Dear Family,

Is summer over already? It's been crazy, but funtastic! We loved visiting with all our children this summer, and have come to the conclusion that we have outstanding kids and grandkids...good job and keep up the good work. Then just as summer wound down and we mourned the starting of school, we had Louise and Scott to look forward to!

I did have concerns about how we could possibly survive the first week of school and entertain Louise and Scott at the same time, but it turned out to be the best plan ever. Partying with Louise and Scott every night made me too busy to stress over school, so I just didn't. We started our party in Vegas, then went to the mountains for Labor Day weekend and even took in Taming of the Shrew on the way. You can see from the pictures that our fishermen caught their limits, and they accomplished it so quickly that they still had time to take Louise and me out afterward. We showed Louise the ultimate cultural experience with lunch in Antimony: greasy burgers served up by real cowgirls, not just the dressed up kind, complete with cinnamon rolls the size of dinner plates, flies, no silverware, an outhouse out back, and strange characters straight out of the movies. Of course we also took in Bryce Canyon, Mossy Caves, Cedar Breaks and everything in between. Now that they're gone, I just hope Louise and Scott had as great a vacation as we did!

As life finally approaches normal again, I'm finally getting used to my new classes. It just amazes me to have such good students and be able to teach real lessons again. I love teaching French, and English 101 just amazes me. However, I have heard a rumor circulating, though, that I'm sleeping with one of the counselors.... Stay tuned for more on that story....

Love & prayers,

Mom

Mel 'n' Andy

We didn't write an aritcle, but be sure to check out our family blogsite:

Martha 'n' Jeremy

August 2008

In the past two months our new baby boy Joseph was born, Lyle started kindergarten, Hyrum figured out how to swim freestyle in the pool like the Olympian Michael Phelps, both boys now dive and do cannonballs in the pool and Lizzy can go to the bathroom in the toilet. Jeremy and I just enjoy the ride.

Lyle began his school adventure July 14th. He loves it and is doing so well. It seems like he's learned more in these past six weeks than what I've been trying to teach him since he was three. He's really become an independent and grown-up little man. Last week I was getting the house clean and ready for the new baby. I was getting tired and a little irritable. Lyle came up to me and patted my belly and said, "It's ok Mom, I know you're tired and ready to have that baby Joseph. He'll be comin' soon." Then he told me to rest while he finished picking up. I just stood there and thought, is he only five years old?!?!?

Hyrum is my little day time buddy. He told me he did not want to go to school this year. I reminded him how much fun his joy school was last year. He wouldn't be swayed and insisted on staying home with me. Right now he seems pretty content to be playing with his new best friend Lizzy. They play together all morning. Lizzy is always one step behind Rummy copying his every move and word. Does this sound familiar; like maybe Rummy and Lyle a few years ago? It's fun to watch. Rummy also has taken off with his swimming. I thought it was good he could swim and jump in. One day he said, "Mom watch!" and jumped in and began swimming freestyle. He showed Jeremy in the evening and we just stood there in disbelief. I thought this was pretty cool. Jeremy's favorite feat of Rummy's is "the beast." This is where Rummy will stand up on Jeremy's shoulders. Jeremy will get out of the pool and stand on the outer edge of the deep end. Rummy will jump high off of Jeremy's shoulders and do a cannon ball in the pool. I have a hard time watching.

Lizzy is determined to keep up with her brothers. Yes, even she asks to do a modified version of, "the beast" in the pool. The other day she had to go to time out. She looked proudly at her brothers as if she had done something great and ran and plopped down on the time out chair. She also surprised us by insisting on going to the bathroom in the toilet just like her brothers. She caught on pretty quick and loves running and going when her brothers say they have go. The other day they were all playing outside in our backyard. The boys have a habit of going potty on the brick wall when they're outside. I glimpsed over at them going on the wall and did a double take when I saw Lizzy there trying to go. Pretty soon there was a steady stream of potty running down her legs. She kind of looked around confused as to why it wasn't hitting the wall. Rummy didn't get it either and when I went over to scold Lizzy, he argued with me and said, "No Mom, she was just going potty like us boys!" He even pointed to where she hit the wall(?!?!). I'm kind of stuck at how to fix this, any suggestions?

Our latest addition came August 22, 2008: Joseph Whitney Tanner. His stats are 7lb 6oz, 19 1/2 in and born in Tucson, AZ in Pima County. Our new baby boy has been a pure delight. He's tiny, cute as a button and adored by all. I'm finding less gets done and more time is spent holding and cuddling this perfect little bundle. The kids all love him and hold him often. Lizzy is like a mother hen and can't keep away from him and helping him. And yes, she's even sat on him a few times.

Here's a funny story: The other day, the baby was sleeping and the kids were playing upstairs so I thought I would take advantage of my free time and clean the kitchen. I hurried around putting dishes away and cleaning the counter. I unloaded the dishwasher and hurriedly put the just washed nursing pump parts on the bottom stair to take upstairs later. I went back to the kitchen and began sweeping. While I was sweeping I heard the kids come downstairs and begin playing. It sounded like they were really involved in playing with their toys so I didn't worry about checking on them. After I finished I walked over to the stairs to see what they were up to. They had found the pump parts and were intensely shooting each other with their new guns! They would even give little Lizzy a turn. Except instead of shooting her brothers she would suck in and quickly blow out on the top part to make a fun whistling sound. As she did this, she would dance around in circles. Who would ever think children could have so much fun! Have a good day!

We hope all is well with everyone and send our best to you all. Love, the Tanners.

Becca 'n' Nick

It seems we are in harvest season. Today is Tuesday and I husked corn, yesterday I canned green beans, Saturday was chili day, Friday I canned tomatoes and the list goes on . . . But we're having fun.

Jonathan is a big first grader. His teacher looks like Barbie and is just as stylish. Jonathan asked us at dinner if we would help him write her a letter saying, "Dear Teacher, I think you're a great teacher because you are pretty." I love to look over his school work. Sometimes it takes me a minute to figure it out, like the day he spelled the word, "cao." He is learning the song, "Love Somebody," on the piano and I can't help but think of my little brothers when they used to play that one. So I told Jonathan that it was one of their favorites, and his eyes got big and excited. Oh, and "cao" spells, "cow."

Estelle is in a Creative Movements class that meets on Wednesdays. She asks if it is Wednesday yet many mornings of the week. Then the rest of the week she practices what she learns and makes up new moves to show us. She has realized that somersaults require planning ahead as she has landed into the couch or other obstacles, including siblings, a few times. It reminds me of when she learned to run. She used to stop by running into the wall until she learned how to stop by stopping her feet from going.

Elissa reminds me of a cartoon character. She has big bright eyes full of ideas, rounded piggytails on top of her head, and uses every muscle in her body to run. Actually she is probably even more animated than a cartoon character. She talks a lot and sometimes it takes me a couple days to realize what words she may be actually saying. Like last night she was talking about okra and I told her, "Yeah, I like popcorn too." It took Nick to point out to me that she was asking for more, "Okra." (Another item from the garden.)

Emilyn is fully enthralled in the "baby" stage. She is a round ball of butter with a big open-mouthed toothless grin. She has even started to giggle so as you know, I dance, make funny noises, tickle, and perform all sorts of ridiculous gestures to get her to smile or laugh. Estelle and Elissa take turns holding her every day. And Emilyn is so patient; she doesn't even cry while they are taking such good care of her! Sometimes I almost cry when I see how the girls hold or play with her, like the time when Elissa was feeding her bread!

So that's our news. We'll be in touch.

Love, the Bryces

McKay 'n' Keresa

Life in Virginia is in full swing. I am in class. The rigors of 2L law school life are much more manageable than 1L life because I know what I'm doing this year. It's nice to focus in, read, and come home at the end of the day knowing that I am all caught up. It's also nice to know that a person only has one appendix. ;)

Keresa hauls the kids to and from the library, preschool, and the park. The kids have a weekly library class. They read a book and do little crafts. Keresa likes to take them early so they play for a while before. Someone made a donation and enabled our library to build a children's wing. You might say it's "hooked up." Sydney's preschool is 3 times a week. It's at the Grundy Methodist Church. They said they wouldn't baptize her, but maybe Keresa can always keep Sydney's hair styled in a frizzy way so we will be able to tell if it got wet during the day.

Keresa is dreading training Jackson to do his job in the toilet. We have pp candy and a little kid toilet. He often tells her after he has done his job in his diaper, so I guess it's time to start. His word of the month is now. He uses it like this: "Mommy! Drink! Please! Now!" Do the please and the now cancel each other out?

Our branch had 60 people for two weeks in a row, and we had to overflow people into the primary room during sacrament. I don't think it's enough to get our building remodeled and some rooms added, but if it happened for several weeks I think they would do it. Keresa now changed from a RS counselor to a Primary counselor. This is a welcome change. Now she gets to be in our huge primary and prepare the kids for the primary program. I say huge because it has grown by something like 400% since last year. We now have 11 kids in there. Size is relative, right?

MK KGW SRW JGW

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Matthias & Megan

Megan and I have enjoyed this summer as it has thoroughly done its job on us and helped us prepare for one last year of school before graduation. We still work all week long and play all weekend long too. But Megan commented that in one meeting she had at work, she was able to pay attention the whole time and take notes, just like she'll have to do often in classes for the upcoming semester. Also we're looking forward to being able to talk to each other every evening in person, instead of only on the phone during the week. This has definitely been one of the Summer's main drawbacks, even if we have had weekend's of fun together.

One week, our friends that we house sit for called us and we got to spend a long weekend together there and had a swimming party with a rack of ribs we grilled ourselves. Yum! Another weekend, we went out on an evening hike with a group of friends enjoying the night monsoon air (which really isn't that much cooler than the day monsoon air, but it was still a neat hike). We also celebrated Cow Appreciation day! This entailed taping spots all over our black and brown clothes, making cow masks, and having free lunch at Chik-fil-a! Then this most recent weekend, we had an Eegee's and Dance Dance Revolution double date with another couple who are good friends of ours and just moved out of the ward. It seems they just graduated and bought a house! How exciting to think that we will soon be in such a position. I mean the position to be graduated and buying a house, not the Eegee's-Dance Dance Revolution position. We are quite often in that position. Another evening we got to enjoy the Tucson monsoons was at the drive-in movies. We went to go see the new Batman movie. And while I'm afraid I can't recommend the movie itself, watching the lightning flash around us during the exciting parts of the movie was a pretty awesome experience.

For my birthday, Megan sure had my number and made a Reese's peanut butter cup cake! It was chocolate "wacky" cake covered in PB frosting, rounded with mini Reese's cups, and topped with pieces of large Reese's cups. Oh man. It was really good, even though the richness of it didn't allow for eating very much cake at a time! She also got a handsome looking watch and nacho cheese. Yeah!

One more thing to note is the Megan and I celebrated our one year anniversary last month on 07/06/08! How exciting that it's been a year, and it's only been getting better the whole time. We were in Sierra Vista at the time because it was 4th of July weekend, and Megan's mom made us a special steak dinner with Strawberry cake for dessert (the same recipe we had at our reception). Then later that week, we went to Mesa for a good temple trip, to remember what we did there a year previous. It was the best anniversary we've ever had!

Con Amor,

Megan and Matthias