Developing Talents...

With a pay raise comes the opportunity to get the kids into more stuff!

As mentioned earlier, Justine has taken up piano lessons again. She is progressing rapidly. She takes lessons from Sister Williams who lives up the street. She is doing great! We don't have a great piano (very out of tune) as it is a loaner from Michelle's mom and has seen better days, but she still sounds good. I wouldn't recognize a good tune if...well, I don't know, but I am not very musically gifted. Justine is also on an elite dance team, and is loving it. She is actually dancing with the 12-13 year olds (she is 10). It is a little pricey, but it is what she loves to do.

Emilie has started preschool 3 days a week. She is such a social individual, and it is a great release for her to be with other kids. Emilie is a also a star player on her soccer team. The Yellow Dragons are 6-0-1, and Emilie is averaging around 4 goals per game. She has a real nose for the ball and is relentless and extremely focused for a 4 year old. She will be a great athlete at something down the line. Look for her name in 13 years on a BYU athletic team! It's funny to watch the parents of the opposing teams get frustrated as she outworks the other team. I am way too competitive. I will make it a point to coach her T-ball team next year as she will be old enough to play in the spring. She is also in dance class (somewhere, I am not sure where...mom handles that). I just show up for recitals with the video camera.

Michelle and I are doing well. Busy as ever with work, homemaking, and church. Michelle attended the general Relief Society meeting tonight and had a great time. She has met a few new friends in the ward and is having a great time. She has gotten to know Amy Stauffer very well, whose husband serves as my 1st Counselor in the Young Mens organization. What a great family! They started coming back to church around 9 months ago after 15 years of inactivity. We love them and their family.

The photo above is a little showboating while on the Varsity/Venturer weeklong camp that we went on this summer. All the boys think I am uber cool because I can out-wakeboard them. It's about all I can do...I can hardly get up on a ski anymore!

Tomorrow we will start praying as a family for a missionary opportunity. Not long ago while in MN I met a great brother from St. Louis named Shannon Mahaffey. We were attending orientation for our company and we had the opportunity to team teach one of the fellas in our orientation group. What a great experience it was! As we taught him in the hallway of our hotel, he had many questions about the gospel, in particular the challenges that our youth face today. We did not have a Book of Mormon to give him so I gave him my "For the Strength of Youth" book. Anyway, Shannon mentioned to me that his family prays for 60 days specifically for missionary opportunities. It was such a wonderful thing that I wanted my family to feel that spirit. It turns out that Shannon was a counselor in the St. Louis Mission presidency. Stay tuned! A couple years ago, we sent some Books of Mormon to President Craig over in Spain as he presided there. That was a neat experience for our family.

Work is going well. We are working hard to build our opportunity funnel and we are having fun and closing some deals along the way.