Eagle Fun Days

une 12, 2011
Dear Elder Alex,
Eagle Fun days, you can't beat that for small town fun. We had excellent weather the whole weekend so it was very enjoyable going to downtown Eagle and walking around. On Thursday last week, dad hired Jared to be his son for a day and he worked in the yard all day. Jared lost his job at Scentsy and since school is out, his wife Kendra is not working any more. It was fun having him here. Then in the afternoon Sean all of a sudden just drove up into the driveway. He had the weekend off and decided to surprise us and come home. I think he secretly just wanted to go to the Eagle parade or maybe he just wanted one of these turkey legs that the girls devoured.

So while he was here, we caught up on some movies, Thor and Super 8. They were both very good. Friday night we walked around downtown Eagle and Saturday, of course, we went to the parade after a lovely morning of working in the yard and garage. I thought we were out of the wet zone, but obviously that was not the case but the water felt good.
Saturday night we went to Brittney Stafford's wedding reception. Lots of people. It was great seeing everyone.

The girls are officially out of school-Kristina did well on her finals, except math which she seems to be giving up on now, Leah officially graduated from elementary school, Nikki is excited to move up to being a senior in her school, and now the constant barrage of "What can we do?" begins. Leah starts art lessons tomorrow which will be great. Then Leah and Nikki are taking tennis lessons starting on Tuesday through Meridian Rec. Also tomorrow Kristina takes off for girls' camp and she is very, very excited to go.

Last Thursday, Sally Larsen took Leah and Nikki with her girls to Wahoo's for the entire day and then they went to Chuck O'Rama for dinner. Sally knows their sweet spots. She has always been so kind and generous to the little girls ever since we first adopted them. Sally and her sister used to call and ask if they could take the girls out with them all the time. They also brought clothes over for them when they first got here. Sally totally understands both of them and is just constantly saying how funny they are, especially Nikki. She loves her one-liners.

Today Kristina spoke in church on family history and genealogy. She did a great job, wrote the talk herself and even spoke just from some notes. She's growing up... Someone in the ward thought she looked just like Kate Middleton (Princess Kate). Our choir sang a beautiful arrangement of Secret Prayer.

So you're feeling a little heat and humidity there, eh? Ah, I remember that well, too well. Every picture in the South of our family that was taken in the summer shows my red face. Remember the iced bandanas we'd wear around our necks, ok, maybe that was just me. Just desperate attempts to keep cool. If I were to move to the South again, I would definitely get a house with a pool. I hope you are finding ways to keep hydrated and cool.

Dad and I went to Josh Gilman's farewell today. He spoke on the spirit of Christ and you can tell he's ready to serve a mission. I know it was a hard road for him and I'm proud of him and the work he has done to get to this point. In his ward there was a couple visiting from Knoxville, TN. They said they go to Nashville often, so if they do they under command to find an Elder Thompson. In fact, you would recognize him because he's Brother Irwin's brother and he looks just like him and speaks with an English accent.

Dad says to say sorry about his letter this week. When he addressed it, he accidentally put the wrong zip code and it just got returned to us. So it will be coming next week.

So hopefully you'll be reporting to us that Ifeanyi got baptized and that all went well for him.

How was the temple? Did you go with the whole mission, or ZL's or what? We are getting kind of sad here that the Boise temple will be closing in just a few weeks. We've been so spoiled having it close by. First we get the news that they're building a temple in Meridian, then we get the news that beforehand, you won't have any temple near you. I'm sure it will be a fun event when we rededicate it though.

Sean just called and when he got home today, his 911 training group took off to Goshen, Utah where the church is building a Jerusalem set for church movies. Sean said it was pretty cool. You look down the street one way and you see Pilate's residence and you look the other way and you see Harod's palace. They've built all the landmarks of Jerusalem in one place and he said it was pretty awesome. He wasn't allowed to take pictures, though, so I don't have any to share. So far they've made one movie there, The Good Samaritan on lds.org. He said they have about another 100 planned.

Dad's working a lot this week, so I'll be doing a lot of chauffeuring around town, especially with Kristina gone. I love having a licensed driver back in the house again. I hope you are doing what you can to help Pres. Hutchings on his own next transfer home. I saw your new mission president and his wife in the Church News last week. I'm sure they're getting pretty excited.

Have a wonderful week. You know there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of you and pray for you. Work hard so you can always look back knowing you gave it your all. It's a great feeling.

love you,

mom XXOO