Life is always exciting for somebody somewhere

Well, everything has been pretty low key around here, but there is all sorts of stuff going on in my extended family. My little brother Scott was called to serve a LDS mission in Mongolia. He went into the MTC about ten days ago and my mother has been waiting for a letter ever since. It finally came yesterday and she was ecstatic. Having served in Washington, D.C., I have a hard time imagining what it will be like in Mongolia. However, I can imagine how cold it will be. I will take 102 degrees with 105% humidity (yes, that is possible) any day over -30 degrees and wind. Anyway, my parents are all alone in their house now that the youngest has left to proselytize half way around the world.

To add to the frenzy of sending their favorite son (it is true, they like him better) 6,600 miles away for two years, my parents sold their house and are moving next Saturday. They are doing the classic retirement downsize except they are not retiring and the new house is actually bigger than the old one. Mom is even getting a job, after 28 years without a full time job, because there are no more children at home.

It is pretty amazing all the stuff that a family can gather in a home in 18 years. I have been getting periodic phone calls with "what do you want to do with this" at the other end. The final step was last night when they brought down my old, brokendown motorcycle. I now have a 1980 Suzuki 850 on my porch if anyone is willing to pay me an outrageous amount of money for it. It was one of two motorcycles that I purchased for a total of $550. What a steal. We are not going to add up everything that it cost to get it running, the license, registration, and insurance that I paid for the 3 weeks that it ran and was legal, or what it would cost to get it running again. That would just be sad. Suffice it to say the everything that I learned in the process was worth it. My mother would disagree, and we could probably estimate the amount of gray hair and the shortened years that the stress of her oldest, then reckless and unmarried son with a motorcycle had caused her. Sorry mom. I still plan on fixing it up or getting another one though. The only requirement from Amy is that she gets a moped. Done and done. That is a small price to pay for almost every man's adolescent dream.

- Jeff