Empty Nesters No Longer

There has been an addition to the family. We are announcing the arrival of my niece, Cheryl, who will be living with us this school year. Since tomorrow is her first day of school, we took advantage of today to drive out to her school to get a few things settled. It's a beautiful campus and I think she will enjoy attending school there as she is working on getting her surgical tech degree.




Our first stop was the bookstore where she was able to find the one last textbook that she needed, and also the medical goggles that I forced her to try on so I could get a picture. Actually, I forced her to take a lot of pictures and she wasn't very happy about it (hmmmm, reminds me of my kids who frequently complain about posing for my pictures...), but I told her I'm doing it for her mother who will appreciate seeing the pictures of what she did today.



We went over to the Institute building so she could get signed up for a class.


The secretary was so nice as she registered Cheryl for the class that best fit her schedule.


And then this little thing took her picture.



All I can say after spending time with Cheryl on her new campus is that SHE ROCKS!!!



Good luck on your first day of school tomorrow, Cheryl!

Mark and Michelle Plus Five

Mark and Michelle brought their family to town for a school reunion, a family reunion, a family dinner and other fun stuff.







It was nice to see them again and I'm sure they all enjoyed the delicious food at the family dinner at Mom's.


















Fun time for all the kids to play together!!

A Reunion With My Mission President

On our recent trip to Phoenix, I had to reach out and see my Mission President. It was fun to see Presidente Mortensen again. It brought back a lot of great memories and made me grateful for the time I had to work with him.

I told him we would take him to dinner, my treat, and he could choose anywhere he would like to go. Where do you think he chose out of all the restaurant choices in the greater Phoenix area? He chose to go to Manuel's. A little hole in the wall Mexican food restaurant about 5 miles from his home. Ah, what a reminder, eating Mexican food with my Mission President once again.

It was a great time.

?!?Enjoying?!? the Arizona Heat

It sounded like a very hot idea and it turned out to be an extremely hot experience when we took a trip to Arizona in August. We saw the thermostat register 115 degrees a couple of times, but I was slow on the draw and could only capture a reading a couple of degrees lower. But, by the time it reaches 113 outside, what's a couple more degrees anyway? HOT IS HOT!!!!


We have now become official Isaksen family wedding stalkers. Six years ago to the day, we were in California attending Heather's wedding. More recently we went to Idaho for Brittany's wedding and now here we went to Arizona for Darin's wedding. It was nice to meet his sweet bride, Lisa, and to participate in the family dinner the night before the wedding day.




How great for the Isaksen family to all be together in one spot and have a family photo taken.


We were looking forward to attending a temple session at the Mesa Arizona Temple after the 9 a.m. wedding ceremony.




It's always such a fun thing to see the newlyweds come out of the temple and pose for pictures.






Debbie shares my "love" of hot weather (both of us wondering why anyone would actually want to live there...) and was trying to cool off herself and her grandkids by sharing capfuls of chilled bottled water with them.


The reception was very nice and we enjoyed visiting with all of the Isaksen family one last time before we all went our separate ways.





We definitely didn't let the heat get the best of us.