It always surprises me that Christmas actually comes…I guess just because we talk about it so far in advance! As always, our family had a really nice Christmas. Actually every year we have 2 Christmas Days…one with Alan’s parents the Saturday before and then of course Christmas Day at our house.
This year I particularly enjoyed having our house decorated. It seemed especially cozy…I think we had the fire burning morning and night (pretty easy when all you have to do is flip the switch!)
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.
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Phillip also entered a poem and was a finalist in the contest. Of course, I think his would have been awesome on the billboards!
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.
Of course Loren and Phillip share a birthday, and Tess’s is just a few days later, so we decided to combine birthdays and celebrate with dinner and presents on the deck. It doesn’t sound exciting, but it was for me because I had recently taken on the job of power washing and staining the deck. And with all the cold wet weather we have had this spring, it was so fun for me to have our birthday party on a warm beautiful day on “my” newly stained deck!
Happy Birthday to Loren (26), Phillip (26) and Tess (23)
We have another BYU graduate in the family! Phillip graduated April 22nd with a BA in Graphic Design and a minor in English. It was fun to go down to Provo for the festivities. Thursday was the big commencement ceremony in the Marriott Center. By coincidence we ended up sitting fairly close to Phillip and were able to find him and wave to him. Elder Richard G. Scott was the main speaker and gave an excellent talk.
Friday we attended the College of Fine Arts convocation in the DeJong Concert Hall, which had probably only 75 graduates on the stage, and yet we were never able to find where Phillip was sitting! We took some pictures afterwards and then headed home for a celebratory dinner.
All the Provo students are doing well. They are studying hard and working hard to earn and save money. Our married kids, Loren and Anne, are doing well and often have their siblings over for meals and movies. It’s crazy having half of our family down there – but so fun for them to all be there at the same time.
