fanfare . . .

W h e w.

Thirteen years of pencil lead, eraser shavings, alarm clocks, heavy backpacks, overall diligent effort (and some occasional stress, blood, sweat and tears) culminated on Saturday with Kristi's high school graduation.

For a student like Kristi, I can barely describe how both proud and relieved we are that it's finally over. She is a combination of smart (i.e. she took honors and AP classes and did unbelievable volumes of homework year-round), social (i.e. she prioritized a little fun every day), somewhat disorganized (i.e. "I can't find my ______", or "I forgot to tell you about ______" or throwing in a load of laundry at midnight), and independant/stubborn (i.e. her work habits are her own - "I've got it under control!" or "Don't worry mom, just go to bed!"). We have been both exhausted and in awe watching her live her life.

Kristi's gown was bedazzled with her accomplishments. She wore a Nat'l Honor Society drape, and wore braided cords for student government, academic achievement and something else I can't remember. She graduated in a class of 419, but was one of only twenty who got to wear this:

I know you can't read it very well, but it says "Top Twenty". I think she got one B in her entire high school career (AP Calculus gave her a run for her money). She also decided to decorate her cap so that she could find it after she threw it in the air. And true to form, she can't do anything simply.

Here she is on her way to graduation on Saturday:


The Top Twenty marched in first, so she had a seat on the front row.


She performed the senior song with two other girls - Kristi on keyboard, one on guitar, and the third sang vocals.


Kristi had a great senior year. She has a thousand friends and was very involved, and so now that it's over, she is feeling some sadness along with the happiness and relief. She is looking greatly forward to college, but I think she will have many happy memories of her years growing up in Carson City.


And I'm not sure I've mentioned it here before -- after MUCH thought, stress, and prayer, Kristi decided to attend BYU-Idaho in the fall rather than BYU-Provo. This is not the decision she thought she would make, having wanted to attend Provo her whole life, but when the dust settled from the decision-making process, Idaho came out on top. And then the stress vanished. She is super excited and knows that great things lie in store for her there. And we couldn't be happier. Anything that begins with BYU makes us happy happy happy.

Kristi left yesterday for Disneyland and Huntington Beach with some friends for a senior trip, and I imagine she is having a wonderful time. CONGRATULATIONS, KRISTI!!! It's been an amazing ride.

pop some popcorn & grab a tissue

Personalize your own slideshow design

We'll be having an open house for Kristi (and the other graduating seniors in our ward) after her graduation ceremonies on Saturday, June 4th. Each graduate will have a table displaying some things about them. This slide show will be running on our laptop. If you decide to watch, you can click through them as fast as you want rather than watching it in real time. It's l-o-n-g, but I can't help such things. She's the only daughter I have . . .

nearing the end!

Once upon a time, I approached the end of a school year with 50% excitement and 50% jitters over how in the world my children and I would keep busy, happy and sane for three months with no school. My, how things have changed.

Now, around the time my kids go back to school after Christmas break, I start dreaming about summer vacation with 100% excitement and 0% jitters. Staying in bed past 5:00 a.m. tops the chart for me. You'll notice I said 'staying in bed' rather than 'sleeping in' because I love the luxury of the former even though I am generally unable to do the latter. I am very dutiful and completely reliable in my morning routine, and I even annoy the kids at times with my cheeriness, but I do not enjoy it. And by the end of the school year I am almost cursing it.

Because I work for the school district, I look forward to my own vacation - not just that of the kids. I enjoy my job, but I have found that the children are far more delightful in the beginning of the year than at the end. I love that summer means we all get enough sleep, we don't eat breakfast 'til 9:00, we stay up late watching movies, and generally try to be as lazy as we can stand. My kids would probably say I can't stand as much laziness as they can, but right now in May when things are still in full swing, I covet laziness and try to plan my summer around it as much as possible. It's nice to dream, right?

We spoke with Brennan on Mother's Day and it was wonderful! He sounded older and a bit more serious than we remember, but I guess that comes with the territory. He is doing great and working hard, and trying to stay solely focused on the work. He admitted that he was a little hesitant to talk to us because of that focus, but hopefully we didn't do too much damage! It was bittersweet by the time we had to say goodbye -- Austin and Dallin were particularly sad, and I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach again that I felt when he left in November. All of a sudden, instead of feeling amazed because he's already been out six months, I felt sad because he's only been out six months. Two years is a long time. But he is happy and healthy and doesn't want to be anywhere else.

On the fun side of life, Austin turned 15 recently, and for his "party" he wanted to take two close friends on the Ultimate Rush ride in Reno. They did it twice and had some good, scary fun.

And this weekend was Prom, and with Kristi being the VP of her senior class, she has had major responsibilities for it all year long. Budget constraints forced the prom to be held in the gym this year, which meant transforming the gym and the entrance foyer into their "midnight sky" theme. So. much. work. This past week we were all up at the school helping to lay flooring, hang lights, decorate tables, put bows on chairs, etc. etc. It turned out amazing. A cute boy from our ward who she has known most of her life (and who will be leaving on his mission in the fall) asked her to go with him. She was thrilled because she knew she would have fun with no stress whatsoever. She simply has no time in her life for boy stress. Anyway, they had a GREAT time.

That's Kristi in the middle on the floor, and Logan is the boy next to her on the left. This was somebody's birthday party probably about twelve years ago.

And here they are all grown up:



Hard to believe!!!!

great Monday reading

Here's this week's email from Brennan. He regularly reports that he's never been happier than he is now. He loves his mission!

Dear Shaffer Family!

Thanks again for your wonderful e-mail. I love hearing from you guys. Really quick before i forget, I will probably call in the evening sometime probably between 6-8 our time so get ready!! I also want to talk with Logan for like 5 min, and I'm not too sure if i'm really allowed to specifically call him, but if you could invite him over for me to talk to him real quick about his mission call I would love that.

This week has been a crazy week for sure. There has been a lot of weather around here. We have experienced over a FOOT of rain in just April alone!!! And i love it, its really different though - I'm not used to this at all. We've probably had 7-10 tornado warnings here, where the sirens go off and its pretty crazy. I still want to see one though. It’s also so so so green here. I cant really even explain how green it is here, it just blows my mind, and there are a ton of bugs. You guys all know how much I hate bugs. I've had the blessed opportunity to kill multiple cockroaches in our apartment which has been such a joy.

But now to the good stuff. This past weekend Colby Curtis WAS baptized, and I had the wonderful, wonderful opportunity of baptizing her. Nancy who you guys know was baptized a month ago gave the closing prayer and just started to cry. It was a very spiritual service and one that I'm so so grateful to be a part of. It took Nancy 4 months to get baptized, Colby 5 months, and Hopefully Darren will follow. I love that family with all my heart, I really couldn’t have asked for a better experience in my life than seeing this family change. It just wont be complete untill Nancy's husband Darren gets baptized. I love them so much. We saw them go from nothing, to walking Nancy down the aisle to get married, and the next day her being baptized and now Colby being baptized. Just amazing and my joy is truly full. I'm just so grateful that the lord has trusted me, and blessed me with the joy of seeing lives truly being changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yesterday was fast sunday, and in Elders Quorum we had a testimony meeting, and I bore my testimony. Darren was there and i bore it on the conversion power of the holy ghost and really for the first time i felt the spirit just burn inside of me. I can’t even explain to you how amazing just that one little moment felt, truly the spirit of God like a fire is burning, and i just hope and pray Darren felt the spirit too.

I don’t really know what more to say to be honest, I'm doing great, I'm healthy. I'm lucky to be out here serving my mission. Oh yeah, we’re getting a new mission president in a month! His name is President Woodbury from salt lake and he is an attorney who graduated from Harvard and is a multi millionaire. So I look forward to getting to know him really well! Also what’s really cool is I haven’t been out that long but i really can’t imagine life back home. This is all I know and this is what I've slowly come to love. I am just so grateful to be on my mission and to serve.

I love you guys. I'll call you between 6-8 on Sunday (invite Logan). LOVE YOU ALL - you guys are great examples to me and push me every day to be better! Good job reading, Austin!

-Elder Shaffer


He's the cute one in the back:

He looks like a missionary, doesnt' he?


And this one is my favorite:

Have a great week and Happy Mother's Day a little early!!

for posterity

Kristi is having her senior pictures taken this afternoon by the same person who took our family pictures last fall before Brennan left on his mission. I was checking out her photography blog yesterday and lo and behold, there was our family. I hadn't looked at the blog since she took Brennan's pictures a year ago. Since we didn't purchase these particular pictures, I don't have a copy of them. But now that I can steal them legally from her blog, I will post them here just so I have them! They are really for me, but feel free to love them too. haha

3 Nephi 5:13

Yay! Elder Shaffer finally sent his camera card with over 400 pictures on it! Proof positive that he really is in Kentucky doing what he claims to be doing.

Can you tell what these elders are standing on?

If you said, "By golly, I believe it's a frozen swimming pool!", you would be correct.

Next up - do you remember the song, "Humble Way" from Saturday's Warrior? Well, that's what this picture makes me think of, so insert lyrics here. (haha) And here's a good spot for a roadside nap.

A snowy eastern landscape.

And Brennan's first possum sighting. Yummmm, dinner anyone?

Highlights from a recent letter:

1) Brennan sprained his ankle playing basketball on the March 21st P-Day, and the doc told him he had torn some ligaments and that it would be 3 weeks before he could put much weight on it, and then 6 before it would start to be “semi-healed”. But then his companions gave him a blessing, and he reported that a miracle occurred and he was healed. (!)

2) Before a woman they had been teaching could be baptized, she had to be married. But none of her family could come to the wedding, so she asked Brennan to walk her down the aisle and give her away. So he did, and said it was a “cool, cool experience”. She was baptized the next day and Brennan believes she will be a “true kingdom builder”.

3) He promised more details about this one later, but mentioned that he had taken his first punch as a missionary, straight in the jaw, by a 300-pound . . . girl. He said we’d be proud that he “took it like a champ”.

Good stuff.

odds and ends

Ahhhh, March 21st, the first official day of Spring. I was pondering this earlier this morning (early as in 5:30 a.m.) when I was out shoveling the driveway and brushing 3 inches of snow off the cars. It looks like Spring hasn't yet sprung in western Nevada.

With the Spring Solstice comes Kristi's birthday just three days away. This is a big one -- eighteen! She seems to be handling it in stride, as 'adults' do. No wishes of a birthday party or anything particularly special -- maybe dinner and a movie over the weekend with some close friends but that's about it. She did promise to give me a birthday dinner request, but nothing yet. Although it's hard for me to believe my little girl is turning eighteen, it seems like she's been grown up for a long time now. Like for years. I love her like crazy and feel so privileged to be her mom. Here are a few pictures of her cute and fun self:

We had a youth talent show in our ward last week which Austin was in charge of (to earn a Varsity letter). He worked hard and it was a great success. He and his good friend Adam acted as MC's, and did a fabulous job between acts telling jokes, etc. He wore his dad's high school graduation suit which is a plaid baby blue and quite striking.

He was in a couple of skits with Adam as well . . .

Notice Kristi sleeping in the back seat of the 'car' in this one:

And then the two of them did the FUNNIEST 'midget dancing' skit. They found it on Youtube and practiced and practiced. Adam's taller, so he was the face out front -- Austin provided the arms.

You should check out their inspiration if you haven't seen it -- so funny. They used the same soundtrack, everything. And were just about as good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQNwhv52xbw

Start at minute 2:45 to see their routine. It will make you laugh.

Brennan's email today was short so I thought I could just post it here. His trademark enthusiasm shines through!

Family!!

Okay I only have 10 min to email because we are going to E-Town to play some basketball!!!!! So good to see your pictures -- so so so so so good. AUSTIN, DALLIN, And KRISTI, I miss you guys so much. I love you guys a ton and it looks like you guys are doing so great!

Well mom this week we have been able to keep up 13 new investigators!! And we taught 29 lessons. The ‘standard of excellence’ every week from the First Presidency is 20 total lessons and 7 new investigators. So watch out, Kentucky, we are tearing it up! We also have another baptism this weekend, Nancy Curtis, and I am so excited for that one. Its been so dang warm here and its awesome. I'm loving it, i really am. It’s starting to get humid though and i hate the humidity!! Thanks so much for all the packages. I got them all and I'm so grateful for all of them!! Thank you so much mom! Gosh dang keep sending me pictures!! I'll send you my memory card this week so I can hook you up with some pictures, along with a letter because this email is so short. I've been lifting alot as well, so I'm back up to almost 170 in muscle. You know I'm loving that!! And I've been able to play basketball every p-day for awhile so thats been good, but MORE IMPORTANTLY the work here is exploding, it really is. We are working pretty dang hard in talking to EVERYBODY we see walking all the time and I love it!!!! Okay I’ve got to go -- sorry for the short quick email. I'll write you a letter. I love you guys so much!! Great to see you all in the pictures!!

Elder Shaffer

So, do you think 'dang' is a Kentucky word or a missionary word?? haha. If he ever sends pictures - I'll post some!

Happy Spring!!!!!!!!!