monday Family

Tuesday Family

Wednesday family

Thursday Family

 

Friday Family

Saturday Family

It was pretty exhausting having all that fun!

I will really miss working with Sister Smith!!  She is organized, loving, thoughtful, full of fun ideas and just a good friend!!! 

Here's the last selfie from the airport.

Goodbye!  

We love and miss you!!

Sister Novalyn was baptized last Friday!  Her sister, Lyrma, is already a member of our branch.

The young elders invited us to go on a hike with them on P-Day.  It was so fun!!  It began to pour with rain which kept us all cool, but made us look pretty bad in photos!

David had to go to his and Elder Smith's favorite hangout.....Duck, Duck, Goose.... alone.

(except for me)

As you can see, even though David is now Branch President, we are still healthy and happy!

We are so proud of Jordan!  She is now a BYU Graduate!

March Madness

It was so exciting to have our Kitley Family come for a visit! 

We saw a whole new side of Hong Kong through the eyes of our younger grandkids!

Kowloon Park was a lot of fun.....especially the maze where we played Hide-and Seek!  Here are Tim, Kim, Sarah, Claudia and Emmett doing the Lion Dance.

Jet lag hit during dinner the first night! 

After that, the kids adjusted amazingly well!

Look who we found in the MTR Station!  Claudia LOVES pandas!

We took the glass bottom cable car up to Big Buddha.  I wish we had a picture of the floor!

We climbed all the steps up to the top!

The mist hanging over Big Buddha gave it a mystical feel!

Perfect weather!  Not too cold!  Not too hot!

Emmett was a chopstick master from the very start!

We spent a day at Ocean Park!

It was kind of unnerving how the Chinese people grabbed our grandkids 

to take pictures of them!!!!

Lunch time for the pandas!!  It was the highlight of the day!

Such a darling picture of Sarah!

What a fun family photo!

I rode the turtle on the Merry-Go-Round to be close to Emmett.

Tim, Kim, David and Sarah loved riding the rafts and got soaking wet!

Emmett had a little "rest" when we visited the Hong Kong Park Aviary.

A sudden storm necessitated buying umbrellas and having a fun walk in the rain! 

Thursday Family was excited to have our family visit them.  Kitley's loved being with them too!  Sarah said she smiled so much her face hurt!

One day I stayed home to play with Claudia and Emmett while David, Tim, Kim and Sarah went to Stanley Market and Victoria Peak.

This is my favorite picture of David.  Kim took it as we were riding on the Ding-Ding. 

She was sitting and looked up and saw the pictures on the ceiling that we hadn't ever noticed before!

Thanks for making the effort to come and see us, Tim, Kim, Sarah, Claudia and Emmett!

We love you!

Sister Maura was suddenly terminated and made the decision to go back to the Philippines to take care of her son. 

The other sisters gave her a going away party.

Choir practice is always a reason for photos!

It's so exciting  that so many sisters are willing to take time to learn to play the piano.

We had many Relief Society Birthday celebrations!

We sang "As Sisters in Zion" in Tagalog, Indonesian and English.

There was lots of dancing!

The Elders were our music men on the piano and cell phone music!

We took Elder and sister Pack to the Peninsula Hotel for High Tea before they finished their mission.

The Hong Kong Flower Show

Our good friends, Ho and Christina Ho, Gayle Allen and Janet came to Hong Kong!

During Easter Week each Family took a walk around the building identifying paintings that went with the scriptures about the life of the Savior.

 Afterward we colored Easter Eggs......a brand new experience! 

This is Diana.  She lives in a tiny fishing village named Tai O and she wanted to show us the village from her perspective.

Our friends the Chamberlains and Ortons were with us.

Diana's house is one of those on stilts.

On the way home with our prize baguette!

It was so great to get to meet President and Sister Hassell...

the first president of the new Vietnam Hanoi Mission!

(They are VERY tall!)

Sister Abie on the right shared this picture on Facebook with the caption,

"I just can't explain the love and peace I feel when I am with them!" 

Everyday Branch is truly an inspired program!