Henry and other people

Wish we lived closer to this boy as I need to kiss those cheeks

Kathy's offering

Don't know what the cousins are doing here...

Visiting friends (Nathan) was on Hannah's agenda, too

Hannah went to Utah this weekend to help surprise cousin Becky for her birthday. I'm so jealous. At least I get pictures!

Alex had a Court of Honor on Thursday where he received the rank of Star. The next stop is Life scout and then Eagle. Keep up the good work Alex!

I wasn't there because I had taken Eric to his institute and pathways class in Reno. My seminary coordinator, Brother McDuffie, teaches Eric's institute class and invited me to sit in any time I wanted. I had planned on working on my seminary lessons for next week while I was waiting for Eric, but I decided that it would be a great learning experience for me to study how Bro. McDuffie teaches, so I went to institute. It was excellent. I'm so glad he invited me to come listen. I'm really working on being a better teacher and seeing good examples is so helpful.

Thanks to Jason posting things on Facebook, we've been able to see a few pictures of Ryan. Looks like he's having fun. (hoping he is also studying in between the fun times)

Jason, Ryan, Chalea, and Travis

Travis, Thu, Jason, and Ryan

The Women's Conference broadcast last night was so uplifting. Our niece, Jessica, sang in the choir and was on the screen for a few seconds. That was neat.

I was taking notes, but don't have the full quotes of my favorite lines. Pres. Uchtdorf gave my favorite:

Everything else in the gospel--all the shoulds and the musts and the thou shalts--lead to love.

I also liked Sister Reeves' quote about how our vision of blessings must be the central focus of our eyes daily (to help us remain on the path).

and

Contact with things below Heavenly Father's standards weakens us.

Sister Wixom talked about "Therefore, what?" which is part of my seminary training, so I really liked that. Each lesson in my online training ends with "Therefore, what?" where we have to write what we are going to do with what we just learned. We need to find a way to make what we learned affect our  lives. It also goes with my current quote at the head of my blog: "A change in seeing that does not also bring a change of doing amounts to no change at all."

Great conference session. Great week.

Ryan's at BYU-I, Eric with Pathways, Alex and tennis

Ryan started classes on Monday. He quickly realized his schedule needing changing as having his calculus class be online wouldn't work. In the end he had to drop 2 classes to join the calculus class that had available seats, but he was able to do so and is now happy with his schedule. He is feeling less pressure as he is starting to remember how to do the math. Sometimes a 2 year break in schooling can cause problems.

But he is doing well and it seems like he has a good apartment. His roommate, Oska, is from Kenya! I can't wait to hear more about that. There are 2 others in the apartment, Connor and Jordan.

He and Jiaxin have been spending time together, he's bumped into several guys that he knew on his mission (one of which is in his calculus class), he had lunch with his cousin Jake, and he and his roommate Connor went on a double date. So, yeah, he's getting into the swing of things at college.

Eric had his first BYU-I Pathways class in Reno on Thursday night. First they have a 90 minute Institute class with the topic this semester being "Foundations of the Restoration." Then there's a 60 minute Pathways class...I'm not sure exactly what that will entail but they introduced themselves and one of the guys served his mission with Andrew, so that was kind of neat.

To go with his Pathways program, Eric is taking one online class dealing with life skills. The Pathways program is usually for people who have been out of college for a bit and are trying to start up again. In Eric's case we just thought it would be great for him to have something to do while he's waiting around. He's applied to BYU and BYU-I but right now is just working on the dairy farm helping to build shade structures for the cows.

Alex only has only 4 more tennis matches before the season ends on October 1st. He's played a few singles games but usually plays doubles. He even got to be his cousin Thomas's partner yesterday. He's enjoying it, though staying on top of his school work has been a challenge since he misses each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

Fall is showing itself in that our trees are starting to lose their leaves...and the wild turkeys show up from time to time. This past time one even had its feathers spread...looking just like a Thanksgiving turkey.

not the best quality photo, but they are so skittish it makes it hard

visits, leaving for college, and hot air balloons

Alex traveled to Truckee on Thursday for another tennis match. He and his doubles partner, Ryan, won their match! Congratulations boys!

All is right with the world...those are the words that came to my mind on Thursday when Eric O. and Jiaxin were over visiting with Ryan. The next day was Eric's birthday, so we had a little celebration. Three-four years ago Eric and Jiaxin were often at our house--then it was college and missions for Jiaxin and Ryan so Eric didn't come over anymore. Having them both come over brought such a sense of ... satisfaction? contentment? I wish I were better with words. It was just great.

Eric and Jiaxin in their typical photo poses with Ryan looking a bit GQ

With Thursday bringing reunions, Friday brought departures. Ryan and Jiaxin...and Hannah...left for Utah. Hannah is just there for the weekend. Ryan and Jiaxin spent one day there (Ryan seeing an "old" missionary companion) and then traveled up to BYU-I yesterday. Other than that they arrived safely, I have not had any news from Ryan. He doesn't know his roommates this semester, so I'm very interested in hearing a report.

and they're off...

Jennifer, Terra, DonNell and I drove to Reno on Friday night since we were going to the hot air balloon races on Saturday morning--Saturday being Jennifer's birthday and the hot air balloon races her chosen way to celebrate this year. The activities started at 5:15 with the Dawn Patrol and Glow Show before the mass ascension. I have been to the balloon races before, but it still is a very fabulous experience. The weather was perfect and it was a gorgeous morning.

Elvis was my favorite...I saw it on the ground and couldn't figure out what it was

I cannot tell you how blessed I am to have such wonderful people in my life.

Henry, tennis, and new carpet

Glen and I traveled to Mesa over Labor Day weekend to see our first grandchild be blessed by our first child. It was a very sweet experience.

can't tell you how much I love this boy

he looks like he wants to make me an offer

We got to spend a little bit of time with Andrew, Heather, Henry, and Heather's family. It was a short stay, about 24 hours, but we are so glad we took the trip. (I don't recommend the Howard Johnson's there, though, as the non-smoking room smelled of cigarette smoke and the continental breakfast was 2 smallish muffins each and nothing else, among other problems)

Henry is almost 5 months old and is getting so big. Heather's family let us do most of the holding while we were there. :) That was nice of them. He's a pretty happy baby and still reminds me of Andrew.

To break up the long drive to Mesa and back, we stayed with my sister's family in Vegas. We got to see our nephew, Jake, who just got off his mission to the Philippines right after Ryan got home from his mission. Plus we saw their new house. I'd be a bit more jealous than I am if we hadn't finally gotten new carpeting and flooring of our own.

Alex played his first tennis match last week. He and his doubles partner, Ryan, won both their matches on Thursday against Sparks. Yesterday he had his first away game at Incline Village where he played the #1 seed. Well, someone had to.

He has another away game on Thursday at Truckee and we hope he and the team do well there.

Ryan will be heading back to BYU-I on Friday. It's been great having him around (all except for the 4 drivers but only 3 cars problem), but he's ready to leave the nest again. I'll miss him but am so glad he has such wonderful things happening in his life.