January 27, 2002 Farmington, Utah

I have had such a fun evening - Jeannie and Sarah came over and visited for a little while and then Bob and Brett came over!!! The weather today reminded me of the many Sundays in Little Rock - rainy and dismal!!!! I have never quite figured out why more Sundays are like that than any other day and they are SO long. My church starts at 8:30 a.m. and it's nice to have it over early but the rest of the day is LONG!!! I remember Annie and Jeannie making cookies all afternoon in Little Rock and that made it fun - Daddy was always gone on church business.

It was SO funny - after Jeannie and Sarah left and I had waved to them from my porch I came back in the house and little Sadie was standing by the door with her little tail wagging and she knew she had been left behind. I called Jeannie on her cell phone so they came right back and I know if dogs could talk Sadie would have said "Thank you Grandma B" - Ha!!! Sarah is very happy because their D'Ette competition is over for this year and she doesn't have to be at school until 9 a.m. instead of 6 a.m. I went to Orem with Jeannie on Friday to watch the state high school dance competition and it was just fabulous. I am amazed at the talent all the students displayed from at least 25 schools throughout the state and of course I thought the Davis group was by far the very best. They won 2nd place in one of their routines where they dance with huge fans and then they won 5th place in another routine. I was happy because my high school alma mater also won - Box Elder - and the Woolley's high school Timpview won too. Sarah is naturally beautiful and with all the elaborate costumes she wore she was a "KNOCKOUT" - she even had to wear big false eyelashes that were glued on. Rick and Ricky have been in Phoenix for the Golf Tournament this weekend and will come home tonight - Mary Ann stayed in Logan to study!!!

I LOVED having Brett access his musical website on my computer tonight. Talk about talent - I told him I would be able to say "I knew him when" because he will probably be famous someday. There are four of them in their "group" and they have their pictures on this website with a little fictitious history of each of them: AJ said he was sent to a boarding school where he learned guitar from a monk; Brett said he grew up in the puddle drawn backstreets of Southside Manhattan; Jeff said he grew up on a Jamaican pumpkin farm where he twined horse tails to make music and he was shipped to America in a banana carton; and Mike explained their band was formed after a wild night in Las Vegas where he married his wife Storm. Their imaginations would make a good movie story and they are VERY good musicians. Bob and Brett had just finished their home teaching and Bob said it reminded him of when he used to do that with his Dad in Little Rock. TIME FLIES!!!

We had such a fun time on Tuesday celebrating Claire's birthday at lunch in the Garden Room of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB). I am SO glad we could all get together and I plan to make arrangements for us to do that once a month but we'll wait until March to go again because of the Olympics. Laura came from Draper, Annie came from Provo and Jeannie, Claire and I went together from Farmington. I got my pictures back and they are SO good - I'll scan them and send them to John for the website. Salt Lake is all "decked out" for the Olympics and I wish the Roy Mellors, John, Michael and Russell could see the HUGE murals of some of the athletes they have on the sides of some of the tall buildings - I can't believe they could do that.

I was interested to see some news in our paper about Madagascar - it said they had some kind of public unrest because of a political election. I thought as I read it how very fortunate I am to even be the slightest bit aware of that place - if it weren't for Russell's mission I wouldn't even know where it was. I keep hoping the Woolleys will hear from Russell more often now with the e-mail situation being improved. Michael is happier in his new area and that's good. He was in an area where the church was very small without any member support and that is SO difficult - I love the pictures he sends.

I think about all my college grandchildren and I hope you are all doing good and I hope Susanna and Barji are feeling better - you should just about be over your morning sickness shouldn't you??? Mer - thank you for our sweet letter. I answered it but then I worried that you may have to pay a lot to access it - I hope not!!! I am proud of Mary Ann - she is a marathon runner and determined to do it even in this very cold weather - it was -9 degrees in Logan one day last week. Jessie is winding down her college education and I'm SO proud of her too - it will be just wonderful for her to have her college degree before long. We were happy to see Greg Reeves at UVSC on Friday - he is Steve's brother and he said two girls had "dragged" him to the competition - Ha!!! He is surely a handsome and nice young man - he said he was coming down with the flu so I hope he is better by now.