My Birthday Party at Work

The ladies I work with surprised me on my birthday with a great breakfast and flowers. I LOVE working with these women; they are respected professionals and truly great friends. Thanks, girls!

General Conference with the Family

What a great weekend! We drove to Salt Lake this weekend to attend Conference and to spend time together. Whitney and Joe picked Ridge up in Flagstaff and drove up while we brought Damien and Zoey with us. It was my favorite birthday ever!

More photos

Here are some more photos that I couldn't help posting. I was in Casa Grande last weekend and did a photo shoot with Ari. You can also follow Brianne's link at the right to see pictures of Monica and Carter. I also realized that we don't really have any pictures of Gabe in here. He's the one behind the camera most of the time, but occasionally I do get a candid shot of him.

He's cheesin' for the camera at Oregano's on Ridge's birthday. He keeps his Nanny laughing with all his trash talk and teasing.

Dear Elder Goodman:

Ridge's mission call came in the mail yesterday, so we hopped in the car and headed for Flagstaff. I wish I had taken a picture of the sky as we were coming into Holbrook - it reminded me of the Dust Bowl pictures I used to show my students. At one point, Rick had to pull off the Interstate because we literally could not see the end of the hood of our car. Scary! I just kept silently praying, "Heavenly Father, please help us get this mission call into Ridge's hands safely." I guess He heard the prayers. I also didn't get a photo of the worst of the storm (too scared to think about the camera), but here are some of the ones Gabe and I did take:

We managed to get to Flagstaff in one piece, thanks to Dad's wicked driving skills. The crowd started gathering in Ridge's apartment. We had been working on webcam setup for a couple of days so that Whitney, Joe, Ward, and Brianne could watch Little Brudder open his call. However, the Internet connection in Ridge's apartment is too slow to support high tech, so the girls had to settle for listening in on phone calls.

And the call? Guatemala, Guatemala City South Mission! Ridger reports on August 5.

We went to Olive Garden to celebrate, and Ridge had a definite "deer-in-the-headlights" look about him during dinner.

Guatemala, here he comes!

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/guatemalacity/

http://www.mission.net/guatemala/el-salvador/cgi-bin/rmdb41.cgi?action=view_all_pres

The Future Missionary at NAU

It's so hard for me to believe, but our son is ready for his mission! We went to Flagstaff on Saturday to celebrate his 19th birthday with him and his friends. His papers are ready to go and it looks to us like he has lots of good support from his great friends at NAU. We had fun eating at Oregano's (gotta love that pizzookie!), going shopping at Sam's Club, seeing a movie ("Taken" - it was intensely awesome), and then watching the party get started. They had lots of fun after we left - we hear that the party didn't break up until 4:00 a.m.

Nurse Brianne

I have to brag a little, even though I did nothing myself. Brianne is now officially a registered nurse after passing the NCLEX with flying colors this week. Congratulations to this sweet daughter of ours - and to Ward as well - for accomplishing so much in life. Two gorgeous and sweet children, a Bachelor's in construction management, a registered nurse, beautiful homes being built, and a wonderful life full of service, kindness, and commitment to all the right things. We are so proud of you!

Kissed by an Angel

I had a conference to attend in the Valley this week. Stephanie, Julie, and I drove down on Sunday so we wouldn't get caught in the storm, and we stayed with Whitney and Joe. Then we went to the conference for two days and ended up returning to Casa Grande because another storm was coming. That was fine with me! I can never get enough kisses going when Ari is around. So the whole time I was there, I would kiss and kiss on her. Of course, she is only six months old, going on seven months, so she can't fend me off very well. On Tuesday night, I had taken her upstairs to change her into jammies for bedtime. She was all changed and I was walking across the loft with her, holding her up so that she was looking backwards over my left shoulder. She kind of pulled away from me and held herself out at arms' length, just looking at me. Then she leaned toward me and put her little mouth on my cheek. She just held herself there for several moments, and suddenly I realized that she was kissing me! That has to rank right up there with the all-time highs in my life; being kissed by an angel.