Waite's Window The happenings at the Waite House.
On July 6, 2021 sweet little Diana Felicity Cook made her entrance into the world at 6:45 in the morning. She weighed 6 pounds 7 ounces and made us grandparents. She is absolutely beautiful! Rebecca and Justin are figuring out parenting a newborn together. They are an amazing team.
We had a small miracle in our lives last week. I talked with the Church missionary department to see what the plan was for David and the MTC. I was told that because his original assignment was South Africa MTC and it isn't open yet he would do it all online in HMTC. He was disappointed, but understood,
A few days later we were talking and he said that he really wanted to go to the MTC in person and have that experience. About 15 minutes later my phone rang. It was President Jacobsen, he told us that David's MTC assignment had been changed and he would start on Monday, August 23 with HMTC for 10 days and then go to the Provo MTC for the remainder of his time. WooHoo! I love little miracles. The timing felt very much like a miracle to me.
In March David realized that if he wanted to go on his mission early in the summer he better get on putting his papers in. It was pretty fast and easy process this time around. His papers were submitted by President Davidson on April 2nd. General Conference was the 3rd and 4th so I figured it might take a bit of extra time to receive his call. Not so, his email saying his call was available came on Tuesday, April 13th while he was at school. He waited and didn't read it at school. It was super exciting to think about where he would be serving the Lord. We had soccer practice and Lydia had clogging Tuesday evening so we decided to wait until 6:30 to open his call. At 6:30 we zoomed with Rebecca & Justin, Bethany, Matthew and Grandma Karan. It took a bit for the email to open, but David finally got to read that he would report on August 26, 2021 to the South Africa MTC to serve in the Botswana/Namibia mission. I was pretty sure he would stay in the United States, but I guess the Lord had other plans for him. I always try to trust the Lord's plans. We were all a bit surprised by the assignment for sure. The rest of the evening was spent learning things about Botswana/Namibia. The call says English speaking, but I would count on him learning another language to teach and communicate in.
We are proud of David's worthiness and desire to serve. It is going to be an adventure for certain. We are excited to see how David grows in his experiences. I hope he comes home his strongest convert.
On Monday, February 22, 2021 our kids got their first ever weather related day off of school in Wyoming. The crazy thing is the day was much nicer than a lot of days they have gone to school. The week before we had frigid temperatures, but school carried on as normal except one day the buses didn't run. One day when I sent the kids out the door in the morning the feels like temperature was -44. That is crazy cold!! School carried on. On Monday when they canceled school it ended up being pretty warm and melting a lot of our snow. We did have high winds blowing most of the night Sunday night. It drifted snow and made the roads dangerous so they canceled school. Having an extra day off is always a good thing.
Yesterday the young men and young women in our ward were going sledding in the Bighorn Mountains. Friday evening Bishop Jeide texted to see if Neil could go and drive our van to help take youth up. We decided it would be fun for Lydia to go along. I wasn't sure how Aaron would do, but decided to take him and go along for the day. Aaron didn't like sledding, but it was still fun. He did like playing in the snow and eating hot dogs in the van. I gave him a chocolate chip cookie and told him it was magic. It would make anything he was doing be more fun. It must have impressed him because I heard him telling Emma about his magic cookie when we got home. It was a beautiful day up on the mountain, not too cold. We had a delicious lunch cooked by the Akins. It was fun to visit with members of our ward and be together. I am glad I went along.
We stayed in Idaho one more day after riding the Hiawatha Bike trail so we could go to the Silverwood Amusement Park. I was a little nervous about getting COVID 19, but we decided it was worth the chance. We had a fun day together as a family at Silverwood. It isn't Disneyland, but it was still fun. Silverwood has rides and a water park. The kids had a great time together. Neil spent a lot of time making sure everyone had water on the hot day. Aaron loved the rides. Aaron and I rode the boats with water cannons several times. Aaron loved the little airplanes he could make go up and down. It was a fun day and no one got sick after being there. Hooray!!
Here are some pictures from our day in Silverwood:
In June 2015 I attended a Relief Society training in Billings. As part of that training, Elder Vern P. Stanfill of the Seventy gave a talk. As part of his talk, he shared a recent experience of riding the Hiawatha Bike Trail. His story intrigued me. As I was taking notes I wrote that I someday wanted to ride the Hiawatha Bike Trail. I went home after and told Neil that I thought it would be a wonderful experience to take our family to ride the Hiawatha Trail.
I was very surprised and excited when a few short months later I heard Elder Stanfill talk in October General Conference and he again shared his experience of riding the Hiawatha Trail. I was so excited that I already knew the story and had heard him share it personally. I really loved his talk and was once again excited to someday ride the Hiawatha Trail. Here is a link to his talk entitled Choose the Light:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/10/choose-the-light?lang=eng
I never really thought we would get to ride the Hiawatha Trail, but I really wanted to. I looked up information online and thought about getting to ride the Hiawatha Trail. In 2019 Neil and I went to the Hiawatha Trail and walked part of it. We walked through the Taft Tunnel that Elder Stanfill talked about. It was a wonderful experience. I told him that I thought the kids would really like to have the experience of riding the Hiawatha Trail someday.
In 2020 our planned family vacation to Disneyland was canceled due to COVID 19. We talked about doing something as a family and decided we would go to Idaho and ride the Hiawatha Trail. Neil did some creative thinking to figure out how to get the tandem bike, bike cart, and 5 other bikes in the back of the van so we could ride without having to rent bikes.
Our adventure almost took a wrong turn when we discovered the motel rooms we had booked in Idaho turned out to be in Indiana. We got it all straightened out and got new rooms in Idaho before we left.
We left on Sunday after church and drove as far as Butte, Montana. Emma, Neil, and I went for a walk through the Butte historical district while the others stayed at the motel.
Monday morning we got up and drove the last 4 hours to the Hiawatha Trail. It took a bit of work to get all the bikes up and going. Julia and MaryAnne decided they would be the shuttle drivers instead of riding bikes. They dropped us off and drove down the mountain to wait for us at the bottom. I thought Aaron would have fun riding in the bike cart, but looking back on it he probably would have enjoyed waiting in the van and watching a movie more.
The Taft Tunnel is right at the beginning of the trail. It is 1.6 miles long and very dark. I was kind of nervous about biking it, but did alright. The boys went ahead of us and when they got to the end of the tunnel they came back and found us. It was fun to see how much they were enjoying the experience together. We didn't think to put the cover down over the kids in the bike cart when we started the tunnel and they ended up very muddy. Aaron wasn't too happy about getting mud flicked on him.
Here are some pictures from when we finished the long tunnel:
