Today is Mother's Day and I've been thinking about the gifts my mother gave me. My mother would be the first to tell you she is not perfect. She has probably already written her funeral eulogy because she is determined that no one think that she is better than she is. The reality is no mother is perfect. But I'm pretty sure my mother does not give herself enough credit for the good things she has done for her children. She has given me many gifts but here are four: 1.  Forthright   The dictionary defines "forthright" as being straightforward and honest. My mother has always been completely honest. If she does not feel or think something, she will not say it.  This means I can always trust her to give me her honest opinion when I ask for it, even if I don't always want to hear it. She is also good at keeping her mouth shut when appropriate but she's not going to say something she doesn't believe--she's not a pretender and doesn't feel a need to...

This week Scott and I celebrated our 33rd anniversary of marriage. Wednesday was our actual anniversary so we decided to go to the temple and do sealings that night. The whole experience was very sweet. We walked into the temple and saw President Worthen (president of BYU) so Scott introduced himself and Pres. Worthen shook our hands. Then I saw our neighbor Jackie Wood who works in the temple. After we went up to the sealing office and sat down to wait, we saw Ron Stoddard who was Camille's doctor in the NICU. He is a very nice man and he gave Camille a blessing right after her bowels perforated when she became extremely sick and had to be transported up to Primary Children's. It was nice to visit with him after not seeing him for many years. It turned out that he was the sealer assigned to our session.  During the session, we were able to have Elizabeth Brighton sealed to her parents (Samuel and Elizabeth) and Elizabeth's mother sealed to her parents (James and Elizabeth)...

Many years ago, our family lived in Gaithersburg, Maryland, while Scott worked at NIST doing a post-doc. We had this family picture taken on the grounds of the Washington, D.C. temple. The background is hard to see but it is the temple. Scott and I enjoyed going to this temple for the three years we lived in the area. The first picture I recently had recolorized  which cost a pretty penny, after getting badly faded over the last 28 years. The second picture is original. It's interesting to compare the two. You can see why I enlarged the first one where everyone looks a little more cheerful! Recently I read a really good article about the property the Washington, D.C. LDS temple is on:  History of the temple site . The article talks about how the interesting part about the property is that it was never developed before the temple was built even though it is in a prime location. As you go west on the freeway called the Beltway that circles the District, you come up a hill and th...

This last week Everett and Caroline graduated from BYU. Everett graduated in the Applied Math program and Caroline graduated in Social Studies Secondary Education. They're both very excited to be done with school!  Congratulations! At BYU, they received a top-quality, spiritually-enriching education at a very low cost and I am very appreciative. Tulips in front of the Provo Temple this week BYU commencement always has the best talks. President Worthen spoke on "propinquity" which is the state of being close to someone. After two years of Covid, he encouraged us to work on that. Elder Palmer spoke on a theme of " Focus, Center, and Re-center. " Watch it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llRCy_NVg18 FOCUS :  He talked about coming to Salt Lake City in August of 2020 from the continent of Africa where he was helping to lead the church. He sat next to President Nelson in the cafeteria for lunch. He told Pres. Nelson how intimidating it was to sit next to the pr...

  Last weekend we visited the Goblin Valley area with our son's family with the goals of doing some hikes in the area. After many years of roughing it, I decided that camping without a flush toilet was no longer acceptable so we decided to rent a trailer in Payson. Our son's family already had a pop-up trailer which they brought. Here's what we learned about renting trailers: 1.  I loved the flush toilet and private bathroom. 2.  I loved the heater when it was cold outside. 3.  I loved everyone having a bed. 4.  I didn't love the bad gas mileage we got hauling a trailer. Our big van got about 8-9 mpg hauling the trailer.  And our van had much less power with a trailer behind it. The moral is don't travel very far with a trailer. The trip was good! We arrived on Thursday night and got all set up. We had initially thought we would find a spot next to the cliffs but ended up going to the Temple Hill campground which has a few improvements since the last time w...