3 October 2016

Hi everybody,

   About the time I was thinking about writing to you all last evening we ended up having company...next thing I knew it was past my bedtime!  So here goes, on my lunch half hour.

   Happy birthday dear Shelby!  I hope to be able to talk with you this evening and hope that you're having a wonderful birthday! 9 years old today!  I heard you got to have an early birthday party last week while Grandpa was there. That's wonderful!

   General Conference was as wonderful as usual...hard for me to say if I have a favorite talk; there were several that I will be looking forward to reading when the Ensign comes. I hope you all got to hear a lot of it. Dad and I watched the last session with Grandma, at her house. Gran spent the weekend at Jocie's and Janie's to watch it with them.

   Then last night, Miles came to visit about the time that the girls brought Gran home. Then Uncle Jim came over and we all had supper together. Miles will be doing a 6 week Internal Medicine clinical rotation for his schooling with doctor's at EIRMC. He has several other rotations coming up and then will graduate next August. He said that Bonnie and Clay are fine and that Bonnie is the Primary President in their Ward. He'll be staying with Joseph's family and possibly with some friends in Idaho Falls, if he can work it out.

   On Saturday, Dad and I watched  most of the morning session at home, then listened to the last 40 minutes in the pickup while driving to IF. Between sessions Dad went to a gun show and I went to DI; then we went to Olive Garden for lunch and listened to the afternoon session as we drove home.  We went out past the Juniper while we listened, to see where all the smoke was coming from. Evidently it was a controlled burn out on the desert.  But then all the rain we got on Sunday probably put it out!  We had strong wind, heavy rain and hail. It's still cloudy, drippy and gloomy today. Saturday evening we watched the Priesthood session together...it was so good!

   I hope you're all doing well in school, work, etcetera. I'd love to hear your thoughts about Conference; please reply if any talks were really memorable to you. Or tell us anything that is going on in your life...we'd love to hear!

  Love you each one...so much! Mom/Johanna/Nana

Hi Everyone,

Sorry it's been so long between emails from us.  After we returned from our adventures in Wisconsin and Minnesota school started and we've been running non-stop ever since.  

Mom, thanks so much for keeping us informed on all the happenings in Idaho.  We enjoyed Conference also, and I like keeping the talks on my phone so I can listen to them again.

Joseph and I have been reading Treasure Island at night and will probably finish it in the next day or so.  I've never read it before so I have enjoyed it as much or more than Joseph.  Probably more since he's seen a version of the movie.  I also keep all the Harry Potter audio books on my phone just in case I need to refresh my Harry Potter trivia.  ;)   

Joseph had a great birthday, and it was wonderful having Dad here for a couple of days.  

Fifth grade has been quite an adjustment for us.  Josephs school starts having subjects taught by different teachers in 5th grade. So he's getting used to rotating through subjects in different classrooms.  His homeroom teacher is Mr. Knudsen, and he is also his math and social studies teacher so he spends the most time in that classroom. We have parent teacher conference this week so we'll get to meet all his teachers. Joseph asked us a couple of weeks ago if he could join the choir at school!!  We were a little surprised since he hadn't expressed any interest before, but of course we are excited that he wants to sing.  His first concert will be in December.  I think his years of piano lessons are a big help for his confidence in reading the music. 

We've recently gone to battle with some kind of rodent family that has taken up residence in our backyard shed.  We discovered evidence of the vermin a few weeks ago and I put some traps and poison stations out.  That only seems to have encouraged them... a week ago I checked the traps and they had increased their evidence many time over.  Plus the only thing I caught was a tail of one that was stuck to one of the sticky traps.  It had apparently been chewed off.  The tail is fury, and the amount of leaves and nest material they have brought into the shed was amazing!  I don't know what species they are yet, but the war is on!  We cleaned everything out of the shed, bleached all the plastic bins, and floor. Then after the bleach dried we doused the floor with ammonia and added mothballs (they are supposed to be a deterrent) and some more traps.  I'm hoping all that will do the trick.

Lynsey and I are working on our health together.  My toe and heel are finally almost better.  Still a mystery on what the cause was.  My Dr. wants to test me for gout so I guess I'll do that next, but I don't think that is the cause. I'm still betting it has something to do with when I crashed on my bike.  Lynsey is starting to feel better also, but she has been feeling poorly since our trip to Minnesota.  The antibiotic she took for the infection she caught seems to have had a lasting negative impression.  We'll keep you posted.

Love you all,

Ben, Lynsey, Joseph

Hi All!

Mom, thank you so much for your email.  I have to admit I was a little sad last night when I checked my email and didn't have one from you.  I really do look forward to them!  Thanks for the update on Miles and his family.  I can only imagine what a fun Primary President Bonnie makes.  And I hope Shelby had a wonderful day!   

We all enjoyed Conference.  On Saturday morning we went to the Bishop's house and ate crepes then watched conference.  (The first session is at 9am here.)  Then Sunday morning the Bishop's family came over to our house for cinnamon rolls and watched the morning session with us.  They have 4 girls - Whitney, Andi, Heidi, and Bailee.  Whitney is a senior this year, Andi and Heidi are twins just 6 months older than Annie, and Bailee is just a few months older than Ellen.  We enjoy getting together with them. 

Noah said this morning that his favorite talk was the one about joy.  Annie commented that all the talks were either about joy or the atonement or both.  I'm pretty sure Noah meant President Neilson's talk.  I really liked that one too.  And President Eyring's.  And several others!  I am anxious to listen to them again.  Or read them.  I didn't get to watch the Priesthood session and look forward to that as well.  I know James and Stephen really liked it. 

We are all pretty adjusted to the new school year.  Stephen is working very hard at keeping his grades up.  Annie is so happy to be in high school!  Ellen and I are enjoying our time together at home, but I think she will be pretty ready to go back next year.  Naomi does not like school.  That is not a new thing, but working on getting out the door to school and getting homework done is still not very fun for any of us.  I think she is slowly starting to realize that if she will just sit down and actually do her homework, she can be done with it in 30-60 minutes.  I'm afraid I "blessed" a couple of my kids with my tendency to day dream and to take my sweet time and really not hurry through things.  Sigh.....  Noah is quite happy with school.  He is in GT again this year and is loving it just as much.  And Spencer is pretty happy with the simple preschool stuff we do at home.  He is starting to recognize a few letters and numbers when he sees them.  And he has started drawing people.  That's pretty fun.  His imagination never really turns off.  On Thursday I was Darth Vadar all day and he was my Stormtrooper.  Then when all the other kids got home, they were more Stormtroopers.  Even James had to be a stormtrooper while I got to be Vadar.

The week before last was Homecoming for Moscow High.  Stephen and Annie dressed up for most of the spirit days, but my favorite was Decades Day.  They both wanted to wear clothes from the 80's.  I had way too much fun helping them!  All the kids kept asking questions like, "Did you actually do that?"  It actually made me feel quite old, but was still a lot of fun.  I'll include a picture, which I only got to take after lots of asking and also promising not to post it on facebook.  I will share it with you guys though.  Stephen's shirt actually belonged to James' Grandpa Staples and has been hanging in our closet for a few years now.  Stephen was not too sure about my suggestion to roll up his pant legs and tuck in his shirt like that, but he tried it and got a shirt at school for being dressed up!  I also had a lot of fun putting tons of tiny little braids in Annie's hair the night before so her hair would be kinky.  It brought back lots of happy memories, Mom!  It must have taken so long to do my hair when I was a kid.  Annie's is pretty short!

Stephen did his Eagle project on Sept. 10.  There is a public hiking area on Moscow Mountain called Idler's Rest.  Stephen moved a bench that had been knocked askew by a fallen tree, built a small bridge over a stream, and put in a few steps in a trail that was too steep in one place.  The only picture I can find right now is of the bench before he fixed it.  I'll try to find some more.  He is planning to receive his Eagle badge by January or February I think.  So many people joke about how the moms really earn the eagle, not the boy.  But not in this case.  I have not done anything!  It has been very exciting to watch Stephen take this thing on!  

I am back at weight lifting after not doing much over the summer.  It is SO CRAZY that I weight lift at all, but the fact that I am enjoying it too is just bizarre!  But I do enjoy it!  My favorites are deadlift and bench press.  I just started learning how to "clean" and my trainer, Annie, says I am a natural at it.  I guess it all depends on which definition of the word "clean" you use.  Ha!  So far, I've only been practicing with the bar.  I get to add a little weight this week.

Ummmm, I can't think of anything else.  Which is probably good.  This got kind of long. 

Love you all SO MUCH!!!

Aimee