50 Years

So today I turned 50.  It's not as bad as I recall my mom saying it was when she turned 50.

Now that I've officially labeled myself as "old".  For some reason 50 doesn't sound as bad to me now as it did when I was 17.  I guess it has to do with perspective and experience.

I look back and see all of the experiences that I've had over the years and know that I have been blessed beyond measure.  I have great children, a wonderful husband, a fantastic family, and great friends; but most precious to me is my testimony of Jesus Christ.  I am so grateful for Him and the experiences He has helped me through in my life.

So many times I've prayed, "Heavenly Father are you really there?" and it never fails that each time I get that warm reassurance that "YES" He is there and He knows exactly what I'm going thru.

I can only hope that each future birthday will bring with it the love, the joy and the companionship with my Savior that is so appreciated this year.

 

  

50th Birthday Mia-Maid Class Reunion

Don and I drove to Prescott, Arizona for a reunion of my Mia-Maid class (when I was a Mia-Maid). We all went to our advisor's home in Prescott for 35 years of catching up.

From left to right: Joy Cones Sears, Doris Kluge Mofford, LuCinda Curtis Bohannon, Sherree Henkel Svancara, Alona Mower Wilkinson, Michelle Metli Lake, Ina Mecham Calder, and Judy Houtman Henkel. 

It was wonderful to ALL of the girls there with our awesome leader Alona Wilkinson.

 Me with Alona Wilkinson

Adhna Martin Family Visit in France

While we were in France, we had the opportunity to visit Sister Adhna Martin and meet her family.  
Sister Adhna Martin, from France, served with us on our mission in Louisiana. She was an awesome missionary and is such a beautiful young woman.

Adhna in Mazumet, France

Adhna's family lives in this little village in the mountains outside of Carcassonne. We left early so we could enjoy a leisurely drive and it turned out to be very enjoyable.

It was an amazing drive through tree lined streets.

We saw some amazing villages as we drove through the mountains.  Here's just one of those breathtaking views that we got on the way to Mazumet.

The Martin Family

After we arrived they took us out to see their garden. It was awesome, so huge and they have fruit trees and a little stream running by it for the water.

We loved getting a walking tour of their village and loved to see the "countryside of France".  It is so different from the cities.  It's clean and green, not dirty and gray. People take so much pride in their homes and yards. There were vegetable gardens all over.

Flowers among the flowers on our walk.

We gave the girls the camera to take pictures for us and then when we got home we had all of these beautiful pictures. They truly have a knack for taking gorgeous pictures.

We spent the evening with them and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and a private concert by the older girls.  They are all very talented. Her grandparents joined us for the evening and they were quite delightful.

We love the Martin Family and will visit them again, hopefully we'll see Adhna when she travels thru to go to BYU-Hawaii.

Carcassonne, France

We stayed in Toulouse, France for most of our trip.  We used it as our base and went off in different directions each day. On our way, we could see the cite of Carcassonne off in the distance and stopped to take a couple of pictures.

Here is a picture of the aerial picture displayed at the rest stop.  You can tell why we were so excited to visit this Castle.  It is considered the best restoration of a medieval castle in Europe.

Michelle with Carcassonne in the distance.

Carcassonne from a distance.

The day we went to Carcassonne was sunny and very humid.   parked in Le Cite and walked the mile to the castle walls, then up the hill to the castle itself.  

Here we are inside the Carcassonne Castle

We took the audio tour, the speaker hangs around your neck and you push a button which gives you a prerecorded description of what you are seeing.  We did the tour in English. 

View from one of the castle windows

Awesome picture by Don of the architecture inside the castle walls.

Another awesome shot by Don.

Our day in Carcassonne was awesome, we enjoyed taking pictures and learning about this awesome place.  This is a UNESCO world heritage site and truly deserves a visit if you are ever in France. To learn more about Carcassonne, click here.

Avensac, France with Elder Cornette

We got ahold of Elder Cornette, Don's missionary companion and made arrangements to visit him at his home. Elder Cornette has leukemia and has been undergoing chemo. His most recent treatment was pretty rough and he had only been out of the hospital for 4 days before our visit. It was awesome to hear Don speak fluent french for over six hours as they reminisced and caught up from 30 years ago. It was a beautiful drive and we got some really great pictures. In Iowa, there are cornfields on both sides of the road. In France, there are sunflower fields on both sides of the road. It is magnificent.

Sunflowers on the road to Avensac.

The Cornette family lives in a remodeled home that was built in 1862.  It is pretty interesting to see how old the home looks on the outside and then you go inside and see this beautiful home, with electricity and modern plumbing.

The traditional side of the kitchen.

The modern side of the kitchen. Check out how big that loaf of french bread is.

Sylvie served us the most wonderful duck. She sautéed it right before she served it. It was so tender and one of the regional specialities. 

Sylvie setting the flowers on the table so perfectly. We had a wonderful visit in the yard under the tree.  It is truly beautiful in the country in France.

Don and Gerard visiting on the couch.  Here they are a couple of hours later looking at Elder Cornette's scrapbook from his mission.

What a treat to meet the missionary companion I'd been hearing about for years and to meet his lovely family.

Sylvie, Melanie, & Rhoca

After dinner we had a wonderful concert .  Gerard and Sylvie both played the guitar and they sang for us. It was so great to see them having so much fun performing for us.

Our departure was very emotional. We were all crying and knew that this was truly a unique opportunity. 

Switzerland

We took a trip to Switzerland to visit Don's mission area and a couple of  people that he baptized on his mission. Jean has been very ill and Don wanted to visit him.  Jean asked the missionaries to teach a single lady and her daughter the discussions.  It was in Lausanne, Switzerland that Don and his companion, Elder Cornette taught Christiane and Isabelle about the Church.  They were baptized and later Jean and Christiane were married.

Jean and Don

Don, Christiane and Isabelle at the Church where they were baptized.

 Isabelle, Don, and Christiane in front of the baptismal font where they were baptized.

The French Alps behind Lake Geneva.  Taken from Lausanne, Switzerland.

Gruyere Castle, where Gruyere cheese originated.

Gruyere cheese factory.

Dessert of Raspberries, Fresh Cream, and Meringue. Yummy.

Michelle, Isabelle and Christiane sharing lots of laughs and good times.

We spent the entire day sightseeing and had such a wonderful time.  It was hard to say goodbye, not knowing when we would see each other again.

Fathers Day 2009

Boyd and Dale Lake

Father's Day 2009

For Father's Day we had a big Family Dinner. We wanted to celebrate Boyd Lake and all of the fathers in our family. We had three of Don's brothers (Blaine, Brace and Bryan) and their families as well as three of Don's children (Scott, Val and Brent) and their families. We had quite a group (about 30) and it was so great to see how well everyone gets along. All of the kids were having a blast and the the adults enjoyed visiting with each other. The older kids would look out for the younger ones and the young adults, well, let's just say they love to hang out together. Our backyard worked well. We brought our easy up canopies and tables from work and it turned out very nice. 

Don took pictures of the kids with Grandma and Grandpa Lake and then took family pictures with them as well.  Some of the kids were missing, but they turned out really good. Here are just a few.

Don & Michelle with Dale & Boyd

Blaine's Family with Boyd & Dale

Brace's Family with Boyd & Dale 

Bryan's Family with Boyd & Dale

Scott's Family with Boyd & Dale

Val & Tony with Boyd & Dale

Brent with Boyd & Dale

Madison Lake with Ryan Brown (Madison is Dana's daughter and we were so glad she came. They left before Don took the formal pictures.)

Green Garden

All of Don's hard work preparing our garden is paying off. We have a lot of planter boxes and pots that we are growing in since our neighborhood is infested with gophers.

We have green stuff growing everywhere and we love it.  Don did a lot of research on the internet and even did "refrigerator incubation" on the spinach seeds to get them to sprout.  I just water, fertilize and harvest.  It's been great to have food from our garden every day.It was so wonderful to come home from our trip to Utah/Idaho and have everything going strong.  Our tomatoes have reached the rooftop. Click here to see how they used to look.

On the side of our house Don built a planter box system that grows all of our lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, chives, green beans, snap peas and some of our strawberries. Ethan helped plant our lettuce when he was here the beginning of March.  We haven't had store bought lettuce since April. 

This is the planter box that Don designed, his dad built and Don painted.  It is lined to lengthen it's usefulness and even has a drain system that Don installed.

This is the view from our back door. Totally green and mostly edible. It looks almost like a park until you get up close and see that the greenery is really edible stuff like tomatoes and squash.