Thirty-five Years and Counting 7/29/07

Tim and Gloria celebrated their 35th anniversary on Friday! My how time flies when you're having fun. Elizabeth and the grandkids came down for the weekend and Tim and Gloria escaped for a couple of days holiday. They enjoyed their time in Park City, the weather was perfect and the shopping was great. There were 200 softball teams in town for the Girls Fast Pitch World Series so things were hopping with people. It was good to get away together for a couple of days and enjoy each other's company.

The hot days of Summer are here but the gully washer on Wednesday brought some relief from the heat and drought. Our thoughts and prayers are with the folks in Great Britain who have had flooding. Note the photo of Somerset (part of our mission). It's a good time for the grandkids to enjoy splashing in their "turtle" pool and playing with a large cardboard box. Ahh, Summer.

Gathering, Garnering, Pioneers and Potter 7/24/07

Today is Pioneer Day (Utah) a State holiday, remembering when the Mormon Pioneers came into the Salt Lake Valley and Brigham Young declared "This is the right place". We've rememberd our pioneer ancestors as we have gathered at family Reunions. The Shaffer Family Reunion was in Logan on the 13th & 14th. We had a great time. The Jared Pratt Family (jared.pratt-family.org) Reunion was held on the 20th and 21st. Jared was the father of Parley P. Pratt (Tim's GGgrandfather), Orson Pratt and the other brothers. The family has some 70,000 descendants now and growing rapidly. This year is the 200th anniversary of Parley's birth.

We also thought of the Pioneers as Tim spoke to our Stake Youth as they pulled handcarts across the wilderness in a special Trek activity. He was honored to be able to be a part of this great experience. Our youth are amazing and wonderful.

Gloria had her birthday on the 16th. We try to keep the celebrations to a minimum on these acounts. But even though we are getting older we're getting wiser. Tim travelled to Chicago to a seminar increasing his writing skills, and Gloria got away last weekend for a seminar with Heartstrings Design(http://www.heartstringdesigners.com/). She loves being one of their designers and enjoyed the time with one of our great EBM sisters, Lindsey Futrell (Formerly Sister White) and our daughter Elizabeth. Joseph enjoyed seeing Lindsey as well.

Joseph and his friend Matt Smith enjoyed going to a Salt Lake Real soccor game with Dad on Saturday thanks to a great family friend Cisco Soto. Real played Everton, a pretty good British team, and won 2 nil. It was great to get out and enjoy the evening air and the fireworks afterwards.

Last but not least Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out on Saturday. Dad and Joseph finished it over the weekend and Elizabeth and Denny weren't far behind. Mom is moving along steadily, listening to the audio CD version as she works and scrapbooks. The ending is awesome.

Happy Birthday USA 7/7/07

Happy Birthday USA! Wednesday we celebrated her birthday with flags flying and community fireworks. It is of course Independence Day in the U.S.

Joseph and the family enjoyed the company of friends a number of times during the last week. It's a great time for movies, Bar-B-Qs and friends. Thursday we had a great evening with Veronique White and her kids from Washington. [Roger White was one of our assistants in the missionfield in England, an awesome missionary. Veronique was a non-member from Holland who was the finest dry-land Mormon known to man. She lived with us and helped Gloria in the mission home for a time (not while Roger was there) while attending Bristol University. After her baptism she came to the U.S. and the Ferrons (an incredible former missionary couple from the EBM) introduced her to Roger, and the rest, as they say, is history.] Read about the Whites on their web page http://www.famwhite.com/. Their first child, Monique, is a special blessing. Our grandkids loved borrowing her little person wheelchair and playing "Uncle Joe". Our grandkids Ethan and Cheyenne loved playing with Jacob and Eliza. The Ferrons came over as did Sarah (former Sister Skidmore) and Tom Baker. We are always lifted in the company of great friends

Tim took the week off from work and spent the time cleaning up his computer room and installing a new window in the basement guest bedroom (the last remaining single pane window in the house). Gloria got a shot of him chalking in the window well (and you didn't think he could fit. . . ). He'll be glad to get back to work Monday!