Dear Kids,
      Before I forget, I need to get your orders for the Mike Rogers pictures. I’ll be calling you all by Friday, or maybe Saturday, if I haven’t heard from you. The prices are in my family letter of July 11th. If you’ll call me first, I won’t catch you at a bad time. Overall, I think the proofs are really great. Our family is so photogenic!
      It was fun seeing so many of you at the family reunion last Saturday! I think that slip-n-slide was a great idea! Who needs to rent a giant waterslide when you can have just as much fun on the cheap? Grandma was happy to see so many of you! She wants to keep having these one-day family reunions, every year, the first Saturday of August, same park. That way we all know what to plan on. That will make it August 2, 2008, just five days after our Ackerson reunion on July 28th. Sharon and Seth are planning to come, and hit both reunions. And maybe Monica and Neil? (Ramona, too? Can’t you just see us tossing her down the slip-n-slide?)
      Paul wants to point out that the August Ensign has a whole section on member missionary work in the Canada Vancouver mission. On page 55 is a picture of Beth Landry, who he confirmed after her baptism, and Erma, her mother. There are other pictures of people he knew, too. He did a lot of reminiscing, looking at the pictures.
      You want to see something funny? Two guys pumping up the tires of a sports car with a bicycle pump. That would be Dad and John, pumping up Johns MR3. We had it for more than a week, while John borrowed our truck. (I think Dad drove it to work every day, instead of riding his bike.) So when John came to trade the truck back, Dad noticed he’d let the tires on the sports car get a little low. So out came the bicycle pump. I should have taken a picture and posted it on our web site: “Successful eye doctor puts air in the tires of his sports car.” Well, it beats paying 50 cents at the gas station.
      Grandpa Allen had prostate surgery last Tuesday, and from what I hear, he’s doing well. According to my brother Ben, who knows everything about surgery, it should help him a lot. I hope it does, because Dad and I are still hoping to take Grandma and Grandpa to Albuquerque at the end of this month. We’ll have to see how it goes.
      Allen has a great new assignment in his job: starting in September, he’ll be the “officer friendly” at Centerville Junior High. Well, they have another name for it, but basically, he’ll be on duty there about 20 hours a week, Monday thru Friday. How cushy is that? The rest of the time, he’ll be out chasing bad guys, as usual. And, as usual, he was chosen over some other cops who have been there longer, and really wanted the job. Go, Al!
      I killed all the grass in our front yard with Roundup, so I could plant some low-moisture dwarf fescue. And now I can’t get the seed! High Country Gardens is out of it, and Granite Seed in Lehi didn’t know what I was talking about, when I called them. So our front yard looks kinda different. Well, not exactly. Half our neighborhood has dead lawn. I think it will always be hot. And my poor broken toes will always hurt. Otherwise, life is good.
      Love, Mom