2 weeks

A few pictures from our very fun tour and lunch at Facebook

 This is the first building on the campus.  It's like a small city.  They provide for every need their employees have; at least a dozen restaurants, dry cleaning, hair salon, gym, masseuse, bike repair shop, you name it.  But of course, they expect them to work 24/7!  But our friend Ben loves it!  He drives a Tesla, so I'm sure he is also paid very well.

 This is a vending machine where employees can enter their code and get any supplies they need for their job

 

 The walls in the office buildings have amazing artwork on them

 

 This is Ben, the MSA who works there and invited us to take a tour.  A really great guy!

 This is one of the Lego walls.  They provide the Legos and the employees can "draw" whatever they want on this board.  The largest one was so amazing, but we couldn't take a picture of it because there were workers there, and their screens are confidential.

.We then drove to Oracle's home base.  Dad wants to take pictures of all the major Silicon Valley companies.  He thinks the grandkids will be impressed!

 

 

We had another appointment that afternoon up near these places, and afterwards, it was about 5:00, and we didn't want to drive home at that time, so we went to a bird refuge up by the Bay.  It was pretty, but their weren't any birds!  We were hoping to see egrets, or something, but this must not be the season for them.  So Dad just took a picture of his favorite "bird"!

 

On the Monday before, we were having lunch at Costco while getting some pictures printed for my scrapbook, when a bunch of Elders showed up.  The older men in the background are a group that meets there for hotdogs every Monday called the "ROMEO" group.  "Retired Old Men Eating Out".
They buy the Elders their hot dogs if they are there at the same time.  Nice people, and very fun to talk to.  I think Dad will want to start his own ROMEO group when we get home.

Our temple day last week with Claudia was amazing, and we have another one today.  Such great experiences!  Love you all.  See you soon.



3 weeks!

Wow!  We'll be starting to pack up the car 3 weeks from today, and head out on October 1st.  No need to repeat how fast it has gone, or how fast those 3 weeks will fly by!  We're excited, family.  It will be so good to be back home, but know that we will be homesick for this place for awhile.

These last two weeks have been busy and fun.  On August 29th, we went with some other senior couples to Half Moon Bay and saw the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.  We went at low tide and got to look in the tide pools.  We didn't see any starfish because they have been killed off by a virus, but got to see other interesting things.  This is a picture of a sea anemone and you can just barely see some little crabs.

This is a little girl who was burying her brother in the sand.  Cute!  I didn't get any other pictures (sigh).

Then that Sunday we had our fireside.  It was fun to reminisce about our mission and tell some of the things that have happened, and talk about the people we have met.  We put together a slide show of the MSA and their activities that went over well.  We had lots of positive comments after, and really felt their love.  It was a great night.  I got lots of pictures but for some reason they are not showing up on the link here on the blog.  Wish I had a grandkid here to help me find them! 

Anyway, that next week we had some great visits, did our last mission leadership council luncheon, where they sang "Called to Serve" to us (cry, cry), and on Sept. 5th we got invited to another senior couple's home to watch the BYU/Nebraska game.  Wow!  That was exciting (at least the last few minutes were!)  Later that night a couple who's calling is to help the MSA took us out to dinner.  They are Kristin and Blaine Bowman, and they have become good friends.

 

We also had a great night Wednesday at the institute of religion in San Jose, where we go every Wednesday to help feed the hungry young singles.  Here we are with Vivik, a recent convert from India, who is a very sweet man.  We now know 4 people from there who have all told us if we ever get to India, we can stay with their families, so I'm thinking we ought to go some time, right?

These are some of the Elders who come there for dinner.  Two of these are twin brothers from Vietnam.  Excellent missionaries and very sweet young men. 

The couple in the middle here are the Nelson's who are over the dinners and other activities there and have become good friends, and the couple on the right are new to the mission and will be helping out after we leave.  They are the DeGraf's and have a son who is deaf, so work with the ASL members here.  Great people! They are both from Utah so we think we will be able to keep in touch in the future. Next to me is Ceidy, a young adult who suffers from depression, and we have become close.

Yesterday was the Labor Day barbeque.  It was a resounding success!  We had lots of new people come, and were able to get to know some of them.  I have never felt more comfortable at an event with lots of people!  They truly felt like family.  It was great.  I took lots of pictures, but of course can't find them.  Dad just fiddled with my phone, so I am going to post this and then get back in and see if they show up.

No luck, but here are two Elders that we love.  Elder Barbosa on the left helped us with our outreach last year, and has been such a strong example and hard worker.  He had a knee injury last year and had to go home for a few months for surgery and recuperation, but came back out.  Then he crashed his bike and hit his shoulder into a street post and caused a compound fracture.  He had surgery again, and is on the road to recovery!  Can't believe what he's been through.  He is amazing.

I could go on and on about these great kids, but I'll save that for when I see you all again.  I'll try to get one more blog in, about our day at Facebook, at least 2 sisters who will be receiving their endowment, and our trip to San Francisco on the 22nd to see an opera!  We also have more member dinners we've been invited to, so our dance card is full!  It will be a great last few weeks. 

Love you all so much!

I'll try another tack.  Barbeque pictures:

 

Volark and Rene man the grill.

 

 Chris, Elder and Sister Holt, who are taking our place (yay!), Brother Call and Bishop Cole

Sister Call and Irma