Daniel and McKenna are now Provo residents. We are thankful for all the pieces that came together so they could make this move. Daniel will no longer have that long commute to school at BYU.
We also had a video call with Elder Ross, so it was a bit of a reunion this afternoon.
Fun fact: I think that Tim is Daniel and McKenna’s landlord. 😄 Tim’s new adventure is that he is a property manager at my dad’s company.
Our kids didn’t have social media accounts until late in high school or after high school. This post showed up this week on Facebook from Mark, written in Danish. Missionaries in Denmark are having a lot of success on Facebook, which isn’t their generation’s social media platform of choice. So, despite being new to this part of the social media world, they post their hearts.
Before Mark was set apart as a missionary, he wanted one last gathering with his Sanchez cousins who are his age, so we invited them to spend part of conference weekend here. MMSK is pronounced “misk,” and it’s an acronym of their names. Mostly, there was a lot of nonsense going on as they “watched conference”, but I think that the time together was important.
Mark and Richard attended a session of General Conference on Sunday. They brought the binoculars, which was a great idea.
When Mark sent in his mission papers last spring, I assumed he would be on a mission long before now. We’ve had a long preparation period, which was good in many ways and challenging in others.
We had time for more spiritual preparation and temple worship. Mark received mentoring in Preach My Gospel and got some work experience from his Sanchez grandparents. We had time to travel this summer.
The long wait means that the bandaid is being removed very slowly. I am pretty fragile lately.
Now that Mark has had a few days of home MTC, he is excited to go to the Provo MTC next week. Everything is as it should be: the wait, the anticipation, the emotions accompanying a goodbye, the excitement, his assignment. Everything.
Richard and Mark were the advance party for a trip to Goblin Valley for the Young Men, traveling there a day early to claim a good campsite. Because they did this, there was an established camp ready when the young men arrived, making it possible to do a long hike before dark.
Mark and Richard spent a night beneath the bright stars together before the others arrived. It sounds pretty ideal.
Richard introduced the group to the hike through Ding and Dang Canyon. It was a challenging hike, and the boys had a wonderful time. It sounds like a successful campout. Well done, Richard and Mark!
Richard decided that he wanted to take Tim and Mark on one more ride on 4-wheelers this summer before Tim starts college and Mark goes on his mission.
Richard’s trips are one of his ways of saying, “I love you” to our kids.
One way that I express love is to keep a record of their adventures.
We love you, Paige!
It took all day to drive through Montana each way. Highlights were the big lakes, but a lot of the time Montana reminded me of Nevada. We were able to finish our audiobook in northern Utah, and when we got home, I felt some withdrawal symptoms from not hearing our British narrator all of the time.
Well done, Richard, on the planning and work you did for this trip!
We drove into Yellowstone on Tuesday and visited much of the park that day. Yellowstone is familiar, but still my favorite. We stayed in a lodge at Old Faithful, which meant that we could explore until bedtime.
I’ve decided to post photos from our trip in portions over the next few days because this seems to be the best way to honor the great planning that Richard did for this trip. Our days were full and we slept soundly every night.
The first leg of our trip was through Jackson, Wyoming and Grand Teton National Park. We began our audiobook of the trip, The Fellowship of the Ring, read by Rob Inglis. It was a great backdrop for our adventures in the hills and mountains. We tried different narrators, but he was our favorite.
We left on Sunday after church and enjoyed a picnic dinner in a mountain campground before continuing our drive to Jackson. We loved driving through the beautiful Star Valley as the sun set over the very green fields in this open valley. The Star Valley Temple was right on the main road through town.
On Monday morning, we drove into Grand Teton National Park. We couldn’t stop for everything, but we tried to locate the most interesting places.
During the afternoon, the men went on a white water rafting trip. I rested in the hotel room because I am exciting like that.
In the evening, we went on a wagon ride to a chuckwagon dinner just outside of Jackson. The wagons were pulled by draft horses and we chatted with people in our wagon from Huntsville, Alabama and San Francisco, California. There was a live band with a fiddler and guitars for entertainment at dinner. I think the favorite parts of dinner were the beans and the cookies.
This was a great first day of vacation.