Wendy

I know this is very late in coming and so it is hardly news any more but I wanted to record the wonderful event anyway. On May 7 Alex proposed to Wendy Lobos and they are now engaged. Last year when Sarah got married and after a very short engagement was married, Alex (along with many others) gave her a pretty difficult time. Well, Alex and Wendy are on the same track. 

The story of how they met is an interesting one. Alex has a favorite study carol in the University of Utah library where he likes to study (good boy). One day he headed for his carol and it was taken. In fact all the carols were taken so he had to resort to a table. He figured that if he had to study at a table then he would sit next to the prettiest girl in the library. He picked out Wendy. As you can tell from her picture she would have easily been the prettiest girl there. 

Lucky for us by the time spring break came around their relationship was well on its way to a courtship so Alex brought her home for spring break and we had the good fortune of being able to get to know Wendy a bit better. When Alex brought three car loads of boys from Utah home for spring break Wendy was the only girl. I'm sure she was glad to have Sarah there as well so she wasn't the only girl. From what I could tell however she enjoyed the attention and boy did she get a lot of attention. The boys would all randomly start chanting "Wendy, Wendy, Wendy". It was funny. It was so much fun to have her here in our home for a week but it was not fun to send her back to Utah at the end of the week. I found her to be not only beautiful on the outside but beautiful on the inside as well. 

Wendy was born in Guatemala but moved to Chicago when she was seven years old. I think is funny how Alex and Wendy are both immigrants. Alex was born in Canada but raised in San Diego (moved from cold to warm) and Wendy was born in Guatemala but raised in Chicago (moved from warm to cold). I think Alex got the better end of that deal.

Immediately after their semester at the U ended Alex and Wendy headed off to Chicago for a week or two to meet her family. While out there he decided to pop the question. I guess there is a tall sky scraper in Chicago that had these glass rooms that extend out into mid air. From the pictures it looks like it would be a bit of a thrill to stand out in the air 70 stories in the air with nothing but a thin sheet of glass beneath your feet. That is where Alex decided to propose. It turned out to be a pretty good picture. I don't know if it was as romantic as it looks but it does look rather romantic. 

The big day is going to be August 16, 2013. The wedding is going to be here in San Diego and we are very excited. It is going to be a big party. 

I am very excited to have Wendy become a part of our family. It is also the end of an era because now all six of our children will be married and our family is complete. Our six children have become twelve children and I couldn't be more pleased with who they are. Christmas's are going to be very exciting now. I guess we will have to buy a bigger house. 

Welcome to the family Wendy. I'm thrilled to have your for my daughter and I couldn't love you more

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Divorce rate for Temple Marriages is about 6% 

as compared to a national average of about 45%.

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Farewell Ben & Sharley

Ben graduated about two years ago from the University of Fullerton with a business degree. If you don't know what you want to be when you grow up a business degree is a very useful degree because just about anything you end up doing involves the fundamentals of running a business. In a time when the economy was very bad and unemployment was high Ben had several job offers and upon graduation he started working for the tool company Hilti. 

Hilti has a very good product but their business model is rather flawed. Ben was one of their top performers but rather than reward him for his skills and excellent work ethic they got rather protective and his manager actually impeded his progress. If Ben got promoted that meant that his department would lose a good worker. Trapping Ben in that department may have been great for the department but not good for the company. Ben saw what was going on and soon jumped ship to one of Hilti's competitors, Milwaukee. Everything Hilti did wrong, Milwaukee did right. Ben started there around Christmas time and just a few weeks ago Ben and Sharley informed us that he is being promoted to area manager and he will be running all of Colorado and much of Wyoming. To top it off he was told not to get too comfortable because they have big things planned for Ben and he probably won't be there too long. Wonderful news for Ben and Sharley but this means that our only child who was still close to home is moving away from us. Very sad. 

Ben has been commuting back and forth between Colorado and Orange County for most of May but tomorrow he leaves for good. Last night we joined Ben and a few of his friends for a farewell dinner. have you ever heard of a "waffle sandwich"? They are delicious. They took us to a place called Bruxee. Very delicious. For dessert we crossed the street and had ice cream at Ferrell's. It was a wonderful evening.

Other than Ben moving rapidly up the corporate ladder the only good thing that came out of this move is that Ben sold me his motor bike. That aught to be fun. I will let you know how it goes.

I should add that today is Brandon's birthday. Happy birthday Brandon.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Prehistoric hunter-gatherers worked no more than 19 hours a week. The rest of the time they sang and danced.

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