Fall and Funeral

Dear Family,

Our fall time started out normally enough--with a neighborhood 5K (3 children biked, Maddie manned the water station at our house, Brent was on a campout, Brian walked, and I jogged), piano, violin, school, library, park days and all of the normal things:

modeling Grandma's halloween socks!!

We were excited for a visit from Mom, and enjoyed celebrating Brent's birthday while she was here, including Mom treating us to Red Iguana for a delicious dinner!! Brent was quite thrilled (if not surprised) to finally acquire his own iPod Touch (refurbished, and partly paid for with his lawnmowing).  BIG 13!! HOORAY FOR TEENAGERS!!

you'd be amazed how much Emily can do while reading!

Lunch @ Subway to support Aunt Laurie's awesome graphic art!

What we did not expect was a visit up to Grandma Mildenhall's turning into a goodbye! She became unwell while Mom was here, so the two of us ended up spending one night with her, since no one knew how much longer she had--that was a unique blessing I was glad for! Dad flew in--right from Korea, stopping in Atlanta just long enough to do laundry on Saturday night, so Mom met him at the airport on our way home from Cousin Kristen's wedding to Paul Moss that we enjoyed with Priday's that day:

 

Grandma did pass away Tuesday morning--right before Mom and Dad were scheduled to fly out, so arrangements were made for the funeral to be Friday, and Mom and Dad extended their visit.  They were kind to fit in a family picnic with us between all of the MUCH funeral planning/ arranging.  AND, due to the funeral, Taylor and Kristen's family came to stay with us! We were SO excited to have SO MUCH family!! That was the best part of the funeral--to be able to see so many of us gathered together--and it now seems unreal that NONE of my grandparents are alive anymore!

Grandma always did a great job making us feel so special, and besides summer visits growing up, I loved riding the bus over to their house all through college, for lunch, introducing boyfriends, or watching fireworks.

We enjoyed a little bit of time with visitors overlapping, and then reveled in our time with a COUSIN visiting (Clark had quite an entourage everywhere he went in this house!, and the cutest thing EVER was Lucy and Clark holding hands in the van right after they got here! :)

 We had a marvelous Conference Weekend--it always feels better enjoying it with family!--and saw the TJ Mildenhall's off Tuesday morning. That Clark was one HAPPY BOY!! I came home to a picture card from Briant and Katie that was so beautiful it made me cry my eyes out!!--so grateful to have such great family, and so sad to not have them all closer!! There is SO much to love in life! I've since taken to cleaning out all of the closets that I started before our excitement (just wait for all of those exciting before and after shots)!!, and meanwhile am trying out that daily praying to find some way to serve each day (Elder Ballard), and be like Pres. Monson's example! Much love to you all!-Love, the Duncan's