Summer Whirlwind

6/20/2025

Hello my dear! I hope you are doing well and are feeling well. Hope everything is going smoothly with your companion and that you are enjoying working together. I hope you had a great week and that you are learning to live this newish area. We have had a fun-filled couple of weeks, and I feel like I’ve been on a dead run trying to get everything done. This is what we’ve been up to:

1. Rob and Leisja came to visit when Blake went to the temple. Rob decided to stay  with his parents for a few days with the kids while Leisja went to girls camp the following week. So Tate got to have a nice long play date with Dax and Zeke!
2. Tate also got to do another summer camp with Gavin at his music teacher’s house. They played and made beautiful art creations and —best of all—got to make their favorite trail mix! Jett got to go to a basketball camp at Farmington Gym, but it wasn’t quite as fun, and there was no trail mix. He did win a Gatorade and a Farmington pool pass though! Ethan has been laying low, reading and reading  and practicing basketball, working out and biking with Blake. He’s been patiently waiting for us to have the time to take him out driving. And he might have his eyes on a certain friend who is giving him special attention. 
3. My friend Megan and her kids ate on a summer-long road trip from Florida, clear across the country and down to Mexico. They were in town last week and came to visit and spend the day with me! Ky Orison has been having cancer treatments for non-hodgkins lymphoma. His treatments so far have been effective, but have left him feeling sick. So I brought dinner to them and made enough for Megan’s family to stay and eat with us too. Win-win!
4. Krysta invited us to swim at her mother-in-law’s pool while Dax and Zeke were in town. I was looking forward to a relaxing evening in the pool, but it conflicted with mutual, so we didn’t get to stay long. 
5. We hurried home in time for the boys to go to the Bees game for mutual and Dad let Tate go along too! Tate got his t-shirt signed by the Bee, and Jett got his slides and forehead signed.
6. Blake and Ethan Friday morning last week to go in a big hike with grandpa and Nolan.  They went to Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park in Nevada. They had a good time. It sounds like Ethan and Blake left grandpa in the dust. 
7. Dad’s company got us tickets to see Superman in the theater. It was a fun show, but too “woke” for conservatives. I guess they didn’t like that Superman is an illegal alien or something. On Tuesday we also took Ethan to see F1 which is a movie about car racing and it was pretty good too!
8. After the movie we hurried to Hunter Spencer’s (dad’s cousin) wedding reception. Man. People are getting married left and right!
9. Saturday we were in full mission farewell prep mode. Dad spent the day getting the yard ready and all the tables and shade set up. Meanwhile, I was in over my head making breakfast burritos all day long! Luckily we managed to get them all finished and cleaned up for the next day. Mission farewell at 9:00 am was brutal!
10. Blake and Adam Barrett gave their farewell talks the same day. Of course they had to poke fun at each other, but they both gave great talks. Blake did a really good job preparing and sharing personal experiences, and he didn’t seem nervous at all. He even bore his testimony in Khmer! I didn’t know he could even do that! Hearing Blake speak and knowing his is ready to go was definitely a parent pay off moment. 
11. Friends and family joined us after church at the house for food. The food was delicious, but we had a ton of leftovers!
12. My uncle Scott drove Great Grandpa Bramhall up to the house after lunch when the crowd had died down. We got to have a nice long visit with him before he tired out and was ready to go home. He gave advice to Blake for his mission that was similar to what he told you when you left—it’s all about LOVE!
13. Great Grandpa had been up in Idaho staying with Janet the week before and he was quite sick—throwing up and not having enough energy to walk more than a few steps. Janet took him into the hospital and the doctor told him he was in congestive heart failure and advanced kidney failure. They asked if he wanted intensive treatments or if he was ready to go, and he replied that he was ready to go. They might be able to extend his life a little longer, but treatments to the heart are hard on the kidneys, and vice versa. So they would have to very carefully thread the needle of medications from a hospital bed, and I don’t think that’s what he wanted. So for now he will return to his nursing home, and they will offer hospice care as needed. He seemed to be in good spirits and remembered details from years past, but he was in a wheelchair and needed help getting around. It’s sad to see him declining. Alison and Zach’s family made a quick trip to stay with us so they could see grandpa and be there for Blake’s farewell. It was a really nice day. 
14. The next day I did my best to clean up and dig out of the mess from the day before. Blake had a dentist appointment and then we went to get his final vaccine for his mission. We finished up some shopping and hopefully we now have everything he will need to pack up for his mission. I was hoping to have him packed up before we left for Glacier, but that didn’t happen. Surprise, surprise!
15. Wednesday night for mutual we got to float down the river in tubes the water was just right. Not too cold, and high enough that we weren’t popping our tubes on rocks. Tate got to come along, but I made him tie his tube to Dad’s so he didn’t get separated. This caused him to flip over off his tube a couple of times, but it think it was worth it. It gave me peace of mind that he was being supervised the whole time.
16. Thursday Jett and Tate and I squeezed in an afternoon at Cherry Hill. We have not spent nearly enough time in the pool this summer! I came home and went to bookclub. When I returned close to midnight Blake was in the kitchen with all of his friends eating Beef Wellington and candied nuts. My kitchen was trashed, but at least I got to taste some of the foods! When his friends left Blake played Fortnight into the wee hours. Friends came back the next day for a few hours of basketball in the court. He was determined to enjoy his last few hours of freedom!
17. Friday was Tate’s 7th birthday! He’s been waiting for his birthday for a long time! His buddies came over to celebrate for a few hours. They played with balloons and did a few minute to win it challenges. Opened presents and watched a movie. Success! He got some baseball cards and a basketball squishmallow that even Dad admitted was awesome! For dinner Tate requested crepes (of course), and a strawberry “Michael Jordan” cake. Grandparents joined us for dinner and helped finish cooking crepes and wrapping presents. I was once again in over my head! He got treats and basketball cards from his brothers, rollerblades and a scooter from us, and the same RC car from both sets of grandparents!
18. That night Blake was set apart as a missionary! The stake president gave Blake a really nice blessing. Blake is excited and ready to finally be a missionary! He conveniently got to go to bed at 10:30 despite not being packed for our trip, and despite not cleaning up the mess he left in the kitchen the night before. But he had to get up at 6:30 am. Haha. 
19. We were up until very late cleaning and packing up for our Glacier trip. The plan was to leave at 9 am. We left around noon, and I’m going to count that as a win considering how much I had going on this week, and how much sleep I got!  We managed to leave home without our passports, but luckily grandpa was willing to drive over and pick them up for us. I finally talked dad into buying a small trailer for the back of the car to put the coolers on and free up some cargo space inside the car. The coolers are full of leftover breakfast burritos that we plan to serve for dinner tonight. Killing two birds with one stone! Hopefully they taste ok considering the freezer door was left open multiple times this week. Sheesh. And hopefully Dad likes using the trailer and we can use it again in the future. 
20. Michael is having the time of his life in Taiwan! He is exploring the beautiful island, going on amazing hikes and seeing waterfalls. He’s going to performances and cultural events, and loving the food. I’m getting really excited to go visit!

I look forward to talking to you soon. Love you!

Xoxo,

Mom