Stout Family News: 2022-09-04

August happenings...

Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Island, Baby Alex, Stout Reunion, Stake Events...

After their California Beach Trip, the girls were able to stay with us for a few more days before they had to fly back to Oklahoma. We went with Eric's family to see Dinosaur Island at Thanksgiving Point.

Luke loved it!

Jaxon loves dinosaurs and really enjoyed it!

The flowers, as always, were breathtakingly beautiful

The girls had a slumber party

To the airport for their flight back home

Can't believe he is finally here and we are so grateful that all went well with the birth!

We are smitten with this little guy!

As you can tell, he is downright adorable!

And such a sweet baby!

Can't get enough

Tim joined a woodcarving group with his friend from church

He got all the special tools and has enjoyed making some fun carvings

Stout Reunion 2022 at the Arnoldsen Cabin in Mt. Pleasant

This year's reunion was amazing, as always!

So fun to gather with extended family and enjoy some relaxing time together

Brian brought laser tag!

Fun with the grandkids

Long morning walks up and down the mountain

Such gorgeous views!!!

The 2022 talent show featuring...Dad jokes!!!

Games

Lots of fun game time!

These three little second cousins are all about the same age!

Luke loves going to the cabin so much

Uncle Rick celebrated his 60th birthday

Very awesome place!

Leland came back from his trip this summer to Oregon

This was the summer of making tons of gyoza for Luke. He would bring us gyoza wrappers and put them very up close to our face. Or, would leave them just outside our bedroom door for us to find in the morning!

We must have made a thousand at least, all together this summer.

They are so delicious, but very time consuming to make!

I think it is worth it.

SPACE CAMP

We got a call from Rachel inviting us to participate with them in a space camp to celebrate Uncle Rick's 60th birthday, and it was so fun!

They have cool uniforms and everything at the Christa McAuliffe Space Center in Pleasant Grove

We were divided into groups and given a scenario, like on a Star Trek movie

Tim was in the communications group and I was assigned to help with the weapons

We had to work together to keep from getting blown up

The 2 1/2 hours flew by and we ended up victorious against the enemy, whew!

Our ship was the Magellan

It got very stressful at times (trying to save the universe and all), but after the whole thing we went out for strawberry shakes and relaxing conversation with Rachel and Kyle. Oh boy, it was a fun night!

Bright and early the next morning, we went to the temple,

always a boost to our spirits!

Tova's father passed away and I went to the funeral which was so beautiful. They had the most amazing music and the talks were so good. I saw Uncle John and Aunt Gretchen there too!

Bekah came and stayed one night and then we took her out for Japanese food and then to the MTC the next day

She's heading to the Spain Madrid Mission and will learn Spanish

She will be such an awesome missionary!

Fun with grandkids!

We started getting lots of Armenian cucumbers from our garden.

We asked C what they were and he said, "banana!" Ha! They do kind of have a shape of a banana!

I started working on cookies for our stake event and this was the first attempt (a bit grainy)

I started watching Youtube tutorials on how to make beautiful sugar cookies and learned a lot

There's more to it than meets the eye!

Grandkid fun!

Luau

Our stake had a luau and we wore the Hawaiian clothes that Tim's mom made

It was so fun!

There were probably a thousand people there.

I've never seen so many packed into a stake center building.

The food was amazing

Roasted chicken, green salad, watermelon, pasta salad, beautiful cakes and desserts

They had an incredible Polynesian show-and even invited the stake presidency to participate in the fun

Luke loved it too

Back to school

Luke's school moved to a new location this year

They hosted a back to school event

And then the next morning, it was the first day of school

Amy went back to her job as a teacher's aide.

She got a nice raise for coming back this year.

We went out to get frozen yogurt for Family Home Evening

Education Week

Tim and I went to BYU Education week for a day

We had classes on how to deal with difficult personalities, on retirement strategies, and how to get more out of your time through more effective scheduling, and we had lunch together. It was the best!

Always a highlight of the year!

Had lunch with my mission companions and this year we went to a different location. The have a nice cafe in the BYU Art Museum. After lunch, we went to the bookstore to look at the incredible paintings and we met a few of the artists.

Fun with grandkids!

M and L have claimed their own spots downstairs and had fun setting them up

This was my second attempt at making the cookies.

I made about 100 and about 36 turned out barely presentable.

This was my third, and final attempt. I had some help.

It was the night before the event

Cori, the first counselor in the Stake RS called me at 9:00 pm and said, "We are coming over to help with the flooding." I had piped the edges of the cookies, but the flooding is so tricky. I resisted having them come, but they came over anyway and I'm so grateful. Sister Larsen, the stake RS president, Cori and her husband came (it was their date night). It was truly a lifesaver and went so quick. Sister Larsen and I flooded them and Tim, Cori, and her husband, Scott, got toothpicks and helped spread the flooding. We were done in a half hour and I was able to get a good night's sleep before the event.

Hooray for good friends, so grateful to them!

These are the cookies that Sister Larsen made.

We made 300 altogether.

A labor of love!

The Stake Relief Society, Young Women and Primary presidencies have been planning this event for months and it finally arrived.

We went around to the eight ward Relief Societies the week before to give a last invite. A lady from the 6th ward came up to me after the meeting and said, "Can I give some feedback?" She said, "That is the worst poster I've ever seen. There are too many words and the poster is too small, you can't even see it!" I'm sure she didn't know that I was the one who had made the advertisement. I just smiled and said, "Thank you for the tips." Mental note to self..."fewer words next time!"

We set everything up the night before the event.

The next morning, we started in the Cultural Hall with everyone gathered together, some sitting on quilts and blankets ...

The stake Young Women's president welcomed everyone and gave an introduction of the program

A light brunch was served

Several mothers and daughters from our stake sang a beautiful choir song

"I Feel God's Light"

A sister who works as a storyteller at American Fork Library spoke...

She had everyone break into groups and do a kind of "Mad Libs" activity

We had about 175 come, which was so nice!

Then we broke off into four groups

The stake Relief Society was in charge of making gratitude journals and of the photo booth

Tim's sister, Heidi (who is so talented), made the props for our photo booth and they were a huge success!

It was nice to get a picture of our presidency

The Young Women were in charge of organizing the service project and of the speed friend-shipping activity. I wanted to remember the questions they asked because this is such a fun activity!

The previous six weeks, our stake collected school supplies from each of the wards and then for the service project, we assembled backpacks with school supplies in them for children in need. So many sisters donated colored pencils, crayons, erasers, rulers, glue sticks, markers, pencil boxes, etc... God truly is good and we could see His goodness through all of the generous women of our stake!

This came from a new lady in the 6th ward, "Please tell the women's boards what an absolutely lovely morning it was today. All the details and the wonderful classes were so well thought out. I didn't want to even bite into the beautiful cookie but that was the best iced sugar cookie I've ever had. Thank you again for everybody's effort."

It was a joy to put it together with the other presidencies and I enjoyed getting to know them better. Such a great group of women!

Signed up to do yard work at the temple and we were in charge of digging a circle around the trees and bushes.

Rachel came for a visit on her way to Alaska

Tim started his first day at Waterford continuing as the foreign language department chair, Chinese teacher, and he is teaching two online Japanese classes for UVU this year. He will be a very busy man!