Melissa & Brady - August 13, 2008

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We flew to Washington for Justin's cousin's wedding. He helped his uncle finish the beautiful deck & decorate for the backyard reception & I was the photographer. They are a cute couple. I'm so glad I got to meet Justin's cousins & get to know them a bit. I had fun hanging out with Charla & Bridgett. We also had fun picking blackberries & the aunts made all kinds of yummy jam which we flew back home with us. Seattle is pretty; there are trees everywhere. It actually started sprinkling when we were downtown taking photos but it didn't seem to phase anyone but me.

Eternal Marriage

Justin & I spoke on this today in sacrament meeting. I was glad for the topic because we just had our 3rd wedding anniversary! I'm so grateful to be married to a faithful man who makes me want to be a better person. I'm glad we started out by making sacred temple covenants and that helps us to love each other even more as time passes and as we experience all things together. When studying for my talk I found the story of the silverware & loved it: if you want something to last forever, you treat it differently... it becomes special because you have made it so.

Coyote Lakes

Justin, Blake, Steve Dunn, Kenny & Jarom went backpacking to Coyote Lakes for a whole week. They took 3 days to hike the 17 miles in & then hiked it out in one day. Apparently that's the last time many of them are doing that hike again. It was difficult & Justin was pretty tore up afterwards. One of the blisters on his big toe was the size of his next biggest toe.

Camping

At the beginning of August Justin & I went camping with the Ricks: Karissa, Kenny & their daughter Maleah (not sure if I spelled that right). We just stayed one night at the Redwood Grove & went to the Walk of 100 Giants, Dome Rock, & drove/walked around a lot. It was tons of fun.

School Time

Justin is taking an Auto-CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) class and I'm taking an online Abnormal Psych class & Cultural Anthropology in-classroom. When I showed up to Cultural Anth my sister Chrissy & I realized we were in the same class. That should maybe make the lectures more bearable, maybe? I think I might have to take a Mountain Dew to that class too; seems like it should be an interesting topic but sometimes all the interestingness does not sufficiently counter the dronings.

Zebedee

Our family has grown, though not in the conventional way. Justin's 14-year old brother came to live with us and we're excited to have him. He's a freshman at Highland. I don't have a current picture of him; I'll have to take one. I like this one, though. He's experiencing lots of 1sts this year: high school, seminary, church, living with us of course, Bakersfield heat, the list goes on... but he seems to be adjusting well.

We're in escrow!

Yea, after months of searching and lots of offers, we finally snatched one up! It's on Wenatchee St. I wouldn't be sharing before we actually closed the deal but somehow everyone seemed to know right away anyways, so I might as well tell. We're very sad to leave 1st ward but we hear there are lots of young couples in College Heights so maybe that will be good. The house reeks of smoke & it will take a couple weeks of scrubbing, painting, ceiling scraping & carpet ripping before we actually move in- probably early October-ish.

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