April News

Dear Family,

On April 3rd, my dear mother passed peacefully to the next life. I miss her constantly and there is a void in my heart that I know will never be filled. I was grateful that we had a nice conference right after passing. It was uplifting to listen to and quite frankly, it was nice not to have to go to church so we could stay home and get things ready. Saturday we went to the mortuary, Sunday I spent the entire day working on arranging "Where Can I Turn for Peace?". This song brought much comfort to my mom while she was sick. I had hoped to arrange and sing it for her before she died, but I spent all of my extra time being with her, which I have no regrets about. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent getting everything else ready for the viewing and funeral. Brian spent much time getting videos ready for the funeral and they turned out wonderful. Jenny and I worked on getting things ready for a display and on the life sketch that we read at the funeral. We really didn't know how it would all come together, but it did and it was very nice. We had a lot of compliments on both the viewing and the funeral. And it was beautiful. Everything turned out perfect. The flowers, music and spoken word were beautiful. It was so nice to have all the family and friends that were able to attend. It was comforting to us and a great tribute to my mom to have so many people there that loved her.

The rest of the month seemed to be busy just catching up on many of things that were put off the last few months. We had a fun and nice Easter with both the Allen's and Southwick's. We went on a quick vacation to Cayonlands National Park. We stayed for two nights - we were planning on staying for longer, but it was extremely windy and sandy and it was impossible to go hiking. So, we came home early, which was okay because we were anxious to see our new little niece, Emma Norene. On Friday the 24th, we got to help out with Brian's prom dinner, which was fun. On May 2nd we went to Jenny and Diana's (Brian's sister) graduation from Utah State. It was good, but emotional day. It was also very rainy. The rest of the month was filled with doctor's appointments, visiting teaching appointments, and picture taking appointments.

Kalynn was off track the whole month, which was very nice. I love to have her home, she is a great helper. Peter's speech seems to be improving. We are working on helping him put the ending consanants on words which is very funny because then words become two syllables - such as shee-p and bir-d and fla-g. It's cute. Elyse is darling and all over the house. She has mastered going up and down the stairs and she loves being outside playing with her older siblings. She is also anxious to feed herself and does pretty well at it.

I suppose that is quite enough for this month. Hope you are all well.
The Allen Family