6 Jan 2008

Jan. 6, 2008
Dear Elder Sean,
So we're back home from Utah and trying to get back into the swing of things here. Kirk is getting ready to leave tomorrow for BYU-I. He's taking Jason Campbell's girlfriend with him and will be caravanning with Megan Weaver also. He'll be taking dad's truck to school. It snowed quite a bit this morning, so we're hoping the roads will be clearer tomorrow for him. The truck's not exactly a snow vehicle.

We had a fun time in Utah this past week. We stayed most the time with G & G Thompson and one night with Steve and Carolina. The night we stayed with the Trumbo's we went to a basketball game. It was fun. Steve got 4 really good tickets and the rest were scattered about. They were all pretty good seats though. So dad and I sat with Steve and Carolina on the front row center. We had Pres. Samuelson's seats and he sat down the way from us. We sat by the general Relief Society president and her husband. They were sweet seats, to say the least. BYU won easily against Loyola Marymount. I'm sending you a little souvenir from the game too.

Our trip was too short. Dad took the kids sledding. Utah has a lot more snow than Idaho. We went out to dinner for Grandpa's 80th b-day at Texas Roadhouse grill, went shopping at tons of places, visited Charmaine's cats, went shopping some more, even got to go to the big new IKEA store in Draper. We also visited with a family who adopted a little boy from Samoa who happens to be the girls' cousin. Leah and Nikki had such a fun time with him. His name is Tani and he's 4. He's a big and strong boy, very much like Nikki and Leah. They were so similar, it was almost uncanny. We had a great time talking with the parents and comparing notes. They said Tani could live all day on breads and meats and they made him run laps in their backyard to run off energy. Sound familiar. We will definitely keep in touch with them. It's fun having new cousins and expanding our family a little. They have 3 other children, but Tani is their only adopted child. We managed to pick up some wireless coverage at grandma and grandpa's with Kirk's laptop, so we were able to get your email and read it to them there. Then the day we came home, there was a big storm passing through, but it was mainly in SLC and Provo, so once we got out of there, the roads were clear.

Our new mtg time is 9am, and surprisingly we had lots of people at church on time. Nikki spiked a fever and Kirk had to take her home after sacrament mtg. She was sad to go home since I was subbing in her class this week. I missed her being in there. She slept most the afternoon so now she's having a hard time going to sleep. So she just watched Singles 2nd Ward with us. It's pretty funny. sounds like they're going to make a third one too, something along the lines of The Family Ward.

Sounds like you had a fun Christmas season. I can't wait to hear about some of the things you did, the conferences, etc. Do you get a chance to teach or proselyte at all now? How's your knee these days? Keep giving us updates.

Joe Kjar came over last night. He came home just 2 days ago and left today for BYU. He looked good and it was fun talking with him about the different areas he served in Virginia.

I'm going to send you some pix from our trip. Grandma and grandpa had some more things for you, so you should be getting a pkg in a couple weeks from them and us.

We feel very blessed in our family and we looked back on our 2007 and can't believe the wonderful things that happened in our family-you went on your mission, we picked up Kirk, Kristina entered YW, Leah got baptized and we had fun family vacations and outings along the way. Dad mentioned all this in his testimony today and it was a good reminder to all of us that as we look back, the wonderful things really stand out. But somehow on a day to day basis, we get bogged down by the trivial difficult things. I know that's one of the important reasons we pray each night. It gives us time to reflect on our day and we just naturally look for the blessings of the day for which to thank Heavenly Father. There was much wisdom in the advice we've been given concerning daily prayer, nothing to ever take lightly.

I hope you have a productive and enjoyable day and week. You sound great in your letters and I'm still vitalized from our Christmas day conversation. Can't wait to hear how the new year is treating you.

My prayers are always with you.
Love you,
momxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo