Camping

We went camping this weekend at David Crockett State Park near Lawrenceburg, TN and had a great time. This was Ashley's first campout! (By the time Sienna was 7 months old she'd slept in a tent probably 20 times. Times have changed.) At one point during the evening Colby was rambling to me about something while I was watching the fire. He stopped mid-stream and commented, "Hey! There's fire in your eyes!" He had seen the reflection in my glasses.

Of gas, scarecrows, and primary

Nashville is out of gas. (Stated for my non-Tennessee readers obviously). Thanks to a false rumor and some paranoid people around the time of Hurricane Ike, our gas supply was depleted and has not yet been replenished. In order to fill up, one has to drive to several different gas stations to find one that isn't out of gas, then wait in a really long line, possibly to be told they've run out just before your turn (which happened to a friend of ours).

Our van ran out of gas on Thursday. After trying 3 different stations, I drove home with my gas gauge estimating zero miles left, praying I would make it home with my groceries. Thankfully I did. So we've been driving around in our car all weekend (when we have to drive at all), fighting with 3 car seats in the back seat and no air conditioning. Brentwood is a suburban city, fairly spread out, with nothing in the way of public transportation. So to get anywhere pretty much requires a vehicle.

So what is a family to do when it's stuck at home on a Saturday? Why, make a scarecrow of course!

In other news, our Children's Sacrament Presentation was yesterday and was a success I think. I am the Primary President (I direct the children's organization for our church, which has about 80 active children in it), and this is a big presentation the kids do during our main church hour. So I'm glad it's over. Since I've been president the program has always been very simple: talk, scripture, song,... repeated about 8 times. Sometimes I wonder if there aren't parents out there who prefer the more traditional program where every child gets their own speaking part and moment of glory. If so, I would gladly submit their name for this position. :) I'm all for simple.

Of course my favorite part was when Sienna and the rest of the Sunbeam class recited their scripture, and I loved looking over to her section during the songs to see her singing the words. I may have 80 plus kids up on the stand to watch over, but I'm a mother first, right?

August Newsletter

Pictures from August are here.

Tennessee Tidbits
Aug 2008

We seem to always write the newsletter for the past month halfway into the next month. So Kristen has pulled out her calendar to let me know what we did:

I had a nice trip to Denver and Salt Lake at the start of the month. I stayed with Jim Earl at Denver, attending a statistics conference by day and living the life of a bachelor with Jim and Steven Earl by night. (Jim’s family was in Salt Lake and Steven’s girlfriend was studying.) We did wild things like going to the all-you-can-eat Sushi bar and the dollar theater back-to-back nights, watching pretty much the same plot in different movies (“Ironman” and “The Hulk”). It was great. Why’d I ever get married?

After the conference I climbed 13,085-ft Keller Mountain with my friend Layne, and then flew to Salt Lake for the weekend to say goodbye to Kendrick, beat Dad in a few games of ping pong, and see the extended Eastmond family. It was a fun visit, except for the humiliation of losing a ping pong game to Cyn. Even though I was blinded with the sun in my eyes, I admit, I lost to Cyn.

Meanwhile, while I was hard at work at this conference, Kristen was just lazing around with the kids. They went to the pool, the dentist, read lots of stories, had some baths, spent half a day at our ultimate Frisbee tournament, celebrated Kristen’s birthday without me, and had lots of primary meetings.

When I finally returned, August 11 (our In-Between Day), we celebrated Kristen’s birthday. She got “Settlers of Catan” (thanks Mom Shepherd who let me pick out a gift for Kristen and then paid for it). The next day we celebrated my birthday. I got “Settlers of Catan” from Kristen. Great minds think alike. Anyone want a “Settlers of Catan” game?

We also had a nice family trip to the Williamson County Fair. Sienna and I rode the Ferris wheel, we enjoyed looking at the animals, and we got to see several hog races. That was great. Ashley now sits like a pro and has two teeth.

Hope your month was great. Love,

Bryan, Kristen, Sienna, Colby, and Ashley

Trip to Utah

Last weekend Ashley and I went to Utah for the wedding of my brother Wes and his bride Sharlyn. They were married in the Logan, Utah temple. That's the last of my siblings to get married. It was so great to see my brother so happy. Thanks Sharlyn!

Even though Ashley was a "lap child", there were extra seats on the plane, which makes it so much easier to travel!!

Anna Clare, my mother in law, graciously came up to Logan to help watch Ashley during the Endowment and Temple Sealing. Thanks so much!

I especially enjoyed hanging out with long time friends from Alaska, the Rehders (and McKeachnies). (Who has the picture of me and Regen with our babies?? Please send it to me!!)

Unfortunately it's kind of a blurry picture. They're a beautiful couple!

First Day at Preschool

I'm a little late in posting this (as usual). Sienna's first day at preschool was last Tuesday. She attends a Montessori preschool, run out of the basement of a home of a family from our church. She loves it! Here she is on the first day, in front of the "school", and with her teacher, Mrs. Sarieh.

Ashley at 6 months

We took Ashley to get some pictures taken at 6 months. I think it is one of the best times to take pictures. Smiles come easily, and they're not old enough to be shy or scared of strangers. So we got some pretty cute ones. See for yourself.