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.