A New Ward

For several years there has been a sense that our ward would likely be divided. But having survived one set of ward divisions with only a name change and then the stake division, we seem to keep dodging bullets. Until today...

The lines were as expected: with Beautiful view becoming its own ward and Verdant Hills keeping the central areas and students.

We are losing a lot of good friends during the division and will especially miss the vitality that comes from having the singles in the ward. Plus most of the scientist ended up in the other half. The upside is that the ward had become far too big to know everybody and our nursery was already in three classrooms and was looking to expand to a forth. Not sure if we will be much smaller, but at least a little.

For those of you interested... The old bishop of Verdant Hills became the new bishop of Beautiful View, the old bishop of the Andrew Jackson ward (Sonic Triathlete) became the new bishop of the Verdant Hills ward, and Lift the Earth became the bishop of the Andrew Jackson ward. BVB, the cycling Chinese expert, became the second counselor in the Verdant Hills ward and Music Man Adams became the second counselor in the Beautiful View ward.

Sun Beams

To continue the theme of reunions with old friends, another set that had moved to Logan came back to TN for a visit. We had a dinner at our house for some of their closest friends here. It was great to have them back. We had several lively discussions on the topic de jure, which is what I miss most since so many of our friends have moved away.

For reasons that I'm not sure of, we have never been able to spend the energy to rebuilt the "circle of ten" (to use MTN's phrase) that was the bedrock of our friendships for so many years here in TN. What had been for a period of five years or so that it takes to finish graduate school, etc... this strong and intimate group, rapidly got smaller as people finished and moved away. Meanwhile, we just haven't really made very many new ones to take their place. Maybe living in student wards for some many years have caught up with us and we just don't have the mental energy that it takes to form deep attachments anymore, I don't know. But I miss those times and having the Sun Beams back (a bit of play on their sunny disposition) if only for an evening.

Memphis

Next stop on AM's magical mystery tour was Memphis, to visit some more of our friends who moved there somewhat recently.


AM was especially impressed by the size of their house. She made a feature length movie extolling its virtues, but it is too large to load here.

I would tell you more details about what they did, etc..., but since I wasn't there, I will post this with the hope that AM or JPD will take some time to fill it in.

AM's version of the trip to Alabama and Memphis. The travel time to Alabama is a few hours (SD's warned me not to reveal the exact travel time, exact location and names of our friends that we are visiting, because we are in the FBI witness protection program) so this is for your eyes only. We went to Alabama for a baby blessing for our friend the "BEE KEEPER". While the kids have a day off from school, I thought it would be great to visit our other friends who live near Memphis. As SD mentioned I videotaped the inside of their mansion and I was in awed of how big the house and how beautiful it is to have a big house. We had a great visit with them and the next day we drove to the Memphis Zoo to see some animals. We had fun visiting with our friends and the kids had fun playing and seeing each other again. It is very nice to be able to visit friends.

Blessings in Alabama

While I was in San Diego, AM took the rest of the family road tripping. The first stop was to Alabama to see some of our old TN friends bless their baby a few weeks ago, so I thought we should post a few pictures for y'all to see. We used to have more kids than most of our TN friends, by the end of this year, pretty much all of our old TN friends will have at least as many as we do.


Here are some of the kids from these families.

Proud Mamas