this and that...

Ever obedient to my youngest brother's commands, I am updating my blog.  So, let's see.  What have I been doing since the last time I updated?

In April

Here's a picture I planned to blog but didn't get around to doing.  This was taken at the end of April in my front yard.  I love the weather in Logan, don't you?

In May

I went with my parents to see said youngest brother graduate from Dental School in Wisconsin.  He went the Air Force route to help pay for school, and became a Captain on the same day he became a Doctor.  We were teasing my niece and telling her she had to call him "Doctor Captain Daddy Sir" from now on.  The graduation ceremonies were, well, boring for the most part, but there were some fun parts.  On the first evening the college of dentistry had a graduation/awards ceremony where the graduates all became officially dentists (but not doctors yet.)  The program listed all of the students by their first and last names.  (Bear with me, this has significance.)  The next morning was the university commencement ceremony where they were presented to the university president for receiving their doctorate degrees.  After that, the college of dentistry had a luncheon and presented the graduates with their diplomas.  The printed program for this looked nearly identical to the program from the first ceremony, with one important difference.  The list of names now included "Dr." in front of each one.  I thought that was cool.  My brother was the only student in his class who was in the Air Force, and the ceremony at he luncheon started out with him taking his oath of office in front of all his classmates and their families.  It was really neat.

My brother told us that the college of dentistry and the college of law had a traditional rivalry when it came to the commencement ceremony, and to expect quite a ruckus when they were presented to the university president.  Each college filed into the stadium and sat in groups, and then one by one their college department heads handed a scroll to the university president saying something to the effect that the students listed on the scroll had completed the requirements and should be considered for graduation, yada yada.  The president then waved the scroll at the students (almost with a Harry-Potterish 'swish and flick') and graduated them.  The law students were earlier in the program, and they had lots of cheering and silly string flying, and a beach ball being batted around.  I thought they did a decent job, until the dental students had their turn.  Ho-ly Cow!  Silly string and shouting, sure, and a large blow-up monkey instead of a small beach ball, but they also had some type of pressurized containers that shot strings of metallic streamers into the air with a loud bang, and from where I was sitting in the stands, it looked like fireworks going off above their section.  It went on and on, and then on and on even longer.  It lasted so long that the university president said, "Wow."  All throughout the rest of the commencement ceremony the occasional 'firework' would go off above the dental students as someone found an unexploded canister.

In June

Umm, not much, just work mostly.  I did take a few days off to go hiking/camping with some of my uncles and cousins.  We were going to hike Tablerock - in the Tetons - but there was too much snow.  So we did a smaller hike instead and then went to Moose Lake, a small lake in Yellowstone near where my grandfather grew up.  It was fun, but the mosquitoes were insane!  We think they've learned to follow vehicles.  When we first got there, they swarmed us as soon as we got out of the van.  They petered off a bit after a while, but not ever enough that we didn't notice them.  The next morning was pouring rain for a couple of hours in the morning, and after it let up, some of the group drove out to hike Union Falls.  The mosquitoes were not too bad most of that day, but they were bad enough that I spent the day in my tent.  As the hikers drove back into camp, the mosquito menace increased exponentially!

For July and August

My stake is going on 'Trek' this week for youth conference.  I'll write more about that after it happens.  In August, we'll have girl's camp.  Again, more after it happens.