August 2016 Highlights

August brought a lot of changes in our lives. Andrea and her family moved to Indiana on the 6th of August. That meant we had last-minute preparations to get them ready.

Packing Day (Aug 5) was a very busy day. I went down with Jason to get the moving van. The van was really sluggish so he traded it for one that worked much better.

The largest van available

We spent the morning trying to pack everything into boxes that can be loaded into the van. We had already packed a lot of boxes we stored in the garage.

Garage full of boxes

At 12:30 Kamary had her recital for vocal camp she attended this week. Each of the camp participants had solos and small group numbers in the recital.

Kamary sings a solo at vocal camp

We came home and packed some more until 3:00 PM when the vocal camp had their final performance, which included choirs and musical numbers from "Oliver" as a small production.

Kamary in "Oliver"

Meanwhile, members of the ward came to start loading the truck. this went on until late in the evening.

Loading the truck

While they were loading we went to a wedding reception for Camille Jensen. Lauren had her final performance in "Puccini Trilogy"today. This made for a full day. When all was done we went to Angies to "clean the kitchen sink" (ice cream in a big dish shaped like a kitchen sink). 

Alyssa seems apprehensive about the kitchen sink

It took 7 people, but we cleaned it

They finally got off about 9:30 AM on Saturday, Aug 6th. We will miss having them around. They took a lot of our furniture so we had the task of rearranging the house. This will carry on for a long time because it includes fixing things up and painting the house.

On June 13th we went to the John Pack reunion in Salt Lake. They always hold it in the Pack House in Pioneer State Park. Diane was happy to meet with them again after a long absence.

Reunion in the John Pack house

John Pack was in the first pioneer company to enter the Salt Lake valley. In fact, he was part of the exploring party and entered the valley before Brigham Young. For this he has his picture on the Pioneer Monument in Salt Lake.

The pioneer monument in Salt Lake

John Pack is the last person on the right

Speaking of pioneers, Diane was chosen to be the first Vice President for her DUP company. 

I received a call as a Stake Technology Specialist (STS) for our stake. I wonder who will train me, since few people really understand the responsibility of an STS. I was able to get started right away.

We received a wedding announcement for Nicole Wheeler (Scott and Kim's daughter) in Sacramento, California. We decided it would be nice to reconnect with family so we decided to go. We will have a separate blog for our trip to California.