Walking along the paths by the bat caves. I just loved the look of the Mangrove groves. Lots of monkeys were around.

Into the bat caves. We couldn't use a flash inside so couldn't take pictures but there were some spectacular rock formations and lots and lots of bats.

The last thing of the day was to see the Eagles. We turned this corner on the waterway and there were all these eagles just flying. It was amazing. I finally just pointed my camera in the air and got some pretty great pictures.

These eagles would dip into the waterway and get fish to eat.

More eagles just flying around. They would rest in the tops of the trees before flying out some more.

Langkawi One of Our Favorites

Scott took a walk along the sky bridge. He really enjoyed the trek. It gave incredible views.

We took this cable car, the Langkawi Cable Car, located on the south-west coast of Langkawi. It was thrilling. I told Scott that if we survived it, it would be the highlight of the trip. And that turned out to be true.

You could hear the girls in the cable car in front of us scream as they went down. I have to admit that it took everything I had not to do the same thing.

We had lunch at this seafood restaurant. We got to pick out our lobster. The people brought out lobster to him so that we could get up close and personal.

The fresh lobster was yummy.

It was fun to swim with all these fish. They would swim up and brush you. It was a fantastic experience. We were here about 4 hours and I spent most of the time snorkeling

The fish were incredible. I took this picture from the side of the jetty. It look like this from all sides.

We were about a 100 yards to the island. Scott enjoyed swimming to the island. I only went as far as the shoreline where I searched for shells. I got a bunch or really cool ones. I love collecting shells.

This is the boat that took us out to the jetty just off Payar Island. It was really comfortable and I managed a little nap time. It took about an hour to get to the island.

The boat that we took dropped us off at this jetting. It was covered and had tables for us to sit at. There was a wonderful breeze making it so comfortable. Scott enjoying his book after hours of snorkeling.

Langkawi: May 2010

New Baby Girl

This is such a crazy program, that the last photos you enter are added at the top of the post. I am just too tired to fix it. I posted a bunch of pictures and at the end is my post. Enjoy!

Nixon and Brock. What a smile Nixon has, it just lights up the room

So cute, I don't know how Jennie painted such tiny toenails.

Great Aunt Robyn holding Leila. She really is GREAT!!!

Great Grandpa Sanders with Jennie's family, Jace, Nixon and Leila

Great Grandpa Bingham. What a sweet picture

Jennie showing off her new baby girl to her Grandpa

Melanie helping Alison hold Leila. It is funny that no matter how old or young you are we all just love babies

I just love those little feet

Nixon adores his baby sister

Leila Jade Keddington

Birthday April 14, 2010

One of the incredible things about my conference is that it took place at exactly the same time that little Miss Leila was born and because of that I added another week to my trip and went home and took care of Jennie. Oh I had a ball. I got to sleep on the bottom bunk bed with Jace on the top. We read stories each night before bed. Each morning as I woke up I tried not to wake Jace but never succeeded. He would sit up in bed when he would see me and then climb down his ladder. I wanted Jennie to be able to sleep so I would get out a book and start reading to Jace. In a little while I would hear Nixon and go in and get him so he could hear the stories too. Unfortunately, I left the door open and it managed to wake Jennie anyway. The next morning as soon as the boys were up, I took them downstairs to read to, but it is a little house and it still managed to wake Jennie up. On the third morning, I closed Jennie's door and took the boys downstairs to read to them I also fed them breakfast and would get them dressed for the day. Still woke up Jennie. I anxiously waited each day for Leila to wake up so I could go and get her and give her all the loves that I could. She was such a good baby.

We had a very busy time. We visited both Great Grandpas and showed our little angel off. While I was home I also had a chance to visit a few of my sweetest friends, Robyn, her daughter Melanie and family, Terri and Tab and Pam.

My sweet children all got together on the Saturday that I flew in and we had pizza at Jennie's house. Nolan and Treo and cute little Jaylee came all the way from St. George just to see me. They left early the next morning to get back. I so appreciated them making the effort.

My highlights of the trip of course was to be with all my kids and grandkids. I got to visit Leah and Bella at their gymnastics class. Oh how cute they were in their little leotards. They are pretty good if I do say so myself. I also attended Stake Conference at my home Stake Center and got to see so many of my friends. It just felt good to be in their presence again even if only for a moment. Meeting dear friends for lunch and taking care of Jennie and her family. I just wished I could have had more time.

It was sad to leave but I missed Scott so much that I was glad to be going back home to be with him. Next time I am not leaving him home I will make him come with me.

My LOA/LOS Conference

A Week in Beautiful Plantation, Miami

Every year the Legat program puts on a mandatory conference that I have to go to. This year it was held in Plantation, Miami. Last year it was in New York and the year before it was held in Clarksburg, WV. My title is LOA or Legat Office Assistant. What I really am is a jack of all trades. Whatever needs to be done I do. It has been a wonderful job and I have met so many incredible people. On the left is Bob Jones the guy who organizes all of our trainings. Since I was given permission to come a day early because of the long trip, Pat SiJohn (another LOA from Pretoria) and I offered to help him get the room ready for the conference. It was fun. He drove us around showing us a little bit of Plantation, Florida. It is close to Ft. Lauderdale. Next to him is Garnet from Bangkok. She has been in the Legat program for about 17 years and boy does she have some incredible experiences. Next to her is Matt. He is the LOA in Singapore and my "go to guy". Everytime I have a question I call him. He has been wonderful to me. We got to know each other when I went to my first conference at Clarksburg, WV. He and I were supposed to get into the Pittsburgh airport at about the same time. He was coming from Nairobi, Kenya and I was coming from SLC. He got there a bit early and I was delayed about 5 hours. I was so freaked out that he would leave me, but he waited all that time. He really is just the nicest guy. I am so glad that we are in the same time zone so that I can call him for advice.

Pat SiJohn and I got to be good friends when we went through training in Washington, DC. We just hit it off. She is originally from the Salt Lake City office and works in the Coeur d'Alene, ID Resident Agency. I have known her through the years and always liked her. We have managed our schedules so far to attend the same conference the last two years. We had so much fun together. We shopped and ate and shopped some more. She is one of those people who has an easy laugh, and I find myself laughing with her all the time. We are really enjoying our experience as first-time LOAs and love to talk about our experiences. Below we are doing one of our favorite pasttimes eating at a fun restaurant, The Red Lobster. Don't have any of those in KL or Pretoria.

One of the places that we got to visit was Miami Beach. We walked for over an hour down the beach collecting shells, talking and just enjoying the beautiful sunny day. We met up with Garnet at the end of our beach walk and walked together down the street until we found a seafood restaurant that looked pretty good. The food was wonderful and that is where we heard the stories of the Mumbai masacre. Garnet had been working in India at the time and her office handled that incident. She is a wonderful storyteller, and Pat and I were just spellbound listening to her. One of the fun things that she said, is when she was giving encouragement to her Legat she told him, "Dan, lock and load, lock and load. This is why we are here, this is what it is all about." How lucky we were to meet up with her.

I took over from Beverly Pawlik in the KL office. She transferred to a new assignment in Rabat, Morocco. She was a great trainer and had the KL office organized which made it much easier on me than what Pat was faced with in her office. I really have been fortunate in many ways in my Legat assignment. I trained with Beverly for about a month and she was so fun to be with and talk to. She has a talent of lifting one of her eyebrows when she is making statements that just cracked me up. I wished that she didn't have go I enjoyed being around her so much.

Sandy Sands on the left and Cheryl Ray on the right are gals that I have known for many years. They worked out of the Salt Lake City Office. Sandy Sands has been in and out of the Legat program for many years. She is serving in London at the moment. It took her four days to get to the conference because of the volcano erruption in Iceland that had completely stopped planes from flying to the states from Europe. She had a very important meeting with our AD over the International Operations Division on Friday so she persevered until she finally made it. She took trains and planes and spent many hours in the airports. Four other LOAs were told to turn back after they couldn't make it after two days, but because Sandy had to be at that meeting she just kept making alternate plans until she finally made it. Cheryl has been one of my dearest friends from the day I started at the Salt Lake office. Poor thing, she was really sick almost the entire time. She was just stretched too thin with all the trainings that she had to go to in such a short period of time. She is now the LOS (Legal Operations Specialist, they make more money) in Afghanistan. She has been to Baghdad, Australia, Lagos, Nigeria, and Rome, Italy. She had been home for a few years before she decided to do one last tour in Afghanistan. What a trooper. The Bigwigs love her in the Legat Program because she is so good, hence that is why she is an LOS.

I just had the best time at this conference. It is enjoyable meeting up with dear friends and meeting LOAs/LOSs that you only talked to but never met. Wonder where they will send us next year.

Relief Society Activity

Boy am I far behind in blogging. Below is the Relief Society Birthday Party at our little Branch. One of my sweet friends here, Karen McKinley, is the Counselor over Enrichment (yes I know the name has changed but what the hey, I almost said homemaking) and spearheaded this event. Because I was always helping her anyway she put me on the Enrichment/homemaking/whatever committee. We just love working together. One time she asked me if I would be able to drive to an activity and I said, "sure". After I hung up the phone, Scott reminded me that I didn't drive. I seemed to forget that little detail. Called her right back and said I couldn't drive but would be happy to loan her my car and she could drive us both. The sisters below are angels. I just love associating with them.

As always, the cute Elders seem to come to our Relief Society Parties. It is fun to have them there and we make sure that they get something to eat. Elder Mattox, but we called him Elder Madu, has since finished his mission and gone home to Florida. Elder Pulver replaced Elder Wall. He is also a great Missionary. We manage to have the Elders over for dinner several times during the month. In fact, as each Elder gets a transfer we do a special dinner for them and they get to choose whatever they want for dinner. Elder Madu was so funny. I asked him what he wanted for the main dish and he said pork, I asked him what he wanted for a side dish and he said pork, then I asked him what he wanted for dessert and he said pork. Well for the main we did Scott's famous pork tenderloins, for a side dish we did squash sauted in onions and bacon and for the dessert we had brownies and icecream. I just couldn't quite grant all his desires. He seemed okay with the choice.