She's gone and done it!

Yes she has! Amy has graduated from Brigham Young University (theY)! We are so excited for her! She is the first member of our family to graduate with a four year degree. It was a great occasion. Vice President Dick Cheney was the commencement speaker and did an admirable job. It was an honor to have the Vice President at the school. I may not agree with his policies, but we honor the office, not the man. President Hinckley was a surprise guest also and we were thrilled to see him. Larry was out of the country and nobody else could take the day off and still take the next day for her Convocation, so it was just me to witness this momentous event. We had to get in line at 2:00 and then sit for 2 hours in the Marriott Center. Overall it was a long, but wonderful, day.

On Friday, April 27th, the whole family of adults (and Amy's Boss, Kim, a great surprise for Amy) attended Amy's convocation for the school of Humanities. She graduated with her degree in Humanities with an Art History Minor. It was fun to all be ther to give her our support and praise. We are proud of you, Amy!

She and Heather found these great 2007 glasses to help us celebrate the great occasion. See the close up of the glasses below. It was a wonderful day!

It's not often that we all get to be together on a special occassion like this. We , as many others around us, all have very busy lives, and often can not celebrate a grand event on the actual date of the event. SO to be able to do so on this day was great! It makes me want to go back to school even more when I see how much she has grown as she has studied the art of the world. They now offer a program especially for people like me who have started a degree and never had the opportunity to finish it. Perhaps this fall when my life has settled down a bit, I will look into it.

I began serving in a new position at the temple this week. I am now assistant coordinator for my shift. That means that we plan the schedule and make sure that things run smoothly during our service at the temple. The time at the temple is a wonderful time. I serve with so many loving and giving sisters. I am humbled by their love and support. They are all so much more worthy and probably more able to do this. right now it is taking us about 5 hours to do the schedule for the following week. Hopefully as we gain experience, it won't take as long. It does mean waking up at 2:15 instead of 3:45 as I have to be at the temple at 4:00 and organize all the paper work before I go in.

We leave in a week for our Europe vacation. I'll post some pictures when we return.

Pictures of the boys at the ranch

Here are the pictures I mentioned. We had a great time, as we always do, with our grandkids. We all came home dirty, tired, a little sunburned and happy.

Taylor couldn't wait to climb the rocks. He had to be patient while we did our Chores.

Like many people in the area, we now have abandoned vehicles on our property. Easton, after having pushed this truck for over 1/2 mile, left it on the upper plateau of the property. It will now rest there until we can return and he can push it back down the hill.

Taylor loves to play dinosaur. Here he is crouched in "T-Rex position" waiting to strike. They love crawling through the tunnels in the rocks that are all over the 'ranch'. Easton likes to jump off of the rocks. I'm afraid that sometime he may try to jump from too high of a rock without someone to catch him.

What a great day on the RANCH!

Not Blog Savvy!

Boy oh boy what a huge mess. We set up this blog, hoping to update at least every few weeks(if not every week) and then couldn't get the access to it. I still am confused. so to play a little catch up...

March was warmer than it should have been and we had the chance to take our cute grandsons out to the 'ranch' and spend the afternoon. They wore us and themselves out. I will try and post some pictures of that. This one is from last year.

Larry had another steroid injection for his back. It never worked and so he has had an uneventful month in terms of progress with his back. His pain is quite severe, insomuch that his scheduled trip to Berlin at the end of March was cancelled. His boss was worried that something might happen while he was overseas. Larry hates driving any distance because the pain is too great.
At the beginning of the month, we helped Jim(Larry's brother) and Liz move to a small town outside of Shelley, Idaho, a small town in and of itself. They have themselves a beautiful home that is only a few years old with a VERY large kitchen that I would give my eye teeth to have. We will miss them and hope to see them soon. But we will for sure see them in July as their son, Scott, received his LDS Mission call to the England, Leeds mission and will be going directly to the Preston England MTC(Mission Training Center) on July 18th. We currently have a Sister from our ward who is serving in that mission and is having great success with immigrants from Zimbabwe. We are excited for him and for his family.
On the 16th of March I had my first NIA(Neighborhood In Action) meeting at my home. I was appointed by the committees and approved by the city council to take the place of the past chair who is fulfilling the seat of a city council member who was elected to the state as a Representative for our area. NIA is a city wide program that is charged with keeping our city's neighborhoods livable, clean, safe and friendly. We are planning our neighborhood service day for June 2nd and started the planning for that activity. Last year we gave over 600 hours of service and served over 400 hot dogs at the barbecue following the service. I'm nervous as I have some very great shoes to fill.
I also had my 6 month dentist check up.......I had a cavity!!! I was so upset...it's been 5 years. I know, it's a small thing, as is the cavity, but I was disappointed.
During March, we also

• Bought our Chunnel Tickets


• bought our train tickets for Rome to Florence


• Reserved our rental car for Florence to Venice to Milan


• Firmed up our hotels for all the places but Berlin


• got Larry a portable bicycle to take in case he can't easily walk


• finally got the last two passports for the group that is travelling with us.

We are becoming more and more excited about this trip! It is going to be so fun to have us all together for what is probably the last time as a family on a great big vacation like this. Jeff and Larry's 'vacation' will both be a week longer as Jeff has a conference for the full week before the trip and , because of the cancelled trip, Larry may extend for a week in Berlin.

So , I think that about covers March. Oh! Except I signed the contract for my kitchen remodel and will be started on that before our trip, I hope!