Taipei, Taiwan

As part of Jonathan's training for his upcoming job in Shanghai, he gets a full year of advanced Mandarin training in Taipei, Taiwan. I was excited to learn that they open the training up for spouses if they qualify, so I will be able to join him! I served a mission for our church in southern Taiwan back in '97-'98, so I am excited to return and see how things have changed.  We will be living on the north side of Taipei near Yangmingshan National Park. The U.S. built housing for military dependents there back in the 50's, so we'll be living in an "American" neighborhood in a little ranch-style house with a fenced backyard (a first for us!!) You can follow more details of our life this coming year by clicking on the Taipei link above.

Aspen Grove

Our last week in the U.S. was spent with my side of the family at Aspen Grove, BYU's alumni family camp near Sundance. It was an ideal family reunion!  In fact, we are already planning on going back in two years. Here's what we loved about it:

-We stayed in a big lodge with enough bedrooms for all six families (and Great Grandma Clontz), so there was lots of intersection of the families and together time.

-The alpine setting was out of this world.  Plus no commercialism, no Internet or TV in the cabins, no video games in the game room--just nature, recreation and family.

-All meals provided in the dining hall--no prep or clean-up--yay!

-We basically checked our kids into day camp every day where they were with their age group with two BYU student camp counselors.  They had tons of fun and so did the adults!  We hiked, swam, went to lectures, slept, read, played sports, went to the temple, talked, etc., etc. all while our kids were taken care of.

-They had lots of organized activities for families that you could participate in or not.  Every person in our group from age 2 to 89 had a great time.