February 2008
Doug. Big Bodily family news -- I am engaged! Her name is Teresa Schiess and she is pretty awesome! She is from Rexburg and I knew her well growing up. We have been dating since August and we got engaged on Valentines Day in Concord, CA. She has five great kids (four girls and a boy). Things will definitely be exciting in our family for awhile! I will keep you posted on possible dates.
Bryce is doing well and is loving his mission. He says he doesn't know if he will be able to come home because he is so into it. We will have to go to Texas to drag him home I'm sure! Drew and Madison are doing great in school but are excited to see the spring grass so that we can get into the mountains again. This winter has been a hard one. We will have plenty of water in Utah this year. Hope all is well with the family. We love you all!Elder Bryce Bodily
272 S 16th Street
Raymondville, TX 78580
Dan. I was sorry to hear the reunion was postponed until 2009. I was looking forward to everyone meeting Nadya and Danil as soon as possible. I’ve just returned from Russia. The great news is that Nadya has an interview at the embassy in Moscow on March 4th. If all goes well she and Danil will be granted their visas. God willing, they will be here by mid-March.
Danil enjoys his break-dance class and is becoming quite an accomplished pianist. I was in Chelny to hear him perform at his music school. He also loves to draw and is quite good at it. His passion is cars and designing hotrods. I'm sure soon enough there will be one sitting in my garage.
Basketball season has ended and my team finished third in our conference. My work is busy. Spring has come to Sedona and people are anxious to do all their projects. I’ve almost finished the addition on my house. It will be Danil's room and I’ve had so much fun preparing it for his arrival. I will finish it with a hotrod theme and it will be a surprise for his coming.
I am healthy and happy and covered in rich blessings. I pray all of you are the same.
Merrily. Crocus and daffodils are blooming around town and the days are noticeably longer. Spring is coming!
Kelsey loved snow when she used to visit Tekoa for a week or two a t time. She likes it less living and driving in it for the last three months. Kaela has made astonishing progress at her high school. She’s on the honor roll and on track to graduate in May.
Victor and Eliahs both have February birthdays. Eliahs turned 13 and Victor is 15. Solomon plays on a basketball team. It’s tough for a former Husky but I try to sound like I mean it when I yell, “Go Cougars!” Today is Abraham’s 100th day of kindergarten and his class is celebrating with a party and counting 100 of various things.
Although the reunion is postponed, please come visit the beautiful Pacific Northwest!
Greg & Kandice. Right now we are in Everett, WA. Greg is an intern at B/E Aerospace in Marysville, WA. This is a great place to be and we love it. We like being closer to home and not in the cold, cold Rexburg winter. Greg is learning a lot at his internship and enjoys being able to do real work. He says it is nice to have a break from school and homework.
I get to stay home and take care of Zachary. It has been fun to be able to play with him and watch him grow. I am also trying to come up with a preschool curriculum that I can use when we get back to Rexburg.
Zachary is growing like crazy. He has a tooth coming in, is starting to pull himself up on the furniture, and is an expert army crawler. He is such a happy baby and is learning and growing so quickly.
We hope that all is going well in your families. We love you all and are so thankful for the wonderful family that we have.
Amy. Not much is going on here. It’s nice to have some time to catch up on things around the house. Brittany has got senior-itis and is already counting down the days until graduation. She got accepted to BYU, so she is getting excited. She quit her job at Bath & Body Works and started working at KinderCare. Some of her friends also work there, so she likes it and the hours are much better. Sean just finished winter lacrosse and started spring lacrosse. He got his drivers permit a couple months ago, and no major incidents yet. Colton is starting lacrosse now, too. Brian just finished basketball. I've been running a lot, trying to get ready for the Boston Marathon in only eight more weeks. Larry is still traveling a ton, but they are trying to work it out so he can work from home every other week. That will be great!
Lucy. We listed our house a few weeks ago, so hopefully the market will improve and then we will be on our way back to Utah. We've bought some land in Plain City. It's a small town outside of Ogden. We hope to get back to a simpler life. The girls aren't looking forward to it, but they just don't know what’s good for them. We are prepared to be patient and play it by ear. Now just isn't the best time to sell a house.
We had a great time when Mom and Ramon visited in January. Between all the alarm clocks going off, phone ringing in the middle of the night, and the woodpecker pecking at our chimney, I don't think they got much sleep. Next time I will supply earplugs! I turned the big 4-0 in January, and for my birthday Matt arranged a surprise girls’ luncheon for me. He even hand delivered invitations. I was very surprised and my friends were all so impressed. Sidney turned 15 on the 27th. She just started her lifeguard training course. It will be a lot of work and will be time consuming, but she'll be glad she did it when she gets that first paycheck! Carly continues in tumbling and is working on her back tuck, and Adri is learning a dance for her spring recital. We are planning a trip to Florida for spring break. If anyone would like to join us, the more the merrier! We hope you all are happy and healthy. Congratulations to Doug and Teresa! We are so happy for you. We love you all.
Rob & Shante. Rob is finishing up what may be his last semester of school at BYU. He is applying to a special Creative Track within his major of Advertising. If he gets into the program, we may be in school for one more year. In the meantime he is applying for jobs all over the Mountain West and the West Coast. Unfortunately we won't have any idea what we are doing for another couple of months, which is frustrating. Hopefully next WPN we will have some big news. We hope everyone is doing well and enjoyed the holidays!
Annie. I sold my first novel, LIV2DIV, to Penguin’s YA imprint, Razorbill. They’ve signed me for second book, too! Thanks everybody for your cheerful e-mails. I want to try to throw a big party when my book comes out next year where we can get together and celebrate. I want to hug everybody. Maybe I can do it in conjunction with the reunion. I spent several nervous weeks waiting for my editor to send me the changes she wants me to make. It finally came and I'm really excited about her suggestions. Phew! She even wants me to reveal more of my Mormon farm girl heroine's faith. I thought I would have to kill myself to get it done by the March 26 deadline, but it's not going to be that hard. In fact, the rewriting is really fun. My editor even wants me to start off the novel with an intense poem that reveals how Leesie's faith is her rock. Cool, huh? I still don't know what they are going to name it.
Allen just got back from Tokyo. We're getting geared up for our move to Singapore. We've got the movers booked, and I bought Rachel, Will and my tickets to NYC. Rachel is starting BYU in June. She's so excited. Will has become a master at World of Warcraft. Rob got him hooked and now he loves it. If any cousins out there play, e-mail Will and you guys can get together on the same server and battle mythical creatures.
We're leaving here on June 15th and will be either in Utah or at Mom's for a couple weeks. Then we're going to Phoenix to look at neighborhoods and visit Lucy and Dan and their families. We're flying to Singapore a few days after the 4th of July.
Andy is Zone Leader these days. He's doing great. Here's a great story from his latest e-mail. We're really proud of him.
"Yesterday we had a zone conference with a general authority--Elder Dickson. I was WAY sick before the conference and I asked some missionaries for a blessing. In the blessing they blessed me that I'd be able to translate for Elder Dickson and that I'd have the gift of tongues and be healthy enough to do it, clear-minded and stuff like that. So I was in a little closet thing up by the stand with a TV and headphones to see and listen to the conference. My companion and I took turns translating and the Vietnamese listened on their headsets. I started translating and was so horribly sick I could hardly think straight. I don't think very much of what I translated made sense. Lots of people spoke and I just got sicker and sicker. Finally Elder Dickson got up to speak and it happened to be my turn--although I was doing so horribly my companion wanted to translate instead of me. I told him I would try and right when Elder Dickson started talking I felt a hundred percent better. I had been almost falling asleep and all of a sudden I was wide awake, totally clear-minded and felt absolutely better. I also had had a really bad headache and it went away completely. I was able to translate pretty well and I think I actually made sense to the people listening. Then as soon as Elder Dickson was done I instantly--like in 10 seconds--felt terribly sick again. My headache and cough came back and once again I felt like dying. It was a pretty cool experience. The priesthood is pretty great; I just wish the missionaries had been less specific--instead of just blessing me with health to translate Elder Dickson's talk. Lousy missionaries..."
Rob just had an interview with a big advertising firm in Salt Lake, and it went pretty well. We're praying he gets the job. We are thankful to be part of such a wonderful family!
Nick & Rachel. Life is good for a couple Nelsons in Colorado. Winter here is cold, but we're getting used to it. I actually walked outside one morning when it was 20 degrees and thought how warm it was. But aside from temperatures far below what the average Oregonian would expect, Rachel and I are doing very well. Rachel continues to work for the YMCA in their before and after school programs. She was recently moved to a new school in a very affluent community south of Boulder. She is getting used to dealing with "snotty rich parents." She says the kids aren't too bad, but the parents can be awful. Despite that, she enjoys her work. We both enjoy the free artwork Rachel gets from the kids. If any of you need some high quality art in crayon or finger paint, we can hook you up. We'll even give you a special WPN-reader discount.
I am still working on my PhD in astrophysics here at the University of Colorado and I should be able to use that line for the next dozen or so issues of the WPN. Right now I'm mostly taking classes, which is less exciting than doing research, but they seem to think I need to know something before they let me run wild with research.
Even though we've only been in Colorado for 9 months, it is starting to feel like home. Rachel and I have become what I like to call the utility infielders for our ward. Rachel is the girls camp director and the young girls activity days leader, I am an Elder's quorum teacher, the emergency preparedness coordinator, and the Friends of Scouting coordinator (please donate to you local scout unit!), and we are both substitute seminary teachers. Life is busy, but we like it that way.
Laurie. Christmas was really different this year for us. We received a call late at night on the Thursday before Christmas from our brother-in-law, Wayne. He is married to Neil’s sister, Marian. Their family was traveling from Utah to Washington to attend Wayne’s father’s funeral. They came upon a very slow moving sugar beet truck. They were not speeding, but the truck was so slow that they misjudged the distance and ran into the back of the truck. They were pinned in their car and all but Wayne had very serious injuries. Wayne was actually calling us while they were pinned in the car. Having been through something like this before, we felt Neil should go to Boise to help their family. He spent a number of days there doing all that he could for them. He came home on Christmas night. FYI, they are all recovering and we’re hoping that the youngest daughter continues to improve as she is learning to walk again.
The day after Christmas, we received a telephone call that one of our closest friends had passed away. He had been in the hospital, but had come home for Christmas. We have been friends with the Olsen family for 20 years and raised our families together. Neil spoke at the funeral and I led the music. Now his wife is alone and it is one of the saddest things I have ever seen. Her heart is broken. Some of you know how that feels. I go visit her or give her a call or take her homemade soup, but nothing can relieve her heartache. So Christmas had a different perspective this year. We are thankful to be healthy, strong, and to have each other.
Cassidy did a fantastic job in her high school musical, “The Pajama Game”. We watched and listened in awe each time we went. Camille was selected to be part of the All-City Honor Choir and recently performed. The highlight for her is going to Applebee’s after the concert! They are busy with school and church and friends. They are good girls.
Chris is still in Cincinnati. He has been in the Cincinnati area for about a year now. He has experienced good and not-so-good companions lately and has learned a lot. He is a hard working, bold missionary and loves what he is doing. We’re so thankful for him.We love each of you. Stay close to each other!
Melody. We've had some wonderful spring weather this week and the cherry trees are still in full bloom. There is a nest of birds under my bedroom roof eave, and they are getting big enough to be quiet when mommy and daddy say to. It's pretty incredible to see the parents glide silently, when needed, back and forth to the nest. We had a wild turkey in the yard the other day. I've predicted one more cold snap here in Waimea before we're plunged full-on into spring.
I must be growing up (finally!) because I'm more focused on getting projects finished around here. I had my January vacation all planned out...and then I got the flu midway through it...BUT I WAS ON SCHEDULE UNTIL THEN! I got some sewing done, sanding on an old cedar chest, my computer fixed, and my room just about cleaned up. Still to go: taxes, my car cleaned up, more sewing, crocheting, the boxes in the garage, a printing project, and a mapping project for a friend's birthday next month. I think all this is due to the deadline of April 8 when I start an almost-5-month long house sit.
There is still plenty of time to enjoy life, though. Dana and I watched movies last night and I've actually scheduled some play time. I apologize to everyone for not sending even Christmas greetings (I may still do so). Aloha pumehana.
Ken. The snow has been dictating the pace of my life. I had to stop work on my house for a couple of weeks until the electrical inspector in Pullman could dig out and get to Tekoa. They finally had to send somebody from Spokane. Now I’m hanging sheetrock and hope to finish this weekend. I only missed one day of work because of the roads but a lot of people in town couldn’t get off of the side streets and canceled their appointments. I’m working extra hours now to get caught up. I even had to shovel my roof.
Leah finished up gymnastics. Aubrey leaves for Costa Rica next week with the Spanish Club.
