Dana's Visit

Dana made a quick trip home over President's Day Weekend. It was so good to see her and spend some time catching up. Dean, Sarah, and Girls, and Ben and Sarah Moody joined us for games on Sunday night. It was sooo fun!

Birthday Weekend

It was a great Weekend for a Birthday....We started on Friday Night with Dinner at Three Marguerita's with Dean and Patrice.

Then we were off to Secret Garden where Spencer and Victoria Roberts were Mary's Dead parents....It was Great!!!

Saturday Mike and I Spent the whole day together, chores, home and garden show, a baptism, dinner a Ripples, taking tickets for Secret Garden, then home for a good movie....Fireproof.

Sunday was just a regular Sunday, but I had the Parker girls from the ward make me the most darling cards....Aw....Then our first BYD at our home with Ice Cream Cake....Great Day!!!

Jordan and Mandee Surprised Mike by swinging over this way on their way home from Magrath! It was so nice to get a little visit with them. We were so grateful to have them here to share a special day. Bless their hearts, they had to drive all night to get home and then get up early for the first day of classes...Thanks Guys!!!!!!

So, now that Mike is busy...I'm trying to learn how to blog....but I got a new camera for Christmas, so I have no excuse, right?

Spencer got his wisdom teeth out on December 30th. This is right after we got home. This boy should never...I repeat...never become a drug addict. He got so silly, he was hitting on all the nurses, giggling like a little girl, it was so funny. I'm surprised the nurses could do their jobs, they were laughing so hard. All in all he did pretty well! He's a tough kid!

School Melo-drama ~ Deadwood Dan

It has been performance time for the past two week-ends for Spencer's play: Deadwood Dan. Spencer is the hero and title character.



He works out his troubles with his sidekick, Bill, and in the end, he gets the beautiful, if not melodious, girl.



At intermission, Spence had an air piano performance that was pretty funny, too. I'll see if I can get that video to load tonight....

General Conference, Again!

What can I say? We love to go to Conference. Yes, it is a long way, but we love to be with our kids, we love singing on a street corner for tickets, and we really love how tickets just pour out upon us. In fact, a young woman came up to us this time to see if we had more than enough tickets yet. She said that she was told we always get more than we need!

Of course, going to conference usually involves getting at least one hotel room, which never has enough seating...

And of course, October conference is a tremendous time to celebrate Dana's birthday!

And going out to dinner before (or as in this case, after) the priesthood session of conference.

This time it was Applebee's, and it was great!

But not as great as the Sunday morning session. The best we could do with our tickets was to try to all be together on the terrace level, but as we walked to our seats, an usher invited us to just keep on walking all the way down to the main floor. We ended up off to the side, 15 rows back. I'll tell you one thing for sure: the singing sounds a whole lot different down on the main floor than it does in the back of the balcony.

The best feeling in the world is having your family around you, excited for the beginning of a session of conference. We missed our loved ones who were in Texas (Jon and Meli) or under the weather (Brian and Dana felt poorly). And we even missed our adopted daughter, Melanie Merrill, especially when singing for tickets!

Mission Reunion... 30 Year Later

So this is my first mission reunion. Don't know why I didn't try to go earlier, but I can tell you briefly (honest) why I went this time. Elder Boyd Peterson had found everybody from our LTM group, except me. But on a recent trip to Seattle, he stopped in, with his recently returned missionary daughter, to visit her former mission president. Turns out that was my brother-in-law Dean and his wife Patrice. They put two and two together and came up with... me!

The super-sleuth Petersons, with one of their other daughters.

Elder Baxter and I served together in Rhodesia, before it became Zimbabwe. I reminded them that at a very difficult time in our lives, they committed an act of caring and kindness that made a huge difference to us. Wonderful, wonderful to catch up with good people!

I was Elder Steglich's last companion. He reminded me that I owe him Salt Lake City's largest pizza because the woman you see him happily with is not the one I predicted he would marry. After spending a lovely evening with them both, I would say that it will be a pizza well owed!

This was my wife's first opportunity to meet a General Authority, Elder Golden. She had previously asked her sister Patrice, she of the recently completed mission presidency, if it wasn't intimidating meeting General Authorities? Patrice's advice: take every opportunity you can to associate with them. They are not intimidating; quite the opposite. They radiate the pure love of Him whom they serve. We had to agree after our experience with Elder and Sister Golden.