April 30, 2009

Dear Children,
Today is a great day for our yard. The back yard neighbors are having their last four cottonwood trees removed . . .yahoo! The sticky yellow pods had just begun to fall but the snow (cotton pods), which would arrive in June, will no longer be a problem. This will save us many, many hours of labor each year between the yellow stickies and its stains, the cotton in and out of our home, and the leaves in the fall. This is such great news! It was very interesting to watch them shimmy up those tall trees with their spiked shoes and cut branches off a few feet from where they were balancing themselves.
This was a week of celebrations starting with Scott’s birthday on Tuesday. Heidi came into town for that and arranged to spend the day (both the morning and afternoon visiting sessions) with him. Then to make him even happier, she also traveled to Kyre’s afterwards and took her and Klaire to Sunhee’s indoor soccer game in Sweet Home. They even had a chance to go to Sunhee’s school where Sunhee’s class performed for the school. Heidi’s visit here in Oregon was short but FULL! That night we celebrated his birthday with a favorite fruity dessert which he would love, an angel food cake filled with pineapple. He will take pleasure in knowing that we enjoyed it for him.
Heidi traveled with us the next day, Wednesday, to the airport as Grandma, Dad and I prepared to leave for Utah for the weekend. Heidi had a slightly later flight which came into Salt Lake about the same time as Morty’s flight. Grandma went to Laura and Andrew Field’s in Salt Lake while Dad and I traveled on the commuter bus down to Orem. Adrianne was still in finals and Aaron and Nate were driving that evening from Las Vegas. I was really pleased that Aaron and Morty would come up for Nate’s graduation; it was so good to have so many family members there.
We started graduation and birthday celebrations Thursday afternoon with a lunch at one of Nate’s favorite places, Tucano’s, where he could eat as much red meat as he desired (Aaron and Adrianne ate their fair share also!). Jenna also is a big fan of red meat; she is her daddy’s girl!
After lunch we joined 6000 plus graduates and their families in the Marriott Center for Commencement Ceremonies. It was a sea of navy blue caps and gowns. The speakers were fantastic. Of course, two of them were President Uchtdorf and Elder Russell M. Nelson! Even the alumni president had a great message as he spoke of living true to BYU’s branding and that this day was the “commencement” of the kind of person that the graduates will become.
President Uchtdorf promised that the Spirit of the Holy Ghost could bring focus, certainty and confidence in life and urged the graduates to:
• Use time wisely
• Continue to learn
• Seek the Spirit at all times
He made some interesting comments about time saying that time cannot be saved or mortgaged. Quoting Elder Maxwell, he said, “Either we manage time wisely or time will manage us.” Also, he advised us to be wise and leave unnecessary projects undone.
Elder Nelson suggested that the graduates focus on their ultimate graduation day when we will be asked not what occupation we held but what kind of person we have become.
Nate hiked one of the canyons by the school with two of his friends before his department’s convocation on Friday, the Marriott School of Management. It was also at the Marriott Center. This is where he was handed his diploma, well, not really but the jester was made as every graduate walked across the stage. It was another wonderful ceremony with great speakers.
Because all three of the boys were leaving on Saturday, we moved up Aaron’s birthday celebration to Friday evening. Aaron requested ribs for dinner so Joe and the boys were in charge; they barbequed them at the Bitter’s. Laura and Andrew brought Grandma down for the afternoon and evening and then we traveled to their apartment for games on Saturday evening.
We even caught a horse show while in town this time. Adrianne found a barn that gives jumping lessons. She is amazingly poised on top of a totally new type of horse. She received first place on her very first class of the day. She ended up with two first place and one second place ribbon at her very first Hunter Jumper Show!
I felt right at home at this horse show since it was very cold and wet; just like Oregon horse shows! This show was also the first time I have ever seen her fall off of a horse. I was very impressed that she brushed herself off, got right back on and executed the most perfect jump at the same gate that she came off. Talk about nerves!
Dad and I stayed through Monday evening in Utah. Adrianne also came home with us on that same flight. We had an enjoyable Sunday in Orem with Jeff and Alisha’s baby boy beng blessed and then spending Monday afternoon at Daybreak with the girls. They have a great park by the manmade lake.
One funny incident while playing with Rebekah and Jenna was when Jenna started telling jokes and giving out different punch lines. It is so surprising to hear her talk in full sentences since she wasn’t speaking so much then. She is showing off her talent of curling her tongue in this picture.
Today is Katie’s birthday. She wrote that she was going to start her day at a crepe restaurant. She had a fun day planned despite all of her friends living in another state.
Grandma, Adrianne and I will be in St. Louis to celebrate with her the day after her birthday. We are all excited for that as we will also take a short trip to Nauvoo while in the area. Grandma has never been there. Katie had a scare this week with her debit card number being stolen. Luckily, it seems that the bank caught the problem early since the thief was trying to change the address on the card.
I had a great institute class this week. This week we studied Elder M. Russell Nelson’s conference address on prayer. These classes are really great and the best part is that I can use my iPod touch as I drive and listen to the conference address as I drive to class. I will have to write next time about what I learned in class. I keep fallig asleep sitting here at the computer and I have much yet to do to prepare to leave tomorrow. Much of our evening was taken up in Milwaukie as Adrianne looked at a cute little Hyundai to purchase. She just has too little time here.
I read a very excellent article in the most recent Church News. It came here to Beaverton one or two days ago but I had already read most of it in Utah since it comes out earlier there. It has always been my dream to sit down the day that the Church News or Ensign arrives and read all of the way through it. I pretty much was able to do that in Utah and I would like to challenge everyone to read the article about weathering the financial storm today. It is called, “Financial Storm”. It speaks of staying calm while having a mixture of positive attitude and measured action.
I love you all and hope you have a great week ahead. Love, Mom