Life in a Northern Town: FAMILY LETTER 06.10.18

Dear Loved Ones,

We've enjoyed a great first week of summer with beautiful weather a few rain showers and many trips to the pool. Addie and Ammon both still had school this week, but I actually completely forgot to take Ammon to school two of the days this week. It was just too hard to remember while I was busy having fun with the other kids!!

On Monday morning we jumped out of bed with 20 minutes to make it to Ammon's and Niles' well-child check up at the clinic. After that we picked up James from Sweetwater fly shop because he had gone to stay over at the Vermillion's house in Shields Valley and they brought him home to their shop. We then went to the city pool for a few hours, then came home and grab dinner and headed out to Niles is baseball game at 6 p.m. Tuesday 6/5 was more of the same we had fun at the pool and did some chores around the house. Rich took the boys to do some errands in Bozeman and came home with a cool kids' kayak...just waiting for the river to go down!

Wednesday the 6th was kind of a rainy cloudy day on and off so we ended up staying home, doing some chores making some art, jumping on the trampoline. At 6, the girls and I headed over to Seminary graduation at the Stake Center. It was a lovely meeting and Brother Bishop the Institute director shared some great insights about the Book of Mormon. The sunset was so beautiful that night, we snapped a picture of it and grab some Icees to enjoy on the way home. On Thursday 6/7 we were awoken by a thunder and hail storm at about 6 a.m. It was alarming at first, but then kind of cozy to be snuggled up in bed listening to it. We had another morning of chores and an afternoon at the pool and another baseball game at 6 p.m. It started to rain on us that night but it didn't get too bad.

On Friday 6/8 Adeline had her last final and I picked her up at Jessie Sloan's house where she was checking on the dog while Jessie and her family are out of town. We ran some errands, made some lunch, took the boys to the pool for a little while and then came home and got them packed up for a father and son's camp-out at Mill Creek. After we got the boys on their way, I took the girls out to dinner at The Sport pub and for a walk downtown. With all the construction going on it looks like Syria down there! Main Street is not paved right now and some of the buildings are being renovated and have their facades removed and it just looks like a bombed-out ghost town. But we still had a great time. That night we watched Paddington 2 (so cute! We love watvhing for places we have been in London) and some old "Friends" episodes and just enjoyed the quiet. Saturday morning we woke up late and took Addie over to check on the dog. We ran to the grocery store to get ingredients to make appetizers for Gary Weisgerber's memorial/ celebration of life that evening. When we got home the boys were back from their camp out. We got all the camping stuff put away and cleaned up. Addie and I took the boys to the pool for a little while (Heidi stayed home and Rich was working on the yard a little bit). I came home after the pool cooked some appetizers with Addie and delivered them to the memorial. I dropped Addie at the Joneses to hang out with Clara for the evening and I ran up to the church to practice a song with Davina Ryszka to sing in church today.

Church today was lovely as usual. This month the theme is the Book of Mormon and the restoration so there's a really great spirit in sacrament meeting. Visiting summer wrangler Brother Clapier gave a talk about the pride cycle based on a BYU devotional that I happen to see a few months ago. I had wanted to share it with everyone so I'm glad that he brought it up again cuz I had kind of forgotten about it. I sang the song "For Our Day" from the seminary music back in the 90s. It's such a good song--kind of a love song about the Book of Mormon-- and I often think of the lyrics. Toward the end of sacrament meeting, I looked over at Delana Bloxham and remembered that she had asked me to teach Relief Society but I couldn't remember which week. Luckily when she asked me, I took a look at the talk and had some ideas for what I might want to teach. However, we were both panicked a little when she said that I was supposed to teach today and had nothing prepared. Thankfully it wasDeiter F. Uchtdorf's April 2018 conference talk, "Behold the Man." The lesson taught itself, of course, because that talk is so eloquent and Spirit-filled. Talking about our Savior and what he's done for us always invites the spirit and people have great stories to share. So a potential catastrophe was turned into an edifying experience thanks to the Holy Ghost. I sure love him, he always saves the day.

We topped the day off with a nice afternoon nap under an overcast skies and then a wonderful Korean barbecue dinner with a lemon blueberry birthday cake for our dear Grandma Rosalie Melin's 71st birthday today. We sure love her! I'm so grateful to have such an awesome mother-in-law who is such a cool Grandma to our kids and a good friend to me. We invited the Tyners (who are our neighbors now) to join us for cake and had a really nice visit. The girls have gone out to the ranch to have a sleepover with Grandma, which I think is adorable. They will get to help mow tomorrow and I'll pick them up and at lunch time as Grandma and Grandpa are headed back to the temple. Life is good! Summer is beautiful! We are looking forward to seeing many of you on our summer adventures. Have a great week! We love you!

Love,

Rich and Jamie and Family

6/2--a fun pic of Brianna and Adeline at Nick's party I forgot to post last week

6/3- some high schoolers and college kids playing games at Ellie's grad party on
Sunday. I love living in a place where this is how seniors celebrate graduation.