He's back. :)

Steve flew in last night. It's been a long week and so much has happened. I'm not sure why so many things happen or go wrong when Steve is out of town but we all made it.......and he really enjoyed Poland. It's so nice having him home!! He will do a blog about his trip on Sunday.
And why a picture of a flower? Because it's pretty and it's one of Emily's flowers. She insisted on me buying this for her and how can I resist her....or the flower?
BTW....the garden is looking great and Steve's corn is coming up. And all the red onions took too.

And this is my arm the day after I got stung by a bee. It swelled even more the next day and then started going down. It was a miserable two nights with bad itching and pain down to my elbow (stung on my wrist). Now I have a bottle of benadryl just in case this happens again. :)

Nathan's email

Hey Mommers,

Hey hows it going!!! So we didn't get a change... we are still together here in Jyväskylä. but things are going good here. I'm really enjoying it here and there is a lot going on. We've got 9 investigators right now. I think that's more than I've ever had on my mission before so that's really cool. A couple of them look really good too... so I'm pretty excited about them. SO this week was pretty good. we had Juhanus (mis-summer) so pretty much everyone was gone out of the city to they're summer homes so there was no one around for the whole weekend... it was really pretty weird to be in a big city and not have anyone around... kinda crazy. However we did get to spend it with some members and that was a lot of fun... we ate a ton of Makara (sausage) so it was good... SO yeah it was a really good week and I really enjoyed it... wasn't the most productive but it was almost like a little break.. so it was a lot of fun. SO yeah that's really about everything Thanks so much for the package... I'll probably get it in a couple of weeks when we meet our new Mission President... THANKS :D Your the Best!!!

Welp thats about it I hope you have great week I love and miss you a ton!!!!!

Rakkaudella,

Vanhin Peck

Hey so how is Poland going? that's really cool that your so close. How was the Kebab? I love kebab is so great... haha.. I'm definitely going to miss that when I get home. SO things here are going good. Yesterday I saw your friend from By Common Consent... Mark... something I think his name was... but he's the one who lives in Helsinki.. so that was really crazy.. His Wife is apparently related to some of the people up here in Jyväskylä. SO that was pretty cool to see him.

So this last week was the Mid-summers celebration. So pretty much the entire city shut down and everyone went out to there summer cottage's. It was really pretty crazy.. We went into the center on Saturday and there was nobody there. It was like the entire city had died.. So yeah that was pretty different seeing the whole city just shut down for a couple days.

Welp that's about everything. I hope you have a great trip and everything goes smoothly! I love and miss you a ton!!! Take care!!!

Basia Bulat

Last night Steve and a friend went to the Basia Bulat concert in Poland. He got there kinda late and was worried tickets would be sold out......but they weren't. In fact, when he got there, there were only about 100 people total at the concert. And he was close to the front. He also went and talked to her and told her how he and Emily loves her music. Steve bought a t-shirt for Emily and she signed it for her. He said the concert was great!!!

Saturday in Poland

I talked to Steve this morning. He's doing great. He spent some of the day traveling around the city, seeing some sights, shopping and eating. It's a beautiful country. There is some English spoken there but more German and mostly Polish. Here are some of the pictures he's taken. He said he got over 9 hours of much needed sleep. The pictures he sent me a couple of days ago, most of them were really blurry (no sleep pictures). But today these are really great (lots of sleep)!! But he's doing great and he's very much missed!!!!


My arm is doing better. Swelling almost gone.....just a bad reaction to the bee sting.

Poland

I just chatted with Steve. He arrived in Krakow safely. He said it looks a lot like Vienna and said I would love it there. Dang......I wish I was there. But he said it's in the 70's and beautiful. He's tired and exhausted from the long trip but doing fine. They are 8 hours ahead of us. He'll send me pictures as soon as he can take some and I'll put them up here.
Yesterday I got stung by one of our bees. I put up the umbrella on the patio and they weren't too happy about that. Maybe it was the colors of the umbrella......who knows. After the one stung me on my wrist they started to fly in my hair. They are now ok with the umbrella but I have a swollen wrist now and was up a lot last night with it hurting. They just better make lots of great honey for us!!! :)

Reunion

Last night we (Steve, Jaron, Emily and I) went to David Romney's wedding reception. It was so fun seeing the Romney's again!! We use to live by them in NC and our kids were about the same ages. We were best friends for years and years (and still are) and they were our NC family.
Talking with Darlann was as if no time had passed at all. It's so wonderful to have eternal friends!!!

Last of the performance pictures

I think this is it even though I have tons more I could put up. I know I took way too many but you never know what picture will turn out and what won't. These pics. is a dance called "Snow".
Then the last 5 pics of Emily on pointe. This is her last week of dance and then a break til dance camp that begins the middle of July.

Nathan's email

Hey Mommers,

Hey so how are things going back at home. Those were some really cool pictures of emily!!! >It looks like she's doing really well at here dancing.. That's super cool. So for the Moleskine get one with lines and the bigger size... preferably black... however if they only have red that works too.... Its going to be a journal... so 4'-7' that's my guess of how big it is... I'm not really sure.. but yeah... just the normal size that you've bought for me before. THAT'S CRAZY that Tim and Jess are having another baby... people need to stop doing that while I'm gone... haha.. but that's okay, and that's really cool. I'M excited for them.. cool cool. But things here are going good. We had our last Zone conference with President Brown this week so that was really pretty sad. Honestly it'll be really weird getting a new president but... it seems that he'll be really good so I'm pretty excited as well.. just lots of mixed feelings about the subject.. But yeah it was a really good meeting anyway.. I really enjoyed it. Hmm.... I cant really think off too much else that happened this last week but if I think of anything I put it in the letter!!! thanks for everything Mommers!!!!!!! I love and miss you a ton!!!!!

Rakkaudella,

V. Nate Peck

Hey Pops,

Hey so Happy Fathers day!!!! Sorry I didn't remember.... Its not Fathers day here in Finland until... I think August... So I honestly had no Idea... but I hope everything there went good and that's kinda a bummer about having to go to the emergency care center for Fathers day, but I hope that everything is getting better now and all will be well.

SO things here are going good... We had a fun experience the other day when we were walking down the street and 3 drunk guys (about 20 years old) yelled at us and at first just wanted to know where a good place was too party ... and do to the missionary factor, we had no idea and then about 4 or 5 more showed up and it was crazy... they were just asking crazy questions... and it was honestly hilarious... after a couple minutes they left but I thought that is was great.

Welp, thats about everything, But thanks for being an amazing Father. You've always been a great influence on me and in my life. I have always looked up to you and you've always been one of my Biggest heroes!! Your an Amazing dad and I love you so much!!! Thanks for everything that you do!!!

Rakkaudella,

Vanhin Nathan Peck

Oh those sticky Ooblecks

Last night was the last night of the Seussical performance. It was a great show!!! And Emily did awesome!! She was also a Oobleck and performed 2 dances in this costume. Both of the dances were really fun to watch. A nice comment was made to Emily the other night from a guy I didn't even know. He said she had the most spunk and that she is really fun to watch. That made me feel good!!


I have a couple more blogs worth of pictures and then I'm done with recital pictures. It's kinda sad to see it end. The girls put so much work into it but I know there will be many more recitals to come.

Kool Katz

Last night the recital went really good. Emily did a great job!!! Steve and Jaron came and also Emily's friend Caitlin came to see her perform. They only mishap we had was that Emily lost her hat and tail for her cat costume. She was really sad cuz she couldn't find it but she went on and performed anyway......good girl. What I thought was so cool is for her last cats dance all the girls in that dance decided not to wear their hats cuz Emily's was missing. What a bunch of sweet girls!!!!

After the recital we came home and her hat and tail were dropped on the way out. So, yeah!!!...She has them for tonight. And they're not gone for good. Their Kool Katz dances are the hip hop class.

Dress Rehearsal

I have been going through hundreds of pictures and kinda have narrowed it down.....sorta. So I'm just going to blog on one dance at a time. This dance is the "star" dance. It is so fun to watch. Half the girls have stars on their stomachs and the other half doesn't. They keep wanted to be like each other and give up their blue necklaces to get a star. I had tons more pictures but narrowed it down to 12. :)
Emily did a great job and tomorrow I'll put up another dance.

















Here Emily gives up her necklace to get her star.

New Camera

Steve bought a new camera. His old one pretty much died and he needed a new one for his trips. So I'm borrowing it for tonight to take pics of Emily at her dress rehearsal. I read most of the directions and took some pictures. I had a test subject (Steve) who wouldn't cooperate very well and was just being a goofball the whole time. I found out that the camera takes pretty good pictures while your laughing and shaking the camera a little. :) So here's Steve focused with Em in the background.
Here's one of our bees. Cute huh?
I made Emily run so I could try another setting on the camera. She cooperated great with me.
I love this picture with Steve in the hammock and Emily walking. The garden looks so green. The hours and hours of work I've put into Emily's garden is coming together!!! Yeah!!!
So we'll see tonight how the pictures turn out with Emily dancing.