July 28, 2005

Dear Family----

I’m exhausted. Dean and Brady went to scout camp in Scofield on Monday at 3:30 am and Katie and Brook went to girl’s camp Tuesday at 6:30 am and I have worked my self to exhaustion. I have been de-junking and organizing the house. It is overdue by years. I don’t it well anyway…something about being the daughter of a depression baby or in other words I’m a pack rat. I’ve been gearing myself up for this for weeks, so at least I was in the right mind set because that really makes a difference in a pack rat personality. It has been nice and quiet though and that has been nice.

Dean worked his fingers to the bones getting ready for scout camp. He has two assistants, but he didn’t ask them for much help and they only went up ½ of this week each and Dean stayed the whole time. There were ten boys going. He was really glad he didn’t have to buy food and haul it up there and then cook it once he got there. Work has been pretty steady, but it does sting a little when you take off for all star tournament and scout camp. Nobody pays us vacation time. Not to mention the week in August we’ll be in San Bernardino for Brady’s all-star tournament. Dean turns 50 this Saturday (July 30^th) at least he’ll get to spend a part of the day with his entire family, even though he may just be mouth breathing after a week at scout camp.

I (Trudy) dropped my second summer class. In 6 ½ years of school I’ve never changed or dropped a class. This teacher must be exceptionally special. We had five quizzes and one final and two other classes we couldn’t miss or we’d lose points. I asked permission to take a quiz besides in class because of Brady’s all-star championship game and the teacher said absolutely not, and then Brady’s team went undefeated. So I’d have to miss 3-4 more classes and quizzes, so I dropped it. That means I’ll take two classes this fall and then nothing next spring and this same Behavior Analysis class next summer before I’ll graduate. Besides school, I’m still in Primary and loving it. I still quilt and knit and crochet. Life’s good, but will hopefully slow down just a hint when school starts which is on August 15^th for us. YES!!!

Kyle, Sheree, Konner and Taylor Marie are doing good. Kyle works and Sheree babysits her sister’s kids, but would like to stop babysitting. Four kids from age 1- 5 is just about driving her crazy. Konner turns 5 this December, so he has one more year before school.

Drew and Jennie live about a two minute walk from our house in the Barben’s basement. They are going to the college married ward if they ever stay home on a weekend. If you want to see their wedding pictures go to www.mardelphotography.com and the passwork is jennieanddrew. They think that Katie took just as good or better pictures than this guy did. Drew works and Jennie is looking for a job.

Katie is at girl’s camp. Her fourth year. She went on the 4^th year hike a couple of weeks ago. She is trying out for soccer on Monday 6am. They have tryouts for three days, and if she makes the team she won’t be going to California with us. She’ll be staying and practicing and have some pre-season games while we are in California. The girls had a ball at EFY and I’m pretty sure it will be an annual event from here on out. Katie starts at the high school this year and that is scary. Okay scary for me because I’m getting old. If Dean is 50, that means I’m almost 49.

Brook is lucky enough to go to California with us. Brady has to stay in barracks with the whole team and the coaches, so she might be with Dean and me alone. I’m sure she’ll love that. It’s good there are lots of other kids. Their piano teacher quit at the end of last school and we haven’t found another teacher yet. I haven’t really looked too hard, but I don’t want them to quit piano. Brook is going to play percussion again this year. She is going to be the BMOC (big man on campus) because she’ll be a 9^th grader, okay she personally isn’t big, but she will be in the oldest grade. Hard to believe my little 80 pounds Brookie girl is going to be in 9^th grade.

Brady had a great ball season. He of course, made the all-star team for the 3^rd year in a row. 9 out of the 12 players made it all three years. There are four from our ward; I call them the valley boys. It should be interesting at this tournament. Rumor has it that the other teams are typically pretty amazing, so we hope to at least win one game out of the four we play. Tyalorsville has gone the last 12 years and never won a game, but they had to cheat to get there, so I can see how they wouldn’t win. Sorry Taylorsville family that isn’t a slam to you, just the little league program in Taylorsville, but you probably already know that. Anyway, Brady will finish baseball and then start football and then basketball and then back to club baseball. Out of the five age groups that went to all stars from Santa Clara, all five of them took state and this is the first time that any of Santa Clara’s teams have gone on to the next level. Really the 12 year old team is the coolest because it is really the only team that they televise for little league world series. I’m pretty sure we won’t be playing in that game.

Hope all is well with the rest of the family. I’m going to be sending an e-mail out about our family reunion next year. Check your e-mails because I’ll need some feedback.

Have a great day.

Love, Trudy