This year we celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary with a weekend at the Shakespearean Festival with our friends, the Lundgrens. In Cedar City we saw Foxfire, As You Like It, and Private Lives. Then to change things up a bit, we traveled on down to St. George where we saw Annie at Tuacahn. Saturday morning before we headed home, we did an endowment session at the St. George Temple. The last time we were in the St. George Temple was to see our good friends the Collettes married 26 years ago, 11 days after we were married. Where does the time go? Unfortunately Alan suffered from a bad head cold the whole time, but was a trooper and did his best to enjoy the trip.
Sunday after we got home, Alan's parents invited us all over to their house for an anniversary celebration. They surprised us with a CD of slides that had been taken at our wedding and reception that we are pretty sure we had never seen before. Pat also went to the trouble to serve us the refreshments that were served at our wedding reception — rhubarb slush and brownies with ice cream.
Madeleine Young Womanhood Recognition Award
This month Madeleine was honored in the Young Women program for earning and receiving her Young Womanhood Recognition award. She had to make several large goals as well as accomplishing many small task in the various Young Women value categories, such as faith, divine nature, etc. We are proud of her for finishing things up. She is now officially finished with the Young Women program and has moved on to Relief Society which she gets to attend without me because for the moment, I am playing with the cute kids in the nursery!
Many years ago we had a darling girl Marta from Barcelona Spain come and live with our family. We grew very close, and although we haven't seen her for a very long time, and we haven't ever met her wonderful husband or her sweet children, we stay connected through e-mail and our family web site. She and her husband have the opportunity to travel from Barcelona to Madrid to visit the temple soon and were hoping to be able to visit Phillip. Alas and alack, it is against the rules, but they are hoping to be able to take a package for him which is very thoughtful. They also recently took the family on a beach vacation and sent us some fun pictures. I love the Internet! It makes staying in touch with people so much easier than it used to be!
We have received some new photos from Phillip. He continues to do well and is really enjoying his companion Elder Karren. There is already talk about his coming home in November since he needs to be getting signed up for BYU winter semester, etc. It is hard to believe that he only has two months left. I am really looking forward to the Holidays this year!
Tess is finishing up her experience in the MTC. She has been doing great there and amazingly enough is learning Polish! We have some fun pictures — a few silly ones as they get a bit tired at the end of the day. We also have videos of her testimony in Polish and some contacting approaches.
I think she and all her Polish companions are getting a bit tired of the routine there and are excited and anxious to be on their way to Poland. She leaves September 14th and we will be excited to hear all about her trip and her first impressions of the country.
We now have another student at Brigham Young University! Madeleine has started her Freshman year this fall and is living in Heritage Halls getting used to living in a very small place with five other girls that she doesn't know. After a room and bathroom all to herself here at home, it will probably be a bit of an adjustment — along with all her own meal preparation. Oh, the independent college living! But as I love to remind all my children...with independence comes responsibility. The great thing is that we are close by if she really needs us.
Drivers Ed
That's right, Elliot is starting to drive. These days the kids have to get their learners permit 6 months before they turn 16, so Elliot has passed the written test, taken the online course and done the observation sessions and driving sessions. Now he just needs to practice some more and take the road test. After that he clocks about 30 more hours of driving with parents and then he can go to the DMV after his birthday in March and actually get his license. I'll tell you what, I think letting your children drive is just plain scary — so there you have it.