Well the summer of having no kids begins soon. Natalie will be gone for 3 weeks, Miriam nearly 3, and Enoch will be away from home for 5 straight weeks – though one and a half of those will be with the rest of the family at the family reunion and the family camp we go to each year in Victor, Idaho. Ellie will enjoy a few cousin outings as well. It will be nice for each of them to get a break from sports and mostly be out in nature.
Auriana had a wonderful 3-week tour to Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam playing the mandolin in the band that accompanies the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble. She got to ride an elephant, make many new friends, perform for a princess and many other dignitaries, and even got to do a little missionary work with one of their tour guides.
It was kind of weird for us to pray for Auriana in Vietnam and Isaac in Russia. My how the world has changed! Isaac continues to experience challenges and growth and wonderful experiences in Samara. He’s learning some good things about leadership as a zone leader. Since I assume most of you read his letters at least some of the time, I won’t expound too much on that. We love his positive attitude and his dedication to the work, and we LOVED seeing him and talking to him on Mother’s Day! He sent a package a while back that finally arrived and we thoroughly enjoyed the treats and ties and cool Russian stuff he sent.
Ellie performed with her dance class in a Wizard of Oz dance production that was pretty impressive. She did a wonderful job in both a ballet number and a jazz number. Natalie and Enoch just returned from youth conference down at Snow College. Miriam and Ellie have been babysitting for two days a week from 7:30 am to 2:30 pm and the kids love them so much that sometimes when the mom comes home the kids cry because they want their mom to stay out longer. The dad told me today that earlier in the week the older boy was so excited for them to come the following day that he said, “I’m just going to go to bed now so that when I wake up in the morning the girls will just already be here.”
Miriam and Ellie are also enjoying tennis lessons and Enoch is a mountain biking maniac. He bought his own bike and has gotten good quite quickly. He’s happy to drag along anyone that will go with him.
I guess that’s all for now. Becky and I just continue to get older and wiser and there’s nothing we can do about it. ☺
