News from Australia

We finally heard from Logan today. He is loving Australia. They have been to the Gold Coast and Brisbane and leave for Newcastle on Friday (which is Thursday here).

Thought I would pass along his emails...

Dear Mom and Family,

Well I don't think I am coming home from Australia. I think I am just going to stay here. It is amazing here. For example today was a cooler day and it was 75 degrees in fall. We spent all day at a zoo were I feed the kangaroos, got to hold a Koala and took a picture with a crocodile. The beach is gorgous as well. We performed at surfers paradise two days ago.

The shows have gone well and we have a accomplished a ton yesterday. We performed in Parliament and meet the Speaker of the House. He was very receptive and another member of Parliament came to out show and loved it. While the show has gone well and the people have loved it the adversity has not stopped. Our first show was almost cancelled because the power went out right before the show started. But everything has gone great. We had a great firseside tonight.

The people are great and I am having a blast. This has been one the the best tours where I have seen the fruits of our labors we have really touched a lot of people. The tour is really well planned. There is a member of the area presidency at every show and fireside. Tomorrow we travel for ten hours to New Castle.

Love you all

Logan

Marco Island Getaway

Sun! We saw the sun this week and it was hot! That hot sun was in Marco Island, Florida - not Oregon.

Jim and I flew out early Wednesday morning for 4 nights/5 days of fun, relaxation and sun all courtesy of Creative Memories! We stayed at the Marriott resort on Marco Island - see the view of the Gulf of Mexico from our room!

We enjoyed lots of beach time, pool time, spa time, good food and the sun! One day we went on a wave runner excursion among the Ten Thousand Islands off of Marco Island and the next day we took a shelling/dolphin excursion. They took us to a private island where we were able to collect beautiful shells. The entire beach at Marco Island is shells - no sand just finely crushed shells, it is amazing. We also came across a pod of about 7 dolphin that swam around and under our boat.

We also enjoyed a beautiful sunset each evening.

We flew home Sunday arriving home about 11 p.m. Portland time - by 3:00 am. though I was wide awake as my body was still on Eastern time!.

The kids survived while we were gone - thanks to grandma's cooking. I left the house stocked full of food and Grandma cooked dinner.

As we flew out Wednesday morning, Clark flew home Wednesday night - his birthday, for the break between semesters. He and the girls hung out while we were gone. Clark has enjoyed his regular home routine, sleep, eat, TV, sleep eat, TV! We will have Monday and Tuesday with him before he heads back to school Tuesday evening.

The kids did join the neighbors for the March of Dimes Walk America Saturday morning as they walked as Mike's Marchers, in memory of our neighbor Mike Osborne who died two years ago. He had been the President of the Oregon Chapter of March of Dimes.

After the walk Cali went to work at the Food Bank for a National Honors Society service project and Clark drove down to University of Oregon in Eugene where the BYU Lacrosse team was playing.

Logan had a rough and busy week. Finishing up finals and projects, moving out of his apartment (thank you to Uncle David for letting him store his stuff), finding an apartment for next Fall, finalizing the list for next year's Young Ambassadors (part of his job as president), a trip to the Temple and then finding out that Disney's attorneys had contacted BYU and demanded that they remove all of the Disney numbers from their show!

Despite negotiations between BYU's attorneys and Disney's they had to redo 20 minutes of the show the night before they left for Australia. I guess the copyright/trademark laws are a bit old and in the "olden" days Show Choirs just stood and sang - did not dance. But now Show Choirs dance - a lot. Someone from Disney had seen the show while the YA were on ten day tour in California and reported that they did more than just stand and sing.

So Logan now has a new number in the show - instead of Seize the Day he is doing Brotherhood of Man from "How to Succeed in Business without really trying" It was a number that was in the show last year. Logan loved that number and was actually pretty excited about getting to sing the lead in it.

He also said he had a 15 page Australian Song to learn on the plane that he had never heard and he had a solo in it.

Think he was very glad to get on the plane and get some sleep - they stopped in LA and New Zealand on their way to Australia - about a 24 hour trip. We figured out that he is 15 hours ahead of us here in Portland.

Last week started on a sad note though - Monday we attended the funeral of Tracy Best's (my brother Richard's wife) mother in Longview, Washington. She was 70 years old. Richard did a great job with the eulogy. She had a full Catholic Mass as part of the funeral which was an interesting experience.