Summer Has Begun

David and I successfully finished another semester of school, and since we work for the school district we have a little 2 week break from work. Both of us are attending summer school and working summer school. We started our summer by taking a trip to Arizona to witness the sealing of Tom and Megan Thorley for time and all eternity. It was a beautiful thing to witness. We had a great time visiting with family and friends. One of David’s old missionary companions, Heath Wilcock, lives in Mesa, Arizona so we were able to meet up with him and his wife Emily at the wedding reception. They are a great couple, it was great to meet them and listen to David and Heath reminisce about their mission in the West Indies.

We left Arizona around 5:00 am Sunday morning and made our way to Lancaster to attend church with the Blair family. It is always great being around the Blair's, Aunt Martha is the best. We love her to pieces. Not only because she made us a delicious dinner and homemade ice cream... but because she is always so kind and fun. While we were in Lancaster we visited Poppy or Coach Reynders. This was actually the first time I got to meet him and talk with him. He is such a cute man, I could feel his sweet spirit just being by him and talking to him. We also went to the hospital and visited Grandma Reynders. She always makes us laugh; it was great to see her again.

Before this wonderful trip, David and I got to see our sisters graduate from Buchanan High. Janet and Nicole are now all grown up and moving on to bigger and better things. Because of this exciting event my sister Vanessa flew in from Canada, where she is living with her husband, and my dad was able to make it home too. It was great to have the entire Murphy's together again. Yesterday, I drove my dad and Vanessa to the Oakland Airport. We had a little time between when my dad left and when Vanessa's flight was to leave, so we spent some time at the Oakland Temple and in the Visitors Center there. We had a lot of fun.

Oh... Our first flower in our garden bloomed! Yeah! Here is a picture ;)

Pioneer Treck

Life is GREAT! David and I have been busy with work and school, but we are still loving life. Last Saturday we had the opportunity to be a Ma and Pa over a company of 80 youth, for a quad stake Pioneer Trek. There were about 500 youth in total that came and participated. The event lasted all day... we went about a mile pushing handcarts and stopped for some fun stations. There was a station about the saints sacrifices while building the Nauvoo Temple, how the saints would have killed and prepared a chicken, how to use a bow and arrow, we learned a dance that the saints would have done, we sat and listened to stories of great pioneers, and we learned how to cook biscuits in a dutch oven. After we went to all of these stations we headed out with our handcarts. We then stopped to see a reenactment of the sweet river rescue of the Willie and Martin handcart companies. It was amazing! I posted the video at the end of this so you can watch if you would like. After the reenactment we headed onward with our wagons for the place we would end our journey and receive a delicious meal. We had a wonderful time. It was great to feel a little sense of what the pioneers endured and appreciate the sacrifices they made. Well that is all for now. We love you all, and hope all is well with you.

Happy Easter/ Birthday

On Saturday my mothers side of the family all got together for an Easter family reunion. It was at a park, so we got to play lots of fun outdoor games. It was really nice to see all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. We had an Easter egg hunt, we died eggs, had an egg tossing contest, played some football, ate great food... it was amazing!

Sunday was even better! David and I had the opportunity to sing in the ward choir. We did a special music program. We had three speakers who spoke about the theme of each song we sang. Everything tied together so well; it was wonderful.

Since Sunday was also David's birthday, we went to the Reynders' home to celebrate. David really wanted me to make clam chowder for his birthday dinner... but not any clam chowder, he wanted his mom's clam chowder. So, JoLinda taught me how to make the best clam chowder ever. It was delicious. We opened presents, ate delicious cake, and played some fun family games. We had a great time. Spring break was sure fun, but now it is time to come back into reality and go to school and work...

We love you all! Have a great week!

Flower Planting & The Zoo

Spring Break

This last week has been wonderful. David and I both were off of school and work. It was nice not having to run from school to work and back and forth... We were able to catch up a little with some of our school work. We also went through a lot of trouble to try to get our car to pass smog so we can register it.

On Wednesday David and I planted a garden of flowers. We bought three different kinds of flower bulbs. We hope they grow, we are afraid we planted them a little too late. I sure hope they grow. We have been wanting to plant flowers ever since we moved in. Anyway, that was a lot of fun!

We went to the Chafe Zoo on Thursday. It was a lot of fun! We went with a couple in our ward, Jeremy & Danielle Snow. They live in the same apartment complex as us, and they both graduated with David. We love them, they have been good friends to us. Our main reason for going to the zoo was for me to complete a lab for my Biology class... so I was busy writing down information about various animals. We still had tons of fun. After a couple hours at the zoo we got lunch and played games with the Snow's for a couple more hours.

On Friday David and I worked on homework until five o'clock and then went to dinner and a movie. I got a $50 gift card to some restaurant from the girls I coach and a pair of movie tickets. So, David and I decided to go out on a free date. It was nice to just go out and spend time together.

We Are Still Alive

Hello there! All is going well with the Reynders family. We are keeping busy with work and school. This semester has been a little more difficult for us. As you probably know, this is David’s first semester at Fresno State. He is in three hard science classes, each with their own lab. He has to spend many hours studying and preparing for his classes. I am taking eighteen units at Fresno City, so I am pretty busy with school work too. Hopefully this is my last semester at Fresno City; I applied to Fresno State University with hopes of attending there in the fall. I hope I get in; Fresno State is cutting the amount of students that they are allowing in next semester, because of all the budget cuts.

Work is going great for both of us. David is still working with the upper grade autistic children and I am working with the children in seventh through ninth grade. We have learned a lot about autism and continue to learn about it each day we go to work. We really enjoy the kids and staff that we work with. These jobs have been great for both of us.

We have plans to attend summer school this summer and to work in the summer autistic program. We hope we can fit both in this summer schedule. We are also looking forward to going to Tom and Megan’s wedding this summer; that will be a lot of fun.

Christmas 2008