Ready to move (again)

We spent a few days in Rhode Island this past week and fell in love with it! The weather was perfect, the scenery gorgeous and the mixture of old and new delightful. Mario had a meeting with his Santa Maria crowd and Summer wanted to check out Brown University so we all piled in the car and headed north.

We stayed just outside of Providence so we could get to Brown's information session early the next day.

We were able to go on a campus tour and get all our questions answered. Summer is ready to attend.

The campus is a nice mixture of older and newer buildings and is full of greens and trees. Her favorite part is how students design their own educational programs.

On Saturday we left Mario to his meetings and went to visit the children's museum in Providence. We had a great time and kept thinking that Sabrina would have loved it!

In the afternoon, we drove down to Jamestown to drop Mario off at another meeting and we drove over to Newport. We are officially in love and ready to move there.

This looks like a good place. We'll take it!

I Heard What You Didn't Say

Many years ago I read an article entitled, "I Heard What You Didn't Say." It was about communication, especially between couples and family members who share a history. For example, a husband and wife are seated in a restaurant and the wife says, "The fish looks good." Innocuous, right? But the husband throws his menu down on the table and storms out. His wife has been nagging him for years to stop eating red meat and to lose weight so he interprets her remark as yet another attempt to change his behavior. In other words, he heard what she didn't say. I have since thought of this communication between close friends and family to be fraught with innuendo and double meanings and have many times wished that amnesia protected me from hearing what (I assume) they didn't say.

At the end of last month when I finally got around to preparing my visiting teaching message (because, heaven forbid I get it done one week earlier than required!) I remembered it was May and, therefore, the message was to be taken from the conference talks. Before picking up the magazine, I started to think back over what I remembered hearing and Elder Nelson's talk jumped out at me--the one about Dear Ruby and family history. I recalled that during his talk I had written two goals down in my journal: 1) to write my personal history and 2) to write a family history for the Perez family. I even had the idea that it would be great for all the adults in my family to write their personal histories and exchange them for Christmas. I assumed I had taken note of what Elder Nelson said but, when I went back and read the talk so I could present it to my sisters, I discovered that he didn't say any such thing.

I have frequently taught the importance of going to General Conference with questions. I have even told stories of people who have received answers to problems they have struggled with for years during General Conference but this is the first time I can remember it specifically happening for me. Thank heaven we are sometimes allowed to "hear what they didn't say"!

No More Braces!

Summer got her braces off! Yeah! She (and her dad) is really happy with the results. Now if she will just wear her retainer...

Here is a picture of Summer with her Seminary teacher.

Tonight is the Mormon Prom and Summer went with a great group of youth from our ward. Some did not want their pictures taken but those who did are shown below.

The Stake President held a reception for all the youth at his home tonight so that was the launching site. Hope they have a great time!

Happy Birthday, Adam!

Adam turned 27! What a blessing he is to us and what a great person. He had asked for a tripod for his video camera so he can stage his movies more easily and he also wanted Pokemon. Happy Birthday, Adam!

The Best Visit Ever

Maggie and Alex came to visit this last week and it was really wonderful to have them here. They did lots of sight seeing in downtown Washington and we were even able to get a temple session in.

 The weather was pretty good--it only rained a few days. One of the best things we were able to do is visit the University of Maryland where Alex is thinking of getting a Masters. We were lucky that it was their annual open house the week the kids were here.

All of us went and even Adam found something to smile about.

(Well, sort of.) We're really hoping they'll be able to come often to visit. We had a great time.