Summer activities
June has been a great month with something fun each week. The first week Madeleine participated in a music festival at Waterford culminating in a concert at the end of the week. The group performed some great stuff for only being together and practicing for a week. One of the highlights for the students is being able to make "art" out of broken instruments -- we saw a lot of interesting and unique pieces!
Elliot went on a scout camp out to Antelope Island where they spent the day Saturday on a 50 mile bike ride. Elliot wasn't super enthused about it, but we bought him some bike gloves and he was a good sport and was able to ride the whole 50 miles -- all the kids did!
Clark spent a week's worth of afternoons with his friend Harry at Champ Camp where each day they learned and played 2 different sports, so that by the end of the week, they had experienced 10 different sports. The next week they did a science camp at Waterford and learned all about the body's five senses.
I took Elliot down to BYU for a week of basketball camp. He didn't go down with a friend, which I thought was brave, but he ended up with a good roommate. He played a lot of basketball and enjoyed the all-you-can-eat cafeteria quite a bit. The highlight of the week was having his jersey signed by the coach and some of the BYU basketball players -- and he came home with a new BYU basketball.
Madeleine spent the end of that same week at Ward Youth Conference up at Utah State. She was part of the planning committee and helped choose the M*A*S*H theme -- Modern Army Serving Heaven. The kids were issued dog tags and t-shirts and were kept very busy with back-to-back activities which included a very challenging ropes course.
Phillip and Tess have been working full time and Madeleine has been working a fair amount for her grandparents -- even Elliot and Clark got a paid job helping clean up things at the cabin. Summer is a great time for relaxing, earning extra money and reading a lot!
Alan never gets breakfast in bed, because he always has very early church meetings on Sundays, so when he got home and we all sat down to breakfast together, the boys had put his bed pillow on his kitchen chair and had made him a sign that said "breakfast in bed." He thought that was fun...
We had him open gifts and then he wanted the family to play a board game together and since it was Father's day, we let him choose. He chose Stock Market which was his favorite game growing up (in fact we have that very game) and so we were all good sports (not our favorite game) and we all learned a bit more about playing the stock market. Who knows, maybe it will come in handy down the road?
Well, we've made our last pinewood derby car. We've had four boys go through cub scouts and some of them got to make more than one, so I think Alan is feeling ok about having done it for the last time. Clark did a good job on his -- he was the only one with a driver (Lego guys can come in so handy!)
We got a camera card full of photos and videos from Loren which were very fun to see. The problem is that he was transferred to Laredo just after he sent the card, so all the photos are of his last area and companion and now he has new everything. Oh, well. We are making some fun videos to send back to him and then he can start taking photos of his new area and companion. His letters are upbeat and it sounds like he is having great experiences. I do know that he is a bit sad to see his Mission President, President Scott and wife, go home. But, he is looking forward to meeting his new President probably this week.
My friend Melora from New Hampshire brought her son Jordan out to enter the MTC this past week. He will be serving in Oregon and will be a great missionary. It was fun to have them stay a couple of nights with us as they were finishing up the details of shopping and packing. Having both taken sons to the MTC before, she and I knew that it would be exciting and sad at the same time, but that they are happy tears.