4/29/2018 Institute Recognition, UF Veterinary College, Fire Hydrants & our Beautiful Flag

The next two pictures are mainly so we have them in our blog for our memories.  We had our Institute recognition last week - these five received completion certificates.  The couple at the left have twins that just turned one yesterday which they bring to institute each week - they have plenty of young ladies who are happy to help.  

This group received certificates of completion.  It is interesting that six months ago we looked up the Gainesville Institute blog and saw many of these same faces, but then they were just faces in a picture.  Now they have become part of our lives and each face brings memories.

After unwittingly crashing the "important people in Gainesville" tour of the facility, we went to the open house of the UF Veterinary College which has been in existence since 1978.  The small animal hospital has the only emergency room in Florida that is certified as a Level 1 Veterinary Emergency and critical care facility.  Last year the Small and Large Animal Hospitals treated a total of 72,843 cases including field visits. Their facility is amazing. They have everything you would find in a state-of-the art hospital.

An iguana - look how long the tail is down her leg.

 On the left is the facility's prize pig, below is the Equestrian Team.  The lady in the middle is my age .. I'm sure I could ride once I got on the horse, just not sure if I could step up in the stirrup and pull myself into the saddle.  But note that her horse is the shortest.

Showing off the talents of a K-9 police dog.

We were hoping for a giraffe or two, but had to settle for this goat. 

We ran into this woman and her young daughters.  She lives in our apartment complex and we often see her when we are walking or in the fitness center here at the apartment.  She is an accomplished cello player, finishing up classes here at UF.  Her husband has been here, but is back in Korea because he finished his schooling last semester.  He will come back and get the family in August. 

They reorganized our YSA Branch Relief Society with Callie Shank as the President and Julia Vasquez and I as the counselors.  It will be a fun assignment.

Mike is the second counselor in the Branch Presidency - below is a Sunday and a Saturday picture.  Brother Brown (l) looks like Jim Owens.

The annual LDS paint-the-fire-hydrant service project was in Williston last week.  That is a small town of about 3000.  The crew included our YSA branch and the ward there.  We broke into teams of two or three and they gave us their list of fire hydrant addresses - some were easy, but some were listed like small town addresses are - "by peanut store" for an example.  Between all I think we got most.  We met back in Gainesville - one of the young women lives in her Grandma's home and it has a pool, so we had "Sonny's Bar-B-Que" and the kids swam.

We started out planning to take good pictures, but our hands got smudged up pretty fast and we didn't dare pick up the phones.

We didn't bring paint clothes so went shopping (Mike's favorite thing to do) at Good Will for clothes and Walmart for the least expensive shoes we could find.  So for under $30 we had some shoes we would not want to have to hike in and surprisingly nice Lee jeans and a cap for Mike, some black scrubs and a bright orange Nike UF tennis warmup for me.  In fact, we liked that enough that I took it off and painted in my white t-shirt .. now a bit red spotted.  It was fun.

These are a couple of Florida T-shirts

We now have a resident Carolina anole outside the window the yellow bird was.  We thought it was a lizard.  They have "adhesive" like pads on their feet so they can climb even smooth surfaces.

I took the sister missionaries over to the Santa Fe campus last week - their flag is HUGE and so beautiful flying in the wind.  We are grateful for this country - and for all of you.

This thought from a talk Elder Bednar gave at the MTC - the promise is for all of us:

"You be a good boy, you be a good girl, you honor your covenants, you keep the commandments, and I promise you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that as you press forward with faith in Christ, your footsteps will be guided."