Called to Serve

Well, the day has finally come. My "baby" brother, Taylor, is going to serve a mission. Yesterday he got his mission call and we all headed up to be there when he opened it. He will be serving in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma mission and he enters the Missionary Training Center on December 3rd.


We have a tradition in our family that we all put in guesses whenever something major like this happens (don't even ask me about March Madness!). Here's the board with all of our guesses mapped out. Most of us picked out of the country, but there were a few that stayed inside the United States. And funny enough, my little nephew Branson, guessed Oklahoma, so he was right on! I think it was rigged since his Dad travels there for work all the time! :)


My Mom was on pins and needless all day long and I don't think she could hold still for anything. Of course Taylor had to take advantage of her nervousness and took his time opening the envelope, pulling out the papers, and reading it. Finally after we all were about to do something drastic, he finally told us where he was going.


My kids are so excited for him. I don't think they quite understand exactly what's going on, but all they know is that they are going to be able to send Uncle Taylor tons of letters, pictures, and packages. He's probably going to be the missionary with the most mail from home.

Now that Zach is in first grade, he has to write in his journal twice a week. When I asked him what he wanted to write about tonight, he didn't hesitate to tell me he wanted to write about how excited he was that Taylor is going on a mission. Here is his journal entry:


Translation: I have an uncle named Taylor. He is going on a mission. He will go to Oklahoma. I can not wait for him to go on his mission.

He also drew a picture of Taylor as a missionary - isn't it the spitten image of him??? Well, I can see it. Here's a close-up of the drawing. You'll notice the colored in part is his suit and to the right is his name tag.



We are all so excited and proud of you Taylor! Thank you for being an example to us all, especially the kids - they both want to be just like you!

(Thanks to my sister Kylie for taking these great pictures. Since I conveniently forgot my camera yesterday - again - I stole them off of her blog! Thanks Ky!)

At The Big Top

Is anything better than seeing the circus? I remember my parents taking us when I was little and to this day, I still remember specific parts about it. So, it's not a surprise that I really wanted to take our kids to the circus so that they had that experience to remember.

I was more than thrilled when I saw an advertisement that allowed us to get tickets for only $7 a person. How could we not jump on that? Well, needless to say, we did. And after what seemed like forever (ok, it was only a month and a half, but the kids thought it took forever), the big day finally arrived.

The kids were so excited once the show got going. They were pretty much "perma-grin" through the whole thing.


One of Zach's favorite parts was the human cannonballs. He was amazed that they actually shot two ladies out of the huge cannons (or canyons as he calls them).


Hailey was all over the place during the show. She sat next to me, on my lap, on Jeremiah's lap ...


And even spent some time with Nana and Branson.


The tigers were absolutely amazing. Their trainer had them jumping, rolling, and a ton of other things. It was so interesting and made me glad that I wasn't down in the cage with them! Zach, bless his heart, was so worried about the trainer and afraid he was going to get hurt. I kept trying to explain that he was their friend and that they were just playing, but he didn't relax until after the tiger show was done and no one got hurt.


Mine and Hailey's favorite part was the elephants. We loved all the tricks they did and how well they did what they were trained to do.


I couldn't help buy take a little bit of video of some of these huge animals. Even though we up above them quite a distance away, it seemed like they moved so gracefully!



What a fun day we had! We can't wait for the circus to come next year!