The Very BIG Day

This past Friday was pretty much the best day ever. It started off bright and early with a temple trip - my youngest brother's first, in fact. I dropped the kids off at Travis's sister's place and then headed for the Mt. Timpanogas temple. It worked out in such a way that my entire immediate family, and ONLY us, could attend (no spouses/kids). It was so amazing to be in the temple with my parents and ALL my siblings for the first time! And such a BEAUTIFUL day for it too!

Afterward we went out to lunch - again just the 7 of us. We figured it was the first time we'd sat down to a meal together with just our family in nearly 10 years! Our super-enthusiastic waitress was kind enough to take a picture of all of us.

AND THEN...

After that fabulous day, I came home and received a call from Travis, who reported that he was accepted into the anesthesiologist assistant master's program at the University of Missouri at Kansas City! We were so elated to finally have some plans in place! You may or may not know the long (...long...long...) educational road we've been blazing (let's just say I'm sending Travis to 12-step meetings for addiction to school) but he'll be finishing up his PhD next month and after that... well we were just waiting to see what avenues opened up to us. This looks like our final decision, and I think it's a perfect fit given Travis's background and interests. It's a 2.5-year program, starting this coming January. He was so ecstatic, and we're both relieved to have all the unknowns start to fall into place for us. The timing was really perfect and we feel like it has come as a huge blessing to us. More on all of this later when we get the details settled out.

Travis joined us yesterday, as well as my grandma and her friend, so we now have a full house! Family pictures tonight, so stay tuned for those!