Brooklyn got transferred. She is now in the Jujuy Argentina area. It has the 7 Color Mountain. Picture at the bottom. She is with her first Gringa companion since the MTC. She said that will make it interesting because she will now know how far her Spanish has come. She did eat Ostrich this last week. She did not like it very much.
Ashly is teaching more dance classes this semester. She is also starting to offer private tap lessons and is starting to rent out her wedding items. Jesse's birthday was in January. Eric finished the door to the bathroom in the Casita. It is custom made and designed by him. It turned out so good!
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An update for our family and friends. After much deliberation Carsyn decided to switch to Snow Canyon High School. This is not a decision he took at all lightly because he really did like all of his classes and teachers at Tuacahn. He also felt that he was learning a lot in every area. However, right now running is where his heart is. So after 9 years that chapter of our lives is closing. We will always have a deep appreciation for all of the faculty members who have shown all of our children such support and love. Our children have truly become better people because of THS. I could go on and on about the good things that THS has to offer.
This week Carsyn also had an art piece receive An Excellence Award at the SUMA exhibition. This was after he had pieces juried into the art show. So he has had quite a week. I included a picture. Ashly and Jesse both got the flu - Yeah! Brooklyn is still going strong in Metan. I included a few pictures. Merry Christmas! This is rundown of what we have been up to this year. Lot's of pics at the end! Carsyn: Carsyn started his Jr. year this year. He attends Tuacahn High School where his focus is on theater tech and art. He continues to be one of the main sound people at the High School. There are too many classes he wants to take at school so he is still doing online classes in addition to a a full schedule. He also started a new job at Tuacahn - Regional Theater concessions. He ALSO started running for Snow Canyon High School. This is probably the thing that he has thrown himself into the most this year. He loves it and is really good at it. He was named Rookie Of The Year. He has already started getting recruiting letters. He was a youth leader at Timberline again and he has been and still is President of the Priest Quorum. He spent a week in New York City this spring. In his spare time he is hiking, going to the reservoir, running, hanging out with his buddies from both schools. During the summer he helped a lot with building the garage and casita. Most recently, like today, we found out, much to his delight, that he does not have wisdom teeth! Because of switching dentists and also him taking himself to the dentist, it was never discussed with our dentist and we just assumed he needed them out. We were at the place ready to go, they took the x-rays, and Merry Christmas Carsyn! Brooklyn: Brooklyn got a message right after Christmas last year from an actor couple that she tended for a year ago last summer asking her to come and be their nanny while they were performing in the A Bronx Tale national tour. She contacted UVU and they said they would defer her scholarship for that and for her mission so with that she was off. She got to go to about 10 different cities all over the eastern part of the country. Since she wasn't officially part of the company she had to get herself checked in at the airports. (The company had pre-check.) So she got really good at navigating airports. She had a blast even though she got strep and scabbies in Chicago. She also got really good at going around new cities, Uber, Door Dash, etc. This was great because she and her friend Kayla went to Japan and South Korea for 16 days all by themselves. And yes I was a bit worried until she spent all of that time on the tour :). They had a great time and checked off one more Disneyland in the world that they have gone to. She took a quick trip to see her friend Kayla in Florida and they went to Disney World - another check, before she headed off to Argentina on her mission. She is loving it and there are pictures from all of her adventures below. She has been gone just over 4 months. Ashly: Well last Christmas brought a HUGE change in Ashly's world! She met her now husband at the tail end of last year. They got engaged in March and married in August! They really wanted a reception in the mountains and everything fell into place and they got their dream day. So many friends helped to make this possible. She teaches dance classes, she is starting her own business of wedding rentals, she is now a house manager at Tuacahn, and she is still a dance students at DSU. She received the Dance Student Of The Semester award this past semester. She is the assistant Primary chorister and helped at Girl's Camp. Jesse is pursuing a degree at DSU but his long term hope/goal is to be a Seminary teacher. He is an extremely gifted musician and teaches piano and drum lessons. He has been in the band and orchestra at the college. He is also starting to tune pianos. He is a fantastic composer as well. He has been working at Classic Sports, but just got a job at Kay jewelers which he is loving. He is the Primary pianist. They have both been in the Institute Choir. They will be living in the casita. Nicole: I have been teaching the Social and Emotional Learning lessons at Vista and this year they have doubled the amount of time that I teach in the classrooms and I love it. It took creating 278 lesson plans in June! This year I was also working as house manager, getting a missionary ready, a wedding ready, a bridal shower, helping build a garage and casita, Girl's Camp Director, and Primary chorister, and supporting Casryn in his running. To say the least this year has been one of the busiest I have ever had! Eric: Eric is still working with St. George city. He is also helping with advancements in scouts. He has been super busy with a whole bunch of boys trying to finish up their Eagle project before the end of the year. He is also volunteering to get a new community troop up and going. It's looking pretty good right now. He is the Ward Clerk. He has also done so so much building the garage and casita. He has spent pretty much every spare minute out there, but as you can see it is looking beautiful! We have only hired out help with the actual pouring of cement, installation of the garage door, and the stucco. He is awesome! (A big shout out to my dad who was also here a lot.) We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and best wishes for a New Year! Ashly danced in 7 numbers at the College Dance Concert this week. She was of course awesome, but relieved to not have so many rehearsals to go to every week! There is a rehearsal for each of the dances that you are in.
Carsyn went to Sadie's and built a huge fort in the basement - pretty much took up the whole family room! He and his buddies had fun with a childhood task before they went to the par core courses. The ones in our backyard mountain and also the one in a warehouse. They did find a trail that was very Star Warsish in look this week. Brooklyn is still doing great. She did get mixed up and thought that Thanksgiving was this last Thursday. She is super grateful to the members that will drive them 45 minutes each way to meet with people. She is also super grateful for Heavenly Father's guiding hand which will put a person in an airport at just the right time to find missionaries who are sending a missionary home. The other cool story is: "Jorgelina and her husband Federico talked with missionaries almost 6 years ago. We found their teaching record and everything was solid and the missionaries never left a reason as to why they stopped visiting them. So we decided to stop by, and Jorgelina was home. She told us that this was a miracle! She loved talking with missionaries and learning about the church years ago, but back then she and Federico were living in a different house in a completely different part of Metán. They forgot to tell the missionaries they were moving (here, moving isn't really a process like it is in the states. You just kind of do it all in one day, decision, packing, and moving) But, the address on their teaching record was this house that they are in now! We're teaching her now and she's really awesome!" House update: Tiling in the shower is done! (except for grouting the pan). Started tiling the floor Stucco prep done Siding passed off Kitchen counter guy is coming tomorrow Cross Country So proud of Carsyn. He put his heart into cross country this year and did so great! He absolutely gained another "family." We had the final awards banquet and he received: The All Junior Team Award
Now onto track! Mission Brooklyn's companion had to go home because of a family emergency so she spent last week sending her of and gaining a new companion. She is from Peru and Brooklyn says she is really sweet. House Hmmm what can we say here, but we had another hiccup. We had to change out our siding. Grrr. Still slowly getting closer :) This week we mainly - meaning mostly Eric - tiled the shower in our spare time. The stucco prep is ready for inspection and then hopefully it gets sprayed this week.
Ashly and I got to work some fun concerts this week. I got to work Fab 4 - a Beatles tribute band, and Space Oddity - David Bowie tribute band. Ashly worked Space Oddity with me and then she got to work Gentri. It was a fun week at work. Brooklyn has been riding her bike and she is excited because they get to more people. Mission
So for those who are on Brooklyn's e-mail you know that they are pretty short. So here are a few more details: 61 People They currently have 61 investigators. They are in the process of narrowing down those who are really serious right now, because they don't have enough time in the week to get to everyone. There are 8 scheduled baptisms. So they are pretty busy. 27 mosquito bites. Yes, she did NOT use the good bug spray which I sent with her, and which we were told to send, because she read the labels and didn't dare. She said it said not to use if you have a cut. I told her it's the same stuff we have used for years - mostly for ticks - and they we are all still fine. I also told her that guaranteed Carsyn had cuts when he used it! She just isn't used to mosquitos being a thing, since we hardly ever get them here. In fact we were all prepared for Ashly and Jesse's wedding and didn't need any of the stuff we bought. Anyway Tuesday she was pretty itchy and some of them were turning purple. She was going to the clinic Tuesday after siestas were over to get them checked out. We are assuming all is well since we haven't gotten any e-mails, or calls from the mission home :). House Again, quite a bit done this week. The list is getting shorter and shorter. Stucco next week! But here is the funny story. We set the kitchen cabinets in place and then brought the fridge in. When we went to plug the fridge in, we realized we couldn't find the plug that we had specifically situated to make it easy to plug the fridge in. Yup, yup we sheet rocked right over it, texture, paint and all. We did find it popping a couple of holes in the wall and taking pictures through the small holes with my phone :) See the pic! Halloween Here are some pics from Halloween and a link to the hack on this blog that explains how easily we put together our trunks for the trunk or treat: richinshappenings.weebly.com/ State was this week and they didn't do as well as they hoped, but they did learn some great lessons and are turning their sights to the last race of this season. They did host a color run fundraiser today and had lot's of fun doing that.
On the house we are down to the short list. We got quite a bit checked off - see pics below. It's super close now! Garage door installed, cement filled in, baseboards painted and installed - just need to seal seams, backsplash in bathroom installed and ready for grout, pan for shower poured, some of the lights in the garage done, and hole on the side by the retaining wall filled in. So Brooklyn is still loving Argentina. It's getting warmer there now as summer is approaching. She still hasn't been able to pop that popcorn, but she did have quite the adventure with two pit bulls and scissors while on splits with a different sister. A pit bull bit the elbow off of the other sister's coat and bit a hole in that same sister's pants. Thank goodness she was still wearing a coat and thank goodness for pants. This same sister also got a pair of scissors thrown at her head by a young child while they were visiting a family. Phew!! They have two more prospective investigators who are super close to getting baptized. Carsyn runs at State this Wednesday! His team has done better in the Region than they have in a long time and they are super pumped about how their season has gone this year. He is super glad that he tried it out this year. He ran the Region course almost 20 seconds faster than he did the same course a few weeks ago.
It was Fall Break this week so we did a lot of things on the addition. Painting in garage, siding now we're ready for stucco, floor sealed, backsplash in kitchen finished. See pics below. I just shared a video on Facebook of Brooklyn from the MTC. It is from her companion but she is in it. She's doing well with the language. She has had 2 baptisms. She got to do a little of unplanned exploring while waiting a couple of hours for a bus. Brooklyn - she is in the province of Metan. There are about 30,000 people in the city. She said there are a lot of dogs. She might have to ride a bike, and for anyone who knows Brooklyn this might be her biggest challenge of her whole mission. She was never very good at it and didn't enjoy it at all. Her other big challenge is how to pop the bag of popcorn she was given! That will be something that she will miss. She is kind of a buttered popcorn addict. She had 3 baptisms this week, one of which she actually had the tail end part of teaching.
Carsyn - nothing too much new this week. It has basically been the training week leading up to Region. He did secure his spot to run with Varsity at Region as he is the #4 runner on his team. Ashly & Jesse - have pretty much been helping on the house in their spare time. Jesse had a couple of concerts as well. Which brings us to: House - and we have lights!!! I came home from Tuacahn Monday to working lights in the Casita. We also have the floor mostly ready to seal over fall break, and we started tiling the backsplashes in the Casita. Dad and Eric got the garage door opening ready for installation in a couple of weeks and the garage is almost ready to paint over fall break. |
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January 2022
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