Last week of Home MTC for Elder Robertson!

 Wow, the last week of MTC came! Nine weeks we were blessed to have Elder Robertson in our home.  

We started a bit of work on the new office building as well!  It's been slow going but that's been fine.  It's allowing us more time to cash flow the project instead of taking more money out of our early retirement fund. Lee rented a dumpster to get rid of stuff and filled it up! We were trying to sell the church pews but never could work something out. We finally gave them away to a guy whose church was looking for pews. 

Our last Saturday together we hiked along the ridge of Massanutten and went all the way to the water tower. We have never hiked all the way there. 

There was lots of complaining on the hike, but thankfully they pulled out smiles for the pictures. 

After the hike Lee and Haley went on a bike ride.  Such pretty weather! Usually falls are pretty great in the Shenandoah Valley! Spring can be fine too but they tend to be cold and wet.

We got some food from Sakura and from Peking China for dinner that night. Sushi, shashimi and all. 

Elder Robertson starting some packing!  AHH!!!

Saturdays were his preparation day to do laundry, shopping, and spending time with family. But every Saturday evening he had an MTC class I think from 8pm to 11pm. 

Random...Haley cleans Lee's office and before she leaves she draws a little sketch on a sticky note to leave for the offices ladies.  They love seeing what she draws! 

Last drive to church before heading to Arizona! Not sure if I wrote about that....about 3 weeks into his training one day everyone in Clark's district started getting emails at random times from their stake presidents about a re-assignment from Japan to state side.  Clark found out that he was going to the Arizona, Gilbert mission.  The only two sisters in his online MTC district were assigned there as well! 

Darrell's family came to church that day as did my parents, and friends of ours.  Clark is with Dan Riddle, Zander Manzano and Jacob Benns. Dan's mom and grandma came, as well as Jacob's mom.  The Copelands came as well. The first speaker was a missionary serving in our ward and he literally spoke for under 5 minutes.  That left Elder Robertson quite a bit of time! He did a great job. 

With COVID going on we were asked to not have a big group together before Clark left. Mainly so Clark wouldn't have COVID when he travelled and arrived in the mission. I did want Darrell and family there and my parents, so that alone was a full house and I didn't invite anyone else over.  But the Peterson's came and stayed which was super fun and the Mabundas stopped by with food and said hi. Halloween is coming up so I decided to make sugar cookies and have them to decorate for dessert.  It's a tradition we've done for years.  We normally do cookies on a Monday night, not Sunday, but this worked out  

Some last games on a Sunday night. Ahh.  What a big transition coming up! 

Elden's been enjoying putting puzzles together and finished this one with different temples around the USA.

Finishing up the packing!

Elder Robertson told me right before we took him to the airport Monday morning, "Mom, don't be sad if I don't cry". Haha, that was awesome. The huge day came for Elder Robertson to head to his mission! He flew out of Shenandoah Airport which was SO nice!  The parking lot is right by the entrance and you don't have to pay.  Then there is only one gate and you can see the people waiting at the gate after they go through security.  So we could see him after he got through security.  I didn't know if I would cry or not, but I did.  More so after we left.  Haley was crying and that got me going.  Elder Robertson didn't cry.  He was too excited and we were excited for him too! 

Security! 

He's at his gate and we're in the lobby.

And that was it!  On the way home I cried about missing him, about my regrets for not being a better mom, sad about not getting better family pictures before he left....lots of emotions!  When I got home I finished cleaning his room out.  It was basically done but it had a few random things in there like a computer, pens, some random items...etc.  Haley is going to move into his room. 

Clark had a crazy adventure getting out to Arizona.  At first the plane at the airport wasn't working and they didn't think they could take off. So Elder Robertson got his flight switched.  Then at the end the plane did work and he was able to get on it.  But then the flight times I think were messed up.  He flew to Denver to switch planes.  He arrived much earlier than expected. The mission president and his wife picked him up and took him to Chick-fil-A. Elder Robertson was able to contact them in between flights. 

His first night in the mission he stayed at a member's house! Elder Bodily and Elder Brewer were his companions for a week. The sister who owns this house sent me these photos which was so thoughtful!

He made it!  Woo hoo!  

Back in Virginia... 

Sooo....we wanted to go to Nicaragua this fall but with the elections we were told that we shouldn't, which is totally fine with us!  They've had some big problems during elections. Since we didn't want to go to Nicaragua and I saw that one of my friends had gone to Costa Rica, I started looking in to that.  Then when tickets were only $200 each, we decided to go! One problem that happened after we got the tickets is the Elder Robertson found out his arrival date to the mission was switched.  It was supposed to be October 25th.  It was moved to November 3, right when we were going to be in Costa Rica!  And I wanted to be the one to take him to the airport. Plus, his MTC ended Oct 23rd.  What was he going to do for a whole week?  The letter from Salt Lake said if there were conflicts with the travel dates to contact them.  I asked if Elder Robertson could be released for a week or so and come with us to Costa Rica, or arrive at the Gilbert Arizona mission early.  They told us he'd be going to Arizona early.  Three days before Costa Rica, Elder Robertson took off! 

A little tradition for us girls is to get our nails done before we go on a big trip.  We wanted to go to another nail place but she didn't have any openings.  We went to a place in Harrisonburg instead. 

Tuesday before we left Haley went to her last season practice for the ShenRock mountain biking group.  They did a trick-or-treat ride which I thought was super fun. Elden and I enjoyed handing out candy. The one downside of the Costa Rica trip is that we missed our town's trick-or-treating, which we love going to each year.

The Wednesday before the trip Elden had a band concert!  It's so fun seeing him perform.  I was embarrassed at how the 6th graders were acting...so noisy, lot of talking, etc!  Thankfully Elden's group and the 8th graders behaved better.  

Busy stuff all way to our trip!