Ryan's Mission Farewell

On May 25th, Ryan had his mission farewell in church. After his talk, both sides of our family came over to our house for lunch. On May 28th, we drove to Salt Lake and ate at the Spaghetti Factory before taking Ryan to the MTC. Since the MTC was under construction, we had to drop him off at the church near the BYU stadium. We sang Called to Serve and heard a couple of talks. It was hard to say goodbye for Ryan. It's hard to realize that I won't be able to see him for two years. All of us were crying. Our friend Kathy, brought us a gift bag with hugs, kisses, and tissues in it, which was really nice. Mom has been crying since we left. I swear I had to give her at least 10 hugs.

California

We drove to Las Vegas and stayed at the Excalibur on May 8th. We also went to the forum shops at Caesar's Palace. We drove to California on May 9th and stayed at the Holiday Inn Select in Anaheim. We also went shopping at Downtown Disney. On May 10th, we went the O.C. swap meet and walked through the ports of call shops at Long Beach before we picked up Ryan at the airport. On May 11th, we went to Universal Studios and since it was Mother's Day, they gave Mom a rose. On May 12th, We went shopping at the Block at Orange. I spent most of my money at Border's. We also drove to Huntington Beach. Mom and I found a lot of really big seashells. On May 13th, we went to Knott's Berry Farm. It was practically dead. Except for Ryan, we wore our ponchos on the river raft ride. On May 14th, we went to the NBC Studio tour. We saw Pat O'Brien from Access Hollywood and we got to see where they film Days of Our Lives and the Tonight Show. We also drove to the Santa Monica Pier and Ryan wanted to go see Pepperdine University and the homes in Malibu. On May 15th, we ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Newport Beach. We went shopping at Fashion Island. Ryan picked out a watch he wanted for his Birthday. Ryan turned 19 on May 16th. We dropped him off at LAX Aiport on our way back to Las Vegas. We ate dinner at the Rio Carnival World buffet and stayed at the Best Western. On our way home today, we stopped in Mesquite and looked at condos. It would be nice to get out of the snow, but all there is to do there is to golf.

Mom and I also went down to Salt Lake to go to an art exhibit at the Salt Lake Art Center. We saw the Artist, Cris Bruch's "Dreamign Doing Craving" show.