Last Days of Fall/ Stewart Falls

 

We took a quick hike to Stewart Falls to enjoy the beautiful weather. Days like these go too quickly. Then it was home to eat left-overs from Sunday...lots of taco salad makings. Hurrah for left overs!

Bryce is Home Again

 

Sunday Oct. 26, 2008 This is the Egans from Sandy and also from serving as Bryce's Mission President and missionary mom in the Cape Town South Africa Mission. We had several families come that have sons in South Africa right now and they got to hear from Bryce and the Egans about the mission and their sons. It was wonderful to see their scrapbook that was made when they left and to see the love they continue to have for the missionary work in Africa.

To the temple with Dallin

 

We spent the morning at the Provo Temple with Dallin. He was instructed along with Kim and Bryce by President Bateman. There were two other missionaries in the session and one will be going to the MTC the same day as Dallin. We went to BYU afterwards for lunch at the Pendulum where the students fix the meals. We ate in Kim's office.

South African missionaries return

 

These good looking missionaries were the very last off the plane. The families were beginning to wonder if we were at the wrong place but others leaving the plane assured us that missionaries had traveled with them. We found out that they had remained on the plane to help a man look for his wedding band. Each missionary had a beginning of a beard from traveling for 32 hours without a shave or shower. The thing I enjoyed was seeing the people that would say hi to the missionaries as they walked past them just because they were missionaries. We stopped at Brooke's house to get everyone ( Bryce had requested just the parents to pick up) and he was released as a missionary. He had a hard time removing the name tag. It was a very tender time as he asked his dad to give him a blessing afterwards. Kim gave him advice as his Stake President and I was surprised to see him take out his journal and a pen and write it down. I have had several surprises like that since. We all tumbled into bed around 1 a.m. knowing that church would be here all too soon.

African beauties

We are modeling the outfits Bryce brought back from Africa.

A good day

Yesterday was a great day for the Tyler Christensen's of the world. Gas in Bloomington dropped all the way to $2.88/gallon, down $1.40 from its peak and the stock market bounced after such an awful week.
While I was at work I got my first round of student evaluations back. Overall they were much better than I expected and gave me a lot of encouragement.
Finally, at the end of my workday I received an email notification that I had won 4 tickets (and lunch) to the BYU/SDSU football game coming up on November 8th. I entered a contest because I haven't been able to find tickets at a decent price for the game and part of the reason we schedule our trip that particular weekend was in hopes of going to the game. Yipee--now we can.

In Between

We took a drive to see the colors but we were too late...I think the rain brought down alot of the leaves and they were rather dull but we enjoyed the drive and the scenery. We had a great Conference weekend getting Dallin, painting Brooke's new Townhouse, going to Priesthood session at the Conference center and being together on Sunday to hear and talk about the sessions. What a great way to enjoy the weekend.

Bowen Hall #16 ...36 years later

We had a great reunion on Friday, Oct. 3rd at BYU Hinckley Center for my first year at BYU with all the girls that lived in Heritage Halls/ Bowen in 1971-2. We had a great time trying to figure out who was who and where they lived now and what they were doing. We had women come from all over. It was a wonderful time. These are my room mates...Eva ( my first room mate) from Highland, me, Nan from San Jose, Dorothy from Kansas and Carol from Salt Lake. Brenda is serving a mission in Romania with her husband. I am grateful that I could go and I think that reunions are good things...they remind us what we were and who we have become. Dallin came home from Hawaii...yipeeee. The boys went to Priesthood last night at the Conference Center but the nicest part of the day was all kneeling down together with Kira on the cell, and beginning our fast in her behalf. I really like all fasting together for someone in our family. I have felt great power and peace from it. Brooke and I had a great time putting color on the walls in her new townhouse and I loved seeing the temple from her windows.

Videos of the kids

Sorry I don't have time to write this week but here are a couple videos of the kids.

This first one is of the kids playing in a box. It shows Eli's imagination and Sharon's determination (for becoming mobile).

This second video is Eli's first real rock climbing experience. We found a park that had a cooler mini wall and Eli took right to it. His "no fear" mentality might resemble someone else we know (who is in Africa).

Bristle Bots

So on Saturday, me and my date made BristleBots. These are small robots made using a toothbrush head and a vibrating motor. We spent a while making the robots then made a track out of heavy paper that we taped to the table.

I have this video of us racing. It is long and boring, but you can look at it to get the idea of how fun BristleBots are. Oh yeah... the video is not great because I am trying to do two things at once. The video is just so you will want to do it yourself.