Summer

Recorded August 7, 2022

This summer has been crazy but so wonderful. I want to talk about all of it but just to make sure I get it all recorded let me summarize what we have done right now.

May 20 we went to St George to attend Brett Havertz wedding. Of course had a wonderful time with Alycia and her kids.

The next weekend, May 27 we went to Utah to see Alex, Lisa & James for the first time in a couple of years. Lisa and James just arrived back from Germany.

June 13 Alycia and her family came down for Legoland. It was a quick weekend but it was great to see them again.

June 21 we headed to Canada. The main purpose of the trip was to celebrate Donna Shaw but since most of our kids were going to be there and because Kira’s family is moving to the States we also made it the Fred & Lisa Leavitt first triannual Family Reunion. The first week was spent in Waterton and then we came back to Calgary for the celebration and then the second week was spent mostly in Calgary.

July 16 Lisa and I attended a band concert. Three big groups from our day were playing. REO Speedwagon, Styx & Loverboy. It was good but Lisa enjoyed it a lot more than I did; but I enjoyed being with Lisa.

July 18 Lisa headed off to girls camp. On that first day I went out in the evening and did a presentation on stars. I was quite nervous talking to 150 girls ranging from 11 to 18. I think it went well.

The next day on July 19 I drove Kira and Justins truck pulling a severly overloaded trailer to Chandler for them. I drove their old handicap van back.

On July 22 Brandon drove his kids out to San Diego while Serene was on vacation to Sri Lanka. They overnighted at Kira’s house in Chandler.

On August 1 my nephew Peter was in town because his girlfriend Angie was presenting a paper at some conference in town. We met him downtown and had dinner.

On August 2 Lisa’s good friend Dan Poffenberger and his family arrived.

On August 4 Sarah, Sam & Ezzie arrived. Sarah is a brides maid next week at her friend Simar's wedding. It is an Indian wedding and will take all next week. We will be going to three days of it.

Next week on Sunday we get two more Chinese exchange students who will be spending the year with us.

So that is our summer. Very exciting and full of fun but quite exausting.

So now let me give more details about some of the more exciting parts of the summer.

Wednesday June 22, 2022
Mom and I drove Kira & Justins old handicap van to Mesa and parked it at Bens. This way when Justin arrived with the kids by plane they would have a vehicle for Evan. We spent the night at Brians (Justins dad) place.

Thursday June 23, 2022
We drove the van to Bens who then took us to the airport. We arrived in Calgary in the late afternoon. We had a bit of fiasco at the airport but we made it through OK. Here is the lineup we were in.

Friday June 24, 2022
Alex, Lisa and James arrived in the morning. We played around in the lake and prepared to head to Waterton.

Saturday June 25, 2022
Ben arrived in the morning and then we headed off to Waterton. I was going to hang back and wait for Brandon to land in the evening but he arranged for some girl he met on Facebook to pick him up and take him back to Lethbridge. We settled into Justin’s cabin and explored around the townsite.

That is Vimy Mountain, my all time favorite mountain.

How cute is this picture of James holding Evans hand?

Sunday June 26, 2022
Sunday we went to church in the morning and then headed to Lethbridge to show the kids where Donna was buried, have a picnic lunch at the cemetary and then check out a few landmark area’s in Lethbridge on our way back to Waterton.

We saw the church where they were married, the house she grew up in, the house her dad built, the school she taught at and some of the city parks she worked at. It was at one of those parks where she met Lisa’s dad.

Yes, we are toasting Donna with Pepsi. She was very addicted to Pepsi and it will always make me think of her.

It was quite a summer and it has not slowed down a whole lot. We are exhausted but we feel very blessed.