Celebration

Dearest Family,

Tomorrow will be Grandpa Rasband's 100th birthday. This week has been a celebration of life.

Monday, May 25, we had cute Talisa over for the afternoon. We took her to feed the ducks on 1300 West then to Winchester Park and finally to the Heartland Elementary playground. She is a charmer. On Friday afternoon, Kristilyn brought Grant and James over and we had a fun time playing with them. Grant was enchanted with the huge orange petals of the poppies and pulled off as many as he could reach. Orange is Grant's favorite color. James loved having our full attention while Grant napped. I'm amazed at their vocabularies--especially about vehicles!

Tuesday, May 26, precious Kira LaPreal Rogers (grandchild #8) was born to Kim and Keith. The labor and delivery went well and they went home from the hospital the next day. Kira is very alert and sleeps well. She's just beautiful! She looks very much like Talisa as a newborn. I was looking at newborn pictures of Emily and Mordecai and how much they also looked alike as babies. (LaPreal is the middle name of Kim's oldest sister who only lived a month.)

Wednesday, May 27, we had a temple devotional with Elder Marlin K. Jensen in the evening. The YW from our ward came to the FHL for a presentation from Irene Jimenez, their former YW president, who translates and catalogs all the Spanish and Portuguese records for the FHL. It was fun to be with them for an activity.

We had our interviews with Mission President Halverson on Tuesday. He gave us permission to go back to Anna's sealing and to visit family. It will depend on when the adoption goes through but we think that we will fly to New York on a Friday, stay for a week, then stop in Kansas City to visit Melody and Brandon overnight because we've never been to their home Missouri. This will be in late September or late October hopefully.

The last few days Temple Square has been swarming with young people for the Celebration dedication of the Draper and Oquirrh Mountain Temples. You have read about the wonderful musical extravaganza that they have the night before a temple dedication in other areas. They have done this for the two temples in Salt Lake Valley--not the night before the dedication, but between the dedications. The presentations are in the Conference Center with 7000 young people participating each night. The cast also gets to see most of the performance so the audience is limited to family members and special guests such as Pres. Monson, general authorities, etc. Each participant will also receive a DVD keepsake of the performance. Friday night was the presentation for the Draper Temple and Saturday night was for the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. The musical score is the same for both nights but the costumes and choreography is completely different. Karen and Richard Keetch were able to attend because Tom and Teri’s children—Skyler and Jordan were participating. Their family was given four tickets. Roger DuPaix was also in the audience. Edie and Stephen were participating so Roger DuPaix got a ticket. Skyler and Jordan were in the Polynesian dance, Edie was in the train dance, and Stephen was in the chorus. Karen commented that Edie looked a little winded as she was running with the other dancers up the Conference Center steps to their seats following their dance number on stage. This has been a marvelous experience for the youth of those temple districts. Though Emily Suckow (14-year old cousin on Whitlock side who is being treated for leukemia) couldn’t perform on Saturday with the Oquirrh Mountain group, she was allowed to be in the Media Room to watch the performance live. She is thrilled to be home from the hospital and resigned to losing her hair and eyelashes. One of Emily’s cousins cut her long hair and sent it to be made into a wig.

It was great to receive high school graduation announcements and pictures from Stephen DuPaix and Paige Johnson--the youngest of Grandpa Rasband's grandchildren and the oldest of his great-grandchildren.

Truman Madsen, BYU professor, died this past week after fighting cancer for a year. Saturday night we attended an openhouse for Andrew Hamblin and his bride Lisa at Hamblin's in their backyard pavilion. There was a huge downpour so the fire pit was a nice treat.

Saturday morning we did two sealing sessions. Sister Sandell is returning from her mission to Ontario and had lots of family sealings to do before she returns home because she lives 5 hours from a temple. We were pleased to be part of John H. Mabey's sealing group for the second group. He is Grandpa Rasband's cousin, a stake patriarch, and sealer in the Jordan River Temple. He lives just across the street from the temple. It was his brother Sherman that died last fall.

Saturday night was the Spanish Branch Talent Night. There is lots of marvelous talent there but there is definitely a cultural twist. The program was announced to begin at 6:30 but when we arrived at 6:20 there were only one other family there. They finally got the program started about 7:15 and at least a third of the people who were scheduled to perform didn't show up. One talent was jumping on a pogo stick. The Primary provided a rhythm band. John sang a medley which was well received. As the evening wore on more and more people were spontaneously volunteering to perform. At 9:00 the food committee begged for a break to blessing the refreshments because the ice cream was melting but when we left at 9:15 PM the party was just getting started.

We've had a good Sabbath. We had regular meetings and John taught Sunday School and I taught the Young Women. It was fun to visit Keith, Kim, Talisa, and Kira this afternoon. They are a wonderful family. John is at State Priesthood Meeting now. We get to give our 3 minute talks at Devotional tomorrow morning.

Mike and Desi, thank you for being such wonderful hosts for the Eliasons, Burninghams, and Roberts over Memorial Day weekend. Many special memories were made and there were many comments about all you did to make it so enjoyable for everyone. Too bad about the rain but you were together! It means so much to us that you enjoy spending time together.

Love,

Mom and Dad