A Few Little Things

Remember when I shared this tiny, paused photo from a video of Abe in a jiu-jitsu tournament?

Shortly thereafter a friend sent it back to me like this:

Hahha! So great. Abe could not possibly have been more delighted!

Speaking of Abe, he's back at the MTC for a third time! Once as a training missionary, once as an MTC teacher, and now doing machine learning ... programming (I don't even know what I'm saying anymore) sorts of things with their language app. On his first day back on the grounds he ran right into his cousin Reed! That was a happy picture to suddenly see texted to me and my sister Megan (Reed's mom).

And speaking of missionaries, our little Goldie girl is halfway through her mission! 

Here we are on one of her p-day calls. Just Goldie, a few family members, and ... Abe's small sunflower garden he was busy watering as we talked. Hahaha. (He and his roommate planted it in an empty spot outside their apartment window.)

Also, one of my favorite things are the non-punctuated, hopping-from-one-topic-to-the-next messages Summer sends Goldie:

Mike has talked about creating "goat henge" since ... well, since long before we ever had goats. Here we see its humble beginnings (and perhaps endings) from two old rocks that had been sitting near the front gate of the farm for years.

Penny does not think of herself as (nor particularly want to be) a farmy sort. But she cannot deny that she can grab an escaping goat as naturally as if she'd been born to it. (Grover is always trying to make a run for it.)

And:

A little girl out having a picnic for one.

A little girl helping with twice-baked potatoes.

A little girl accepting dolls (against my wishes 😅) from a woman in our ward who I brought dinner to. (If you only knew how many dolls and stuffed animals my children have. I tried to limit them to only three or four of their favorites coming to the rental, but somehow, we are back to having about nine thousand here.)

Little friends wearing nightgowns from Aunt Sarah.

Me trying to take my phone from Hans during sacrament meeting. 

Another lovely morning at the bus stop.

Hansie in a box.

Princess in roller skates (Mette and Starling spend a good portion of every day with these skates on their feet.)

That's all. 

Daisy Graduates from BYU!

I remember so clearly dropping Daisy off to her tiny dorm room for her first year of college. It was during Covid times and masks and quarantines and classes being pushed to remote learning were common. And that really does seem like ages ago now. 

But for some reason dropping her off to her little new Y View apartment the following year seems ... just a moment ago. It was still pretty bare and her roommates weren't around and it seemed so cold and lonesome that I was anxious and praying the entire drive home. Yet she happily spent three school years in that apartment! And now she's officially GRADUATED from college!

She got her bachelor's degree just yesterday--with a statistics major and math minor (and only one miniscule A- the entire four years)! 

And of course it didn't feel like too much of a goodbye to BYU. She'll be back there for her Masters in the fall. Still! Our first little college graduate! That's no small thing! Good work Daisy!

These pictures are at the open house for her department just prior to the graduation ceremony. 

It was a fun but incredibly full day. I picked kids up from school at 11:00 so we could change, eat lunch, and get down to Ogden where Mike was waiting with his mom (who he had picked up after leaving work early) at an auto mechanics where he'd dropped off the truck to be fixed. Then we headed to Provo--arriving around 2:30--to meet up with Daisy, ride the shuttle bus from the stadium parking to the Wilkinson Center, meet up with Abe, and enjoy the open house. ...

Then we headed to the ballroom an hour early to get seats. (Mike's mom had gone for a graduation in the Wilkinson Center last year and had trouble getting a seat at all.) We watched Daisy graduate, took pics, waited for 40 minutes for the shuttle, then headed to Devin and Melissa's to meet their new baby Moses. After that we went to Cafe Rio, then to Daisy's apartment to help load up all of her stuff, and then some of us headed back with Daisy (getting home around 11:30) and some went with Mike a little further south of Provo to pick up a little jon boat someone was selling--which got them home after midnight. So it was a good 12-plus hour day of wildness! But all good things! And we are so happy to have Daisy back for the summer!