News from Mom

Dear Family,

It's been a busy week with lots of news. First of all, they canceled girls camp Monday when the wild fires went up Kolob mountain and blocked all the roads. The camp should be okay, but the access was burning up. Miraculously they were able to relocate that same day to a spot in Panguitch. Can you imagine finding a campground for close to 500 people on a moment's notice like that? So Wed morning we headed up expecting our campground to be some farmer's pasture out on the highway, and were pleasantly surprised at what we found. We had lots of shade trees and campsites better than many we've paid for over the years. The Sevier River ran along the edge, so the girls enjoyed tubing in the heat of the day. We brought in our drinking water, but it wasn't bad with our small group, and the rain came down around noon every day to cool the air off delightfully. And the best part was that I could slip out every night to the cabin, have dinner with Dad, sleep in a bed and take a shower. Our humble little girls used their musical talents to wow the rest of the camp with a skit that included the Phantom of the Opera and a closing song that had everyone in tears. And of course, our country presentation was the best in camp: Dominican Republic. We had all those cool pictures from Elder Winni plus a flag supplied by Kathy Belcher. My Young Women's counselor took charge as camp director and guided those little girls to do their very best in spite of themselves. It was a cool camping experience - and to think I had been dreading it!

Then there's our hijo Nicolas. Saturday night we attended his small wedding. He was married by a bishop from one of the Spanish wards in Las Vegas. Actually this bishop used to drive tow trucks for Clark. The bride, Jennifer, is a sweet gal from Minnesota who has a good job and even a college degree. Since Jennifer's family is 'racist,' as she puts it, only MK and family were there with us, except of course this darling little Colombian sister who came to see her brother married. Unfortunately for her, she's leaving a week before Matt returns :) They're not making any strides in the gospel, but isn't getting married the first step, especially down in the mission field?

After the wedding, we headed back up to the cabin and stayed a few more days. The weather was cool and balmy. We sat on the new porch watching the rain come down. Dad invented a new mouse trap. Since he had cleared out the cabin, he moved the bucket outside and caught six rodents of assorted sizes. We came home the evening of the 4th and watched fireworks along the way. We feel peaceful and relaxed.

Love & prayers, Mom

Chris & Summer

Chris and Summer spent the long weekend in Colorado. We're still waiting to hear from them.

Melanie and Andy

Melanie and Andy and family are on their way to their new home in Seattle. After spending a few days in Logandale, they returned to Spanish Fork to pack up the house and party down at Lake Powell for the Atwood reunion. As always, the kids amazed everyone with their swimming abilities. Little Milo loved playing with everyone on houseboat's water slide, Kambri learned how to dive, Michael drove the wave runner and McKayla mothered her little cousins and sang songs floating on the tube. On July 3rd, the Atwoods loaded up and said good-bye to Spanish Fork as they headed out to Washington State. They checked in to report that they're staying in a motel waiting to move into their new house on Friday. Meanwhile, the kids are living it up at the pool! Seattle's great, but Melanie admits she has some adjusting to do. She does report that the new house has room for company though.

Martha & Jeremy

Hello Everyone,

What a whirlwind! June has come and gone and I keep checking the calendar to make sure it's July! Even though the days are bright from early morning to late at night, they've sped by.

We began the month going up north to escape the high temps and high humidity. We went to a wildlife museum and saw a lot of stuffed animals. The boys (all three) would look at the snarling wildcats and growl at them. I just laughed and pretended like I didn't know them. Then there was an announcement that it was time to feed the trout in the indoor pond. So the boys raced through the crowds of people to get right in on the action. Standing by the pond were workers holding buckets filled with long earthworms, some as long as half a foot. All three boys daringly put their hands in the buckets and started throwing them in the water and then would squeal when the fish would eat them, yes all three boys would squeal. It was fun until Hyrum, our little food monster, decided to try and eat a worm. After that I said it was time to go. Next we went to one of those caves that have all those hanging formations made from water drips. I can't remember what it's called but it's like Lehman Caves. My favorite part was how nice and cool it was in the cave. The formations were pretty cool too. Outside the cave stood a totem pole that the boys danced around. I'm not sure what it had to do with the cave, but Lyle and Hyrum sure liked it. We left for home and all slept well that night.

Another exciting adventure this month was the uninvited visit from a family. They outstayed their welcome and I hope they're all dead! It began when I started noticing that my kitchen floor was always clean in the morning. In fact, one night right before bedtime, I gave the boys each a cupcake to eat. Rummy dropped half of his on the floor and I never got around to cleaning it up. In the morning, I got up early before everyone else and noticed the cupcake was completely gone. I couldn't think enough nice thoughts about Jeremy and how sweet he was to surprise me by sweeping up the mess. I sat up to the table and peacefully read while thinking what a nice family I had. All of a sudden, I heard the scuttle of tiny feet. I turned to see a mouse run across the floor! I screamed and yelled for Jeremy to wake up and come downstairs. I kept screaming until he came. So much for thinking nice thoughts anymore! He set up the mousetrap for me, and sure enough, I woke up the next morning to find a dead mouse. Phew, I was relieved! My happy feeling was short-lived. Moments later I saw another daring mouse make a face at me, and then slowly saunter across my kitchen floor! This unfortunate event continued daily until we caught four mice! To make matters worse, while all of this was happening I saw a huge rodent outside one night that looked like a rat but was larger than the size of a football! Jeremy told me what it was, but I can't remember except that they live in the alleys of Philly. I'm starting to get sick just writing this. It's been a few weeks and there have not been any other signs of the family. But I better set the mousetrap up again incase they have relatives!

Hyrum surprised us this month by imitating yet another action of Lyle. Hyrum does everything Lyle does. When Lyle laughs, Hyrum will laugh. If Lyle falls, Hyrum will stop what he is doing and fall to the ground. If Lyle is in time-out, Hyrum will sit next to him until Lyle's time is up. Hyrum will even sing the abc song now when Lyle does. I just shake my head and laugh. A few weeks ago, Lyle was sitting on the toilet going to the bathroom. He finished and got off. Hyrum looked at me, made a face, and the proceeded to climb on the toilet and say "potty." Lyle told him, "Good job brother!" and patted him on the back. That did it for Hyrum. After that, every time Lyle got off the toilet, Hyrum would jump on it and say "potty!" I tried to ignore this for 2 days. I wasn't sure I wanted to try and potty train a 19-month-old. Rummy is my baby! Hyrum's insistence and the fact that I was almost out of diapers and wipes and would have to buy new boxes of both, pushed me into the impossible - potty training Hyrum! Well, it turned out not to be impossible but a rather pleasant experience. He caught right on and wouldn't even use the trainer toilet. He wanted the big boy toilet like Lyle, even though he fell in a few times. I couldn't get over how cute his little bottom was in underwear. I wouldn't get him dressed the first few days, just so I could see him run happily around in his big boy underpants. Hyrum was so proud of his feat, he wanted to show off and go potty for our neighbor Alice. We were all out back, and he said, "potty," and started trying to pull down his pants. Alice said she wanted to see this so I helped Rummy and he began to potty for her. Lyle wanted some of the glory too, and before I new what was happening, there were two bare bottoms going potty in our backyard and a 92-year-old woman cheering them on! What do you do?!?!? I guess as long as Lyle continues to choose the right, I don't mind if Hyrum continues to imitate him.

I still have more to say, but I'm afraid everyone's stopped reading by now. I'll tell you more when I see you IN A MONTH! Take care and WE CAN'T WAIT TO SEE EVERYONE!!!

Love, The Tanners

Becca & Nick

Our news this month is that Nick is graduated, tested, and employed as a pharmacist. We are very excited about this. After much deliberation, he accepted a position from Safeway to work at a couple of rural stores. So we have also put our house up for sale and are planning a move to St. David. I'm excited to slow down and reunite with the country bumpkin life. Maybe if we can make St. David look relaxed, cool, rainy, and beautiful enough we can talk others to moving out there??? So I guess that's about it for us. I spend my time tidying and preparing for someone to knock on the door to see the house. Nick works, and Jonathan and Estelle play. I know it doesn't sound exciting, but really, it is. Now if only some one would knock on the door!

Also, I just wanted to brag about all the beautiful rain we've been having. Today is the third evening in a row we've have a rain storm and last week it sprinkled everyday! I think we're going to have a good monsoon season. Not to mention it is a bit early too! We saw some beautiful lightning today! Hope you can get in on the action some time, whether it be on your own back porch or mine!

We'll be in touch. Love, The Bryces

McKay & Keresa

6/23/06 The moment you've all been waiting for has finally come: I have to eat my words. We listed my sweet awesome Mountaineer in the Review Journal. I'm selling it. I can't afford the stinkin' gas. But incase any of you could, here's a sneak peek at what the rest of Las Vegas will be seeing early Saturday morning:

2002 Mercury Mountaineer, V6, All wheel drive, power everything, separate AC for passenger/driver, 6 disc in dash CD changer, rear AC, 3 row bench seat for 7 passenger seating, AC and Radio controls on steering wheel, leather, dual power and heated seats, separate lifting glass and rear door, class II tow package, new tires, roof racks, fog lights, alloy wheels, a horn that plays "la cucaracha," memory seat, keyless entry remote and on door, auto dimming rear view mirror, running boards...okay maybe it doesn't really have the cucaracha horn...

We are looking at some cars similar to the one we've already got: bigger size car with enough power to pull a trailer. My two top picks are Impala and Monte Carlo. We would like to spend around $7k, but could go all the way up to $9k. I would probably sell the house off before selling the banshee...back when I was single. Now-a-days, the banshee has a lower priority than I ever thought it would have.

This morning when I got out of the shower, I was still in the bathroom getting ready. Like most mornings, Sydney and Keresa woke up while I was in there, so they were in the bedroom calling me. I heard Sydney saying, "Dad, Dad, Dad...Muh-Kay, Muh-Kay... " Keresa said she started that on her own. It sounded so un-baby-like.

Thanks to Dad donating a short stack of particle board to the cause, we have built a 3-level shoe shelf in our master bedroom closet, and a more serious 5-level shelf in our hall closet. And, in building those, it gave me some good ideas for my lesson this Sunday about preparing for the Melchizedek Priesthood. I was able to talk about charging the battery on the drill, preparing all the boards to the right measurements and cuts, getting nails and screws and glue, etc. I was able to convert those temporal things for some spiritual aspects of preparing our boys for their next step. It was a good lesson.

Keresa is days away from the third trimester, and reaching the end of her feel-good days. She has started feeling light-headed and a little sick if she doesn't keep cool. So she invites over her little bros and sisters to swim throughout the week. It is giving her and Sydney a great tan!

Keresa had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning. She told the doc we are scheduled to tour the hospital that he likes, to make sure we like it too. He said, "Well is it getting that close to the date? Let's schedule you then." So she is scheduled for live birth, September 28, at 7:30 am.

I picked up a new DVD online that Mom sure thought was neat - it's a new compilation of Gilad's TV shows put together for a total body workout that is 70 minutes long. It's fun because the guy is such a character. I recognize some of the parts of the movie as segments from Mom's old work-out video.

Our office took us to a night on the town. We started at the steak house in Treasure Island, which was good. But things really got exciting afterward when we saw the show Mystere. It was a lot of fun and very entertaining. It is like a foreign circus set in a jungle. The characters are not people, but not animal, just like some kind of creatures. They do a lot of trapeze stuff, jumping really high on trampolines and doing flips, etc. It was really fun. We saw Blue Man Group in March, and we were trying to decide which was more entertaining. Keresa thought if you are a music/rhythm and technology person, Blue Man may tip the scales a bit, but any old person can enjoy Mystere.

When we got our Mountaineer in December, we noticed right away it had a problem where the brake lights would stay on. It was as if someone was still sitting in there holding down the brake pedal, so many times I would come out in the morning and the battery had gone dead, or after work, or after school at night, etc. We priced fixing it with the dealership and they assured us it would be 3 or 4 hundred dollars, so we said bag that. Instead of fixing it, we have just been reaching down and un-plugging the brake lights cable, so just adding another step to getting out of the car. Now that we are selling it, we decided to fix that problem for the next person. So we hesitantly dropped it off at our regular mechanic. He let us know after only 4 or 5 hours that he had fixed the problem, and the total bill would be 80 bucks! He said this is a common problem among this year of truck, and there is a recall switch that he purchased for $15 and installed it in only an hour. Word to the wise: fix the problems as they come instead of putting them off, and NEVER believe the dealership for an estimate.

With love, mk kgw srw

Elder Matt

Querida Familia,

Sounds like Mom had a lot of fun at girls camp. I wouldn't mind a good camping trip, although, we really are kind of camping all the time here. All our drinking water is shipped in, we don't have electricity most the time, we got rained out this week, we take mostly bucket showers in this house, and we just received a notice that our house would not receive water for the next three months starting very soon. So those last two months don't really apply, but I am a little interested to see how the no-water situation will turn out. Bah! Bathing is for sissies anyway!

So I'm very upset and frustrated with our supposedly super family this week. He didn't come to church for his fourth week in a row and she didn't come for her first time in six weeks. On the way home from church (we were fasting and it was already one o'clock) we decided to go to their house first. But on the way, another member that didn't come stopped us and said, "You need to come to my house now." We told her no. She insisted and we said NO! It can wait until three or four right? She said she didn't have any water in her house and wanted us to carry a big tub (maybe about 25 gallons?) to her house. We agreed, only to find out the first we had to take this tub down three flights of windy narrow staircase and then down the street about a block and up another staircase. We earned that fast!

When we got to Jorge and Rosy's house, he had a little cold. Boo hoo. We offered him a priesthood blessing. I explained to him about the priesthood and how a blessing functions based upon the faith of the person, and I told him for the blessing to have any effect, he would have to put forth more faith than he had been in the past four weeks. I don't know if I was a little hard on him.

But with some better news, we had some new investigators in church and our list really is growing. I foresaw that it would be really easy to just focus on the few really good progressing investigators we found last transfer and just let the rest of the list die, leaving the missionary that replaces me with nothing. But I really am pleased with the work we're doing. I've been trying to teach my new missionary the importance of charity and what it really means. We've been focusing a lot on this and praying everyday that the Lord gives us more charity. It's really easy to get down on the country here and its people. But even if Jorge don't end up getting baptized while I'm still in the country and even if our whole list falls to the ground and I see no progress, I feel satisfied with the work I've done here in Las Palmas. I'm kinda in that "But if not" feeling. I know that if I work hard and am diligent, the Lord will bless me with the spirit and the investigators will realize that and come to Christ through baptism. But if not, I will still do everything in my power so that I can come home with a clean conscience knowing the work will move forward.

Thanks for all your support and love and prayers. See you in about 710 hours!

Con amor, Elder Winni