moses and gabriel got to spend the week we were in dominican republic with grandma. those three had a blast, and there’s no way we could express our gratitude to ian’s mom for taking care of our precious boys while we were away. the day after we got back from our trip, grandpa joined the party! it’s always sooo great when grandma & grandpa are in town and we had a wonderful long weekend with them this may.

ian’s parents have come to visit us each year we have lived in london. but this visit marked the last for at least the next three years, because when asked they chose to go on a three year mission for our church. from july 2019 until july 2022, they will work together to oversee a mission area, caring for and leading almost two hundred missionaries. (fyi – being asked to be mission president is different than volunteering to be missionaries … grandma & grandpa weren’t planning to leave home and career behind at this time but faithfully and selflessly responded to a call to do just that.) to focus on their work with the missionaries (and it’s a lot of work!), they won’t leave their mission area … so no more visits to london for a while! but we are planning to go visit them next christmas, and are so looking forward to it. they will be overseeing the arizona gilbert mission (which is so crazy/exciting to me, because that’s where one of my sisters and one of my brothers live!).

while grandma & grandpa were in england we…
…went to the temple together, and afterwards visited chartwell, the former home of winston churchill (grandpa is a big history buff!)…
 
…spent a sunday afternoon in richmond park…
 
…and went to moses’s favourite place on earth, whipsnade zoo!
they had a really cool exhibit of animals made out of legos:
 
 
and the views out over the english countryside from one end of the zoo are so gorgeous!:

we love grandma & grandpa so much and we are so excited for them in their new adventure in arizona!