We started August with the P family reunion in St. George. Family arrived from Texas, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Utah and China for the 3 day event. Everyone was in attendance except for Sister Brinley M. who was serving as a missionary in the Dallas, Texas mission. Getting everyone together is not an easy feat, but it was Grandma and Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary on July 30th and they wanted to celebrate with the entire family.
Grandma and Grandpa P with their grandchildren
The girls
The boys
Taylor, Liberty, Hilary, Mckay, Heather and Tiffany. The original 6.
We were happy to have Britton along for the fun even though he was technically in the MTC. The Stake President told us it was fine to take him with us as long as he was in class when he needed to be in class.
Xander is 1 year younger than Jameson and 2 years older than AJ. They were little buddies during the reunion.
Since we aren't able to all gather together very often we had a great time at the reunion reconnecting and getting to know each other.
For years Adam and I have wanted to put built-ins in our family room and we finally had it done in August. This is the before picture with the delivered cabinets.
The workers had an audience all morning. Hopefully they didn't mind too much.
Ta-da! All finished. We love it.
The finished project.
Elder Campbell practicing mission skills by sewing on a button.
Just trying to keep the MTC experience authentic. haha😁
Britton was able to spend time with his friends that were also doing home MTC. They went to lunch together and spent time hiking during their downtime. Britton and Collin have been BFF's since the 5th grade. They left on their missions 1 day apart. Originally Collin was supposed to go to the Mexico MTC, but since they were both home they had an extra 6 weeks together before shipping out.
As a member of the student council Jenna was busy helping with registration and back to school activities the first week of August.
Welcoming the incoming freshman--Korinne!
Hale Center Theater finally opened back up and we were able to return to the theater as long as we wore a mask the entire time.
Jenna and Korinne both ran cross country this year. This was Jenna's 4th year running so she was a big help to Korinne who was just starting out.
First race of the year.
Good job Korinne!
Britton celebrated his 19th birthday on August 20th. We got some delicious Pad Thai from a local restaurant to celebrate. Britton loves ethnic food and is always game to try something new.
Britton and Grandpa P with their joint birthday cake. Their birthdays are only 1 day apart.
Jameson- First day of 3rd grade
All of the kids at the bus stop with their masks. Yeah, we have a lot of boys in our neighborhood, except for the kids AJ's age-- they are all girls. 😜
AJ and his posse of girls.
AJ started kindergarten a week later, but ended up getting a cough before the first day of school. With the COVID hysteria you can't go to school if you have any kind of a cough or runny nose so AJ wasn't able to go to school on the first day of kindergarten. He finally got to go a few days later, but by then we were thinking about taking pictures. Oops. Sorry AJ!
The week before Britton was supposed to leave for Iowa City the Logan Temple moved to phase 2 and were finally allowing people to receive their own endowments. As soon as we heard the news we contacted the temple immediately to schedule a time for Britton. Since he was scheduled to leave for Iowa just a few days after the opening he was put to the top of the list and we were able to attend the temple with him at 8:30 a.m. on August 21st. We had the entire session to ourselves! It was Britton, Adam and me, Grandma and Grandpa P, and Heather and Aaron M.
We were really happy that he was able to receive his own endowment before leaving for the mission field. Many missionaries have already been on their missions for months and haven't been through the temple yet. 2020 has definitely been an unprecedented year in many ways.
In August it was AJ's turn to test for his yellow belt in Taekwondo.
He was so proud of himself for successfully breaking a board at the end of testing. Congrats AJ!
Our last lunch with Elder Campbell
As we got closer to August 26th it started to get real. Britton was going to be leaving for 2 years. We got an extra 6 weeks with him, but he wasn't going to be a home missionary forever.
Packing up his suitcases and room.
Leaving for Salt Lake
Our last supper together. We ate at the famous Maddox restaurant in Brigham City.
We stayed in Murray and then got up bright and very early Wednesday morning to take Britton to the airport.
With so many missionaries leaving from the SLC airport they had signs up for families. We were able to walk him to the sliding doors from the parking garage but that was it. It was time to say goodbye for 2 years!
After we started driving home AJ started to cry. "I'm going to really miss Britton!" Yeah, we are all going to miss Britton!
To ease the parting blow I left for a girls trip 2 days later. hehe My friend Carrie's birthday is August 28th and a week before her birthday she sent out a text saying, "Hey, I found some cheap flights to Myrtle Beach. Who in for a last minute birthday trip next Friday?" My answer to these types of texts is always "I'm in!"
Hilary, Lacie, Carrie and Christy
As luck would have it my sister Libbie lives in Myrtle Beach so we got to hang out with her and get a local's take on all of the best restaurants and things to do in the area.
Libbie and I see each other once every 3 years or so so to see her twice in one month was pretty much a Christmas miracle!
I do workouts with Libbie on Zoom 2x a week so finally seeing her home gym in person was kind of fun.
We stayed at a vacation rental right on the beach. I think I could get used to this!
We arrived on Carrie's birthday and they just happened to have some fireworks on the beach that night.
It was the perfect birthday gift!
I now get why Myrtle Beach is such a tourist destination. My experience with oceans is that they are freezing cold, but the water at Myrtle Beach was so warm we were able to just hang out and bob in the ocean waves for hours. It was so relaxing!
Libbie and Jeff took us to to the Dead Dog Saloon for dinner at Murell's inlet on Saturday night.
We had a great time walking on the pier after dinner and looking at the beautiful sunset!
Crazy sister? Yep!
The humidity makes my hair super fuzzy and unruly. Good thing I wasn't trying to impress anyone.
Libbie specializes in sunrise beach jumpy shots. I feel cool that I finally got to be in one of them.
This is the before (5 a.m.) and the after (9 a.m.) picture of Carrie.
While I was in Myrtle Beach we had a little scare at home with Jenna. She passed out not once, but twice in a short period of time and the second time it took Adam quite a while to get to her come to. It scared him enough that he called 911 and an ambulance was sent to the house. Fortunately she was conscience when it arrived so she didn't end up riding in it but Adam did take her to the emergency room to get checked out since it was very unusual to keep passing out like that.
After running some tests they didn't find anything wrong with her so they sent her home basically saying, "Yeah, sometimes that happens." We are glad it wasn't anything serious. I remember she passed out the Dr. office just over a year ago after getting a shot so I guess she is prone to it and needs to be careful in the future.