The most glorious event of our year was adding a beautiful, talented, incredible, amazing, wonderful girl to our family! Coy and Haven were sealed for eternity July 9 in the Draper 
Temple. They are so happy and we feel so blessed! They are studying in Provo where they are supporting each other in school and they are just perfect for each other. Haven is studying ASL and teaching piano. Coy is Currently studying computer science.
Elder Mckay Scott has spent the year serving a mission for the Savior in Taichung, Taiwan, where they eat floating chicken feet and worship Captain America in Daoist Temples alongside Confucious, Thor, Jesus and Buddha. All truth and goodness welcome, even if it wears colored tights! He loves the people and culture. We are so grateful he is safe after being at the epicenter of the incredibly destructive earthquake earlier this year. He danced at the wedding in cardboard form and was happy to be carried above the crowd to celebrate. We miss him so much our adnoids ache, but his cardboard self keeps vigil in the family room, watching over us, sometimes intervening. It has a magical effect when he "stands" between two fighters. I just have a special feeling in my heart that I want to share right now that Mckay misses his Mom so very much.
We've been trying to warn Spencer that sometimes when you have your 18th birthday, people expect you to be an adult, but it looks like he plans to go through with it anyway. He is beginning his mission papers and plans to set his availability just after Taiwan Turbo Returns, July 7th. how to flex your upper lip so it would be memorable, even though he has no idea what he's talking about. He redecorated his parent's room all with pictures of himself, and when the picture had all the family there was a paper heart around just Spencer's face. He's very helpful in ways like this! Every night at about 11 Spencer starts confessing everything. It's very entertaining. We all make popcorn, watch the clock and get ready. He works as a painter, plays in jazz band at school and his own band with friends (soundcloud Cityskape), and pu
Joseph is going with the FRO! He did not keep his new year's resolution to move to Cali and live on the beach. He did, however get his driver's license, which some may deem as the first step toward such lofty ambitions. He plays in a couple of bands under the direction of his awesome uncle Nate, and has three music classes a week, and actually never stops playing. Have y'all heard the story of the man who gardened in the buff his entire life, and left a last wish of being buried in the same outfit? His family was so tired of the complaints and arrests that they gussed him up in a full church suit with the buttons done nice and tight. Well, in the spirit of that we appreciate Joseph's drumming talent, but we'd like to wrap his hands in bubble wrap because he never stops drumming. We have to choose carefully where and when we take him out in public. Joseph keeps his room perfectly clean and we've loved watching him kick the ball into the net on the soccer team this year. That may be the only time where his big hair comes in handy, protecting his gray matter when he uses that one and only head he'll ever receive, no refunds, to hit the ball! My graduating class may have been the most flammable of all time. We had 7 inch bangs and used more hairspray per year than any generation in history. I loved it. We'd rat our bangs until they were 9 inches high. In one class I sat behind a red haired girl with about 2 feet of hair in every direction. I never saw the board once that year. I thought those big hair days were gone, but my two boys, minus the hairspray, have brought it all back.
Annie homeschooled and we tended a baby last year, and this year she is in a cute little uniform with a plaid skirt at a charter school where she drags her cello every day and does her homework and has great hair, too. She has kept all of her New Year's Resolutions including bringing giant pickles to friends at lunch, not becoming a nun and never ever once did she rollerskate in church. She is doing fabulously caring for her pet lizard Lizzie, and dealing with all of the smelly boys around her all the time. She knows what it's like to be boy trapped. Sometimes she lays on the floor and pretends she is a carrot. It was especially exciting this year when she shot the basketball and it went through the hoop and her team got two points each time it did. She also when she received her Young Women Recognition award this year. It only took her 4 months. She loves babies and her mom so much. She likes to finish all of her sentences with "I bought it with my own money" even though it is almost never true.
Sethmister wants an edible sombrero for Christmas. He is much more like a 17 year old than a newly 9 year old. He is a living example of a free range child. Home schooled, hilarious, and once in a great while in shoes. He did not make it through the year without rollerskating in church because he got heelies for his birthday and "accidentally" wore them to church. He was Jim Hawkins in our summer version of Muppet Treasure Island and Annie was Captain Smollet. Seth was given a pink polka dotted tie this year and he said "How could you do this to me? " He likes to ride his tub sled in the irrigation water with paddles in the backyard. He shaved one Sunday morning this year, just for fun. He lost his wallet for three months this year with $37 in it and found it in the front yard when the snow melted. He loves Scouts. He had his blue shirt ironed and ready two months before scouts started. He is playing in a little band, and Little Drummers, and Children's choir. He loves the drums so much.
The phrase that keeps going through my mind is ridiculous splendor. We are eating, sleeping, reading, learning, playing music, fighting, failing and trying again, but it is all such a beautiful gift. Every breath is a miracle. I am in constant awe at these big haired crazy kids that I am so blessed to enjoy, laugh with and learn from. It is taking all my time to just be a person and try to keep bread in the house, toilet paper on the rolls, everyone in clean undies, keep the peace and remember how many children I have and not forget to pick them up on time. If all of that happens in one day, that is a good day! I am blessed with 13 piano and voice students and teach Children's choir, and I try to make dinner every single day. I am just trying to get the laundry done and the kids have the nerve to open the pantry and wait for something to dance, eat it, grow up and start leaving the house. The nerve. Don't they know what that does to me?
We've had absolute miracles with Jeff's health. His liver was struggling and we didn't know, but thanks to the inspiration of a sweet nurse we found out in time. We've spent a lot of the year fighting strep in his heart and liver failure, but things are looking up and we are counting our blessings. He is such a devoted father and loves his kids with all of his heart might mind strength and power. He can also sing a pretty mean Sinatra karaoke.
Everyone in the family still loves quesadillas, America, and all the orphans in the whole world. On these things we all agree. We all worked on our prison escape skills helping my Dad dig out a room under his house. We are ready now to escape the Chateu D'if should the need arise! Good hard skills!
We feel so blessed to feel the wind at our back, the sun on our shoulders, to live and love and breathe in such ridiculous splendor. The most glorious miracles sometimes feel so common because they are so universal, but we feel like Elizabeth Barrett Browning when she said:
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