Good Morning All,

We had a beautiful day in the Logan Temple yesterday.  Daniel received his endowment.  We also were able to give Torrey and Kanyin a hug, as they were there for Torrey's sister's wedding.  It was fun to briefly say hi to the Mulford's and see Raveen's gorgeous dress that her Aunt made.  Jennifer and I were also able to visit with Wes Smedley for a little while.  He is in Logan and attends the Temple every day.  He said it was a "tender mercy" that we could see each other and talk a bit.  We hopefully encouraged him.  Jen saw Sally McKee Brown hurrying in.  I missed her.  She had a niece getting married.  We saw several people that we knew; I guess Saturday is THE day!  We went to "Kneaders" for lunch afterwards and then went to help Amanda move some of her stuff.  She will be moving back here next week, as she didn't want to pay for another month in her apartment.  She is scheduled to graduate on May 4, but she has one very difficult class that she is worried about.  Please remember her in your prayers.  Today we are going to hear Joelynn Palmer report her mission in the Dayton ward.  It's nice that it is just down the road.  She was just released from the Temple Square mission.

I just bought Lagoon tickets this past week.  Vickie Leslie took me to Cosco, where I could get a discount.  I took Vickie's sister, Betty Johnson (who lives in Preston and is 86) with me.  We had a great day together.  I so appreciate knowing such good people.

I will try to send out e-mail addresses for Josie way over in Hungary and Abbie who would love to hear from all of you and Jana too!  We are certainly spreading out, aren't we?  Thank goodness for blogs and e-mails so we can keep in touch with each other.  June is quickly approaching - get ready!

Love you - Mom

Congratulations Abbie and Will!

We are happy for the happy couple!  I won't be around on the 11th Amy.  We are going to be in Philadelphia that weekend; sorry.  And yes, that would be fine to go to a temple session for Abbie to receive her endowment.  We may not all be able to be at her wedding, but we could be there for that!

We had our interview with the stake pres. this past week and our papers are in.  After that interview, Clair looked at me and said, "I'm not so sure that we're going to the Family History Library."  I guess we'll just wait and see.  We're trying to get organized with our own family history, etc.  If I bring you some of Grandpa's stuff, don't be offended.  You can just look at it and throw it away, and then I won't feel so guilty when I see Grandpa again!

Clair's brother-in-law, Steve Cox and his wife and daughter are going to stay in our house while we're gone.  Clair was very concerned about leaving Grandma Cox.  Now we know that she'll be watched over and taken care of.  Plus none of you have to come and take care of our yard and house.  Steve and his family want to come back to Clifton and run the Cox farm and retire here.  I guess this will give them a "trial run."

We've been on the road quite a bit lately, visiting the Rexburg kids and attending baptisms where possible and of course the Temple at 4:30 a.m. twice a week.  We are planning to visit Travis and Lindsay and family the end of this month and Shawn and Torrey and Kanyin the first part of May.  Amanda is graduating on the 4th of May from Utah State, so her graduation and two high school graduates (Brendan and Clair's grandson, Jacob) and a wedding and Daniel leaving in June, etc., we've got lots going on - all happy things!

Love to all - Mom

wedding bells

Hey everybody,

So, our latest news is Abbie's upcoming marriage to Will Rather. (yes, I believe he is distantly related to Dan Rather) Not too much of a surprise, but still exciting!  I got a few of you called but figured this is a great way to get the info out there.  They are planning on being married on June 22nd in the Manti Temple at 10:45.  Not sure when our reception will be yet but we are working on it.  You are all welcome to come!!  So for the next couple of months we will be trying to plan and prepare and PAY for it all.  Crazy stuff.  Who's bright idea was it having all these kids anyway?

For all the women and girls in the family (sorry guys I know how you love to come to these things)  we are having a bridal shower on the 11th of May.  I know it is a long way to come, but you could all carpool and we could have a fun girls get together and a bridal shower.  Two birds with one stone, see!  Speaking of two birds with one stone, I was hoping that since we were planning on doing a temple session for our adult reunion already, maybe we could also have that be the session for Abbie to receive her endowments.  I haven't cleared that with Mom yet, so it's just a thought.

Anyway, I am ALWAYS open for good ideas, tips or suggestions for this wedding, so please call and share your expertise. 

Love you guys,  Amy

Karley at Conference

No, this is not a plea to get you all to look at our blog :) It's just every time we have General Conference I think about Karley. Years ago, the older girl cousins were lucky enough to go to a Conference session in Salt Lake City together. We were all pretty young; I wanna say Karley was around 10-12 years old, if not younger. I remember I fell asleep for a little bit while listening...but the main thing I remember happened while we were leaving. We were all kind of drowsy, and Karley said something like, "Conference is just a bunch of old men telling a ton of stories." We were shocked then by what she said; now I just laugh each time a story comes up (which is, of course, in every talk). But that's how Jesus taught. Children really do get the gist of things at such a young age--they just don't understand the meaning behind it haha. Hope I didn't embarrass you, Karley, I realize you are not 10 years old anymore. It's just one of the funny memories I have of you!

YOU CALL THIS A HAPPY FAMILY???

Well, I just thought I would share a little paragraph about my happiness at getting out and walking our loop today--it's been way too long.  The best thing about Troy being self-employed again is being able to have our own schedule most of the time.  We got a jogging stroller because Marlie has another year before she starts school and we need to be able to go out NOW!  I just heard from a friend that Kaden was SO funny at the school assembly where they are doing skits and speeches to run for the Exec. Council next year.  I didn't even remember that he was doing anything today and it doesn't help that he doesn't mention a thing about it when he gets home late from work and leaves early the next morning for Jazz Choir!!  He came to us late Sunday night and told us he needed a skit for the next morning.. . . aaaaaaargh!! Why do kids do that???  We had spent most of spring break at home together with plenty of opportunity to get something ready but I guess he wants to carry on the family tradition of working best under pressure.  Lucky for him, he has parents who are experts in this field.  We did a little Larson Kid History with he and Marlie in front of the pink castle playing with dolls.  Lyndie was Kaden's voice and Marlie played herself and was she ever herself!!! We left in all the bloopers because it was so funny when she got mad if someone took her line or told her what to do.  I was the cameraman and Troy was the director and we were so frustrated because kids CAN'T follow directions! We finally got a perfect take of one scene that we had done over and over again and I was taping and felt a sneeze coming on and couldn't do a thing about it ( it was like those movies where someone is about to sneeze and it comes and goes and comes back) and I sneezed and ruined the scene!  By this time it's 10:30 and Marlie is frowning and Lyndie is forgetting her lines and no amount of bribing is helping so we call it good.  Kaden spends hours trying to figure out how to make a disc from what we've recorded and can't so he leaves for school the next morning not knowing if he will have anything to present in front of the whole studentbody.  I'm feeling sick about it because he doesn't even have a Plan B in mind but I have learned over the years that I can't always fix things for them.  So, I say my prayers and hope he at least learns a valuable lesson from this experience.  Well, they just hooked up the camera at the school and it worked just fine and he said everybody seemed to like it so I guess this is good but no valuable lesson was learned--dang it!!  So my friend told me today that he got up on stage in a choir robe and very solemnly said, "Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew today. . ." and I guess brought down the house.  She just kept raving over how funny it was--I don't even know what else he said but I wish I had been there to tape it.  Oh well, if I caught all of his great moments on film than my other kids would be mad because I've missed so many of theirs.  Keeps 'em humble.  That's our whole parenting strategy.  This was written especially for Amy but I hope you all enjoy it.  Now it's your turn-WRITE SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!