TRYING TO CATCH UP!!!

We haven't updated the old blog for about 2 months so we have a few things to catch up on.  Suzanne got to go home to Monument for 10 days (with President Tilleman's permission) to welcome our new granddaughter, Lily Suzanne Hopkins, into the world and to help out our daughter Cory.  The time went by very quickly but it was great to see Cory's and Stacy's family for even the short time that she was there. Sue got to be there when Lily was blessed and Stacy surprised Suzanne by sceduling her Patriarcial Blessing while she was home.  

It looks like we are always taking a trip to somewhere but we really do work most of the time.  We have been working hard enough that President Tilleman wanted us to take a few days off so we took him up on it and went to Vancouver Island with our fellow office missionaries...the Lewis'.  This picture was taken in front of the famous Empress Hotel in Victoria. We didn't  go in but wanted to prove that we got this close. We got to go shopping after this...yea?! 

On the shopping trip, Sue got atacked by the "you're not spending enough money" bear.  She conformed and went at it with a vengence...just kidding.  She is more conservative than her conservative husband.  Sister Lewis is a World Class Shopper as designated in the Ripley's Believe It or Not record book.

After shopping all afternoon it was time for something "light" so we held ourselves in check by having only double dip ice cream cones to last us until dinner and desert. This was an old authentic Ice Cream Soda Fountain that some of us remember going into as kids. 

This is the ice cream display in the Soda Fountain Shop.  It took all of our restraint to limit ourselves to the two dips. 

This is John Lennon's Rolls Royce that he had custom made in England and then shipped over to the US when they moved to New York.  They drove it seldomly because of the attention that it drew but one time when they did have it out an older lady hit the car with her cane and shouted at them that they had no respect for class or status!  That was the last time they took it out.  It was sold to the BC museum for $250,000...a bargain?

We visited the World Renown Butchart Gardens. The entry fee was high enough that we asked if we had bought an ownership interest in it!!! It was started in 1906 from the quarry of limestone by businessman Butchart. They lived next to the quarry and Mrs. Buchart spent the rest of her life reclaiming the scarred landscape into a huge beautiful garden. Quite a feat that continues to this day by their decendants.

This is the Ross Fountain in Butchart Gardens. For the 60th anniversary this fountain was developed in an abondoned limestone quarry. It reaches heights of 80'.

Elder Maynes of the First Quorum of the Seventy visited the Mission for 3 days.  This is President and Sister Tilleman presenting he and his wife with a Canadian Flag signed by everyone as a momento of their trip. We spent several weeks preparing everything for their tour of the Mission and he had the opportunity to meet and hold a series of training sessions with all 130 missionaries. It was a special experience for us all.