Elder Richard Haskell in Australia

Richard continues to send us updates from Perth, Australia. His weekly emails are brief and rarely give much detail, but they make it clear that he's busy, enjoying the work, and having the kind of experience we all had hoped for. He and his companion, Elder Barff from Tasmnaia, are in Perth with the LDS Temple and Mission Office in their area. They actually live in an flat in Maylands a little east and north of downtown Perth. It must be an interesting place - they awake some nights ago to the sounds of a drug bust in the flat below them Richard reports that Maylands is the drug capital of Western Australia. The local members seem to take good care of them and Richard has commented a few times about the Cullimore family they seem to visit often.

Richard has tried some of the foods unique to Australia and while there are many he likes (Menties and a form of ginger ale) there are others still that aren't likely to show up on his list of favorites. He reports that vegamite is really salty and tastes kind of nasty! You can see his pictures and other posts on elderhaskell.blogspot.com.

Lauren's California Summer

Each of our daughters has taken one of summers while in high school and spent it in California with 'the aunties'. The aunties are Sheri Johnson, Juliana Mahlmann and Beth Bruzzone, Rick's sisters all living in central California - we sometimes refer to them as Flora, Fauna and Merriwether.

This summer is Lauren's turn and she's staying at Lost Horizons with the Johnson family. She'll spend time with the other aunties over long weekends, but for now she's learning to ride horse, clean stalls, look out for rattle snakes, and muck the pasture. She's loving it. Lauren is a good girl, seriously independent, and beautiful!

Lauren took her guitar, ipod, clothes and blow dryer and off she went! She'll return to Utah in mid-August in time to start at Iteneris early College High School where she'll complete her last two years of high school while in her first two years of college.

Jessica as College Graduate!

Jessica graduated from UC Riverside on Sunday, June 15th, Father's Day! She graduated 'cum laud' with her bachelors in Political Science. It was a great day and Jessica worked hard for a lot of years to get to this point. Credit goes to Brandon as well - he's been a great support and has seen to it that Jessica has had time to study and focus on her course work. Jessica now starts to prepare for the LSAT and expects to enter law school in the fall of 2009.

Rick, Leslie, and Lauren, Becca and Justin, and Sheri and Steve Johnson and family made it to the graduation and enjoyed the barbecue we had for Jessica on Sunday afternoon. We're all proud of Jessica and can't wait to see what she does next.

Kendall has a new bedroom!

Actually she's had her own bedroom for a long time, but her mom and dad bought a new house in Lake Elsinore, California and if you know the Sudweeks' then you know it's all about Kendall! It took a few weeks for them to finish their move and they spent a lot of that time painting, putting in carpeting, shelves and electrical fixtures, and working in the yard. The place looks great!

The neighborhood is just north of Lake Elsinore and right at the base of the Ortega Mountains. They have an unusually big back yard for a southern California home and they're going to have their hands full transforming it into the yard and home they'll love. Leslie and I have been down there twice and helped out with a few projects. The first morning of our most recent trip started early as we woke up to the sound of Brandon putting in a flower bed in the front yard. He was out there digging out grass and getting things ready for border stones and day-lillies. When he outlined to me what projects he had planned for the day I realized that Brandon's going to be obsessive about his yard - we're so proud! It looks great!