Yea for UEA

We had a great weekend, got a little sunburned and celebrated 15 years of a wonderful kid!! Hope you had fun McKay - We Love You!!

It is McKay's birthday today - so we were going to shoot skeet - but they were closed ........

Marinn really did have a good time.......

We threw the football in the pool for hours - only hit a few people

We went to Mesquite for UEA break. Wow the weather was beautiful.

Our new grandbaby is here. We are so excited. He was pretty bruised up but looked good by the next day. Elyse beat me to the post - so i will let you read hers for the details. He sure is sweet though and I could have held him all day. BJ and Cheri did a great job and have taken everything in stride. They are great parents and Carter and Coy are lucky to have them.

He's Here!!

Tanner and Clarissa Fackrell Homecoming 2009. Looks like Tanner is getting the hang of this....

Delayed Delayed Delayed...

Dallin will be leaving tomorrow as planned. His Visa didn't come through so he and two other guys in his district will be staying in the MTC for two more weeks. He called me Saturday to tell me. It was good to hear from him. I asked him if he was bummed that he didn't get to leave and he just said well everything happens for a reason so I'll just wait to see what it is. The weird thing is he doesn't have classes anymore, so he just has to study on his own and help the other missionaries. He will call me as soon as he gets his visa and then will leave the next day.

Tanner's 17th birthday. Where has the time gone? He just had to have aviator sunglasses. Everything old is new again. He's a great kid. Tanner always keeps me guessing and is a lot of fun. Happy Birthday Tan, we love you!!

Three more weeks.......Cherie was a good sport to let me take a pic of her. She feels huge, but is just as cute as ever!!!

Del Parson asked McKay one day if he would mind posing for a picture he needed to paint for another church. McKay was a little nervous but said he would do it. We went over to Del's house and his cute wife and he had all the clothes for "Jesus and Mark" to dress up for the picture. Very authentic. The picture represents a story this church has about Jesus' last days. They believe that on wednesday before he was to die, he wanted to get away alone in the mountains. Mark, wanted to be with him so much, he followed him and asked if he could just carry his lunch. He would leave him a lone mostly but just wanted to be around him.

We left them alone to pose without an audience. So we didn't know how the picture would look. Del asked us if we wanted to come see the painting before he sent it out. The picture is incredible as all of his work. McKay was pretty pleased with the likeness.

I have to tell you that Del paints the most incredible pictures. He has some in his house that took my breath away. He is an incredibly humble and kind person and his wife manages all his tasks for him and makes us feel so at home there. All in all it was a really awesome experience for McKay and all of us.

I wasn't gonna do it....but how could I resist this face? This is Jack's Replacement. Her name is kato. Kona isn't too thrilled about the new face. She spends all day showing kato who's boss. Two females in the same yard...bad news.

Suzy..this one's for you

So this is how my kids looked on the first day of school. They were thrilled at my attempt to capture this historic occasion. Tanner is a Junior, McKay a freshman, and Marinn in 7th grade. Enough Said!!!

Suzy..this one's for you

This is what my kids looked like when I wanted to take their picture of the first day of school. As you can see they weren't too excited at my attempt to capture this historic day. Tanner is a junior, McKay a freshman, and Marinn in 7th grade. Enough said!!!

Suzy..this one's for you

So this is what my kids looked like when I wanted to take their picture for the first day of school. As you can see they weren't too thrilled at my attempt to record this historic day. Tanner is a Junior, McKay a freshman and Marinn in 7th grade.
Enough said!!

Just a little update on Dallin.....he sounds really great. Said the language is coming and they are at the point where they have to speak Spanish all the time, no English allowed. He was made District Leader this week. A little interesting story. He said that when he got there, a whole bunch of kids came in going to the Guatemala mission. No one knew why so many guys were being called there at the same time. He said that a week or so ago, 70% of the southern guatemala mission were sent home because of "secret combinations" and elders not getting along. He said it just spread really quickly in the mission, so they packed them all up and sent them home. So now all these new missionaries are leaving this week to take their place.

I never thought I'd hear some of the things Dallin says about changing but it happened. He said it's like what he imagines rehab is like. Getting reminded every day that you need to change and why. He loves going to the temple....who knew??

This is Dallin and his Companion, Elder Jacobson, from Alpine. Dallin told Elyse in his letter to her that he was a typical "mormon boy". What that means to him is that the kid has only kissed two girls and accidently said the "S" word in fifth grade. He is very sick of studying all day but says the language is going well. He has ran into a few guys that he knows from Cedar so that was fun he said. He's not much of a talker so that's about all. My letter was much less info. So I will have to read Elyse's letters from now on to get the real scoop.

When we got to the MTC they have you drive into the parking lot across from the MTC. They said to take as much time as we needed. We walked over and took some pics in front of the sign. Then we got back in the car and drove across the street to the MTC. They guided us to our spot at the curb, told us to grab Dallin's luggage. We all got out to say goodbye. I was watching all the other missionaries and mom's to see if I was the only one blubbering. I wasn't. There was a lot of missionaries standing around after their families left looking like they were lost. We all hugged Dallin, I cried all over his suit coat, they told him to go to the glass building to get his name tag, and we got in the car and drove away. I really had no idea how I would feel about leaving my kid for two years. It really hit me hard that night, as i reached for my phone to call Dallin, that he would be gone for such a long time. I appreciated all the advice from the mom's that have sent missionaries off. It's really comforting to look at all of you that have sent my nephews off and know that I will survive and it will actually be a good experience. Thanks everyone!!!!

We started the day out by going to get Dallin set apart by Pres. Powell. He gave Dallin a lot of good advice about loving the people, having fun, really working hard and obeying the rules. Of course, this was only the beginning of my tears.

Well we took Dallin the the MTC on Wednesday. We spent most of the time before he left having barbeques and family parties. It was nice to spend that last bit of time together. I think Dalling even wanted to soke up the family time as he has spent more time with us these last few weeks than he had in a year.

Dallin will be going through the temple on Saturday, July 11th @2:00 pm. His farewell will be Sunday 12th at 9:00 am.

This is Dallin's 4x4 team, they took first place in the Summit League. The guy in the middle ran the 400 meter (once around the track) in 45.08 seconds. They shattered the school record and are headed to Nationals in Oregon. The men's team also won the Summit League Championships. They have some amazing athletes at SUU this year. Dallin just had to have a mohawk for the weekend, most of the runners had them too, we didn't realize that he would have to have his missionary passport photo next week. I told him to go a ahead and cut a swastika in his head, since he already looks like a skin-head. I hope the church doesn't change their mind about letting him go. He did shave the mohawk off though.

Happy Birthday Patty!!!!! don't drink too much today.....

I have to agree with Kelly today - Patty is one person that I can watch to see what I should do. She constantly gives me calm advice when I'm freaking out. Thanks for being such a wonderful sister!! We all love you

Cow Flatulence

Rush said it would happen........

I heard an add on the radio today about the amount of green-house gasses a cow emits into the air each day. Chickens were not free from this gripe either. But of course cows are bigger, therefore they are a much bigger threat to our very unstable earth. So if we would just eliminate eating beef or chicken once each week we could reduce the amount of gasses in the earth by some absurd amount. The rate at which this world is going crazy is mind boggling. We will all be forced to be Vegans before we know it. As for me and my house we will eat meat!!

As a side note - thanks to all that came to the temple and shower - what a wonderful day for us!! Elyse said there was nothing better than seeing her family in the celestial room together.

YEOOOW! PHSSST! PHSSST!

Marinn had a dance competition this weekend. Sorry if I offend anyone that loves the dance life, but wow, i have forgotten what this whole process was about. I forgot that's it's really about the moms, who has the biggest camera lens, and who has the busiest life. I was shoved, stepped on, made to feel inferior more saturday than I have been in about 14 years. I know everyone doesn't feel that way about their daughter, but you all know the moms I'm talking about. I was kicked out of the "good mom's club" when I didn't bring a camera, sat and watched the girls from behind, and didn't have on the "Dance Mom" t-shirt. We are leaving the dance life behind to go to the much better life of sports, where the biggest camera lens still proves you are a good mom(Suzy, no offense, I'm just jealous of people who can actually take a picture!). I love watching my kids play ball but it's too bad we can't go back to the days when sports was about the kids and the parents just watched. There is a mom here in Cedar that wanted the moms to play the girls' softball team (8-10 year-olds) in a game. Maybe by the time Elyse's kids get old enough to play, the parents will just play each other and the kids will watch. I'll get off my soap box!!

Tanner's first date.....Junior Prom

The smiles are nervous, I'm sure they both are thinking about the kiss at the end of the date. They went to Rusty's for dinner, danced and watched a movie after. Everyone at breakfast the next day wanted to know if Tanner kissed her. He shyly said "no" . When did he get old enough to date?? I still remember when he was asking for "ass cream", seems not so long ago

Patty, how do I upload pics from the web using URL's I have to always save the pic to my computer then upload it from my pics. I tried copying the URL from a picture but it won't work

just more practicing......

never mind....think i got it....spend enough time doing anything, you are bound to figure it out

ok, one more thing.....Patty how do you down-load pictures to this thing? I need a tutor

Hang on to your seats everyone (elyse) i made a blog. This will probably be the one and only time I will ever post anything to it. I just wanted to prove to myself that I am not completely computer retarded