After much hard work and diligence, Clark was awarded his Eagle Scout Award at a Court of Honor, Sunday October 29th. He spoke about his Eagle project, his leaders gave great comments and we had a fun slide show “Scouting Through the Years!” It was great to have support from family and friends.
![Clark is now invited to sit in \"The Eagle\'s Nest.\"](https://www.brown8.org/blog/wp-content/gallery/clarks-eagle-court-of-honor/dscf1406.jpg "Clark is now invited to sit in \\"The Eagle\'s Nest.\\"")
Many of you didn’t even know that our son Loren and his wife Anne were expecting a baby. We were waiting to tell everyone until she was a little further along. They went for their first prenatal visit thinking the pregnancy was about 12 weeks along and being concerned about signs of a miscarriage. They discovered that the pregnancy was really 19 weeks along and that due to complications, the pregnancy wouldn’t be able to continue and their baby boy would be born that night.
At 9:10 pm August 18th, their first child and our first grandchild Toby was born. He lived 1 hour and 53 minutes. He weighed 9 oz and was 9″ long — he was a teeny, tiny perfect little boy. Alan and I were able to be there to help name him, hold him, sing to him and love him. It was a surprise, disappointment and gift that none of us were expecting. Loren and Anne were amazingly at peace with everything and while disappointed that they couldn’t have more time with their son, were thrilled to have him to be a part of their eternal family.
A wonderful “bereavement specialist” came to the hospital to provide very loving service. She took prints and made molds of his darling little hands and feet. She cleaned and dressed him, wrapping him in the blue blanket that I had crocheted for him. Then she took some precious photos for Loren and Anne to treasure.
As family and friends have found out about our unexpected loss, everyone has been so kind and sympathetic. We feel so blessed.
Loren and Anne have created a blog for Toby, to give people a chance to express condolences and offer service in Toby’s behalf. If you would like to submit an entry, you can fill in the submission form.
Madeleine, who is majoring in Print Journalism at BYU, is now a writer for their school newspaper, The Daily Universe. Her article is featured on the front page of this semester’s first edition.
http://newsnet.byu.edu/pdf/du20110901.pdf
She also has an article about Idle Free Awareness Month on the front page of this week’s edition. The name on the byline is her editor’s (even though she wrote the article) and she wants everyone to know that she didn’t write the headline (“Inanimate objects can’t urge drivers to do something”). Her story is at the bottom of the front page:
The school year has started for us with Clark in the 9th Grade and Elliot as a senior. This year also marks the beginning of early morning Seminary for Clark, so now they drive off together at 6:40 every morning. I absolutely cannot believe this is the last year we will have 2 students at Waterford….I know, a “sunrise, sunset” moment – just indulge me.
A good friend of Phillip’s, Ashley Mae Christensen, a BYU grad student, came up with the idea while driving down the freeway a year ago, looking at billboards.
“My heart felt heavy and manipulated as we whizzed past billboards flaunting liposuction, plastic surgery, chain restaurants that offer little by way of local culture and talent. I am lucky to be surrounded by artists, writers, poets, thinkers, but on that drive, I saw no notion of their words or ideas. Instead, hollow advertisements telling me I need to be thinner, prettier, richer, more hungry, loomed down at me for as far as I could see.”
She resolved to put poetry on a billboard. And she asked Phillip if he would design the set of 3 billboards.
With the help of a professor and friends, she applied for and won a Laycock Grant from Brigham Young University. She solicited poetry entries from around the state, and on Wednesday announced the winner: Derek Henderson’s poem, “Small Prayer.” Henderson is completing his Ph.D. in poetry at the University of Utah.
Read more:
Phillip also entered a poem and was a finalist in the contest. Of course, I think his would have been awesome on the billboards!
After struggling for over a year with constant congestion, Madeleine decided to have the things that were too small enlarged, and the things that were enlarged, reduced. Hopefully now when she gets a cold, she will just get better like everyone else and not have to take antibiotics for 3 weeks and choose between breathing and eating 🙂
Our school has a tradition of taking all the upcoming 9th graders on a backpacking trip together. The idea being that following the summer, they should all get reacquainted and become best friends before school starts. This year they backpacked into our very own Wasatch Mountains. It is actually an awesome trip with teachers hiking in everyday to bring supplies, teach and bond with the kids. Clark had a great time! He only got a little bit sunburned and was able to get a head start on his bug collection!
New tradition in our family…get up early on a beautiful summer morning in August, head down to the nearby park and watch 15 hot air balloons inflate and take off! Oh, and then head a little further down the street for some Hagerman’s Bakery french toast. Fun and yummy.
Our last family photo was taken in January 2006 just before Loren left for his mission. Now that we have everyone home and have added Anne to our family, we knew it was time to take a new one.
This time we thought it would be fun to take it on our own front porch. We think it turned out great! Elliot needed his senior pictures taken, so we took a few other group and individual shots as well, which you can see by clicking here or by clicking on the “Portrait” category above.
After 7 years and much anticipation, our whole family was able to spend a week together on the Oregon Coast. Loren’s wife Anne has recently gotten a new job, and was unable to go with us, but was sweet enough to suggest that Loren still come with us. Since there were too many of us to fit in one mini van and — reminiscent of earlier family vacations — we decided to a rent a “Hugo” — a passenger van that could hold us all!
We did the drive over 2 days making a stop at the midway point in Weiser Idaho to visit and stay with Anne’s parents, Gerry & Carol Bogue. It was fun to see their “project” house; an old house that was built in the early 1900’s that they are slowly but surely restoring to its earlier beauty.
The part of the coast we decided to visit this trip was Netarts Bay Oregon (near Tillamook). We could walk a long the coast quite a ways in either direction. The surprise to the north were the Three Arch Rocks — 3 big boulders just off the coast. I just love how beautiful and bouldery the Oregon Coast is!
We spent most of the time just relaxing, walking on the beach together, playing cards and watching movies. Loren and Phillip created some beach art, and we did do the “smore” thing.
One day we did drive about an hour north to Cannon Beach for breakfast at the Pig ‘n’ Pancake and an afternoon at the beach flying kites and enjoying Haystack Rock….oh, and getting just a little bit sunburned…oops. Our other little field trip was a visit to the Tillamook Cheese Factory — yum.
Perhaps the most exciting part of our trip was when we were are about to leave I happened to look in the kitchen only to see tons of suds coming out the bottom of the dishwasher. Turns out I (yes, I can only blame myself…much to my children’s relief) put liquid dish washing soap in instead of the liquid dish washer soap. So our departure was slightly delayed as we bailed out all the soapy water. We must have cleaned it up well enough as we weren’t billed later for any hardwood floor damage…much to my relief. That could have made the trip just a bit more expensive 🙂
