School for the Gifted: 12 June 2011

Monday was the last day of school for the girls. We sent them all off to school for the two-hour event while Joanne and I got ready for our trip to Utah. I cut the grass one last time and Joanne made sure the house was clean for us to come back to. We finished packing suitcases and loaded up the car. When the girls got home at around noon, we were ready and headed to Pittsburgh Airport. We had enough time before our flight took off for Madeline to munch on some McDonalds.

You may recall if you've followed my blog for long that we flew into Las Vegas this time. When we arrived in Vegas Monday evening, we rented a car (a dusty blue Lincoln Continental, or "granny ghetto mobile" according to Mikelle), and drove to St. George. We spent the first three days of our trip with Angie's family. On Wednesday, we took the boat to Sand Hollow.

We paused for a family photo on the boat before the play began in earnest. It was windy, not stereotypically hot for St. George in June, and the water had only warmed to a brisk 66 degrees due to the unseasonably cool spring Utah (and most of the West) has experienced this year.

Madeline never misses a chance to pose for a Kodak moment. (That's my hat).

Given the relatively choppy water, tubing was the order of the day. Emily, Madeline and Jake got us started.

After Madeline and Emily got tired, Jessica and Mikelle joined Jake on the tube.

Then is was time for Daddy, Emily and Mommy to have a ride. I got water up my nose.

Later that evening, after we were all waterlogged and tired out, Angie had a house full of people. Brandon (who was not at the lake with us :-( because he had to work), had received a letter. Jake opened it for him. It read (in part): Dear Elder Atkinson, You are hereby called to serve as a missionary...in the California San Jose Mission...You will learn the missionary discussions in the Vietnamese language...You should report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on Wednesday, September 14, 2011.

It was an emotional experience for all involved, especially Brandon, and he is excited to have some time to work and prepare this summer for his mission. We are very proud of him. As you can tell from the white dots on the map behind him, people had guessed places all over the world for Brandon, but only two had guessed California, and no one had guessed San Jose (much less Vietnamese speaking). We found out later that the San Jose area has over 100,000 Vietnamese people.

On Thursday we stayed with Angie's family for the day. I was sick so I slept a lot while the kids had a water fight in the yard and Joanne went....well, you know. That evening we said goodbye and headed north to Orem for some time with Joanne's family. On Friday the girls found a playground at Geneva Elementary School.