Happy Birthday Andy

We celebrated Andy's birthday today--a couple days early. We were able to have Emma come over for a visit and we had a lot of fun. We played at the park for a little while and then we went to the Children's Museum. Emma LOVES the area where you can dress up and perform on a stage and see yourself on TV. She reenacted Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood and assigned various roles to unsuspecting kids who were there as well.

After spending several hours at the Children's Museum, we went home so Emma could decorate some cupcakes for Andy's Birthday Party. She had a great time decorating the cupcakes. I had seen a recipe on the cake box to make some ice cream cone, flower pot cup cakes. I think they turned out pretty cute. I don't know that Andy was as excited about them as I was, but I thought they were fun to make at least.

Emma went to great lengths to sequester Andy while she prepared his surprise party picnic in the living room. She set up a blanket and all the cupcakes by the front door and made sure we hid behind the couch before telling Andy to come into the living room and turn on the lights so we could jump out and 'surprise' him.

The birthday festivities were complete as Andy received a Venus Fly Trap from Emma, a BYU flag from mom and dad (which is flying on our flag pole now) and a second-hand push lawn mower from me (the riding mower can't handle inclines and therefore can't get anywhere near the drainage ditch that runs alongside our house). The funny thing was that I bought the mower off of Craig's list last Thursday and hid it in our garage behind the golf clubs. Andy had no idea it was there. I sent him and Emma on a treasure hunt in order to find it. I think Emma was pretty disappointed that it was a lawn mower, but Andy was sufficiently surprised.

A good weekend

We started our weekend early on Saturday by going to help clean the church and then we attended the baptism of a girl who is in my Activity Days group. She is 10 years old and her first day at Activity Days was also my first day. We've had her and her dad over to our house a couple times to take the missionary discussions. It's been fun to watch her as she gets to know the other girls and as she gets more and more excited about the church. She invited me to speak at her baptism and Andy said the opening prayer.

We also went to the beach and to a BBQ later on. It's been a little overcast lately, but we love how warm the water is and how nice the beaches are in general.

Today, Andy got two new callings: 2nd counselor in the Sunday School Presidency and Gospel Doctrine teacher. I'm excited for him to start teaching, but he keeps threatening that he's going to spice up his lessons by telling everyone embarrassing stories about me.

Jia You! Jia You!!

You may have an opinion about China hosting the Olympics. I think it's great! The more I read about the Cultural Revolution and the more I think about how far China has come in the last 30 years, I think it's a great thing and it just makes me happy. I don't think China has a great human rights record nor do I think they do everything in the best possible way. BUT I'm happy that China has been given the opportunity to host people from all over the world and I'm even more happy that the Chinese people get to take a front-row seat to such monumental events. I was in Florida during the opening ceremony, but Andy recorded it for me. He told me it was amazing, but after watching it today, I was really impressed with scale and effort that went into the opening ceremony. It was especially fun to imagine the excitement and pride of all the Chinese people who were in the audience and who were watching the opening ceremony on TV.

To top it all off, Anne (who just returned from China) sent Andy and I some Chinese t-shirts so we can watch the Olympics in style.

The shirts say, China Add Oil (Zhong Guo Jia You)...which is a saying that essentially means Go China!!!

Utah and Florida

Last weekend, Andy and I went to Utah for a Family Reunion. It was good to see so many cousins and cousins' kids--they've all grown up so much. Grandma is doing well. She had hip surgery several weeks ago and has had a hard time recovering from it, but she was her usual chipper self at the reunion. She will be 94 next month!! If I live to be her age, I'm going to eat nothing but chocolate, donuts, candy bars and all the things I feel guilty about enjoying now. The good news is that Grandma was scheduled to get out of the rehab facility she has been in for the last little while. She was pretty excited about "bustin' out of the joint".

Stephen has officially completed Fire School and he did really well on his interviews for the Salt Lake Fire Department and it's just a matter of time before he is hired on. Ultimately, he will be able to work as a fire fighter and he can do construction on the side. Apparently, fire fighters get very thirsty and so do construction workers. Andy and I about died when we saw the size of his..uh...drink mug. Check it out.

We're pretty convinced he is secretly hoping that he will some day make the nightly news for having put out a fire with that thing--all by himself.

It was fun to hang out with the family. Andy and I hiked the Y with Stephen and Crystal. It was a lot of fun. We went in the evening and were able to watch the sun set from the Y. Here are some pictures from our hike.




From Utah, I went to Florida to attend the Florida State Guardianship Conference. It was a really good experience and it looks like we will get some business from a few fiduciaries. The conference was held at the World Golf Village (WGV) in St. Augustine. Our hotel was right next to the World Golf Hall of Fame. I ran around the lake in front of the Hall of Fame building a few times one morning and they had various signatures of hall of famers on the walkway. I only recognized a few of the signatures like Phil Mickelson and Bing Crosby (who knew?!). (I looked, but didn't see Tiger Woods.) Here's a picture of the view from my hotel room. I'd recommend staying at the WGV if you're a big golf fan. It was really beautiful.