Food Drive for MI Food Pantry

The top photo shows some of the food collected by our ward and the bottom photo is the food I collected. This was a stake service opportunity for Day of Remembrance on 9/11. The expectation was for us to leave flyers on doorknobs of 40 households. Time was limited since it was my third week of school. However, I felt it was important to doorbell and explain the project in person. I was only able to leave flyers at 20 doors. However, on Saturday I collected a trunk full of donations (see above picture) - 5 from people on our lane who already knew me, but 5 from people I spoke with but had never met before. I saved flyers to share if any of you are interested in the project for your area. I loved doing this because it shows LDS folks doing service to benefit the local community. Our food pantry here on MI received enough donations to stock their shelves for three months from our ward's contributions.

What up?

Hello everyone! The McKee's in Beechgrove are still kickin'. Some of them literally. Sarah is well into her soccer season. She has a wonderful time running around and scoring goals. School is going well for all three. Erin is in her first year of being home schooled. That seems to be going well with lots of opportunities to learn and grow. The reading bug has really bitten her. Erin has always loved to read, but recently she has really been filling knocking them down. She is currently on the second book ,Ice Fire, of a series written by Chris D'Lacey. She has also read the first book in the Pendragon series as well as a few other books. All of these over just the past 4 or 5 weeks.

Sam and Sarah are at Northfield, which is where Danny, Zach and Tim went. We didn't hold that against them. (Notice the intentional use of the vague pronoun.) Sam is really hitting his stride with school. While he isn't completely into it, his grades are as good as ever with all A's and B's. Sarah is also becoming an avid reader. She used to take the easy route with her reading assignments. She just started the Dead End series and seems to really enjoy it.

Jenny has a deep passion for Greek Mythology and is currently holding home-school sessions with Erin and another home-schooler once a week. I think she plans on doing this for about 2 months. They will be visiting the Parthenon in Nashville. Nashville is a sister city to Athens and has a full sized replica of the Parthenon.

Last month Jenny, Erin and I took a road trip to Washington, D.C. We had a wonderful time. I had never been there before. My favorite museum was the National Archives. They had several learning stations that gave you the feeling that you were doing research to discover some little known fact about various points in history. Seeing the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and other historical documents was incredible.

We also attended the Restoring Honor rally. (I know all of you socialist are deeply disappointed in us. ;-)) We left Beechgrove Friday evening around 5pm and drove through the night. We arrived in DC at 5am thinking we would have our pick of spots to sit. I ended up dropping Jenny and Erin off at the Lincoln Memorial at about 5:30am and they couldn't get any closer than about 100 yards from the stage. I parked at the Arlington National Cemetery and hiked back to where Jenny and Erin were seated. We stayed the night Saturday night, did more sight-seeing on Sunday and drove back that evening. (Another all-nighter for me.) It took me a few days to get back to a normal sleeping pattern.

Passey Family Update

August seemed to fly by! Our last month of summer before Will started back at BYU was really fun. We started the month with a visit to Seattle to stay with Mom and Dad and Blake. While there we were able to go to the temple with Mom, enjoy Pike Place market with Dad and introduce the whole family to one of our favorite new games - the bean game. Thanks for a wonderful relaxing weekend.

The rest of August was crazy - Will manages both of the Jamba Juices on campus and their busiest week of the year is education week. He was busy preparing, surviving and recovering from that most of the rest of the month! Add training new employees and making the final fall schedule and that pretty much sums it all up. I'm still working at Nexus Pain Care. It's been a little crazy there too as we adjust to everyone's fall schedules, but we're getting a new fellow this next week so that will be exciting. I've also started working 4 ten hour days so I can have Fridays off - which allows me to do stuff like write on the blog in the PJs at 9:00! (normally I'm at work by 7am)

Will and I are very excited about BYU football! First game is this Saturday against UW here in Provo - we'll be there! We're also exciting about BYU going independent and their 8 year deal with ESPN - that means we can continue to watch the cougars play as we leave UT for PA school.

Speaking of PA school I've got a number of interviews lined up at different schools. We'll keep you posted on where we end up! Love you all!

Hi everyone. Well, Aaron started the first grade last month. He's trying to get used to the rigors of not being in kindergarten anymore, but he enjoys it so far. Nathan is starting preschool with Becca and some other families in the ward. He told me all about it after his first day on Tuesday.

Last Friday Becca had an ultrasound and we found out that will be having another boy in February. A Texas Ranger to add to my California Forty-niners. I was hoping for another Texas Bluebonnet. I guess we'll get the boys out of the way while we're young.

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