Ella is 8!

As Allen has found out over the years, one of the downsides of having an August birthday is that your celebration often gets lost in the shuffle of back-to-school.  Our poor Ella has never actually had a birthday party.  One year we did a half-birthday in February to make up for this, but it just seems that year after year we aren't able to pull it together to celebrate her big day with friends.  Well, this year Ella was turning 8 and so even with all of the moving craziness, we knew we had to do something fun.

On her birthday she got to pick breakfast and open a new book she'd been wanting.



She got to laze the day away reading and at dinner she got to choose a restaurant --Olive Garden.  While we were waiting for a table, she opened her big present -- her very own Kindle.  Boy was she excited.  Now she won't have to go a year without reading (one of her worries with this whole Baltimore gig).  She also got her very own scriptures and some other fun things from Nana & Opa.

On September 3rd, we had the big celebration.  Grandma had taken Ella on a couple of special shopping trips where they picked out a beautiful white dress for the big day.  She got her things all collected and we headed to the chapel.  We realized that we'd packed up all of Allen's whites, so he was glad to have a tall father-in-law who he could borrow from.



It was a stake baptism, so we didn't have responsibility for the whole event, I did have a moment of panic.  I'd prepared a talk on the Holy Ghost with a fun comparison to a traffic light and the stop, careful, and go signals that the Holy Ghost give us.  Well, when they announced the talks, they said mine was on Baptism.  I felt a rush of adrenaline, tingly fingers, cold sweat.  Oh no!  Luckily Julie Grover, who was giving the other talk, was feeling the same thing, we exchanged a glance and with relief I nodded to her that she should go up and give the Baptism talk.  Whew.

The baptism went well, though the dress Ella wore was too big and kept floating up, so she had to be dunked three times.  Extra clean!

It was great to have some family there with us.  Kevin and Kristina, bless them, DROVE out from California (labor day weekend tickets were pricey) to be there for the big event.  Shauna and her family juggled their crazy Saturday game schedule to make it -- Tom & Randy joined us later.  Margaret Olderog was in town from Blanding and was also able to make it.

We struggled with what to do for a get-together afterward, and by a combination of luck and inspiration thought to ask our generous neighbors the Heatons and Eatoughs if we could use their awesome pool.  They miraculously had noone else scheduled at that time, so we had a place to go for food and fun after the baptism.  It is not at every baptism that all of the guests get wet!