Arizona Connection

Thank you all for the birthday wishes through calls, cards and e-mail cards. I had a great day and even had a big party with the Sr. missionaries though they didn't know 'till they arrived that it was my birthday. Our going home party was an adventure through 4-wheel drive country to get to Eggshell arch which is in a canyon behind Inscription House. We can't get to it without going around to the othere side of the canyon. See the picture attached.
After our trek of 6 miles we came back to Inscription House Chapel for a picnic of home made subway sandwiches and fun visiting. We have a great group of Sr's. We will miss them.
We are winding up our teaching of several inactive families and next Saturday we have a baptism of an 8 year old we taught. It will be in Page and we are doing the planning because we have a brand new Primary presidency and they don't know what they are doing. Training them is my goal before we leave. We have one of our reactivated elders going to and addiction recovery program so if he sticks with it he will be a success story. There are so many problems on the reservation that you have to feel good for the small advances that our presence here may have brought about.
We have made many friends and we will keep in touch and keep them in our hearts and albums.
We are anxious to see everyone in a few weeks.

Love to all!

Bryce and Laura Update

Hey family. We are all getting excited in utah for the fun family reunion. From the schedule we got emailed, it looks like casey and charlotte have been busy busy. It looks like everyday is just packed with a lot of fun.. We will have to pull out our disco clothes. I should have my clothes from the seventies,,, oh wait those clothes probably would not fit since I was only 11 or 12. any way we we'll have to find something with a lot of paisley's or bell bottoms it looks like.

Our kids only have 4 days left of school and then they are out for the summer. Our kids have a full schedule this summer with efy, vacations, priest camp for spencer-not to mention spencer is now a swimming instructor and life gaurd at the local pool and many other youth activities.

We are also going to california at the end of june to go to Six Flags in the Bay area with all our cousins on Laura's side.
We hope you are all doing well and looking forward to seeing you in August.

Maria and Kelly Update

April was a busy month with Megan and Steven's 14th and 12th birthdays, our 18th anniversary, Marissa's basketball games, David's T-ball games and Amber's track meets. I also enjoyed a wonderful few days in Provo with a great sister and a couple great sisters-in-law. It was so nice to be back at BYU. The classes were great and uplifting. Charlotte and I shared a dorm in Helaman Halls. Good times. Kelly survived on his own with the kids. Amber was inducted into the Honor society last month,too. We are so proud of her! Megan was named a student of the month and was given a presidential award for achievment in academics. The kids enjoy the trampoline being back together again now that the snow is gone. Yeah! We love spring! Megan sang a solo and played her violin in her final choir concert of the year. She can really make beautiful music. We are so excited to see everyone this summer. The kids are dying to play with cousins! Here are some random pictures. Check out our blog for some more.

Charlotte, Niel and Maria in Utah

David at T-Ball

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Steven

Amber signing her Honor Society Pledge Book

Niel and Christy

I'm writing this update from Aspen, Colorado. I'm attending something called BoostCon. You may be wondering what I'm doing here, and why Christy and Charlie aren't with me... After several months and lots of applications, I finally had some good interviews. One was over breakfast with a couple guys from a company in Orem called Gwava. They liked my resume and pretty much offered me a job right then. They said they would get back to me within a few days with an offer. I was pretty excited, and I told Christy that I wanted to take that job. However, there was another company that also wanted to interview me. I spotted a job posting on Monster.com for a company called Magpie in Salt Lake, and called up the recruiter in charge of it. I saw that I was a pretty good fit for the position, but the recruiter didn't think so. He sent them my resume anyway. Eventually he called back and told me they wanted to have me do an interview with someone from HR. That seemed to go pretty well, and they called me back for a technical interview with a few of the software engineers. They asked me programming questions, and made me write stuff on the whiteboard. I guess I did well enough there because they called me back for a 3rd interview, where I took a programming test, and then they took me to lunch. This was last Tuesday. Later that afternoon, I got a call from the HR lady I interviewed with originally with an official offer from Magpie. I told the guys at Gwava that I had received this offer, and they rushed to get something together by Wednesday afternoon (April 29th). After examining all the pros and cons of both offers, I decided to accept the one from Magpie. So I called to tell them I wanted to accept the offer, and they told me I could start Monday, May 4th. So I wrapped things up at Sensory Sweep, and my last day was Wednesday (before I actually accepted the offer.) All of Charlie's friends were sad to see him go. Poor Charlie won't get to go to work anymore. Thursday morning I got a call from Mike, the guy who interviewed me, and he asked if I was still planning on starting Monday (yesterday). I told him I was, and he told me he wouldn't be there because he had this conference to attend. Then he asked if I wanted to come along. I was pretty speechless. Of course, I said I'd love to go. So me, Mike and Brad, another guy who interviewed me, drove out Sunday afternoon, and I've been in Aspen ever since. Magpie is a subsidiary of TD Williamson, an oil and gas pipeline engineering company, so they have plenty of money to spend. All the meals in Aspen are pretty expensive, but the company's paying for them, so we've been enjoying the free food. This trip has been a great opportunity for me to get to know some of the guys on my team. Christy and I are so relieved that I actually have a paying job now. We've been extremely blessed. I still can't believe I'm in Aspen, and I have a new job! It might take a while to sink in. In other news, we're going to Pocatello, Idaho on Saturday (after I get back) to pick up a sister for Charlie. She's a pomeranian/chihuahua mix and looks just like Charlie. Who knows...she might be his long lost sister! I better wrap this up and leave something for next time. We love you all!

Casey and Andrea update

Hello family. I just got back from the most wonderful "long" weekend.
Charlotte B. and I were able to go out to BYU to attend Women's conference.
We met Maria at the airport, and Christy the next day. We spent the whole
week feeling spiritual and listening to great messages. I would highly
recommend Women's conference to anyone that can make it down to Utah next
year!

Casey was so kind to watch the girls for me for 4 days! The Relief
Society learned that he was going to be alone all week and so they surprised
him with a few meals! Casey was amazed that they would go to the trouble!
He did really great though and I came home to a clean house and two videos
that they had made and edited. They are so cute! The video is titled, "The
Fellowship of the Thing."..written, produced and edited by Casey! In other
news, Jillian celebrated her ninth birthday. The girls also had a voice
recital for their amazing teacher, Aunt Charlotte. We started a blog
(westoverfamilyseven@blogspot.com) and on it, I posted the four songs that
they sang for the recital. Head on over and check out their angelic voices!
(Not to mention Aunt Charlotte's amazing piano skills!) We are continuing
to plan the reunion....we have a theme now but we'll keep it under wraps for
a while! Hope all is well with your families! (I'm attaching pictures of
Easter Sunday, the tax day "tea party" that Charlotte and I attended,
Jillian's birthday and Women's conference. enjoy!

Arizona Update

Navajo Mountain

We have been very busy with teaching almost every day, but it is frustrating because they are friendly but at the same time are indiferrent to the message. They don't want to go to the trouble of changing thier lives, even though it would improve them. We hope maybe we are planting seeds that one day someone else will harvest. We are looking forward to coming home, though we are concerned for this branch because they are loosing several of their strongest families due to the economy. They are teachers at the local schools and are being let go.

Last Saturday the branch had an activity to climb Navajo Mt. I decided I would try it though I knew I wouldn't make it to the top. I managed to hike uphill about 1 mile. That may not seem like much but I did better than I thought I would at an altitude of between 8,000 and 9,000 feet and very steep

We are planning an excursion to see Antelope Canyon and Eggshell Arch on May 23rd as a farewell party to us and another couple. They did the same trip last fall but we missed it due to Keith's grand daughter's baptism.

The weather has been crazy. Winter is still not letting go and I think we are skipping spring. I am looking forward to working in my garden.

Love to all