LOGANDALE DREAMIN'

School's out and life is sweet! Martha & Jeremy came down to visit and between sail boating and canoeing, even helped me check out of my classroom and get things in order. Jeremy and Matt played the marvelous movers who pulled their truck right up to the door of my classroom, loaded up, and delivered the goods to the high school for me. They even inventoried my computers, delivered my grades, and took my check list around the school to get me all signed off so I could finally go home.

Meanwhile my little yearbook girls are simply chomping at the bit to get next year's book planned. We borrowed some old yearbooks from Mr. Reese, and that helped some. But what really made the difference was when Martha pulled out her old yearbooks and really gave us something to research. It's great to look at some of those old ideas. In fact, if anyone has any old yearbooks from any school, I'd love to borrow them. So far I have MVHS yearbooks from 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 2000, 01, 02. Any other volumes you can contribute will wonderfully enhance the collection, and I promise to guard them with top security to keep them from accidentally "walking off." We have a yearbook camp planned for August 5-8 in San Diego, and workshops in Las Vegas August 12-15. Yearbook will be an interesting adventure!

Other than that, my June & July look open. Summer keeps reminding me that those grandbabies are imminent. Every time she doesn't answer her phone, I wonder if she's in the hospital-but so far, no baby. I'm planning a trip to Tucson for Becca's big event, but she's given me so many due dates that I'm just going to wait and see. Martha might even go down with me.

McKay sounded great on the phone last week when he called. To celebrate his arrival in Paraguay, Ken fixed us eggs and rice for dinner. I wonder if he's eaten that yet. Finally we received his email, a week later. What an exciting quest in the jungle for McKay! I guess you can write him at the email address or via the pouch at DearElder.com. I'm not sure which he prefers, since he only gets 1/2 hour per week on the email.

Dad's in Circleville right now, watering the trees amid all the Utah brush fires. According to the news, three fires are burning out of control in his general area. So far it's been a hot and dry summer long overdue for rain. I'll probably go up with him next time. I'm 3/4s finished with Becca's baby shawl, and it seems like the only time I work on it is while Dad's fishing up there. So unless I go up again soon, it just won't get finished!

Love to all, and we look forward to seeing you at the reunion, if not before.

HELLO FROM MOAPA!

Sorry about not sending news in May we just couldn't find the time or energy. We hope everyone is doing great, and we can't wait to see you all.

May started out with a lot of studying and Final Exams just like every one else. I was so glad to be done with the semester. I must say that I am proud of my 4.0 average. Chris has worked non stop. He is excited about all the contacts he is making and hopefully they will lead to jobs later.

Les had a Birthday party on the 10th of May, it was a huge success. My mom and dad came down to help control twelve three and four-year-olds. We had a doll cake and a Barbie piñata, the boys loved beating Barbie with a bat!! The party was going to be at the Moapa park but then we had forty-mile-per-hour winds, so we ended up having it in the community center and that worked out great. Chris and Rod Gordon loved pulling the pinata up just as the kids would take a swing at it. Chris is lucky he didn't get hit with a flying bat. Leslie had a wonderful Birthday.

The day after her party Leslie and I went back to Colorado with my parents for two and half weeks. We had a great time but we froze. It snowed twice while we were there and the rest of the time it didn't get above 60^o. I know that doesn't sound too bad, but it is when you are coming from Moapa. During the day we flew home, parts of Las Vegas reported highs of 112^o.

While I was in Denver Chris had a wonderful time. The day I left he went to Lake Mead and took a sailing lesson. When I asked how he liked sailing he said, "It's okay," but it must have been more than okay because Don and Chris drove to San Diego and Chris bought a SAIL BOAT the next weekend!!! Since then he has spent every free minute either working on the boat or at the reservoir sailing. I am grateful for Matt and Don. They are Chris's side kicks and that means I get to stay home. If anyone comes home for the Fourth of July or any other time the guys can play on the boat. By then maybe Chris will feel brave enough to take the boat to Lake Mead.

We have been working on the nursery and trying to get ready for our new addition. We painted it pink and Chris put new carpet in. It looks so nice.

MEL'S MELODIES

June came so quickly that I forgot to pay rent! Lucky we are in good with the manager (i think she thinks Andy is cute). So she gave me a reminder before she added the $40 late fee and I got it in the nick of time. Now we just have to cross our fingers that the check cashes! May was so crazy for us.

Kambri is finishing up kindergarten, her last day is Friday. Yesterday was her end of the year party, today was track and field day, tomorrow she goes to the Museum of Natural History in Iowa City and Thursday and Friday are part days. High on her priority list for summer is swimming, playing outside and playing inside. Michael finished his first year of preschool two weeks ago. It has been so much fun for him to just play with McKayla all morning. I thought school used to wear him out, nothing like staying home though he is sleeping in, taking naps and going right to bed at night. he is getting really confident on his bike.

McKayla is potty training. She stayed dry all day. So I don't want to potty train. She seems to sense this and it is almost as though she is doing it just because I don't want to. I am just trying to keep up with everything. On Friday I rode my bike 50 miles and felt good the next day. I am really anticipating RAGBRAI the third week in July. In the meantime I am just squeezing training whenever I can.

Due to conflicting schedules, the reunion dates have been changed to July 31 to Aug 4. Please say this will work, let me know and we will plan from there. Is this too close to Becca's due date?

Kambri is becoming such a big helper! She dresses herself, then dresses McKayla. She cleans up her markers and crayons, feeds the fish with out reminders, helps sort the laundry and she has such a great attitude. On Friday I had my CPR cert. for my job, then a meeting for details on the Nauvoo Temple O.H. Kambri planned a great evening of fun for everyone else. First she fixed corndogs and mashed potatoes, then they went to her school carnival, then to ride the carasol (Friday free night), then they went to cash in their cans. All involved had fun, I had fun just hearing about the evening (maybe more fun than the kids.)

Andy is learning about root canals, and removable partial dentures, and cosmetic restorations. His endodontics course (you know the root canals) is pretty intense and they pretty much throw the book at them and expect them to read the directions and then the instructors grade them on how the root canal goes then tells them what they need to do better. He says he is learning a lot still. Andy qualified and was selected for a national research award called the NIDCR grant which stands for National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. His summer is going to be pretty hectic studying for boards and doing the research.

Well that's not all, but that's all we are going to write. Bye.

Atwoods

MARTHA'S MAIL

Well, I only have four more days of school left. We get out on Thursday. I thought getting out on a Thursday was odd. That is, until I found out that Moapa Valley gets out on a Monday! Then, they make the teachers go back for one more day-pure torture. A cool thing about the school system here is #1-the last week is all minimum days. This means all classes are shortened to 25 minutes so school gets out at earlier. Another difference could be looked at as cool or destructive. Grades are due 2 days before school is out. In fact, I turned in my grades 4 days ago! Then, we just trick the kids into thinking all the work they do the last few days will count heavily for the final grades. As long it doesn't leak out to the kids-I'm finished with school Thursday afternoon. I really hope it doesn't leak out to the kids, because they think their band grade will go down to a C- if they fail to show up for graduation!

Now that there is only a week left of school, it seems like I can finally start the count down. Before, I was always just counting down to the next performance. Now, except for graduation, all the performances are done. I guess you can say I'm still counting down though because for graduation I have the band playing, the chorus singing, and then four students performing the Star Spangled Banner. So in a way I'm still counting down. The band is playing the 'ole Pomp and Circumstance. They do alright considering it's just my 6th and 7th graders. The chorus will do fine because we're doing a Milli Vanilli trick (sorta) for their song. You see, graduation is outside and the weather is quite breezy here in the summer. So, of course the wind scatters the sound-especially nervous jr. high kids trying to sing in front of about 800 people. So we had a professional sound guy come in last week to record all my 75 7th and 8th chorus members. Then, on the actual graduation night, it will just be my 20 8th graders singing plus, the pre-recorded version. It will sound pretty good and hopefully only a few people will pick up on the Milli Vanilli techno-trick! Now, about my Star Spangled Banner song. . . I 'm a little nervous about that. I have four kids, one boy and three girls. Two weeks ago, I had the boy and one of the girls sing the high part and then the other two girls (with low voices) sing the lower part-2. Well, last week, the boy's voice dropped. So now, he can't hit any high notes. And if he tries, his voice sounds like a shrieking goose! So I switched around the parts and the kids do O.K. Every once in a while they get really, really off. They're singing it a capela, so once they get off, they are OFF! So I just hope they get the parts more secure in the next two days. Graduation is Tuesday night.

After graduation, we're making a bee-line to Logandale. For no reason except that I miss Mom, and the rest of the bunch. I feel like that one Beach Boy's song that says, "I wanna go home." Well, those are the only lyrics that I can remember, but they keep repeating in my head over and over.

Also in the summer I'm planning on making a trip to Logandale when Summer has little Madison (is that the right name). Then Mom and I are tentatively planning to head out to Tucson to see baby Nick. Soooo, Mel, if you can manage to get away, come down too!!! :) :) :) Then of course, we're coming down for the FR-which I'm very excited to see all the CUTE nieces and nephews. I'm thinking of bringing some Dolly and holding a dance party for all the young 'uns. Maybe it will bring back baby memories for Kambri when she was a baby and I spun her around to "Jolene!" (--ahh, the good 'ole days!).

We hope every one is well and enjoys their summer. We are especially looking forward to seeing everyone through out the summer!

Only six weeks and one day until the baby's due date. Yes, we are really excited. We've been narrowing down name options. Still, it is so hard to think of names!

Nick is mowing the lawn right now for the first time since we planted new grass a couple months ago. The lawn looks better than it ever has! There are still occasional brown patches of dirt. However, the crab grass and Bermuda grass are filling in the holes. So it actually looks quite nice. Hopefully once we get rid of all the crab grass it will still look good. Our garden is good right now. Our five tomato plants finally have itty-bitty tomatoes on them right now. We had about 17 last time we counted, they are pea size. Nick counted the okra that we have coming on right now too, this morning, and he counted 15. We get about one strawberry a week and our cucumbers look like a cucumber is about to start growing. So we are pretty excited about that.

Yesterday we went to the Chiricahuas. (I have no idea how to spell this.) This is a mountain chain about a two hour drive southeast from here. We didn't really know where we were going exactly when we left but we had a general idea. So once we got to the base of the mountains we just found a dirt road and followed it. We found a good road cause it took us all the way up to the top of the mountains where it was nice and cool. After we went exploring a little bit up there Nick realized that this was where he had scout camp 10 years ago. The camp had been shut down because of bears. Nick said he remembered the scouts chasing around a bear they found once. (Not Nick though- he was smarter than your average scout.) There were wild Iris growing everywhere and other pretty little purple flowers between pine trees. We did better on this exploration trip than on our last (remember when we got two flat tires??). This time we only got a small leak in one of our tires. So with our little pump we were able to make it down the mountain with no problem.

We are really excited about this summer's upcoming events. July 5th is the highest date on our excitement list. I hope the baby isn't too late :(. We'll go nuts if he is. Besides we want to beat Summer and Chris. :) :) ;) (Well, not really.) Also we are excited for the reunion. I've already started picking out baby outfits I want to take. We love you all and can't wait to see you later on in the summer.

LA CARTA NUEVA DE PARAGUAY

Hola mi familia!

Amo paraguay. Aqui hay muchas cosas distintas. Hay personas con gran basketes on top of thier heads walkin around like nothin. Every day we walk down paths in the jungle, looking for houses. The mayoria of houses tienen solo uno o dos cuartos, y afuera tienen a fire pit with a shelter to block from the rain. It always rains. It may let up for a moment, but that's all. Then despues it starts raining again with no warning at all.

It's really fun. There were two accidents with the collectivos. One rolled over, and another rolled into a wash like the size of muddy river! The roads are all mud and wet and slippery. Today is pday, and we had a meeting in the city. This city is called San Lucas. My area is called jukyry (joo-kew-rew).

I understand most of the people, becasue they speak enough castillian. Only the young kids and old people solo hablan Guarani. Hay una bebida aqui llamado Guarana. To me it tastes a lot like Inca cola. One of our investigators, I asked if she knew anything about incas, and she said Quechua is the same language as guarani! Dulce no? All the keys on this keyboard are different than USA. There are lots of bugs, our bedroom has a screen door, and then we have these thin mosquito nets that hang from the ceiling and engulf our beds. My companion takes good care of me. I am learning a few phrases guarani, but mostly trying to finish learning Castillian first. I have a guarani hymn book, so we always sing those at our appointments.

Right now its cold, probably the 40's. Every one wears huge jackets and beanie hats. We had a baptism on Sunday too. It was fun. I am learning a lot about the Spirit. The mission work isn't hard, it just takes effort and it has to be done.

I am having no health problems. I drink a lot and we boil water for everything. To drink, to wash, everything. In my area there are no lights, so the stars would look great. I can't see them though because there are more clouds than heaven! I feel like I learn leaps and bounds of castillian every day here. I will be able to write every martes, but I only have a media hora on the computer. So until next week, I love and think about you all.

--Elder Whitney

MATT ON THE SCENE

My final week of school was truly a stressful one. I had several very difficult exams to review for and on top of that, ACT was that Saturday. But, of course, the ACT isn't offered at MVHS in June, so I had to drive to Vegas to take it. Fortunately I saw the opportunity as a smooth way to get a date. Does this just prove what a nerd I am? Anyway, a really pretty and smart girl named Chenae Garcia thought it a really good idea to 'carpool' in together (it doesn't matter what she called it because I told everyone it was a date!).

So everything went as planned and we arrived at Cheyenne High School about a half an hour during the test. But then in the duration of the test, particularly the difficult and stressful math section, I developed a really nasty headache. I grunted it out through the rest of the test and staggered outside.

Thinking nothing of the headache, I took Chenae to Memphis Barbecue for lunch. However I really started to feel sick inside the restaurant. And things did not improve when the food came out. I told Chenae I wasn't feeling to hot and seeing my pale pasty complexion and the beads of sweat running down my forehead, she said it would be alright to put the food in a doggie back a leave. After word, we went to Wal-Mart for some Advil in a vain attempt to dull my senses. I stepped out of the car, onto the blacktop, and spewwwwwwwwwed! Nasty! But I guess there are more embarrassing things than vomiting in the presence of your date, like vomiting on your date. So I guess I got off easy. On a lighter note, I believe I passed all my exams well enough to continue being a Valedictorian Candidate (my physics test was 102%!!)

Anyway, if there was a moral to this sad yet amusing tale, I hope you took it to heart!

--Love, Matthias