Welcome Home!

Brad's good friend Brendan returned home from serving his mission in Washington DC!

 Heather, Brad, Brandon and Brendan!  The 3 "B" boys, best friends in High School!  Heather, High School English Teacher with a positive influence that helped get all three on missions!

Brian (another teacher and great friend) Brad, Brendan and Heather right before Brad left on his mission to Boston.  (Brandon was serving in Scotland) While Brad was serving in Boston, Brian moved there to work on his graduate degree and they got to see each other often!

Welcoming Brad home from his Mission!

In High School!

   We were privileged to hear Brendan speak in Church yesterday.  What an amazing testimony and love for the Gospel.  What remarkable experiences he had in Washington DC!  We are grateful for missions and how they change lives...  the missionaries and those they serve!  I am so grateful for good friends and the positive influence they have on our children!  Special thanks to Heather and Brian for sticking with these young men and being such good friends and support as they grew up and made the decisions to serve missions and marry in the Temple!  You were there for it all!  Now we will watch as Brendan finds his eternal sweetheart and celebrate with them in the Temple, too!

Fall Beauty...

James and Ethan were able to go on a Scout Campout this weekend!  They had a GREAT time...  They went on a 5 mile hike through this beautiful scenery!

AMAZING!  Fall in Utah is just amazing...

Projects!

We have been busy with some projects!  Noah was cast in "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Jr. High!  He is Tranio... for those familiar with the Shakespeare play.  As his mother, I was required to make his costume!  Though I do enjoy sewing, I am NOT my sister Linda!  Following patterns are not my favorite thing... but I really had a fun time with this one (don't let Noah know, I am using my hours of work on his costume as leverage!)

Doesn't he look thrilled?  Wait 'til he adds the tights!

Brad called last Saturday and said Cami was spending the day with her sister and asked if he could spend the day with us... well... he had a great plan to build a bike ramp with Ethan!  After 3 trips to Lowe's and 5 hours of hard work, they created a masterpiece!

On the right is an old picture of Tyler going off the same rock hill when he was about 13~

For the past several days, we have been the popular house in the neighborhood!  Thanks, Brad, for the amazing idea!!

Happy Anniversary!

It's been 28 years!  It's hard to believe... since we are still in our 20's ;)

Thanks for the beautiful flowers!

Also... for taking me to see my favorite singer (besides you!) at the 

BYU Homecoming Spectacular!

The BYU Men's Chorus

(James sang with them 30 years ago!)

BYU International Folk Dancers

(I danced with a Ballroom Dance Team all through High School... we hosted the Folk Dancers at a festival in Las Vegas...  Our team also studied with their director many years ago!)

Young Ambassador's!

Brian Stokes Mitchell singing "Impossible Dream"... amazing!  We first saw him at the OC Tanner Gift of Music at the Conference Center two years ago.  We had never heard of him before but he sounded familiar, he has the most beautiful voice!  He has been in several shows on Broadway like Man of La Mancha and Ragtime.  We cried through every song he sang that night.  He also sang "Through Heaven's Eyes" from Prince of Egypt.  When we got home we looked at our Prince of Egypt Soundtrack and realized that's where we had heard his voice before!  He was then invited to sing with the Tabernacle Choir in their Christmas Concert that year.  We weren't lucky enough to get tickets that year...  We did get tickets as he was a featured guest in the 24th of July Concert with the Choir this year.  Then BYU announced he would be singing at the Homecoming Spectacular... on our Anniversary Weekend!  Wahoo!!!  Everyone who hears him falls in love with his voice and personality.  He has become a favorite here in Utah, and he seems to love coming here too!

Finale with all of the performers...

We had a wonderful time.  We are so lucky to be able to see such amazing talent on a regular basis.  We love the power of great music!

Conference!!

"We Thank Thee Oh God For a Prophet"

 What a wonderful weekend!  Conference weekend is always the best weekend of the year!  A spiritual feast... great food... great company!  We had so many "favorite" talks!

On Friday, I was at Target and got a call from my husband... "I just got an interesting phone call... a nice young man with an asian accent, from Ben's mission, just called and asked if he could spend the weekend with us.  He will be here in an hour!"  We are so grateful to have gotten to know Eric!  He is filling out his mission papers right now!  This was his first visit to Utah and he LOVED going to the Conference Center for Conference!  

 Ethan loved playing pingpong with him and said "When Eric was here it felt like Ben was here!"  It was a great memory!  There was a 3 day pingpong tournament going on around here!

Of course Ethan had to build the traditional "pillow mountain"!  (Every pillow in the house and as many blankets as I will let him use!)

Brad teaching the brother's knots and lashing...

So grateful for a wonderful, spiritual, family filled weekend!