Thursday, November 26, 2009

Wedding in April

Well you guessed it. Mike is engaged to a cute little missy: Nicole Williams. They met in Book of Mormon class at BYU-I last April. She is from South Carolina...without an accent. She is a sophmore studying Childhood Education. She's really cute and smart and seems to like Mike alot and visa versa Mike seems to really like her too.
J and I met her in July when we went to watch Mike & Doug do the Idaho Falls fireworks shoot. We like her alot too. They are here visiting for Thanksgiving week. It's been fun getting to know her a little more. This is a picture of them up on the rim in Billings.

Mike actually proposed to her in Rexburg on the 14th of November. He had her go on a treasure hunt with the help from roomates and friends to find clues at different sites on campus and ended having her go to the class room they met and he had written on the blackboard "Will you marry me, Nicole". This is just the plan B picture if plan A didn't work. There plan right now is Nicole will be going home for the winter semester to spend time with her mom and get things prepared. No actual date set yet...but they are definantly looking at April. We'll keep you posted as the details unfold... (I know I need to change the date thingy on my camera....where is that instruction book....)


Friday, November 13, 2009

Dad Hero

Just when you think your kids are too big for a good dad hero, something like this happens. We were blessed to have Mike stay the weekend with us last Friday because of some unforseen circumstances (ie) a car break down as Mike & I were trying to catch a plane to San Diego for a Kawasaki seminar (a whole story in itself). Didn't happen but we got Mike for the weekend. We decided to drag Doug away from his computer to go play Folph. (Frizby Golf). Our park that is only a block & a half away has a great course. Doug has some really official looking Folph discs. So I, Mike & Doug head to the park, J takes Saydie dog for his piddle walk. We throw 2 'holes' but on the third 'hole' Mike has a big fir tree right in his direct line. He decides to try to throw over the top of the tree and you guessed it, the frizby smacks into the tree and lodges itself among the branches. It's getting dusk and Doug's first words were, "Mike you owe me $10.00." (I'm thinking crimany $10.00 for a disc, holy crow!) Mike decides he's going to try to hit it out of the tree. We gather a couple big rocks and some sticks. He throws.... the rocks fly through the tree and the sticks lodge themselves nicely among the branches. We try to hoist Mike into the tree, but the branches are too dense so he backs out. We throw more & hit the disc once but it only glides down to another branch, which we couldn't see as clearly. Well in the mean while J is standing a far distance away watching the proceedure. He decides to wander over and is chuckling to himself as we are propelling rocks into the tree & it's getting dark. He trys his hand at throwing a rock, no luck. Then he goes up to the tree, looks up, jumps and reaches the first branches, hoists himself into the tree and starts gingerly climbing among these skinny little limbs. He can't see the disc because it's so dark now, so he reaches into his pocket and produces a little pen light. He discovers where the disc is and has to climb a bit higher. I'm directly under him on the ground praying those little branches hold. Pretty soon we hear a thump and the disc has made it to the ground. J monkey climbs his way out of the tree and drops to the ground. Doug, Mike & I were amazed. J's comment was,"Makes feel like I'm 12 all over." A little travel into childhood. And in the eyes of my boys & myself....a Dad hero!!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Hermana Stacey Update

Stacey is leaving the MTC. One last pictures with her district.
The glorious colors of fall!

Fun times doing MTC Service duties


A little too much fun doing service duties :)



Pointing at the BIG BOARD in prep to leave the MTC
One last letter from the MTC: "The weeks have flown by. I'm sad about leaving these great friends I have made here in district 49C. It's been fun hosting some of the new sisters that have come into the MTC. One wednesday there were about 70 sisters arriving and only 10 host sisters. So there were times when I had 3 sisters at a time. What we do is stand outside the sisters dorm building and wait for two elders to escort the new sisters up to the door. Then we take the sister up to her room, tell her to grab her Preach My Gospel, her scriptures and a notebook to write in. Then we wisk her away with the promise she can unpack at 8:00pm. Then we fly down to the main building and get her checked in and give her her name tag. Then we fly over to the bookstore and grab all their books (they come in nice bright blue or yellow bags that are actually quite nice to use when showering.) Then we march them over to their "Home"/ classroom and leave them with a smile. Then we run back to the sisters dorm to start all over again. It was fun! I see all my little 'sisters' around the MTC and it makes me happy when they recognize me. And one of them is leaving with me to go to The Provo Mission Home. I saw her at our little Health & safety meeting...which was by the way a sad waste of the Lord's time...they said the most common sense things that we could sum up the whole meeting into just a few words... in a quote from Elder Holland.."Don't be Stupid!" :) I had one of our "perfect days" aka a day when we try and speak no english. I almost made it all day, I was impressed with myself. We had our last TRC! Yahoo! We got to teach the brother that we taught our first week in spanish (week 4) and he got to see I wasn't a Mute.:) Awesome thing happened, we got to sing "We'll bring the world His truth" with 400 missionaries and they changed the lyrics to apply to us "We are Now the Lord's Missionaries." I think, at least all the sisters and I think the Elders but they won't admit it, were crying by the end. Because we ARE the Lord's Missionaries! Coolness. We are here to preach the Gospel ...wooooooo...My next letter will be out in the field!"




Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! I love this picture of Debbie, Max & Ryan as they get ready to slice into the pumpkin to transform it into a jack-o-lantern. Even Ryan is into the mood. We had a fun time when they came to visit!