July, August and September

Mariah and Xavier have gone back to Modesto to be with their grandmother who missed them terribly. Maria (who we affectionately call Tía Macle) was sitting in the chair in the driveway waiting for us to arrive from our long journey across the desert.

They missed their grandmother but both asked to come home with us. We had lots of fun this summer and we miss each other tons.

Here they are at the farm with little Rory, our friends Megan and Ray's daughter. They enjoyed holding the baby bunnies.

We went to the water park a lot in July, three to four times a week. We bought season passes and I would often take the children myself in the mornings. We had a routine set. We knew which water slides got busy the soonest so we'd go on those first. Then we'd go on some inter-tube water slides and finish in the kiddie pools. I loved watching Mariah and Xavier conquer their fears of heights or the dark tunnels of one of the rides.

Here is Mariah with her friend Ayelen. One of the things the kids loved spending their Boothe Bucks (fake family money) on was enormous ice creams at Macey's. We'd go to the water slides and then stop at Macey's on our way home.

The neighbor girls, Saidy and Miley, were especially good friends to Mariah. Here we are enjoying snow cones at one of several snow cone stands that magically appear in the summer on Main Street here in Springville.

I was very pleased with how Garit, Grant, Tristine and Breanna were all great with the kids. Here we are at an international dance festival.

We went to parks quite often too. This is one in Spanish Fork where we had a family night.

Xavier is generally a very well behaved child and learned that a quick way to earn Boothe Bucks was letting Daddy read library books to him in Spanish. He had a favorite one about the food chain that rhymed and cracked us both up. Here he is with his buddies Marco and Joaquin. Xavier not only had enough Boothe Bucks to invite two friends over for a sleep over he also treated them to ice cream. We had a boys night, complete with short Bruce Lee videos and play fighting.

We took them to see several temples. Here we are in front of the Provo Temple. We hope that the good times we had and the good things that we tried to teach them will stay with them until we can see them again.

Becca has been quite the renovator. She has mostly finished our basement family room and my basement office as well. We are especially grateful to Uncle Phil for lending her some very important tools and giving her some very important pieces of advice. He really wanted to make sure she got off on the right foot.

Becca also enjoyed the visit of her grandmother from New York.

I've been traveling a fair amount lately. I got to visit my friends Cameron, Brian and Sophia Crane, Uncle Greg and Aunt Jean and cousin Laurel and her husband Fred in Texas. I hadn't seen any of them in quite a while and it was really fun to catch up. The picture above though is from my recent trip to Brazil, which different relatives have been asking me about.
 

The Regional Administrators' Council flew me down to Brazil to give three speeches for local business people, business professors and business students. All in all I ended up speaking for over 1,500 people at three events in three different cities.

I was taken aback by how in the spot light I ended up being. I was asked to present awards and then, after each event, the students flocked to take pictures with me. They must have taken 10,000 pictures of me in those three days.

This is actually a candid photo, not including one of the gazillion I posed for with students. We had little cocktail parties after all three events.

I must strike this pose a lot because there is a picture that's almost identical to it that was taken of me at the conference in Budapest.

I gave speeches in Fortaleza, the state capital, (both for business people and at a Stake Young Men's Fireside), Juazeiro do Norte and Sobral. The picture above is from Juazeiro do Norte, which we took a plane to travel to from Fortaleza. I was rather sleep deprived from all the traveling and late night dinners so trying to understand my travel companions' thick country accents (in Portuguese) was tough.

I was proud of myself for actually losing weight (one pound) during my week in Brazil. Latin people love to stuff you with food and there were lots of business lunches and dinners. This picture was taken during my last night in Brazil, in a town called Sobral. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and hope it will not be my last.
 

We were all surprised when Tristine brought Ben Fjerstad to family dinner not too long ago. The two of them are quite in love and will be getting married at the beginning of December. They have decided to be married in the Manti Temple, almost exactly nine years after Becca and I were married there. Their wedding will be doubly special for us.