This month Tess turned 16 years old! Wow! We gave her a surprise birthday party and invited a bunch of her school friends. I think she was actually surprised -- how amazing is that? We had a big fondue party and opened gifts out on the lawn. She is lucky to have such a fun group of friends.
The next day -- on her real birthday -- she took her driving test, passed and started driving herself around. She had places to go and people to see. The reality is that this summer she is kind of low down on the totem pole of drivers, so sometimes we still get to take her to work, etc. I can't believe that half of my children can drive. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? The insurance company thinks it's great!
Summer Activities
So, we finished up school and started in on the summer activities: Madeleine did a two-day volleyball camp at BYU, Clark took a couple weeks of swimming lessons, Clark also started piano lessons and Elliot started marimba lessons. Loren is working away Einstein Bagels, Phillip is downtown at the Marriott Hotel and now Tess is making smoothies at Jamba Juice.
Morgan Reunion
A highlight of the month was our first (Karen and Jerry) Morgan family reunion. Of course, we didn't plan it to be a reunion, it just kind of evolved into one! My brother Matt and his wife Elasha have been in Spokane WA this past year doing an internship and are now headed to Pittsburgh, PA for a residency. (He's turning into a radiologist...) So, they drove down here on their way to PA and spent one day. They will probably be gone for 5 years or so and we don't know when the whole family will be together again. Also, no one is pregnant and we have the four new babies all here. So, we all planned to get together for a family photo to be taken professionally. It went great. I thought the photographer was excellent, the weather was perfect and everyone showed up on time looking great.
After the photo shoot, which was at Murray Park, we went to a pavilion and had a picnic, party, reunion. Matt and Elasha wanted to see everyone, and everyone wanted to see Matt and Elasha and their kids of course! So, we had Claudia and Harm, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends all show up to wish them luck. It was very casual, with everyone just visiting. It was great. We have a great family that is very supportive. So it was only later that night that we realized that we had just had a "family reunion." The photographer had referred to our group as a "reunion" and the pavilion had a reservation posted that said "Morgan Reunion." So, there you have it. We accidentally planned and carried out our first reunion!
Projects
The rest of the month we worked on a couple of painting projects -- as in repainting bedrooms. Somehow it always sounds like a good idea, and then in reality all we've done is make a lot of work for ourselves. Why do we do these things to ourselves? I'm sure it will be worth it?!