Goodness Gracious.

Wasn't it just last week when I mentioned Eric has a counselor in his stake presidency that went to law school with Lonny?

On Sunday, Geoff and Alayna went to a fireside put on for engaged couples by his stake presidency. One of the counselors asked Geoff his name. Then he asked him if he knew a Lonny Townsend. Geoff said he's my dad. He told Geoff he had gone to law school with Lonny. Then he told Alayna that she was marrying into a great family. I think she was wondering and you just can't buy endorsements like that. Thanks G. Brinton.

I really like this new service BYU is providing to parents. First you look here and read about the devotional and then you can see if your kid attended.

Mormons win!

We won our first valedictorian trophy last night. We attended a school fundraiser where we played a version of Are you smarter than a Cascia hall kid? Our friends kids go to Cascia, a Tulsa Catholic Prep School and they dared us into playing along. You know, if you think you're so smart, prove it. Okay, maybe not exactly. At the conclusion we had to walk up front to be announced as the winners and claim our trophies. There were gasps and shouts of "the Mormons won" which is not the venue I thought I would hear that remark.

It will go down in history as the first trophy for some of the participants. I'd like to thank our Catholic friends, they are the best, and such good sports, for allowing us this opportunity, which is how I was going to begin my acceptance speech, but nobody wanted to hear it.

Best Behavior

recommended. So what if my son just stuck his arm up to his elbow in to the punch bowl at the ward party? Will not matter. I'll never see these people again. Uhm, maybe not. We may be on our way to crossing paths twice with everyone? Eric informed me Sunday that they had their stake conference that morning. The counselor in the stake presidency had his mother speak, turns out she is Mrs. T. Madsen. Well guess what? Lonny went to law school with Mrs. T. Madsen's son. Same son. Eric already has a roommate named J. Elder. He is the son of friends from our ward in Seattle. Lonny was the bishop then, she was the relief society president. Eric and J. were not yet born.

Pictured above is Justin and I in front of our apartment in Provo. We lived on the ground floor. Dave and Sandy T. lived directly above. When we moved to that apartment in December of 1980, I was pregnant with Justin and she was pregnant with a daughter. Those two babies, our firsts, were born while we were neighbors. We were friends but lost contact. Fast forward to 1995 when we moved to OK and into the same ward. By then we both had three more kids, almost the same ages. We both had daughters in February of 1983. We had a son and they, another daughter five years later. And we had another son in 91 and they another daughter the following year. That's probably enough of the same but. . . . Lonny met Dave's future sister-in-law when she was about 12 years old. Lonny spent time at her parent's home and taught with her father when he was a missionary in Philadelphia. And now. . . .Lonny spends a fair amount of time with Sandy's brother-in-law. They volunteer together;) The BIL was good friends at BYU with guys that grew up in Lonny's hometown and were from his ward.

And now our two kiddos are getting married. So yeah, you never know who your child is going to marry. Send them off to BYU and they could marry a stranger or maybe the child of your upstairs neighbors from 30 years earlier. It could happen. Geoff and Alayna are probably age 15 in this picture and 16 below. There is at least some period of time and energy spent not getting his haircut between the two photos.

And one more picture below when Alayna and her cousin went with us to Kansas to pick up Eric from space camp. I'll spare them the embarrassment of posting additional photos from Halloween, Christmas, and New Year's while they were growing up. No guarantees for the future. (And sorry Eric about the glasses pix but you can't have an "after photo" without a "before incident").

We are singlehandedly

stimulating the Russian economy. Lonny leaves for work and brings home a check. I leave for the store and bring home the shoes. Emily leaves for dance and brings home the Russian pointe shoes all worn out. It's a vicious circle. Some parts have been repeated more often than others.

I left out the step of having to sew on the ribbons and elastic. (And people ask what I do all day? There you go.) The ribbon and elastic would normally be pink but these shoes are for the Nutcracker performance. I have yet to paint the shoes black, but I will, because Emily is a black butterfly.

The pictured shoes above left Russia pink, were painted purple last spring for recital and then I painted them black just for these very portraits. They are too worn out for dancing and I am worn out with this explanation.