Sunday, August 13, 2006

Dear Family,

I’m writing this newsletter from the 25^th floor of the Hong Kong JW Marriott Hotel at Pacific Place overlooking Hong Kong Harbor. As fate would have it, I had to leave London a couple days earlier than planned to make it to Hong Kong in enough time to get an entry Visa into China for a meeting Monday morning. That meant I changed my plans to leave from London’s Heathrow Airport on Thursday morning, and, Yes, I got to join in all the fun that accompanied the security changes on the day of the arrests at the airport that had been the primary target of the most recent terrorist threat. If any of you remember, I was on the road during the 9/11 attack and ended up driving home from Houston three days later. I guess this is the fun that accompanies the opportunity to travel. If any of you have been following the news in Israel, I was in Israel two weeks before the fighting began. I have been on the phone with my Israeli contacts several times since the fighting began. During my last visit we drove up North for meeting with a company called Elbit. He told me that there were two locations that we were at that have been hit by rockets from Lebanon.

My travel has picked up again just the last couple weeks and will be heavy through the end of August. I have upcoming trips to Lisbon, Portugal; Lakehurst, New Jersey and Bangkok, Thailand.

Jimmy and Tyler have both submitted their own newsletter, so I will let their letters speak for themselves.

Heather has had an incredibly busy summer schedule, working more than 40 hours a week, plus managing all the family schedules, which I won’t list. I don’t know how she does it. She has also been providing extra time and service for her father, since her mother passed away. She is still is Primary Chorister. The kids love her. She puts lots of time into her music time and sharing times. Heather and I are going to join Jimmy for a visit to ASU campus. He is considering graduate school at ASU. We are going to go see Wicked while we are there.

Landon has had a busy summer keeping the lawn mowed at Papa’s, although he has also had a busy summer, attending a week-long MDA camp where he hosts a muscular dystrophy patient, weekly volunteering at LDS hospital on Mondays, a week-long Senior trip to Los Angeles, a few days at Flaming Gorge and getting ready for Lake Powell next week.

Lauren attended BYU’s track camp this summer, attended EFY at USU, hospital volunteer work with Landon at LDS hospital, girl’s camp, Flaming Gorge and an upcoming trip to Flaming Gorge. Lauren has invited two boys to Lake Powell next week. It will be the first time that I take guns to Lake Powell.

We have a family portrait scheduled for next week as well, since we have the whole family together again.

I hope you enjoy Jim and Tyler’s letters. Jimmy included pictures from Flaming Gorge, so I’ll pass on pictures.

Love,

Scott and Heather