Missionary Letters

Well, it dawned on me that since I am writing to my brother every week I could just copy and paste most of what I write to him into this blog to keep everyone updated. Here's hoping I remember to do it! This is my letter on Monday, July 19th. He is currently serving in the Spain Malaga Mission in Jerez.

Well a miracle has occurred, well a couple of them I guess. First, I finally mailed your package! I have pictures in there from March 2009 all the way to Matthew's baptism. Hopefully the candy doesn't get all over everything as I put it in plastic bags. Second, we went camping as a family! We finally got to use the camping kit I bought at least eight years ago. Dave went a few weekends ago with his buddies and decided he should start taking the boys! It was just a one nighter but we still had fun. S'mores (which S3 doesn't like-weirdo), playing uno by lantern light, building a fire, playing down by the river - lots of fun.

Right now it's horribly hot, and a bit humid, and so the swamp cooler doesn't work the best. So inside the house it runs between 84 and 88 degrees and at night it only drops down to 70 degrees at best. But we've had a good week anyway.

Monday I just laid around after the baptism/family/working weekend. Tuesday Becky came down with her boys and S1 was in school so we took them plus my other two on a hike up to the waterfall here in PG. Did you ever hike that with us? We'll have to do it when you come out. Anyway, we also had Mattie and Sadie with us (the dogs). S2 had Sadie and one of Becky's boys threw a rock into the pond, and he almost got dragged in! He did get his leg and pride scraped up pretty badly. It was a good thing I brought the first aid kit and lots of water! He made it up to the waterfall and was playing like nothing had happened. After we got done we had to take off to meet up with Dave because he wanted to see Toy Story 3 with us before S1 got out of school. It was a really good movie.

Dave headed home with the boys while I went to get S1 and do carpool. When I got home at 4 pm Dave announced he was taking the kids camping that night- I said, I'm coming too! It took at least 30 min to figure out where we were going and if we could do it without reservations, another chunk of time to coordinate what we were having for dinner/snacks/breakfast and what else we needed at the store. So at 5 pm I was off to the store, got the stuff we needed, fed the kids dinner, got all packed up and by 7:45 pm we were headed up the Canyon. The first campground we went to was full so by the time we found a spot and started unloading it was pretty much 9 pm. But we all had fun roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, playing uno and yahtzee, making the fire, etc. We didn't head out until about 1:30 pm the next day. Once home I was obviously tired! So I did nothing else other than make the kids dinner the rest of the day. Thursday and Friday were spent trying to get the house back into some kind of order. Friday Dave and I went to the temple to do sealings.

Saturday I paid bills and took the kids swimming before I had to go to work. Our swim time was cut short when someone pooped in the pool. Saturday night Becky and her crew were back to spend the night before they headed out this morning to go home. Becky and I stayed up way too late talking last night but oh well. Then they were off this morning and we were off to church. I have been called to help out in the nursery one week a month. But that calling didn't start today and the primary chorister had told me she would be back today. She wasn't. So I just filled in for her again on the fly. I had to leave five minutes early though because I had switched shifts and needed to get home and grab a bite to eat before I went to work.

The Temple Hill (Pageant Orchestra) is on "tour" right now. They asked Dave to accompany them in a couple of concerts because they needed a stronger trumpet. So tonight he had a concert. Brian was going to come take care of the boys for us while I worked so I switched shifts with the person before me so Brian wouldn't have to be here for as long. Part of that is because the earlier shift is one hour shorter, but also because Dave wouldn't be gone for the whole time I was working. Anyway, work was fine and the boys had fun with Brian. Right now we are roasting but I sprayed the cooler by standing on the grass and aiming it for the cooler on the roof. It worked to lower the temp to 82 in the house. Our home teacher is coming over right now actually to get on the roof and really soak things so we can cool down a bit. I would get on the roof but Dave would kill me! I joke that it's really safer for me, even pregnant, to get up on the roof than for Dave because I've at least got lots of experience - he's got none! Oh well. Okay he came and went and it turns out our pump isn't working! The pads were bone dry. That sucks. Oh well, nothing to be done until at least tomorrow!

I can't really think of anything else to report. Other than it looks like Bob might be able to avoid surgery for is hurt arm. Mom still needs to have hers at the end of the month. Terraza is working hard at all of her school/work stuff. Haven't heard anything from Mansur in a long time. Paul is busy working as usual. Oh, at the end of the week cousin Wendy will be here for a week visiting her grandma so we'll get together to have fun with the munchkins I am sure!