Travis Got his endowments which now makes ALL 10.

9 of us were able to be at the temple for an amazing experience.

I love the Christmas Season...

What we've been up to....

The FIRST and ONLY primary program with ALL 4 of my offspring!
They did great! Just wanted to document...
We really talked to McKay about not being "too old" for his last program-& he made us proud. As for Addie...she was just worried about fighting her way to the front to be seen with all those sunbeams. It's pretty obvious she's grown up with brothers.

Soccer, soccer, and more soccer! Matt loves it-& he's made himself quite a few goals. He says his team calls him "bulldog" because he puts on his game face & gets down to business. Just had to share some action shots.

This is Tanner's first year to play. He loves it as well and scored 3 goals at his last game. He enjoys the oranges they get at half time-and he's really fun to watch! I love this one of him coming through the tunnel-it's so him.

And this is what Addie's been up to..playing with Maci! They really like to pick the flowers and bring them in to me one at a time-cute cousins!

The Lord works in mysterious ways...

I really want to remember all the details about the amazing weekend we just had, so to do that-I need to start at the beginning.

Last January, Matt went to the dentist for a normal check-up. The dentist felt inspired to do this random x-ray, and they found a tumor in his jawbone. Things just fell into place as the oral surgeon just happened to have an opening that next weekend. He had surgery to remove the tumor and it was sent off for testing. We were very nervous about the whole thing because they were throwing out words like jaw cancer and leukemia. The day Matt came home from the surgery, one of the kids from Safford High School where Dave teaches seminary, Brandon McEuen, called to see if he could come see Matt. Brandon had been to a couple of Dave's classes with some of his friends, so he had heard about the surgery and came over all by himself to visit Matt and bring him a card. One of Matt's all time favorite things in the whole world is basketball, and Brandon is one of the best athletes at Safford High. In the card, Brandon promised Matt that if he would find him at the Safford/Thatcher b-ball game in 2 weeks and show him where he was sitting-then for every 3-pointer he made, he would point to Matt so he would know it was for him.

The night of the game, Matt was so excited. We found a seat behind the Safford bench, and as the teams were warming up, Brandon came over to Matt and talked to him and made him feel so good. In the first half, Brandon came out on fire! He made like four 3s and each time-he would point to Matt. Matt was on top of the world!

Later that month, we found out that the tumor was benign and we just have to be very cautious that it doesn't come back. All was well...

Then in July, we were on our way home from EFY and we got a text from one of Brandon's friends saying that Brandon wanted to know if he could come to church with us. We gladly accepted..and after a few no shows...Brandon came to church with our family. He started to come around our house alot and hang out. He is so great and is so good to all of our kids-and to Dave & I. He is so respectful and we really love having him in our home. One night Matt gave an FHE lesson on the First Vision. After that, Brandon started asking alot of questions about the church, and we asked if he would be willing to just have the missionaries come over for the discussions. He agreed-and we started having discussions at our home. After only a couple of discussions, Brandon had asked God and knew that the church was true. So the sisters pinned him down and asked if he would be willing to be baptized on Sept 4. He thought really hard about it-and then agreed. It was powerful!

Brandon continued to have the discussions at our home and work toward the baptism date he had set. We got to know him and a couple of his friends, Teren and Preston, really well. It has been so fun for us to have them over and we feel like they're part of the family now.

When Brandon started planning his baptism, he asked one of his good friends, Teren Bingham, to be the one to baptize him and asked Dave if he would do the confirmation. Teren is the quarterback for Thatcher and Brandon is the quarterback for Safford. The Safford/Thatcher football game was the night before the baptism, so it was pretty crazy! We cheered for both teams-and half of my kids painted their faces green and half went blue. Both teams played hard, but Safford won-and Brandon was the star of the night!

The next day was Brandon's baptism. Brandon asked Matt to give the talk on baptism, and he did such a great job! He wrote almost the whole thing by himself! All of our kids sang a song and it was just such an amazing day! Tommy Nicholas is the YM president in Brandon's new ward, and when he got up to welcome him, he joked that we all saw at the game the night before how Brandon just made himself at home in Thatcher, so he really hoped he would feel welcome. It was great! Brandon bore his own testimony-and I'm so grateful for the good example he is to our family. It was very touching that he thanked our family and mentioned each one of us by name in his testimony-even "T-dog"! We love Brandon and are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for allowing us to be a part of all of this!

PS One of the crazy things is that the New Era and Mormon Message people spent 3 whole days here covering the story. The Mormon Message should come out on YouTube in 3-4 months, and the New Era may take up to a year, but we'll get to be in it! Just a cool bonus!

Back in session!

Gotta love back-to-school pictures! The pictures aren't the greatest, because let's face it-I'm not the photographer in the family and Dave's camera is complicated. That being said, here they are:


6th grade-Mrs Allred



4th grade-Mrs Hughes

1st grade-Mrs Despain

And sweetness has 2 preschools this year:

Mrs Norton's class-and Mrs Aubrey and Mommy's class

Lucky girl!

Greer with the Palmer Fam Part 1

Just a sampling of our fun minute-to-win-it games put on
by Uncle Alan & Aunt Vicky. They were such a blast!

Greer is always so relaxing and fun! Thanks mom

& dad for allowing us to get together like this!

Sweet & sassy-just like we LIKE em'!

Uncle Tom's rocket

He went to find the remains afterwards & instead found a water snake

for all of these cuties-the kids were pumped!

Thanks for the entertainment Uncle Tom!

We love you EFY Tacoma

Doin his session director thing :)


TEAM TACOMA in all their glory


The amazing campus that we fell in love with...
but which also looks alot like Hogwarts



Our swanky hotel--with the most AMAZING ocean view...

The dock which surrounds the hotel...

..and the wicked awesome jellyfish we found in the water by the docks. I counted 10 of them in just a small area of water. They make you want to reach out and touch them...

Girl Power-feel the love!

Robyn, Amanda, Sis P, Emily, Mallory

Joanna, & Lynn

Papa Smurf & the boys

Bro. P, Mike-E, Tyler, Ryan, & Kelson

Session Directing is always one of the funnest things we do in

the summer, and this year absolutely ROCKED our FACES OFF!

PS HUGE shout out to Jenni & Randy for the kid watching thing! Can't wait to pay you back in a couple of weeks :)

Rulon Larson Reunion

The Annual Larson Reunion in Young, AZ
We always have to include the traditional pictures on the rock-
it's just what we do!




The Family Auction-always a good time! My mom's quilt continues to pull in the big bucks!
Dave's temple pics did ok as well!

Matt the fisherman

The pinata: started with a smile!

Then: just wasn't fast enough with ALL

THOSE LARSON COUSINS, so she didn't get any candy-what a pathetic face!

Turns out: Cousin Autumn noticed the dilemma & came through with

a LOAD -- Shout Out to Cousin Autumn for the goods!

Just couldn't resist adding this one. Dave captioned this

picture the "real" Addie!

The end result: One Happy Family & good times spent with the relatives!

Looking forward to next year!