Lisa n Tom (n James n Joseph)

Lisa writes: Debbie is headed into the Missionary Training Center on her way to Spanish-speaking Missouri. We love you, Debbie! See you in 18 months! (Thanks for the pic, Christi.)

Lisa writes: Oh, they're cute. They sure are, those little chipmunks. We were delighted the first day we saw one skitter across the porch. "We have chipmunks! Yay!" The chipmunk must have been just as pleased with us, because he invited all his family and friends to move in to our backyard. Now we have our own miniature prairie dog town. Here are just two of the many, many holes. Now we're in a different business: chipmunk relocation. The website promises that the little rodents can't resist a mix of peanut butter and birdseed. We will round them up, one by one, and move them out to the woods where they can landscape to their hearts' delight.

Lisa writes: Saturday evening, we invited the whole block over to our house (literally -- we went around the whole block handing out invitations) for a house warming. We also invited Tom's family, family friends, church friends, and the lady who shares a back fence with us (our thinking there was, "Which people are we most likely to have to coordinate a fence replacement or tree removal with someday? Let's get those folks on our side early.") What was fun was discovering that many of the people whom we thought occupied completely separate circles, knew each other. There was the retired-CIA contingency, there's the guy who turned out to be my distant cousin, and then there was Earl, who I am convinced has either contracted for, worked with, or referred to just about everyone in the state. Here is a small sample of the beautiful people who dropped by on Saturday night.

Lisa writes: Eager to make new church friends, we made the novice mistake of accidentally introducing ourselves to the chair of the Activities Committee. Two weeks before the ward campout. Would we be willing to be in charge of breakfast? Surrrrrrrre we would. The gigantic bags of just-add-water pancake mix and pre-cooked sausages (Costco, how I love thee!) and very extremely awesome box grill (thanks, Boy Scouts!) made this much easier. Still just as messy, but much easier. It was a fun, cheap get-away. Except for the $89 Aerobed. I'm way past the stage where sleeping on the ground sounds fun anymore. On the left you have Tom at 6:30 a.m. coaxing the amazingly inflammable coals into life. On the right is Tom with a jug of water, cooling them off. What you don't see in between these two shots is the two of us frying up 60 sausages and about 100 pancakes. (One batch with chocolate chips! We do camp cooking in style.)

Lisa writes: We were in Colorado over the weekend for Father's Day and Debbie's mission farewell. Tom and I sang a song. In Spanish. In church. In public. In front of people. Mom just called this morning to say she, Dad and Debbie are in the van, on the way Utah right now. That's it. It's official. The last kid is out of the house.

Lisa writes: ... is the #1 Google result for moving cartoon giraffe . Thank you, Internet! We have no idea what that means, but we are very flattered.

Lisa writes: Hey, look! Dad got a watch for Father's Day. What a surprise!

Tom writes: At long last, the video portion of our trip to Hawaii is ready. I have cleverly back-dated the post so that it shows up with the others, and you can find it here .

When I was a little tyke, my parents took me all sorts of cool places. Here, we are in Mexico City, where both of my parents lived at different points before they got married. It is remarkable when I think back on it. My dad's health was not great and he had experienced some significant challenges in his life. My mom, too, had not had it easy growing up. But together, the two of them shared an optimism for the future that seemed to wash away the pain and darkness. And as I look forward to the years to come with Lisa, I am beginning to understand why they felt that way and I hope to follow in their footsteps.

Some of the best things about my dad were his playfulness and sense of imagination. And I think it tickled him pink to have little ones in the house to play with. He had this gift of being able to change gears quickly between being the adult and then being a little kid. As a kid, I don't think I realized it. But by the time I got to college, I was beginning to catch on. By the way, would it surprise you that my first "complicated" word was airplane? Dad was also into history. His idea of a family vacation had to include something of cultural or historical value. Not knowing any differently, I thought it perfectly normal, and I have many fond memories of these adventures. This apple (me) did not fall far from the tree, I am proud to say. Here, we visited the Mayan pyramids at Uxmal, in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.

Lisa writes: My dad likes techie toys, and ever since I can remember -- and I'm sure before then -- he has always had a movie camera. The first ones were Super 8s with no sound and the speed set on "hyperactive." All our small-kid-time footage looks like Charlie Chaplin flicks. But in 1982 we got a Betamax and were videoing big time. Since then, the cameras have gotten smaller, the file sizes have gotten bigger, and we've finally learned to stop shooting hours of footage of the inside of the camera lens. Dad was recently sorting through some of his video and here are a couple of gems: In 1997, my sister Christi found a baby deer lying in a field that was to be plowed the next day. She rescued it and bottle-fed it until it was big enough to fend for itself. She named it Buckley because it was a male deer. (Buck... get it?) In 2001, Madison was five or six and Christian was about one. Here we are feeling musical.

Lisa writes: Benjamin and parents arrived home late Friday night. Cameron and Ava are thrilled with their new baby brother, and he looks pretty happy to see them too. Lori says he is "a little piece of heaven." (Click on any picture to see it larger.)

Debbie wrote me: So dad just handed me a 100 dollar watch and said "Happy Father's Day to Me! Wrap it nicely. Your siblings are off the hook, they can just donate 5 bucks to it or something." Lemme know whose names I should put on this watch or if I should just put the "Father's Day Fairy." Dad's so spoiled :-) -Deb

Lisa writes: Ramping up to Father's Day, here is my dad in 1974, someplace in Utah. The one in the wagon is me. The upside-down one is my sister Lori. This looks like a good time. I fret a bit about kids getting married too young, but there is a lot to be said about having young parents. Dad isn't more than 28 years old in this picture. There's still a lot of ankle-swinging fun to be had at that age.

Lisa writes: My sister Christi reports that the family survived the 15 hour move to Utah. I don't think Christi ever reads this, so I'm going to steal her words. "First stop was Reno, Nevada. Kodi was being a stinker...literally!!!! He rolled in dog poop! Dogs can be so gross. Memorial day we took a break from unpacking and went up to Bear Lake. Bear lake is about 7,000 ft elevation. It was maybe 65 degrees outside and the water was about 58 degrees, but did that stop them? "...they just hiked up their pants and headed for the water...not sure why they hiked up their pants when they all ended up... "Soaked! Taylor was being the brave big sister and carried Christian across the icey gulf. He had Taylor carry him all the way over there so he wouldn't get wet...then he pronounced himself king of the hill and jumped in! Boys... "Kodi is one happy dog. One very happy dog."

Lisa writes: We accidentally let our nine month anniversary slip by in a flurry of yardwork . The garden is coming along nicely, the bare spots in the lawn are filling in with bright green baby grass, and we're getting merciless with the hedge clippers. On Monday nights, we flip between Family Home Weeding and Family Home Depot. In three months we will have been married one year. Tom and I second guess ourselves a lot: Are we doing this right? Is this where we should be by now? Have we forgotten anything? Last night, Tom said, "Did you know there are people our age with 10 year old kids?" Yes, I think about those people all the time. And there are a few people out there our age with little babies. I asked my friend K, a year older than I am with a 1 year old, if it bothers her that all the other moms in her playground are 10 years younger than she is and she said, "No, I just pretend I'm 24." So, apparently, self-delusion is the secret of happiness. The othe...