The stars finally lined up and the entire extended Morgan Family was able to get together for a family photo. Our last picture was taken 7 years ago and since then we have an additional 9 family members. This summer was our window of opportunity with Melinda and her family here from Arizona and all of our missionaries home.
The 4th of July was the only day that everyone was available and while we had to pay a little extra to the photographer, it was great to spend the holiday afternoon together! (Just click on the photo to see it bigger!)
All the kids came up from Provo and Alan’s parents came over for Father’s Day Sunday dinner. It is still wonderful after 5 years of missionaries, to have the whole family together for special occasions.
It was cold and rainy, but we still had fun visiting four different cemeteries meeting up with Grandma and Grandpa at a couple of them. We have a few family history “traditions” and I’m glad the kids have always been willing to visit the ancestors!
We wandered around the Murray Cemetery for quite awhile looking for a specific ancestor only to discover that while he was indeed buried there, there has never been a headstone!
This year Elliot turned 17 years old. He has now graduated in my book to a “fairly experienced driver” and he did get through his first winter of driving in the snow unscathed, so I am able to quit worrying about him (for the most part 🙂 )
Gifts for Elliot always seem to have a BYU theme and this birthday was no exception! He is still the biggest fan in the family and he hasn’t even gone to school there yet!
And so I’m older. But I guess that’s good, because that means I am still here – right?! Aside from being sick in bed with bronchitis the whole week before my birthday, for the most part, I enjoy really good health. I feel lucky that at this point everything still seems to be “working” for me. My birthday weekend we decided to have “get-a-way” by staying here and sending the boys down to Provo to play with their sibs. I didn’t feel great, but we enjoyed watching movies, eating yummy food, reading and resting.
We also worked on finishing up some family history work and getting some names ready for temple work. It was nice to spend the weekend together on our own, but it also made me a bit sad to realize that we are getting closer and closer to living in this house all by ourselves. I was kind of glad to have the boys come home :). We celebrated my birthday on President’s Day and the Provo kids came up for another round of dinner and presents. It’s always fun to have everyone here for a few hours.
This year Clark turned 14 years old. He seems so tall and old – he is taller than I am and has almost caught up with Elliot. We decided to celebrate a couple of days after his birthday so that all the sibs could come up from Provo for a family party. The grandparents came over as well and we had a yummy chicken divan dinner complete with Grandma’s homemade cheesecake. Of the gifts he received, my favorites were the black dress shirt and keyboard tie that we gave him. He will look awesome for his next jazz band concert!
Along with turning 14 Clark had the opportunity to be ordained a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood at church and now he gets to be Alan’s home teaching partner. Sadly though, his campouts with the scouts are coming to a close. They were so glad that he would still be going on the Klondike because he is a master at building fires and tying knots. Their troop won the fire building contest and took 2nd overall (even after getting no sleep because they had 7 boys in their 4 man tent and were sleeping on a slope!)
I think Clark has had grilled cheese and fries for every birthday since he was two years old! Of course he got to choose a Sunday Birthday dinner for when the whole family was here to celebrate.
