Dear Kids,
      Here’s some good news: Jamie Quinn is engaged to Andrea Fleming, from Vernal, and the tentative date for the wedding is November 17. They’re getting married in the Vernal Temple. Jane sent out an e-mail with the announcement. You can guess she’s pretty excited. Charles, the other cousin-in-love, was flying up to the northwest (Portland? Seattle? I can’t remember which) to drive back to BYU with his girlfriend, Julie. We hope we’ll also hear an announcement from them pretty soon, but according to Ben, Charles is sort of gun shy after being dumped by other girls. I’ll keep you posted.
      Meanwhile, Monica has a unique idea about her wedding–why don’t they get married at the cabin? They were thinking first of Park City, and then a ranch-type place, maybe near Oakley, and finally Monica figured that the cabin might work pretty well. And with the money they save by not renting a place, they can serve better food! I’m totally in favor of that. I said Ramona has to come to the wedding, and Monica said, sure, she can be the flower cat, and Carson can drag her down the aisle on a leash. It’s going to be an outside wedding, so now I have to get going again on my unfinished outside projects (rock wall, siding, deck railing) before winter comes. I suggest to Monica that if they were married near the end of June, the cabin would look its best: green grass, flowers, etc., versus dormant grass and dead flowers in August. She said she’s open to any suggestions.
      I called Pocatello last Saturday morning to see how Vanessa and Trent were doing, and Ruth Sutton answered the phone. She was babysitting while Vanessa and Trent ran the Pocatello Marathon! I said, “A Marathon??!!” but Ruth said that they were just doing the 5k. Vanessa called me back later and explained that whether you run the 5k, 10k, half-marathon, or marathon, you still get the T-shirt, and you cross the finish line with everybody else. She had a great time and didn’t even break a sweat. She said it was a little harder for Trent. They saw Scott Harmon and his wife Jane, who’s from Inkom, running the race. They do it every year. There’s a carnival at the finish line, and everybody has fun. Now that’s my kind of marathon.
      Dad and I got a lot of work done at the cabin on Labor Day, and in the early afternoon, Marla and Tony showed up! (Tony was driving.) I had been watching out for Marla’s Jaguar, but they came in a Subaru Outback. (Their Alaskan Malamut dog, Sasha, came along–too bad the neighborhood Malamut, Coda, wasn’t there.) They oohed and aahed over the cabin. Marla said it was an estate. Then we sat around and ate crackers and drank crystal lite, and Marla told me about climbing the Middle Teton. She’s always having new adventures! She also talked about their family. Nichole has started law school in Seattle, after finishing her BA in three years. Her boyfriend Jason is going to truck-driving school. (Don’t you love it!) Carla is thinking of retiring from her dance studio, but doesn’t know where to go. Shawn has a website, shawnparks.com. Check it out. He sells his own designer bags. We had fun talking for a couple of hours, and then Marla and Tony said they had to go, so we could get back to work. We talked about getting together there at Christmas. That could be fun! Maybe we could have it be our after-Christmas sledding party. We’ll see.
      So much going on! So much fun! Love to all, Mom