Volleyball and Babysitting

Last week was very busy. As you know, we got back to town late on Monday. The rest of the week was spent scrambling to catch up on unpacking, cleaning, and other activities.

Our volleyball teams went 1-3 this week. It was disappointing because we should have won 2 more of those. We just ended up giving the games away through mistakes in the end. We still had a lot of fun though. It is always fun to play with all our friends.

Danielle (Dan and Kim's daughter) invited us to come to her basketball game on Saturday. We ran into some of our other friends from the old neighborhood while we were there. Then, in the evening we took care of Tyson (with Danielle's help). Dan took Bryce to the Jazz game, and Kim went to a Young Women's meeting in Salt Lake. He's 6 months old now and surprisingly strong. The key is to make sure your fingers are protected by his...or he'll crunch yours with his two tiny teeth.

What else can I fill everyone in on? Oh, my parents sold their house in Philadelphia a couple weeks ago. It will be nice for them to not have an extra house payment.

Sarah's wedding is just 3 1/2 weeks away. I can't believe how fast time flies.

Arizona Trip

Well, we went down to Arizona for Heather and Nic's wedding. All the sisters from Adrienne's family are married now. Alex is the only one of the siblings that is still single. Here's a picture of Nic and Heather Harenberg as they first came out of the Temple.
And here's Nic with his jump for joy. We flew down Thursday night and came back Monday night. Before the wedding events started we headed over to Chandler to have lunch with my cousin (Kim) and her family. My Aunt Pam came down from Glendale as well. I realized I hadn't seen Kim and her husband since Ade and I got married. Here is a picture of Eduardo, Annalise (Spelling?), Kim, and Aunt Pam. Their son, Ian, had just been put down for a nap.
Friday night was the reception with the wedding and wedding luncheon on Saturday. I'll include a few more pictures below for everyone to see. The first is all of the bride's maids with Helen and Liberty. From left to right: Heidi (sister), little Liberty (niece), Stephanie (sister), Helen (mom), Adrienne, and Mandy (Heather's best friend).
Heidi's husband, Trevor, likes to take pictures too.Stephanie's husband, Will, leaning against the Mesa Temple with Liberty.

MWC Tournament and Hike

Last week our friend Henry invited us down to the Mountain West Basketball tournament with him. We decided to head down and watch the BYU game on Friday and stayed the night at one of his other friend's homes. BYU lost that game, so we didn't really want to go to the Final on Saturday. Instead, we decided to go for a hike. This first photo is at the far end of the trail.

Adrienne was so excited to go that she climbed all over the place. You can see her better if you click on the photo and blow it up. I climbed around some too. This is on the way back.
Windows Live has a really neat feature with their photo gallery. You can take a large group of photos and it will make it into a panorama for you. It does a really good job as you can see below. The area to the left of the rock outcropping is Las Vegas. In the full size photo you can really zoom in. After the hike we headed back to Utah. Saturday night we watched a movie with Brent and Andrea and stayed up late talking. I wish we could hang out with them more often.

Sunday, we made it back for Church and had dinner with Sarah and Austin. They are just about finished with all the plans for their wedding next month. In fact, Tuesday they head down to get their bridal photos taken.

This week is going to be crazy. We are leaving Thursday to go to Arizona for Heather and Nic's wedding. I hope we get some good photos and get the chance to catch up with friends and relatives down there. We just don't seem to make it down more than once every couple of years. Flights have gone up in price, and it's a pretty long drive.

Snowmobile Fun!!!

There I go! Only my second time trying a snowmobile and it was a blast!!! We probably went 15 miles up into the woods from the parking lot through these amazing hills, mountains and trees.
This is James going up a very steep incline. The photo can't really do it justice. It was probably more than a 45 degree angle. You had to be cruising to have enough momentum to get to the top. I only made it up all the way once.

Draper Temple Open House and so much more

Talk about a packed week. We printed Heather's invitations and announcements, went to the Draper Temple Open House, played volleyball, cleaned, cooked, met with the bishop to renew his annual recommendation to LDS Family Services, shopped for shoes, played basketball, went snowmobiling, stuffed all the invitations, addressed all the invitations, exercised, and and and... Ok, so Adrienne didn't play basketball or go snowmobiling and I didn't clean as much as she did, but the rest of it was all packed into three or four days.

The Draper Temple is beautiful. It's on the side of the "Point of the Mountain" (people in Utah will know the location) and it overlooks the Salt Lake Valley. I'll try to take pictures sometime when the sun is out to share with everyone, although with the storm coming this week and weddings on the horizon...it might be a while.

My co-worker, James, took me up snowmobiling Saturday morning. I took a few pictures, but I'm afraid it won't do justice to the experience. I'll post them later tonight. It was gorgeous up in the Timberlake area just past Heber. White snow and the sky cleared up by the middle of the day. My legs were pretty tired by the time we headed back. It's amazing what some people can do on those machines.

Sunday I visited 3 wards to see how their young mens' programs were going, then went with our ward choir to sing at a care facility in our neighborhood. They had us sing in the Alzheimer's wing. The patients had bright smiling faces and even sang along to songs that they remembered.

Later Sunday afternoon, Adrienne and I met with the Bishop of our ward to renew his letter of recommendation for us to adopt. There are only 3 forms that have to be renewed annually and this was one of them.

Finally, Sunday night we had dinner with Heidi, Trevor, and Stephanie (and even little Liberty). Will was still up at Camp Williams with his Marine company. After we ate we spent the rest of the night stuffing invitations, printing labels and addressing them for Heather and Nic. They had less than two weeks until their wedding, so we needed to do it all here instead of shipping it to Arizona for them to do. I don't think any of us realized the size of the project we had undertaken. 4 hours later we deliriously said good night. All that's left is for Adrienne to buy stamps in order to mail them and I will ship the extras to Heather in Arizona.

Another week gone by

Our good friends Henry and Kay had us over for a picnic/party that they put together out at their new home. They are renting a house in Lake Shore that has 10 acres so they can keep their 2 horses with them instead of boarding the horses on another farm. There were probably 100 people with great food and even a live band. We couldn't stay for the whole party but we did get to stay long enough to see BYU beat Utah in the basketball game.

Sunday was spent at church, resting, and practicing with the choir.

My little sister's wedding invitations are printed now, but we have to wait on the envelopes to be delivered. I'm glad that my company was able to help them out.

We haven't heard anything new on the adoption front, but we have some additional paperwork to fill out now. There are just a few forms that have to be renewed once a year and our year is coming up soon.