USA and Hillary

A catch-up of the last few weeks in pictures:

Capitol Reef and Grandma's house in Venice with dear BYU friends...

Florida siblings reunion with my awesome family.  It was great to see Andrew and Allison at home in Orlando.

for real. . . alligators

A one-day pre-mission shopping trip for Danny - such a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime sort of day!  I loved every minute of it.

 


When I arrived home, I jumped into the role of supporter for Oak's Hillary challenge team.  Oak's team pulled off a 1st place for the second year in a row - so exciting!  Oak had a new set of challenges this year as compared to last:  as one of the team leaders and navigator, he felt like he made an endless number of crucial decisions over the week. 

"We are glad there are so many of you who love the same things that we do." 
My favorite line from Oak's acceptance speech in front of all the other teams in the competition.

Oak volunteered to make the team's much-anticipated Hillary challenge video, which will be published in a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, here's a link to a video published by the race organisers.  It explains a bit about the event:

https://www.facebook.com/hillaryoutdoors/videos/1143604745660891/

I'm obviously a proud mama!  

Oak, however cool he really is, is still very good at classic 17-yo male, Napoleon-Dynamite-type behavior.  Once in a while.  

We tease him for wearing his Hillary jacket around without a shirt on underneath, and for comments like a few nights ago at dinner: "Spit works the best for doing my hair.  Luke taught me how" or "I wiped down the bathroom with my socks.  They were clean because it was the first time that I wore them."  (That "first time" just happened to be a 45-minute run from which he'd just returned...).  He loves his retro NPBHS jacket given him by an older lady in our branch,  feels deprived if he gets less than 9 hours of sleep, loves that his leadership role gets him free lunches from the boarders' hall (he gets food both at the beginning and end of lunch hour), and is channeling Napoleon Dynamite at the mandatory ballroom practice for the upcoming Boys' and Girls' High balls.  

the retro NPBHS jacket rocks

Oak's Hillary-jacket-no-shirt look (and goodbye to Elder Sapati, we'll miss you!)

I finished some interesting books this month:

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