“Oh My Son, Remember…” – Letters to Calder on His Mission

Dear Calder, Happy Halloween! It was a great Halloween. Lots of fun. Lots of parties. And it's over...YAY! I've included some pictures from the week... Pic 1 = Grandma and Grandpa tonight at the annual Calder Halloween party. I made a bet that Grandpa would have some sort of facial hair glued on his face. No one bet me that he wouldn't because we all knew he would. And he didn't disappoint. It was Sunday (trick or treating on Saturday), but that guy loves to dress up. They are such awesome parents. I love every opportunity to be with them but there's never enough time. Everyone asked about you. We had the OGs - Paige, Topher (who's dating a girl seriously), and Anna. It was really fun to see them. We had a good time. It's always fun to gather. Pic 2 = We are officially moving into the finished bedroom and bathroom. It's mostly full of boxes and things to organize, but Christine came over on Thursday to be helpful with the move in. Sh...

It seriously feels like I just repeated last Sunday again today! Woke up in St George, Hurried to get ready to leave St George and check out by 11am with Henry, Gwen and Jane (Dad and McKay left early for mission prep and an interview with the Stake Pres for McKay's BYU application) and ran over to the same ward as last Sunday (feeling like maybe I should get a calling if I come again next week), stopped at Maverik to fuel up, ordered the same thing at Cafe RIo ahead to pickup in Cedar City, had to go to the bathroom really badly by Nephi, called my parents as we passed through Provo, returned home on a Diet Coke high and now I'm sitting down to tell you HOW MUCH WE MISSED YOU THIS WEEKEND!!!! I know Dad gave you all the details from his perspective...but here's mine. You know that part at the end of "Incredibles" after the school track race with Dash winning and the family is together walking through the city and the "underminer' villain comes into the...

Calder, Well....I'm thrashed! And we made it home. And surprisingly, the Great Wolf Lodge met even Henry's high expectations! I'm not sure how much context I gave you about the trip....so here goes...a month or so ago I was asking Dad what we were going to do for Fall Break. Next weekend we are going to be in St George for the state mountain bike race and McKay didn't want to go anywhere and Dad had a ton to do for work and taxes. I casually threw going to the Great Wolf Lodge out there and Henry was ALL IN! Then Christine asked me a week or so later what we were doing for fall break because they have a crazy life and I casually threw out that her kids would be welcome to come if they wanted to and before I knew it Lucy was ALL IN! The Gilbert's other choice was to be in provo with Gma and Gpa, so Lucy and Grace decided to join us on our epic journey. We left on Wednesday (pic 1) and drove to Las Vegas. We stayed in a junky comfort inn that gave away our orig...

Well, today is our 23rd anniversary! I want to call it my golden anniversary but that's the 50th anniversary. I was married when I was 23 year old and now I have been married for 23 years. So this anniversary marks the same number of years that I was single and married. I think that's pretty cool. It doesn't have a name, so I'm thinking of one. The week FLEW by! I was put in charge of the Fall Festival/Youth Fundraiser for our ward that was on Saturday. It was SO. MUCH. WORK! Glad to have it over. Lots of texting and coordinating and the worst part was we had tons of rain right up until it started (it was going to be outside). So, a little stressful. All in all, I think everyone enjoyed the ward activity. But in true D8th ward form, hardly anyone came. Seriously. It was a bummer. I mean, we had a ton of kids and youth but the parents and empty nesters didn't come. We have such a strange ward. But we had some total wins with people coming who don...

Oh Calder! Thinking so much about you this weekend. I can't wait to hear all your thoughts about conference! You were MISSED! Is it ok to make the realization that there's only one more general conference until your home? Yay! Here's the recap of the week.... Monday was a full day. Remember how everyone hates Mondays? Piano. Laundry. Getting on top of everything after the weekend. Well, it was all that and more. That evening was the Draper Elementary School "Fun Run" that is nothing like the good ol' 5K that we used to have. Now it's like a 100 meter dash. Anyway, Jane just wanted to go and watch her friends race and I was like "no, we are only going if you run," which she agreed to and then it turned into all sorts of tears and crazy behavior at the starting line because she wasn't going to win, and I was like "I don't even care if you win, just go have fun" and anxiety reared its head and we walked to the car with her...