Prior to leaving on our mission, we were asked to speak in our Sacrament Meeting. The subject given to George and me was about Family History--the importance of family history (me) and for George, the importance of keeping a record of your life. Since we had been in Utah just a couple of weeks before for our grandson, Parker's homecoming from his mission to Pennsylvania Philadelphia, and for our other grandson, Kade's farewell to Ecuador Quito North, we had just seen our entire family who had flown in for these events.
Our seven children.
All of our grandchildren, minus our grandson, Elder Carter Copeland, who is serving in the Scotland/Ireland Mission
So wonderful to have the entire Copeland family together.
Therefore, we weren't able to have many of our family members in attendance in Washington, but we so appreciated having Kent and Natalie's family, plus two families that have meant a lot to us in the area since moving to Washington: the Andersons and the Weavers who came to Richland to hear our farewell speeches. Afterwards, Kent and Natalie hosted a wonderful open house at their home in Sunnyside.
President George and Sister Evelyn Johnson, who were just released as the Columbia River Temple President and Matron, also, attended. We served with them as volunteers in the temple for the past two years and enjoyed that time so much.
It was a perfect day!
ECLIPSE
First of all, you have to have solar glasses, or you cannot see or enjoy this phenomenon at all, and you could ruin your eyes!
Brittany brought her big van with a rack on the top, which worked great for the kids to watch from. They were totally mesmerized by it all!
It was absolutely amazing and spell-binding when it became dark. We were all so thrilled to be part of such a rare occurrence. It made you feel like such a small part of the universe!
ECLIPSE
The entire nation was so excited for the total eclipse of the sun that was going to take place on August 21, 2017. A solar eclipse is "when the moon passes between the sun and Earth and blocks all or part of the sun for up to about three hours, from beginning to end, as viewed from a given location. For this eclipse, the longest period when the moon completely blocks the sun from any given location along the path will be about two minutes and 40 seconds. The last time the contiguous U.S. saw a total eclipse was in 1979."
So, Kent and Natalie planned an outing, along with Britany Weaver and some of her kids, to go to the best place in Oregon where we could have the longest total blackout. Although it was a couple of hours away, it was so worth it to see such an absolutely rare happening!''
You could even observe the sun's atmosphere, the corona, during the moon's crossing over it.
Sooo cool! Although it took only about 2 hours to get to the field where we watched from, it took over four hours to get home because of all the traffic and road construction. But believe me, it was certainly worth it! This is something I will never forget! Thanks so much to Kent and Natalie for inviting us!
