One Holiday down, two to go...

Well, Halloween is over and we have Thanksgiving and Christmas to look forward to. I really enjoy the holidays and the holiday spirit, and hopefully this year I'll stay on top of all of it!

Last month seemed just as busy as always, but it seems like there's not as much to write about - I don't know why. Anyway, General Conference was great as usual and I can't wait to get the Conference edition of the Ensign so that I can go over all the talks. I realize that they are published on the internet already, but I'm old, so I don't like to read online! I like to be able to highlight and mark them.

I finished my CERT class and got my certificate in the mail. I can now legally assist emergency personnel during an emergency - in fact, I'm expected to. We are to take care of things at home first, though.

We attended our nephew Jacob's wedding and luncheon one Saturday, which were very nice. That night Randy played at an arts festival with his blues band.

We attended a dinner for the High Priests in our Stake and the speaker that they had afterwards was great. He is one of the counselors at the new temple, and he was so funny. He could have been a professional comedian if he had chosen another route in life. Funny, yet spiritual - wonderful qualities.

I took a tour of the new hospital that is about 5-10 minutes from our house. It is beautiful. It opens for public use tomorrow. That's where we will go now for emergencies - although, hopefully we won't have any!

Randy attended our Stake Conference Priesthood session downtown in the Conference Center. Our Stake was invited to attend there at the Conference Center for our Sunday morning meeting, but we elected to just go to a meeting house broadcast near here instead of fight the crowds. It was enjoyable. That afternoon Randy and I drove up the canyon to see the changing fall colors and I snapped a few pictures.

Guess that's all for now. Happy Birthday to Kaitlyn! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! We have SO much to be thankful for that it is hard to know where to begin counting blessings.

Aaahhh. . . Autumn

Well, the last day of September brought us only the 4th measureable snowfall in that month since records have been kept here in Utah. It stayed mostly in the mountains, although it snowed at our house but didn’t stick. The weather is supposed to warm up a bit again after today, but we are definitely into Fall.

At the beginning of the month we celebrated Dylan’s 18th birthday! I have no more children – they’re all adults now. That must be some kind of milestone.













Then we celebrated Mom’s 91st birthday in the middle of the month.















Randy has completed his sculpture-mold class and has cast 2 statues of Christ from his mold. He painted one white and the other has a bronze-look. He will take them to display at an art festival on Oct 10th where his blues band is playing. Hopefully he will be able to start selling them. He’s doing one of Joseph Smith, and he already has George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and John Lennon. He wanted to do a whole line of music icons, but they have to have been dead over 75 years or so in order to not have to pay exorbitant fees for making a profit on their ‘likeness’.

I have been attending a CERT (community emergency response team) class that is taught by representatives of the fire department. It lasts for 7 weeks and upon completion I will be certified to assist emergency personnel in an emergency. So far, we have had an overview of the CERT program, learned fire safety, and had 2 classes on medical operations. Over the next 3 weeks we will cover light search and rescue operations, disaster and terrorism psychology, and have a disaster simulation where we will use all the skills that we have learned.

I helped Randy build a brick mailbox to replace our old one (green - on left). Neither of us are brick masons, but I think it turned out pretty good. I didn’t protect my fingers at first, though, so I have raw skin on a few of them – ouch.
The capstone was so heavy that it took Randy, Dylan, and two of his friends to move it and place it on top.

My clothes dryer has stopped heating and the heating element and thermostat are both good – so we may have to call in a repairman – ugh.

Jesse has started working at a downtown restaurant called “Row House” that is the nicest restaurant in Topeka, along with his other job. We hope this goes well for him. Tyler is still plugging away at work and school. Heidi moved into an apartment that is halfway between our house and the University of Utah to cut down on her drive-time. She will get a roommate down the line, but is enjoying all the space for now. Ingrid and Jeff are doing the same except that Ingrid got a raise - YEA! Dylan is still trying to find work – he thought he was going to do painting here in town, but he may end up moving to Topeka and doing roofing for his uncle for awhile.

During the last month I also cleaned the church building, cleaned the temple, attended 3 wedding receptions, weeded a few yards for friends, gave Mom a perm, took part in an emergency drill for our city, had the sister missionaries over for dinner, attended the temple several times, and watched the General Relief Society broadcast.

I am excited to watch the General Conference broadcast this weekend. I am always thrilled to listen to the inspired words of our prophet and other leaders, and I feel that there is nothing else in the world that I could be doing during the Conference broadcast that would be better for me or is more important. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I am so thankful for the restoration! (PS - after Sunday - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk will blow you away!!)

Happy Birthday this month to Jacob, Zach, Adam, Paige, Ethan, Becky Parry, Jared and Jason! Happy Halloween to all!!

The end of summer. . .

Well, I can tell it’s the end of summer because so many things have been accomplished and now I find myself digging my heels into the ground and not wanting Fall to arrive. It’s not that I don’t like that season, but I love Summer and I hate what comes after Fall – Winter. Oh, well . . .

Randy has been attending a class on Saturday mornings to learn to make molds for his sculptures. This is one of Christ after it has several layers of purple plastic– I know it looks like he has a Mohawk, but that’s where he will cut it apart!

















When it’s done, he can then either pour a finished sculpture out of resin, bronze, or other materials. Bronze is very expensive, so he will do the first one, at least, out of resin. It can always be painted to look like bronze! He is also working on a website where he can sell his recordings.

Not much has changed in Jesse’s life – we talked to him for a long time this last week, but I can’t remember a lot of news. He’s enjoying his work at the restaurant and he really likes the owner/manager. But the manager is going to be gone (he’s in the service) and Jesse’s not sure he will like the manager that will replace him. Jesse’s got a puppy now – the dog and the cat basically stay away from each other – a mutual toleration. Tyler is back at school along with working, so he’s pretty busy. He’s taking 12 hours this semester on 2 long days, and works the other 3. Since he has moved, he is in a different ward and his new bishop is Bishop Michael Parry – one of Dave’s brothers - small world. Heidi celebrated her 25th birthday and Dylan wrote her a great poem!

She had a “gang” conference in St. George, so she also got to visit with friends down there and had a good time. She got braces on her teeth AGAIN – which is NOT such a good time. She has started back at school – 11 hours. Ingrid and Jeff are doing well. Ingrid is sick of her job at the daycare because she is always having to do the work of the people that are being paid a lot more, while they just do nothing. But, she will hang onto it until she finds something else. Dylan still hasn’t found a job. He and his friend were supposed to go to Idaho and do scaffolding, but he found out he has to be 18 years old, and his birthday isn’t for another eight days. So, he’s been filling out applications, but is still hoping to go up there in a few weeks. Randy thinks he can get him a job doing roofing as a laborer, also, once he turns 18 – but that would be a terrible environment. I don’t know if the surroundings at the scaffolding job will be much better…

Tyler helped Randy build a shed for us and Dylan also helped a bit. We moved a lot of garden and lawn stuff out there, along with a bunch of tools.

Now we can actually get around the universal gym and weight bench in our garage and maybe they will get some use!

We have several hummingbirds that visit our nectar-feeder each day. It's just off our front porch, so I can see it from the desk in the office. I took some still shots, and then I actually took some video of one. (This was accidental because I had my camera set wrong - but oh, well...!!)

Randy got me a laptop last month. My desktop computer is real old and SO slow! But, I still use it some because I haven’t got Word on the laptop yet. I started to download some free word programs from the web, but either they aren’t actually free (yearly and monthly fees) or they try to add-on all kinds of things to your computer. But, I should be set soon.

I admit it - I am an organization-freak. I put organizers in my bathroom drawers and the excitement took days to wear off! Pretty sad.

I also re-painted the front door and front light fixtures because they were looking pretty bad. Please ignore the big dents in the door – they were here when we moved in!

I got some frozen

strawberries to make smoothies and some frozen cherries for pies. These were from a special order that a lady in our Stake organized. I also got ¾ bushel of peaches from another woman in the Stake that I have since canned, along with about 11 quarts of tomatoes – with more growing outside on my plants.

I am trying to perfect my homemade wheat bread so that I can use up some of my stored wheat. I’m afraid I’m turning domesticated!

We attended the Oquirrh Mountain temple dedication. It was wonderful. I’m so excited to start attending there. Our Stake is now on the New Family Search and we have found a lot of names on Randy’s line that need work done. My brother will also let us know when he has more work for us to do on my side of the family. This is certainly a wonderful time to be alive!

We also attended our nephew, Richie Preece’s homecoming talk. He just completed a mission to Oklahoma. It was great. And Dylan and I attended a fireside for all those who went on Trek this summer. They filmed the experience and made a wonderful DVD and each participant got a copy.

Happy Birthday this month to Dylan and Mom! And Happy Labor Day to all!

Summer Activities Galore!

Here we are at the end of the summer! It seems to go faster every year. Last month Randy flew back to Topeka for his brother’s baptism. He said it was a really spiritual meeting and it was good to see his family again. Here's a picture of Dan and his daughter, Shiloh, who lives here in SLC.

Jesse got a job serving lunch at another restaurant. He’s still looking for something to do in the evenings. Randy got to visit with him when he was in Topeka. Tyler went river rafting with his roommate, Luke, and had fun, but was extremely tired because of all the unexpected events in their adventure. They went dressed as Indians – need I say more?
He has spent this last week moving into a new place. Heidi has been able to return to work now that her thumb is mostly healed. It still hurts sometimes, depending on what she has to use it for. She is looking for a house to buy before the end of November so that she can take advantage of the government’s $8000 incentive. Ingrid and Jeff got to come up to visit and attend the family reunion.

It was wonderful to see them – I wish they lived closer. Jeff’s back is really bothering him, so he’d gotten it checked out and will probably have surgery soon. Sitting in a truck for long hours only exasperates the problem. Dylan enjoyed the Utah trek in Wyoming, but not as much as the one in Kansas. They didn’t have any rain and it was extremely hot. One night they slept among the cow pies –YUK. He was asked to give a 5 minute talk on a gospel principle that he learned there, and he spoke on service and did a great job.

I got to see my friend from Nashville, Lisa Larsson, a few weeks back. Her family was in our branch the last 3 years before we moved to Kansas. Her husband is from Sweden, and that is where they live now. They are going to the temple next month to be sealed as a family – I’m so excited for her!

Connie earned a free dinner at Tucano’s restaurant because she tutored some associates at work (from Africa and the Philippines) in English. So, Randy and I took her there for dinner a few weeks back. It was yummy!

I went on a “fieldtrip” to the Church Welfare Square and the Humanitarian Center in Salt Lake. I went with my missionary partner Jill, Natalie- the lady from the ward that we are teaching, and Esther- from the ward that is her good friend. (Esther also happens to be the granddaughter of Rhea and Eldon Gale from the ward we grew up in). It was wonderful to see how the Church blesses the lives of so many people throughout the world.

Dylan and Randy got to supervise parking at the new temple for the Open House a few weeks ago. Then they went through the temple for the Open House. I got to serve again last Friday – this time in Hospitality, serving cookies and bottled water. The gentleman that was in charge of our group (Bro. Wayne, I think) told us a few interesting stories. First, he talked about the day that lightening struck (the last time I was serving). He said that the Angel Moroni is supposed to be a lightning rod (see last month’s picture) and that there is metal going all the way from his head down into the basement of the temple. This statue saved many lives that day, because otherwise anyone in the temple touching metal (stairway railings, for example) probably would have gotten zapped. On August 10 they will have 2 cranes there – one to take the old Angel Moroni down, and one to put a new one up (it is not quite finished, but should be by that date). The old one will have to be refurbished (he said there is really quite a lot of damage to it) and then will end up on another temple somewhere in the world. Another story he told was about a group of Hindu’s that went through a few weeks ago. They were at Temple Square in Salt Lake and were very disappointed that they could not go into that temple. They were told that they could tour the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, however. So, arrangements were made even though all the tours were full. They were taken into the General Authorities room instead of an outdoor tent to see the 10 minute temple movie at the beginning of the tour. They were visibly moved and some had tears in their eyes. He led them through the various rooms and had to explain some of it to them, although they understood a lot. When they got to the Celestial Room, he told them that this is God’s Living Room and he just allowed them to meditate there for awhile. Then he showed them one of the sealing rooms just off the Celestial Room and he said that not one of them had a dry eye. The head Hindu asked him to explain about forever families and then Bro. Wayne promised to have the missionaries visit him. He received an email the next day asking if he had made a request for missionaries yet because the Hindu was so anxious, said it was the most spiritual experience he had ever had, and he was excited that he had been able to experience it with his whole family. Bro. Wayne also told about the head Catholic bishop in this area going through and being so impressed that he has had most of the Catholic leaders from Utah go through it now. We’re excited to attend the dedication of the Oquirrh Mountain temple at the end of this month.

We had our extended Otis Preece family reunion last weekend. Thursday night there was a dinner at my cousin Pat’s house and a great-great-great-grandson of Joseph Smith and his wife were speakers. It was very interesting and we received a free book about Emma Smith from a name drawing, and then purchased the DVD “Emma Smith – My Story”. My mother actually got to attend that evening and I think she had an enjoyable time seeing everyone, although she had a hard time hearing. Then there was another adult dinner on Friday night with a slide show of pictures from everyone’s lives – aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

On Saturday there was an all-day picnic at

my cousin’s house again. There was food, volleyball, tennis, swimming pool, etc.

We didn’t get there until after lunchtime, but we stayed for several hours. It was a lot of fun. Dylan had his friend, Ashton, with him and they played tennis against each other and also played doubles with a few of my cousins. They did some pretty crazy dives into the pool.

The most exciting thing to happen lately is that we have put sprinklers in! When I say we, I mean mostly Randy. It has taken us over 2 weeks and we have had a little help from some guys in the ward, but Randy has done the majority of the work. Tyler came over one Saturday and helped Randy dig trenches with a trench-digger.

We had to dig them by hand (using shovels, of course!) when the trench was within 2 feet of any gas lines or underground cable, which seemed to be everywhere. Dylan also helped some and they are finally in.

We still need to finish filling up some of the trenches with dirt and planting new grass seed in the back. I am SO looking forward to not having to drag the sprinklers around the yard for a couple hours each day.

Finally - my tomato plants are growing like crazy! I will need to start doing some canning next week.

Well, I guess that’s all for now. Happy Birthday to Jerry, Heidi, Richie, Wendy, Dustin and Lex!! We’re excited to hear Richie talk the last week of this month after he comes home from his 2-year mission in Oklahoma.

30 years of marriage and counting...

Well, June is gone and we’ve hardly had any really hot weather. I wonder what July will be like? I can tell it’s summer, though, because there is so much going on that we hardly have time to breathe! We celebrated Tyler’s birthday, Jesse’s birthday, and our 30th anniversary along with everything else.

Early in the month, Randy flew to Philadelphia for a conference for work. He wishes he had been there a little longer, so he could have seen some sights. He has had some weird skin problems, so he went to the doctor. He had one “bump” taken off his back and it turned out to be skin cancer, but they say they got it all. He also had a bump on his jaw, so the doctor sent him to a dermatologist for that one. The one on his jaw turns out to not be cancerous, but they are going to freeze the area so that it won’t grow back.

We were both signed up to help as volunteers at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House, but Randy stayed home so that I could go. While I was there we had a terrible lightning and thunder storm and the Angel Moroni on top of the temple actually got hit by lightning! I think they are going to have it re-gilded on his face, arm and trumpet where it turned black. You can see the lightning rod coming out of his head in this picture - but I guess it missed!

We have a few more chances to help at the Open House, so hopefully Randy will get to volunteer during July. My sister, Becky, came and visited with my mom and Connie while we were gone. My mother, Heidi, Becky and I got to do the tour through the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House one day – it is beautiful! Our nephew, Alex Little, stayed a few nights with us and a few with Tyler while he was visiting friends and family up here. It was good to see him.

Jesse quit his job at the bar-b-que restaurant because he had major conflicts with the new assistant manager. He enjoys working in the food industry, so he is going to try and find another job at another restaurant. Meanwhile, he says he will do some work for his Uncle Danny doing roofing when there’s work. Tyler has started school again. He is working 3 LONG days a week and going to school on the other 2 days. He is taking a larger school load than he has in the past. Heidi broke her thumb playing on the softball team from work. Because she injured it off the job, they are making her take sick days, comp days and vacation days instead of putting her on light-duty. She goes back to the doctor today and he will determine what needs to be done next (it’s in a splint now). Ingrid is doing well and working lots of hours at the daycare. She teaches the Sunbeams at church. She has posted on Facebook some pictures of rock climbing that she and Jeff did recently. Dylan flew to Kansas and went on a pioneer trek with our old Stake, so he got to see a lot of his old friends. It rained most the time and things got pretty muddy, but he enjoyed it. He also got to hang out with friends for the next 9 days or so until we brought him back home.

We’ve been traveling a lot the last week or so. Here’s a quick rundown of what we did: We drove to Aurora, Colorado on Friday and went to dinner with Ingrid, Jeff and his family. His father, mother, brothers and sisters all got to come from the different states that they live in, so we got to meet them. They are a great group of people. On Saturday Ingrid and Jeff had their Open House at a lake not too far from their apartment. The weather did not cooperate, however, and it was cold, windy, and tried to rain a few times.

They had family pictures taken down by the water where there was a wind-block of trees, so that was not too bad. (Here's a picture of all the kids and their spouses or girlfriends.) It got a little warmer as it got later in the afternoon and some people even ventured out on the jet skis.

We left from there and headed toward Kansas. We stayed in Salina, Kansas that night and drove straight to church in the morning and attended the ward that we used to live in. It was a lot of fun to see so many of our old friends. We also attended the Spanish branch Sacrament Meeting so that Randy could see people there. That afternoon we drove down to Burlingame, Kansas to join family members for a bar-b-que for Father’s Day. It was nice and relaxing to just sit and talk for several hours.

We drove by our old house and noticed the changes that the new owners have made. They have done a number of things that we had always hoped to do (larger back deck, enclosed the carport into a garage), but it does not look nearly as neat as we kept it! Here are a few before and after pictures:

BeforeAfter

Before

After

We stayed at Randy's brother Danny’s place that night.

Monday was pretty uneventful in the morning, but in the afternoon we picked up Dylan and joined Jesse and Amanda for a movie. Then we all went to dinner together. We stayed at Danny’s place again that night. Dylan stayed at his friend’s Scott’s house again (he’d been staying there the last few nights) and we picked the two of them up in the morning and headed back toward Colorado. This is what most of Kansas and eastern Colorado look like mile after mile after mile (disregard the chip and all the dead bugs splattered on the windshield!).

Tuesday evening Jeff and Ingrid cooked us a wonderful steak dinner and then we all went swimming in the pool there at the apartments. Randy and I just stayed in the water a short time, but the rest of them swam for a couple of hours. In the morning we drove by the Denver Temple and snapped a picture.

Then we headed off for Utah, arriving here early in the evening. It was a quick trip, but we got to see a lot of family, friends and beautiful scenery, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. In the end - family is what really matters.

We were home for one day on Thursday, and then on that Friday Randy and I took off to St. George, Utah for a 30th anniversary “get-away”. We arrived there about 4:30, found a hotel room and went to a session at the temple, which I had never been in before. We were in a room with a mural on one wall, which was not too impressive, but the Celestial Room was beautiful!

We then went to dinner at a steak restaurant in town.

The next morning we drove to Manti, Utah. We saw an accident on the way that looked horrible, but I don't think anyone was hurt.

We also had to stop for a herd of sheep at one point.

We were also able to attend a session in this temple. They still do “live” sessions in the Manti temple and don’t have a movie, so we got to see all the rooms and the murals on the walls. They have wooden benches instead of individual chairs, which Randy actually liked better, but I found a bit uncomfortable. I loved all the dark woodwork and the terrestrial and celestial rooms were breathtaking.

From there, we headed home and arrived back in Riverton about 5 pm on Saturday.

Monday Dylan left for a pioneer trek with our Stake here that lasts until Thursday. It’s going to be a lot hotter this week, with no rain in the forecast. It will be interesting to see what the difference is, if any, between the two treks.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Mom and Connie are doing great. Happy Birthday to Alicia, Connie, Terry, Michael Parry and Cadence! Happy 4th and 24th of July to all!!

Have you really graduated if....?

Things have been pretty busy, so I'm getting this posted a little late. Randy leaves tomorrow for Philadelphia for a couple days. He had the inspection last week from the insurance company at work. He felt like everything went really well. So, we should find out the results within a week or so, and if they passed with over an 85, we will get our "incentive" money. We are hoping to get sprinklers, finish our fence and get a shed. Randy also had a foreman from some Idaho jobs call him and tell him that because of Randy's safety efforts up there, they had an OSHA inspection where they were praised for going above and beyond what was expected. This foreman was going to let Randy's bosses know - YEA.

We are sending a CD for an audition to sing the National Anthem for Mormon night at the Los Angeles Dodger game on August 6. We have no expectations of winning it, but at least we will have tried! We also attended the temple to see our niece Shiloh and her family get sealed. They ended up having to push everything back an hour, so I missed it, but Randy got to stay and see their ceremony. I hear that it was precious with their two small children joining them for the sealing. This week I got to help serve lunch at a missionary zone conference in Sandy. That was fun, and I even met one missionary that thinks he knows Dylan from Riverton High School. He actually was assigned to a New York mission, but has to finish serving here because of a brain tumor. He had it operated on, but it may be growing back.

Jesse is doing about the same. We will get to visit with him when we are in Topeka this month and celebrate his 28th birthday. Tyler is also doing about the same. He had a really fun trip to California last month. He has posted pictures on Facebook. We are celebrating his 26th birthday tonight. Heidi ran 1 1/2 miles in the Law Enforcement Torch Run that benefitted Special Olympics and was briefly on TV. She had fun in Louisiana visiting her friend and has played in one softball game - the other one got cancelled because of lightning. She and Dylan are signed up to play on the same Ultimate Frisbee team starting in a couple of weeks. We are traveling to Colorado in a couple of weeks to join Ingrid and Jeff at their Open House and meet all of Jeff's family. Ingrid says she saw a friend of our family that has moved to Colorado from Kansas, Libby Hendry, at the temple yesterday and that it was fun to talk to her.

Dylan has probably had the most eventful month. He finally got the last of his braces (the bottoms) off yesterday - hurray for NO more ortho visits! His teeth look great. He attended a special fireside for graduating seminary students 2 weeks ago and had his seminary graduation last Sunday evening. Imagine our surprise when we looked at the list of graduates and his name was listed as "Dill Mundy"! And that's how his name is listed on his seminary graduation diploma. So, we should not have been surprised when, at his high school graduation, the announcer read his name differently than we were expecting. The graduates are not in any particular order (weird, huh?) so we didn't know exactly when his name would be read. And because there wasn't stadium seating, but all the seats were on one level, we couldn't see him. The graduates were quite far away from us and when they went to the stage they looked small, but there were 2 big screen TV's set up on either side of the stage, (although the one in front of us had a pillar smack in the middle of our view). Finally we heard the announcer say "Dylan" and we got our cameras ready to snap a shot. Then he said a middle name that wasn't his, so we put our cameras down. Then he said the last name of "Mundy". We were in total shock and kept looking at each other (Randy, Tyler, Heidi and I) in disbelief. Did he say "Voltron" as the middle name??!! Yes, he said Dylan Voltron Mundy. So, we missed taking pictures, missed seeing him on stage, and missed seeing him on the big screen TVs. At least his High School diploma has his middle name correct. He is flying to Kansas on Tuesday for their Stake trek, and will be gone until we pick him up on June 23. Then, he goes on a trek with our Stake. I will let you know how all that goes next month.

I guess the big news for me is that I won't be teaching seminary. After 2 semester classes and my 10-day teaching stint, they have decided they don't want me. So, I will have to explore other avenues. But, I had an experience just one day before I learned this news that reminded me that Heavenly Father is aware of each of us and what we are going through, and that He cares about our experiences and our feelings. I had been a real jerk in 7th grade and made fun of a really backwards boy - just to make my friends laugh. After I graduated from high school I felt bad about my behavior, but when I saw this young man at my 10-year high school reunion, I still didn't apologize. So, this has bothered me ever since. I have wondered how I could ever tell him how sorry I am when it's been 40 years and I live in Utah. Well, I had a "friend request" on Facebook from a woman that I couldn't remember. I finally looked through her friend list to see if I recognized anyone. Imagine my surprise at seeing this man there - the same boy I had ridiculed! So, I sent him a note telling him how sorry I feel for my junior high behavior and that I hope he has a good life now. Within 30 minutes I had received a reply. He ALSO couldn't remember this woman (I found out that we had gone to high school with her), but had accepted her friend request anyway. He has 2 children and 3 grand children and he says his life is good. We are now friends on Facebook! Heavenly Father knows us personally and is involved in our lives!

Mom is doing so much better since getting her bladder infection cleared up. She even let me give her a hair-permanent this week. She looks great! She really enjoyed a visit by Wendy, Jerry and Courtney a few weeks ago, and one from Becky and Dave this weekend. Connie is looking forward to visiting with friends at the Provo Deseret Industries in a few weeks after I take her to a periodontist appointment in Orem. She has been tutoring some foreign-speaking people at work in English and will receive a gift certificate for Tucano's restaurant for her efforts.

Happy Birthday to Jacqui, Dave, Tyler, Amber, Rita, Michael, and Jesse! I hope all the fathers have a great Father's Day!

April showers bring May flowers...

We all seem to be doing well NOW - we had major sickness earlier in the week, however. Dylan came down with the stomach flu Saturday night (he was on a date for MORP) and lost 9 pounds the first 24 hours! (we're talking coming out both ends - sorry) Connie and I came down with it on Monday night and we each stayed in bed the next few days (except for when I went to teach Seminary!). I was kind of grossed out that I only lost 1 or 2 pounds, but I'm glad I only threw up twice. Dylan was feeling better by Friday, but still having some symptoms.

Randy missed the flu bug and his ears (Meniere's disease) have not been giving him any trouble for the last couple weeks - so that is good news. We celebrated his birthday on April 5, General Conference Sunday. He is going to Philadelphia in a month for a safety conference for work.

I finished my '10-day', teaching seminary last Tuesday. For the most part, it went well. I taught a class with 32 kids. I was sick the last couple of days and just wanted to be done! The head of seminaries in Salt Lake loved my class and is ready to sign me up right away. His assistant, my Institute teacher, seems a lot more hesitant and kept telling me "You know, we don't necessarily hire all the good teachers". I meet with him this next Monday morning to go over the evaluations from the students in the class, but if it were up to him, I don't think they would hire me. I'm not sure why...

We haven't heard from Jesse lately, so I don't know what's new with him. Tyler is through with this semester, and looking forward to taking more classes next semester. He is going to California some time this month, I think. Heidi is SO excited to have her credit card bills all paid and her hospital bill shouldn't take more than a month or 2 to pay off. She was looking forward to moving out, but may stay a little longer and actually buy a house rather than rent - she's not sure. She is going to Louisiana in a week and a half to visit one of her best friend's from high school that lives there now. She's going to be on a softball team at work and may also look into some kind of Frisbee league. Ingrid and Jeff will be here this next week. Jeff's best friend is getting married, so they will attend that and it'll be fun to see them. I think they are planning on having an Open House next month - and if so, we will try to go down to Colorado for that. Dylan has only about a month left of school before he graduates. He's through with tennis and only has a day or so left of volleyball. He would like to visit friends in Kansas next month and wants to join an Ultimate Frisbee team this summer. We are just hoping he can find a job! We had to postpone his ortho appointment because of tennis, so he still has bottom braces.

Mom got her hearing aids back and it is so much better for her. I did end up taking her in to the audiologist to get her ear canals cleaned since one of her hearing aids seemed to be doing a lot of feeding-back. It's much better now. She thought she had a kidney/bladder infection, so we took her to a lab for tests. They've got her on an antibiotic and extra potassium now. She said it was better at first, but is bad again, so I will call the doctor on Monday. They want her to have more lab work done, anyway, so we'll see what we need to do. Connie is doing better after having the stomach flu and is back at work. She had to postpone her dental work since she was sick, so we will take care of that in a couple of weeks. The results of her mammogram and ultrasound are negative, they just want to keep an eye on it.

I can't think of anything else. I hope everyone has a great Mother's Day! Happy Birthday to Becky Preece, Audrey, Jeff, Courtney, Broderick and Whitney!

Love, Karen