Tess is now 15 years old, which is officially one year away from 16 years old. Why does everyone want to skip being 15? She is already talking about cars and driving. That is better than talking about boys and dating! Her birthday fell on the last day of school finals, so she had to take a huge math test, but once it was over, she was done for the year! As well as battling the math test, she was also battling a bout with some kind of stomach flu that was trying to go through the family. We prayed hard and she was able to get through the test and go on to have a pretty great day. She brought several friends home from school for a pizza lunch and a swim party in the neighbor's pool. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of pictures, due to the fact that I had to take Aunty Shirley to an Instacare for an x-ray. She had fallen the night before and had a really sore hip. The good news was that she was alright. At any rate, we celebrated Tess's birthday that evening as a family with her favorite meal to date: European Wraps and fresh homemade strawberry banana milkshakes. Yum.
Field trip to SLC library with Aunt Shirley
If you haven't been downtown to see the new city library, you should go. It is way cool. Aunt Shirley wanted to go see it and needed an outing before undergoing surgery the next week for a knee replacement, so we helped her climb into Hugo (not easy for her) and off we went. I wish we lived closer, I would love to use it all the time. We can actually check out books, but of course, they have to be returned there. The children's floor was very fun with an "attic" and "crystal cave" where the kids could go to read and of course, I have always loved miniature furniture. We actually checked out four Happy Hollisters books for Elliot to read. There aren't any Hollister books in our library system at all. It is my opinion that all 8-10 year-olds should read some of the Happy Hollisters books.
This year our ward went to Camp Williams for Youth Conference. For those of you out of the area, Camp Williams is an army camp just across from the point of the mountain. We all had "Be all that you can be" matching t-shirts, army tags and bunk beds in the barracks. We were assigned a mess hall where we had great meals (not army food -- except we did try MRE's once). The army officers were really nice to us, although some of the kids who thought it was cute to goof off, did get to do push-ups!
We were all assigned groups that co-ordinated with President Hinckley's 6 B's. We were the smart B's, prayerful B's etc. The groups did a bunch of things together including: preparing and cleaning up meals, putting on impromptu skits, and working together one afternoon at the Leadership Reaction Course. The LRC was fun, but very challenging. Each group had to work together to physically get all their members from one side of some water to the other using big metal planks and in some cases had to get a 50 lb. box from one side to the other. If anyone fell in the water, they were "dead" and could no longer assist their teammates. It was actually very difficult and Tess ended up banging her knee into a cement wall during a heroic leap. She's got a beautiful bruise, but no broken bones!
If you think this stuff sounds challenging, you will be impressed to know that Tess, Loren, Phillip and I all rappelled off a 45 foot high wall and then proceeded to head up to the top again and lower ourselves over a 45 foot high platform to the ground. I didn't take my camera (darn it), so I will try scanning in some that were taken by others so you can try to understand just how impressed you really should be. It was darn scary! But, remember the theme: Be all that you can be! P.S. Loren was on the youth committee to help plan the whole thing.
We had a nice Fathers Day with Alan and his Dad, Wally. At least I think Wally had a good time -- sleeping! Notice his new Fathers Day baseball/golf cap.
Cabin with everyone including 2 dogs
The "Browns" were able to spend a Saturday together at the cabin. Alan's sister Diane is here from Minnesota. She is spending a month at the cabin with her Black Lab, Happy. Alan's brother Barrie was not able to come, but Barrie's wife Bonnie and their two girls, Jessica and Kaitlin, were here for a family wedding, along with their dog, Daisy. Also, Pat's cousin Mary Katherine was visiting, so you can imagine that once we showed up, the group was pretty big. We had 13 people and two dogs -- a full cabin. We had fun playing games, visiting, trying to take pictures of dogs, and trying to cook a Dutch oven dinner with the rain trying to delay our dinner longer and longer. Thanks to Wally's tireless efforts, we did eventually get to eat dinner -- it was great.
Well, after 12½ faithful years, we finally had to put two of our family cars to sleep. The Mazda and the Lexus are no longer with us, but we appreciated their dedication and service. Used, but new to our family, are a Honda CR-V and a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We look forward to many happy times together in the future.