Dear Elder Hallstrom

HI Elder Hallstrom!!!

Thanks for the emails!!!  We love hearing about all of your adventures in Russia!  My kids are super excited to see you at the end of the summer!

I'm doing good!  May is such a busy month with the school year wrapping up.  Our cousin, Nathan Kristjanson graduated with a double Masters Degree from Utah State University.  Some of our Georgia family flew out to Logan for the occassion.  We had a nice family dinner at Grandma Hallstrom's church building last night.  I don't think I've ever had so many compliments on my chocolate chip cookies as I recieved last night!  I must say that they were an extra delicious batch of cookies!  Tyler and Katie are gearing up for their school's Wildcat Run in a couple of weeks.  Tyler just ran the course this afternoon with a time of 6 minutes flat!!!  Tyler is loving being on the competitive soccer team!  It's nice that he is playing with other boys at his level.  Brian has his last band concert of the year next week.  He made me the most delicious strawberry Oreo ice cream cake for my birthday!  Brian is enjoying the YM program so far.  We love watching him pass the sacrament every Sunday.  He's the only one out there with this big grin on his face!  He loves to serve others and honors his priesthood.  Katie is excited for her birthday party coming up.  She's turning 7 and wants to have a TMNT party!  We're going to eat pizza in the "sewer" (aka. under the trampoline), play hopscotch, and other backyard games.  Katie and Julia play well together and like to party in their room until they wipe themselves out around 10pm every night.  That makes the morning routine miserable on school mornings because the girls are so tired.  Julia's first year of preschool is almost over.  We're having her graduation at our house in 2 weeks with 3 other neighbor kids and their families.  Julia loves art and playing with her little friends.  She's fun to have around as my sidekick as I run errands while the big kids are at school.  Sam just applied for a new job at the company he's worked at for 9 years... Juniper Systems.  Fingers crossed that he gets this position.  I have been teaching myself modern calligraphy.  It's fun to learn how to use brush pens and how to create flourishes with some of the letters.  I think it'd be fun to create my own unique font!  I had Grandma Hallstrom over and we watched YouTube videos of the how to's of using brush pens.  We both loved it.  Anyway, I'll try to email you some pictures soon!  

Love, LISA