January 18, 2009

Natalie went on an accelerated trip to OK city to visit her brother, Brent and his family. Natalie's parents picked her up on Thursday morning and the three of them along with Natalie's sister Anita made it to Albuquerque, NM that evening. They pulled into Oklahoma early the next day with sore rear ends, I'm told. They spent Saturday and part of Sunday with the Nelsons before returning home - arriving late Monday evening. Brent and his wife, Laura have recently had a new baby, whom they named Katelyn They were able to see some of the construction which Brent's company has recently erected. It seems that most of this visit involved sitting around and holding the baby, however. The four vagabonds had some real quality time together while driving, and I think they really enjoyed not having extra family along for the trip so they could relive some of their past memories. We are grateful to Mom and Dad Powell for coming down and spending Thursday and Friday with Anders to keep him company.
Monday Anders and Carl spent some quality time together while we cleaned the carpets and a whole host of other activities to get the house in order for Mother's return. Jackson and Madeline have been working on their weekly goals very diligently this week. We finally published them last week. Madeline has a piano goal to learn a piece from the Enchanted book, while Jackson has a piano goal and a few merit badge goals. We had progress reviews for the deacons this week and so he re-calibrated himself in his Duty to God and scouting goals. James is very diligent with respect to his piano goals. He is also working on a webelo goal as well. Madeline went in for an orthodontist visit this week - braces to be on for another month at least, sigh. Madeline also had a basketball game on Thursday. I did not see the game, but I know they lost. Natalie and I had a date Friday night to Maddox with my boss Lynn Dearden, his wife Natalie and my colleague Jeff Ewing and his wife Becky. We had a great time getting to know them better.
Saturday I spent some more time cleaning carpets while mother went to the store and the children did some chores and watched cartoons. I got some wood in preparation for the Klondike derby campout coming up this weekend and then Natalie and I went to the Ward Conference session at the Temple. We had a little Cafe Rio afterwards. Our children spent the evening with their Stanley cousins. Unfortunately, Madeline wanted to go the regional dance when we got home, so that prolonged us getting to bed at a reasonable time.