Dear Family,

It's November, the "quiet" month when everyone stays home to rest up before the holidays. I marvel at the blogs my children keep and the sincere feelings they share. I suddenly realize how peaceful and relatively stress-free our life has become. We mostly worry about the stresses facing our children, especially since we really can't reach out and help them any more. You guys have successfully flown the coop and ventured beyond your parents narrow outdated scope! As much as I wish I could help, I truly doubt that Matt and Megan would want me to take on their homework, nor would McKay accept my nose in his law books. We can't begin to assist our children with businesses; it's just more complicated than we can handle. And all the grandchildren are a constant responsibility that only their parents can take on. But as Matt put it, the struggle and long hours will pay off in the end. We work hard to gain experience and wisdom, and without the stress and labor we could not grow and accomplish anything worthwhile. In my day-to-day work, I see many young people who never seem to exert any effort to learn or grow. They make no attempt and have no hope of bettering themselves. It makes us proud to see our own children working so hard with such ambitious goals to accomplish great and marvelous achievements. And as you all work and stress, you still make it a priority to raise your children in righteousness with special attention to developing their talents while they are young. I guess the best help we can offer is congratulations on a great job so far, and encouragement to keep up the good work. You're doing what you should be doing, and your families thrive with amazing success!

Dad's been working with me at Mojave High School for two months now. It still surprises me to have him wander into my room to check on me and get a Pepsi. He may have had some culture shock the first few days, but now he's worked his magical charm and has the staff and students pretty much wrapped around his little finger. Kids keep coming to me to report on my cool husband, and how much they appreciate his help as a counselor. I just smile and tell them, "He's a wise man; listen to him."

My classes are still so wonderful, I can't believe it. I read Michael's "Turkey Legs" to my English 101 class, and they couldn't believe that a ten-year-old wrote that. They commented that he wrote with such a humorous voice, but his sincerity made the story come straight from the heart. They loved the way he ended with, "I rest my case; my case is in a coma." Now if only I could teach them to write like that.

Speaking of learning to write, I wish I could figure out how to post comments on everyone's blogsites. McKay sent me step-by-step directions, but they only work for his site. I guess I can just email my comments, the old fashioned way! I would like to say that Matt's Sunday blog inspired me to believe in the ethic of hard work and achievement for blessings that pay off in the long run. Thank you, Matt. Melanie delights me with her witty comments about life as a busy mom, especially where she compares her stressful life to an exhilarating run through challenging terrain...too bad about the occaisional dog crap! McKay and Keresa keep us so in touch with their kids through photos and video clips that I feel like we're visiting every time I check the blog.

In closing, here's a quote from a wise philosopher: "Don't forget, now is the time to raise your kids, not yourselves" (Kenneth Whitney).

Love & prayers,

Mom

Chris 'n' Summer

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, just about sums up our October and so far November. We have been to homecoming, picked pumpkins, attended class parties with 59 pumpkin-shaped pbj sandwiches, 32 goodie bags, two batches of chex mix, an awesome trip to Disneyland (where I got four children and one husband to the monorail by 6:45 am. Am I bragging? YES!), a dress rehearsal for a wedding in Northern Utah that all the kids were in, and I think that's it!!! ...I hope. We are staying home for Thanksgiving and eating something with little to no prep!! We hope you are all having just as much fun and craziness as we are. Have a great Thanksgiving!!

Love,

Chris and Summer

Mel 'n' Andy

Disneyland Turkey Legs, A Memoir by Michael

How much wood could a wood chuck shuck if a wood chuck was Chuck Norris? POOF! "Whoa, that was a weird dream, I thought to myself. A couple minutes later I heard my mom coming down the stairs. I quickly threw on jeans and a t-shirt just as she came bursting through the door, "Good you're awake."

As she left I slumped back in my bed and thought, " That ought to throw her off for a while." Then ten minutes later she came back and howled at me. She won, I had to get up. This set off my bad mood for the day.

"Clunk!" The plane landed just like that on the black top. "Now that was fun!" I said to no one in particular. For the next hour my parents, my 3 siblings and I were scrambling around the airport looking for our bags. After we found them we took at least 5 shuttles to get to the car rental place. I was eager to get back to sleep! Finally! We left the front desk and went to the parking lot to find our car. As we passed Mustangs, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis we approached a dull silver mini-van. We all climbed in and drove to my cousin's house in L.A.

Finally we got there. They showed us where we would be sleeping, and I feebly fell right into bed. Even though it was only four in the afternoon, I slept until the next morning. I woke up to a big bowl of fruity pebbles, then we left for Disneyland. We had to beat the rush. I was in a bad mood and wishing we were at Disney World. But that changed when my dad wandered off, then came back with an armful of Disneyland turkey legs!

We all sat on the curb sinking our teeth into those turkey legs. We then headed over to Space Mountain, which was fun for me. . . when I was five, but now it feels about like getting a haircut. That night I had a dream that I went on Mission to Mars and had a blast! But my little red-headed brother woke me up making race car sounds in his sleep! "Mom," I said, "I can't sleep. I like our house better with my heater making noises."

"Well, you can pretend your dad's snoring is your heater noises," she said unsympathetically.

"That's Dad?! I thought those noises were trucks shifting on the highway!"

"Just go to sleep," she said.

The next day we went straight to Disneyland. Although I was stubborn that Disney World was better, I had a great time. I went on the California Screamin' first and went on it fifty more times with my younger sister McKayla. Then we went somewhere to take pictures. We stopped at a big garden with flashing lights that said, "Disneyland." We finally were done with pictures and decided to go back to my cousin's house, but we were in California! We had to go to In 'N' Out Burger! I got a huge cheeseburger and some fries, animal style. We sat on the patio in front of the restaurant enjoying life. We got back to my cousin's house and all fell asleep within three minutes. I woke up to the muffled snoring of my dad. The next morning we were thinking of what to do before we caught our six o' clock flight. There was only one thing to do: Disneyland turkey legs! We sat on that rainy Disneyland curb, all six of us eating our Disneyland turkey legs.

There may not have been a Mission to Mars, but I'll admit, I had a great time. I rest my case. (Rest nothing! My case is in a coma!)

Melanie's note: this is why we don't plan on taking our children with us to Hawaii. This is also why I'm very tempted to leave Michael home when we go to Disney World in a few weeks. Just kidding, he told me he had a super time in California last year. He just wanted his memoir to be funny so he told the story from a new angle. I told him I didn't remember seeing any of those fancy cars in the lot.

Martha 'n' Jeremy

November 2008

For the past two months I feel like the kids and I have been on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I still remember the happy/strained looks on both Mel and Summer's face when I would talk to them about having my fourth baby. I think I understand a little better now.

A lot of things change with four children ages five and under. Here's a few for starters: my car is filled with four car seats, there is a lot more crying, child immunizations exponentiate. Between the kids and me, we received 15 shots today and by the end, all five of us were crying. There are a lot more wet beds and nightmares at night, trying to fit everyone in a small doctor's office is hard and four starving kids are hard to feed simultaneously. For the most part, it's a lot of fun having a new baby again. The kids are cute with "Jo-jo" and like to help out. Honestly though, the shot adventure almost put me over the edge today. I was sick part of the month which also didn't help things out. I thought being chronically tired and weak was part of having four kids. Then I noticed I was wheezing and started breaking out in rashes. I went to the doctor, four kids in hand, and was diagnosed with "walking pneumonia." He prescribed me antibiotics, ointment for the rashes and some Tylenol-3 with codeine to "take the edge off of mothering four children."Yes that was straight talk from a very sympathetic doctor! The antibiotics and Tylenol-3 helped but the ointment didn't take the fire away from my rashed-out body. Finally in desperation, I jumped into our swimming pool. The cool 60-degree water took my breathe away, but it also cooled my rashes. Jeremy said it was okay swimming in the cold water because it wasn't like I could get pneumonia or anything, I already had it. In the same breath, he told Lyle he'd give him $10 if he cannon balled me in the water. Ten-dollars later, Lyle splashed me good. Luckily, he didn't get pneumonia.

All four kids are healthy, well and happy for the most part. At the end of the day, after the three older kids are put to bed, it's nice to sit down with Joseph and enjoy some nice quiet time with him. This evening I was pretty tired and worn out. My arm hurt too from my shot and I didn't have my Mom here to give me a kiss and a hug. I was tempted to lay Joseph down and deal with him later in the night. I didn't though and instead plopped down in a chair and began nursing him. A few minutes later, he latched off, looked me right in the eyes and gave me a very sympathetic look. His eyes began to sparkle and his face erupted into a big smile. He kept on smiling and then added some coos and talking sounds. I sat there and thought to myself, so this is what it's all about. I guess having four kids is pretty fun after all.

Love, The Tanners

Becca 'n' Nick

October was Elissa's month: she's had fun developments and a big excitement as well. One day while I was in the bedroom she came running in, and in an out-of-breath voice she exclaimed, "I no wan Sers Bok takime." She had climbed up on the bed in a rush and was reaching to me for protection. Jonathan came in after her and interpreted for me. "Mom, she said, 'I no want Sirius Black to kill me.'" I was so impressed at her complex sentence formation that I wasn't sure if I should be alarmed at her fear. We did watch Harry Potter 3 the night before, and I distracted her during the scary parts, and then she fell asleep about half-way through. Well she hasn't talked about Sirius Black since that day, so she must be over it by now, right?

Elissa is quick to follow whenever I enter the kitchen. She especially enjoys helping me cook breakfast. One morning while I was making pancakes I decided to use powdered milk. Just as I was ready to start pouring the pancakes, Elissa gasped and exclaimed, "Huh! Mamma! Da milk! You nee milk!"

About mid-month she had medical excitement. She likes to taste just about anything, so I wasn't too alarmed when I saw a puff in her cheek. We went through the routine of her opening her mouth while I examined for edibility. This time I couldn't see anything, so I put my finger in for a more thorough exam. Still I couldn't find anything. But there was definitely a rock hard lump in her cheek. So we took her to the local doctor who set her up with a specialist who in turn admitted her to the hospital for heavy antibiotics, a CT scan and possible surgery. This began Nick's and her four-day, three-night stay at the Tucson Medical Center Hospital.

I'm sure you can imagine a 25-month-old's reaction to an IV and CT scan. At the hospital, in order to keep the IV from backing up and to prevent Elissa from removing it, they heavily taped the needle and tube to her arm and then her arm to a board at her elbow. To top that off the IV was in her left arm, and it is her left-hand fingers she likes to suck. She just couldn't get those fingers in her mouth with her elbow locked straight like that. Luckily they had a playground and toy room comparable to Disneyland on a two-year-old's level. The only problem for Nick and I was to keep up with her trailing the IV on wheels. Every once in a while she would go somewhere the IV couldn't follow and we'd have to yell urgently, "No, no, Lissy! Stop! Wait!" I think the most traumatic part for her was the CT scan, although I wasn't actually there when they put the IV in, Nick did say that was very upsetting for her.

There was this big chilly room, empty, with the exception of the large white machine humming in the corner which was attached to a cold plastic covered bed. Then in the wall was a window with a few unfamiliar nurses chattering. If this wasn't scary enough for a two-year-old they then forced her to lie on the bed and proceeded to wrap her in a fuzzy, scratchy, brownish blanket, very obviously against her will, tighter than a burrito. Meanwhile a strange nurse all but lay on top of her to keep her still. Elissa was obviously not going to participate with the scan. So they rescheduled her for a later time with sedation. The next time started the same way only now she knew the room and was edgier than ever. As they wrapped her again, and a nurse lay a top her again, she frantically screamed reaching out to me with her eyes (her arms were tightened down under the blanket wrap). Caressing her forehead was the limit to the amount of comfort I was able to give. Then they put the sedating medicine in her IV and told me consciousness would only last a few minutes more for her. We've always suspected high levels of strong will for Elissa, but that day she confirmed its intensity as she fought the effects of the medicine. Finally after fifteen minutes or so of her thrashing attempts to escape she broke free of the burrito wrap and the nurses gave up on the scan. Elissa wasn't done expressing her disapproval of the treatment though and for the next forty or so minutes she continued to thrash, kick, scream, cry, and pull at her IV. It wasn't until her arm became just loose enough from the IV board for her to suck her fingers that she finally began to calm down. Needless to say my arms were now terribly sore and spotted with bruises. Following the experience the nurses decided gassing her would be the best way to keep her down for the scan. And remarkably, (?) the procedure went rather smoothly.

The scan results were in her favor as it showed no abscess and therefore no need for surgery. Elissa was diagnosed with an infected lymph node. At its worst, the swelling was spread from under her chin up to her right ear and once the swelling was down about two thirds they released her from the hospital. After being attached to an IV for four days you can imagine her excitement as we left the hospital. I'd like to say she ran the whole way home but actually it was us who sped eagerly on the hour drive home.

Love,

The Bryces

McKay 'n' Keresa

Last night Sydney came to me with two puzzles with all the pieces taken out and asked me if I wanted to use her laptop. She set the boards on my lap with one lying like the keyboard, and the other standing up like the screen. So I pretended to type on it. She told me I should write an email to Grandma. So I talked out loud as I typed the email. "Dear Grandma, Sydney loves to talk to you on the phone. We can't wait until you come to visit us in Grundy, etc., etc., Love, Mommy." Next it was Sydney's turn. She decided to email Jackson. "Dear Jackson, I don't like it when you come in the bathroom while I'm going pee pee. Sometimes you forget to use your inside voice. I like to play with legos, etc., etc., Love, Sydney." We took turns back and forth emailing people. I told her it was time to do one more email and then go to bed. She decided to email Jesus. "Dear Jesus, I love you so much. Sometimes when I have a scary dream I say a prayer to help me go back to sleep. I like to go to Primary. Love, Sydney."

During our lasagna dinner Sydney managed to get some garlic toast crumbs in her sleeves. We usually have her get down and go wash in the bathroom. When Keresa told her to get down and wash she said, "Ok, but I need help." Keresa told her no, just go wash by yourself. Sydney gave her a very tender face, and on the verge of tears said, "But there's bread in my sleeves." It was very sad, but too funny to hold back and we both had to cover our faces so she wouldn't see us laughing. I finally had to get up and take some dishes into the kitchen so I could let the laugh out.

It was raining so hard we decided to go out for a drive and watch the rain. While we were out Jackson decided to practice some words. So he was going back and forth with 'awesome' and 'dude.' "Awesome. Dude. Awesome. Dude. Dude. Awesome. Aw-- Aws--Aw-- App..? Applebees? Applebees. APPLEbees. "

We went to Grundy Dairy Queen. Inside we enjoyed very loud Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw songs. The people all around spoke loudly and laughed a lot. It sounded like we were inside some wild west saloon or something. Then a group of coal miners in their late 40s all sat down. They were pretty calm. But then we heard a knock at the door. Who knocks at Dairy Queen? A guy threw the door open and shouted (imagine the voice of Tow Mater on Cars) "Well Heeee-LOOOOw all!! Hay-owz eh-vrrr-bah-dee doo-inn tuh-naya-tt!?" And he looked all around. Now the coal miners all seemed to raise their Blizzards in a toast to Clyde, and everyone saw just how loud and full of energy this group could be once their ring leader joined them. We overheard lots of, "tlr vrrmn eeelrhall mrrln grrdil leekn Obama." I think they were talking that they liked him, but I could really only make out that one word.

There are triplets in Sydney's class, and although they don't look much alike, Sydney calls them all Alex. We'll be walking past them and she'll say, "Hi Alex, hi Alex, hi Alex," as we pass each boy. I've told her several times that they are not all Alex...I guess she can't remember which one is Alex so she figures she'll just try the name on all of them. She's funny. The boys' Dad is one of McKay's professors at the law school.

On Saturday we went to our branch Trunk-or-Treat activity. We had 17 kids there! 12 were members and 5 were nonmembers. Our primary has almost tripled since last year. I never thought I would think that 12 primary kids is a lot, but here it's a branch record.

Today in Preschool Sydney got to paint a pumpkin. Since she got home she's been taking it everywhere with her. She sat it on the chair next to her during lunch, she sat it on the ground beside her while she colored, she has not let the thing out of her sight. She's been talking to it too...asking it what color she should use next, what movie it wants to watch.

MK KGW SRW JGW

Matthias & Megan

The semester is over halfway done, and Megan and I are working our way through. The classes we are in have offered tons of challenge, but we've got some good ones that are focusing in on the fact that we're almost done. For example, in the first class session for my senior lab, the professor taught us all about something called a Mueller Matrix Polarimeter. He said that inventing it was the best idea he's ever had and it made him a lot of money. He cited the company that fabricates the machine was founded by one of his graduate students, and now he makes lots of money. He then said that industry wants people who can operate the machine and understand the principles behind it, so he was teaching it to us so we too could go out and make lots of money. I guess that's a good indication that I'm closer to the end.

One day, Megan came home from her thermodynamics class and informed me that she learned in class why she sweats more when she rides her bike in the morning than in the afternoon. She then said that when we get our dream home, we can have a decorative water fountain in the yard that can double as a super efficient way to make an evaporative cooler. Plus it would be pretty! So I guess she's learning some good stuff too.

We're also doing our engineering capstone this year which is an interdisciplinary design project. Interdisciplinary means that we're in teams with people from other engineering majors with the end goal to design something for a company in industry. Megan is on a project for a company here in Tucson called Raytheon. Her project is a surveillance system the size of a shoe box that can take audio/video data out in the wilderness, for example, at the Mexican border. My project is creating a optical signal recovery system that will employ a phenomenon called stochastic resonance. This involves taking a dirty corrupted signal and making it better by adding noise. It's kind of difficult to wrap our brains around it and our sponsor doesn't really seem to understand how it works, but we're at least making it through our preliminary design phases so far. With these projects, as well as our homework, exams, quizzes, and presentations for other classes, we don't see the outside world too much, but we look forward to graduation in May.

One Saturday last month, we did manage to escape in the morning to visit with Becca's family and go to Apple Annie's farm in Wilcox to pick apples, go through a corn maze, and explore the pumpkin patch. It was a blast. On the trip, we taught Becca's kids a new song, Living On a Prayer by Bon Jovi. We didn't realize that we'd made such an impression until the next day when Jonathon called my cell phone four times asking me how to find it on the computer. Then Becca called to tell me that since they'd been home, even Lissy was singing it!

On top of school, Megan is still working 12-15 hours a week for M3 Engineering. About a month ago, they took Megan to Carlotta mine, just outside Globe, AZ to see the pipes and pumps she's been designing. It was a fun day trip for her and she even got to wear a hard hat! Attached is a photo of Megan next to a big fire water tank! I've also been trying to work part time for the company that I interned with over the summer. They've sent me some work to do remotely, but so far I've only been able to put in less than 10 hours for the whole semester. They understand that I'm busy with school and they told me the work isn't urgent, but it just helps me to realize how awesome my wife is to have been able to put in 15 hours a week on top of a full engineering school load for the past year and a half.

Megan also continues to be big into her digital scrap booking, as time permits. With her designs, she's won several contests, some random draw, some for having such awesome designs. With one printing site, she won a free book, so she sent in her first 20 layouts since she started last May, and they sent us a nice hard bound book! Think of the possibilities if we can cheaply get our own books professionally printed full of scrapped pictures! To see Megan's latest work, check out our blogspot: M & M Whitney.

For Halloween, we had a host of activities planned. First of all for school, I took Megan's hard hat and reflective vest and wore them to class. At first, people just thought that some random construction worker had sat down in the classroom for a break, but then they recognized me. Someone told afterwards that they thought that I'd received a new internship that required the use of a hardhat. It wasn't until after class that he remembered it was Halloween. After school, we decorated our trunk and drove to our ward's Trunk Or Treat activity. We had our trunk lit up with Megan's disco ball through misty haze created by buckets of water and dry ice. Megan also made some cute crafty buckets that she decorated with digital scrap booking designs. We dressed pretty normal with tin foil masks. But these tin foil masks made it convenient for our next activity where we wrapped ourselves up in additional tin foil to get free burritos at Chipotle! The deal is dress up as a boo-rito, get a free boo-rito. I highly recommend it for next Halloween. Then finally, we ended up back at our apartment with some friends and watched a marathon of Simpson's Halloween episodes. The only Halloween let down was that someone had stolen our pumpkin that we got at Apple Annie's right off our doorstep before we had a chance to carve it! I was even planning on carving it with something nerdy, like a the Greek letter "pi" or maybe the lens design of a Cooke Triplet.. . . maybe next year when we're graduated and don't live in the ghetto part of town next to the University.

Speaking of not living next to the University, I've been applying for all kinds of exciting jobs around the country, post graduation. So far, the two most promising ones are a company called Edmond Optics in New Jersey and another one called Insight Technologies in New Hampshire. Both companies seem super exciting and both interviewed me on campus and seemed promising. I've also applied to some other places, but we'll just have to see what hashes out. Thinking about being done with school and working full-time for a cool optics company makes it tough sometimes to focus on the hours of school work, but we've gotta make it through school before we can reap the benefits.

Con Amor,

Megan and Matthias