July Nuts and Bolts

Our highlight for the month was our trip up to Old Town, ID for the Torgesen Family reunion. It’s always wonderful to be with family, but we were thrilled that every member of our clan was able to be there. The minivan was a life-saver on the way to and fro, a definite contrast between the Civic we drove at Christmas to the same location (ditto with the weather difference!). We stayed in some condos, thanks to Grandma Torgesen. Among other things, we had a talent show, learned more about Grandma’s life, caught up with everyone’s doings, played games, participated in the normal Fourth of July activities, had lots of fantastic food, and just spent time with each other. It was a fun vacation. We love our family!
Tayah has joined the ranks of the walkers! Naturally, she waited a few days after the reunion to display this new-found skill. It is so fun to watch her move around. She is always trying to verbally communicate and added “hat” and “up” to her repertoire. We had her one-year check-up and all’s well. She is gaining weight, although the visit came right after a bought of sickness. She is enjoying trying new food and loves, absolutely loves following Kadence around. She takes her big sister’s antics in stride. Tayah is such an adorable, sweet baby!
Kadence has embraced the role of Tayah’s sister with great gusto. While she gives her the occasional smack or push-down, more often you see her “reading,” singing, or teaching her things. They love dancing with each other. Kadence leaves us in stitches every day with the things she says. She is starting to do really well with potty training, although we’re a ways off yet. She has also learned how to say her own prayers. For the most part, she is well-behaved at church—although Elizabeth had to take her out for the first time ever this month. Since we returned from the trip, she’s struggled staying in bed. It’s like she just realized that she can get up and get up she does! We love our Kadence!
I don’t know how Elizabeth does it! She is such a great, patient mother to these girls. She fills their days with fun experiences, such as weekly Seven Peaks and library trips. They are always reading and singing together (very little television watching. Yes!). She helped plan some Young Women activities. She only has three Laurels, so it’s sometimes challenging Elizabeth’s gone through a number of books this month. It’s amazing how quickly she goes through them! She also has spent a lot of time working on our box garden. This month also saw her make a huge batch of apricot jam.
All’s well for David. Work has been incredibly busy. Every day is jam-packed, which is how I like it…the normal mix of interviewing, presenting, training, and meetings upon meetings (my life is one never-ending meeting with intermittent breaks!). The same applies for Church. We continue to have amazing experiences in our ward, including a Stake Patriotic dinner to honor all our veterans. We sure love our ward and friends here.
Other highlights: we celebrated our fourth anniversary! We had a nice evening out to commemorate the day. We had a fun Pioneer Day weekend, including our first visit to Cabela’s (quite fun!) and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir/Osmond Family concert up in SLC. I’m not the biggest Osmond fan, but it was an enjoyable evening. We also had a great ward party, complete with a children’s parade, BBQ, and dunking tank (somehow I escaped this!). We got together to celebrate Tanya’s birthday and to attend the huge art show, “From Monet to Picasso” up at the University of Utah. Elizabeth and I took in a lot of movies. What a fun July!