April 3, 2007

Dear Family:

It’s good to have the family letter up and running again. Thanks Chuck. It’s my turn, so I’ll bring you current with the Santa Clara Berryessa’s.

I guess the most exciting thing is that on May 2^nd we are going to Hawaii. We are taking the entire family, with the exception of Erin and LeRand. Erin will be with 5-6 weeks for her due date and her insurance won’t cover her having a baby in Hawaii, and I don’t think her doctor signed off on it either. Katie is going to have to come back two days before the rest of us because she has to take an AP Calculus test for college credits. Alix’s boyfriend is also coming with, his name is Dave. His mother works for Delta, so they are using buddy passes and flying out of Salt Lake. Everybody else is flying out of Vegas. We are all excited. Next letter from us should include some details about Hawaii.

Dean was finally released from scoutmaster, although, he was made Troop Committee Chairman. He was also called to be the secretary in High Priests, but they haven’t really taken care of that yet. He went from taking care of 12 year olds to 112 year olds. He is grateful to have his Wednesday nights back and probably most of all not planning campouts and activities.

He is busy with work, probably just about where he wants to be. It has been a couple of really good work years for Dean. I’m guessing that is in part to the growth down here.

Brady has started his little league practices and his coach will have a fit because he will miss three games while we are in Hawaii. Another family who boy plays on that team is going to Hawaii with us, and they are both pitchers. Bret Smith is the coach and the Smith family does not take sports lightly. Brady is going to EFY this year for the first time. He is going with one other boy from his travel tournament baseball team. His Uncle is going to fly them to EFY; it is in Flagstaff. He’s pretty excited about both flying and EFY.

Brook and Katie are not going to EFY this year. They signed up too late and their friend definitely affected the results because of some other conflicts she had and didn’t get resolved until the spots were all full. Katie probably wouldn’t have gone anyway because she is swamped this summer.

Brook is working on her driver’s ed book and as soon as she passes the test she can get driving to get all her hours in before she can get her license in August. Of course, she still has to take the class. She is right in the middle of band competitions. We went to a concert last night with the bands and choirs. It was good.

Katie is Editor-in-Chief for the yearbook next year. She is also going to apply for School Artist. She decided she couldn’t run for student body officer because of yearbook, but school artist is also in the student body class and is an officer. She is a great artist. She also has soccer and is on the youth conference stake committee. She has soccer camps and yearbook camps. It will be another fast summer.

We went to Carlsbad South State Beach for Spring Break. It was really fun. We went with a family from our old ward; the Lindsey’s. We had a lot of fun. It was warm and they had wet suits because the ocean is really cold, especially in March. We went down to San Diego and saw the temple and went to the Mormon Battalion. We went to an Aquarium also. It was fun and plan on making it an annual event. We slept in tents, but they had nice bathrooms and showers.

As for me, I’m not too exciting (Trudy.) I’m quilting and knitting. I went through a DI phase about a month ago and de-junked most of the house. It was a wonderful thing. Probably the most exciting thing for me lately is during my de-junking phase, I had Dean do the same to the garage. We bought a garage door and opener. I just love my new garage door. You can tell I’m getting old because it just tickles me to have a new garage door that opens and closes. We have construction in from of our house (Santa Clara Drive is being re-done for a new streetscape) and it has been so dirty in our yard and to have a garage door and keep it closed and have the garage clean is pretty fun.

Okay, I’ve rattled on long enough. Have a great day. Hello to all of you from the Berryessa’s in Santa Clara.

Love, The Berryessa’s in Santa Clara