Family Update

I do realize it's been a long time since I updated my blog. We've just been SO busy. Gary has made two trips to the other side of the country - one to Atlanta at the end of January and one to Orlando last week. He was there on business, but he did manage to have some fun, too. He golfed and went to Universal Studios. I have been busy with a variety of activities, some fun and some not-so. For fun, I went to Seattle with my buddy Bree and her parents to see "Memphis." It was amazing - especially because we got to sit on the front row! Bree's parents got the tickets from their season-ticket-holder friends who were out of town. This musical is headed for Broadway, and if you get a chance to see it, take it! Other things keeping me busy: practicing music for the choirs I accompany, trying to finish my BYU class on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, working, refinancing the house, uploading all my recipes into my new "Cook'n" software (this is fun), helping Natalie with college applications/auditions, traveling to auditions with Natalie, playing for rehearsals of "Into the Woods," and working on my family tree.

Jonathan had an eventful day Monday. He was on his way to Walgreen's at 2:00 AM (I don't have a clue) when he was hit by a drunk driver with no insurance. He is okay, but when I got the phone call
at 3:00 AM, I thought the worst. Unbelievably, he called just to see if I could drive him to work that morning in case he couldn't get a rental car! His car was totalled, he had a massive headache and a very sore knee, but he was already getting his ducks in a row - he even mentioned his plan to go car-shopping the next day. Last month Jon was honored by being selected "Manager of the Year" for the 10 Papa John's stores in his region.

Spencer is plugging away at his classes at BYU and dating a lovely girl named Nicole. She is from Las Vegas and is majoring in early childhood education. Spencer is almost sure now that he will be a communications major with an advertising emphasis, and he thinks he might want to be an optometrist. He volunteers a few hours each month doing eye screenings at a clinic. He has also been using his knowledge of Guarani to do translating for the church. He did two conference talks in October and one of the talks at the Christmas Devotional. He works part time at the BYU library - doing the exact same job I did when I was at BYU, working for the daughter of the woman I worked for 27 years ago!

Natalie is probably the busiest one of us. She is in the midst of the college application process. She not only has to fill out all the application forms to be admitted to colleges, but she also has to prepare music and monologues and choreographed dance numbers for auditions so she can be a music theater major. It has been a grueling process. She has 3 hours of dance classes every Saturday, voice lessons twice a week, rehearsals for "Into the Woods" every day after school, regular homework, seminary make-up work - well, you get the idea. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that her room and her bathroom are disaster areas, and that the debris has started to ooze out of her room and flow like lava to all parts of the house.

This past weekend, Natalie flew to Spokane to sing with the All-Northwest Honor Choir. On Saturday, Gary and I drove out there to attend the concert and revisit our old stomping grounds. We lived in Spokane from Summer 1984 to February 1987. Jonathan was born there, and I was 8 months pregnant with Spencer when we moved to this side of the state. I took some pictures of our first "homes." The first one was a three-story townhouse - the first one on the left in this building:


Our second domicile was a ground floor apartment - #3 Adam's Court, the lower apartment in this picture:


Our third residence was a little house on an unpaved road (it is now paved). This is a picture of the house. It didn't have a garage when we lived there.

We enjoyed our trip down memory lane in Spokane. We went to church Sunday in our old building and saw a few familiar faces. One familiar face was the son of our old Bishop. He is now in the bishopric of that ward. As you may have noticed from the pictures, Spokane is covered in snow. It starts falling in November and stays around, getting dirtier and rockier every day until April. We don't miss that.

Well, that is my update on the Colvin family!