Brough Family Update 2023

Gëzuar Krishtlindjet!  That is Merry Christmas in Shqip, which is what Albanians call their language.  In fact, Albanians call their country “Shqipëria” and refer to themselves as “Shqiptare”.  We are serving for 18 months as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Albania Tirana Mission!  We were originally called to the Adriatic South Mission which comprised the countries of Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Greece and Cyprus.  About a month before we left for our mission they notified us that come July the boundaries of our mission would be changing and would only include Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia and would be called the Albania Tirana Mission.  The mission headquarters are in Tirana, which is the capitol of Albania.  We have been assigned to serve in the city of Berat which is pretty much in the middle of the country.    

The beginning of the year we submitted our mission papers but we are going to back up a bit and tell the sequence of events that led to our receiving our mission call.  Ever since we were newlyweds, actually even when we were just dating, we had decided that we wanted to serve a senior mission when we were OLD!  And now, here we are!  We had always planned to request to serve as an office couple in an English speaking foreign country since we didn’t know a second language. In November of 2022 as we were starting to get ready to fill out our mission papers Dalton showed us a Facebook post from someone we knew.  Before the pandemic Nancy had worked with a sister, Penny Hanson, in the Gilbert, Arizona temple.  She and her husband, Drew, were now on a mission.  Dalton was friends with their daughter and she had reposted a post that Drew had written on Facebook.  We read his post and he told all about the wonderful experiences they were having serving in Pogradec, Albania, as Member and Leader Support Missionaries.  And also, that their mission needed more senior couples.  We were so inspired by his message so Nancy messaged Penny to ask her some questions about their mission.  She messaged me right back and about an hour later we were video chatting with them!  We loved their stories and were so inspired and for the first time started to think that maybe we would like to serve somewhere other than in a mission office.  We were surprised, though, that they could serve in a country where they didn’t know the language. They explained that as senior couples you didn’t have to learn the language and that the young elders and sister missionaries would translate and that a lot of the younger people in the country know English. So, this opened up a whole new opportunity for us.  At the end of our conversation, Penny said that she thought that their mission leaders would like to talk with us and asked us if we would want to do that.  We said we would.  So, we hung up and about five minutes later Penny messaged us back and said that they would like to talk to us the next day!

We video chatted with President and Sister Burdon the next day and we really felt like we would love to serve in Albania.  President Burdon told us that they could use us in the mission and if we were interested that when we had our interview with our stake president to tell him to write in his notes that we had talked to him.  And then to let him know that we had submitted our papers and then he would notify the mission department that he had talked to us about coming to Albania. Of course, we would be willing to go wherever we were assigned but we listed this mission as our first choice and were very grateful when we received our call to serve here in Albania!  However, compared to when our sons opened up their mission calls, it was a little anti-climatic since it seemed likely that was where we would be called.  President Burdon had told us that when mission presidents request seniors to serve in their mission that usually 90 percent of the time it works out.   We have since learned of several couples that had gone through a similar process, one that was even asked by a mission president if they would be willing to come to his mission and after submitting their papers requesting his mission got called somewhere completely different.  But, of course they loved their mission anyway.  The Hansons have been instrumental in “recruiting” other senior couples besides us.  Some that came out before us and one that started their mission here a few months ago.  So, if any of you seniors are interested in serving in Albania let us know!  It could happen!   But I do know that Albania is not on too many people’s bucket list!  It wasn’t on ours but we are loving almost every minute!  We know that Elder Renlund’s talk from October conference about the need for more senior missionary couples was inspiring to many and we just want to say that serving either a full time mission away from home or a service mission at home there is such a great need for your testimonies, talents and wisdom!

So, it was the beginning of February when we received our call and our date to report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo was April 10^th.  We had a lot to do!  We made a visit to Washington to spend some time with Zach and family one last time before we left for the mission.  We also got to visit with some friends, the Hakes.  Then it was a mad scramble to finish up three baby quilts, for Russell, Graham and for Caleb and Mollie’s daughter who was due to be born in early May after we would be gone.  I had to get these done quick so we could move all the things in the rest of the house that we wanted packed away while someone lived in our house while we were gone (you’ll see later in this update all about that!).  Thanks to a dear friend, Gina Steinacker, who binded the quilts, Nancy was able to get them all done.  Nancy also needed to see if she could be successful in dehydrating her two sour dough starters and then if they could be rehydrated.  And it was a success!  Don and Nancy continued to go to a temple once a week and there was a new emphasis on this since they knew they would not be able to go very much at all for the duration of their mission.  We were able to squeeze in several tutoring sessions in Shqip from a friend of Zach and Dalton’s (and ours as well), Rob Skousen, who had served in Albania 10 years ago.  Some dear friends, Tiffni Lacek, Rebecca Smith and Gina Steinacker put on a very nice open house at the Lacek’s for us, we got to watch April conference and make one more Dutch Baby (our traditional April Conference brunch) and got set apart on conference Sunday night. Then the next day Jordan and Caleb took us to the airport for us to fly to Utah, one week before we reported to the MTC, so we could spend some time with Don’s sister and family and Dalton and Sarah before we left.  Zach and Tara were in Utah to spend Easter weekend with Tara’s family and they also stopped in at Dalton and Sarah’s on Easter, the night before we left.  And they got to say goodbye to us (again) the next day, April 10^th, across the street from the MTC, along with Dalton and Sarah, who let us use one of their cars for the two weeks we were in the MTC.  The MTC was a great experience!  It had been 40ish years since we were there on our young missions!  A lot had changed but some things were exactly the same.  We got to go to the Saratoga Springs temple open house the day we finished at the MTC, before spending our last weekend at Dalton and Sarah’s and getting to have our last Sunday dinner with Don’s sister, Joye and family, as well as his brother, Mark and family. We also got to stop by and say goodbye to Nancy’s nephew, Matthew and family as well.  We actually missed two events while we were at the MTC.  The day we entered the MTC, all the senior couples and mission leaders in our mission went on a senior retreat to Meteora, Greece!  So, we barely missed that!  AND…before we got our mission call, there was an opening for a week at Ashlin’s parent’s AirBnb cabin in northern Arizona that we had planned for our family to go stay at.  We knew there might be a possibility that we might already be on our mission but it was kind of sad that we barely missed that one too.  It ended up that Zach’s family missed it too, due to kids being sick.  Don had secretly arranged with Casey to have a photographer take family pictures of each family while they were all together which turned out great and was a wonderful surprise for Nancy when she found out about them when we were here!  So, the pictures on the back of our card are from that photo shoot, except for the one of Zach and Tara’s family (since they didn’t make it) and the one of Caleb and Mollie’s family (because Chloe wasn’t born yet).  On Monday, April 24^th, Dalton dropped us off at the airport and we were on our way to Albania!  We arrived in our mission on April 25^th.       

We are Member Leader Support (MLS) missionaries assigned to live in the city of Berat, also known as the City of a Thousand Windows, due to the Ottoman era style architecture of the buildings along the mountainside.  It’s also referred to as the City of “One above another Windows”, City of “One on One Windows” and also the “White City”.  There is also a “famous” castle in Berat (most cities in Albania have some kind of old castle or fortress) and we have a view of a portion of it from our apartment.  It is really more of an old walled city and is considered a “living” castle and is more like a small village with homes, restaurants, museums, churches and hotels inside the walls on the top of a hill.  It’s also a Unesco World Heritage site.  There is just one main road that runs through Berat.  It is parallel to the Osum River which is between two mountains and historically one side of the river was traditionally the Muslim side and the other side was the Christian side.  Most people in Albania will say they are Muslim although a very small percentage are actually practicing.  A much smaller portion claims to be Christian.  After 4Oish years of a Communist reign it has only been a little over 30 years since religion of any kind has even been allowed.  Our Christmas card features a mosque on the right side, the lookout point from the castle on the top left corner, a few of the thousand windows behind us, the city Christmas tree to the left of us and a couple of random Albanians to the right of us!  We don’t love the picture of us but love everything else that is going on in the picture and it totally gives out the vibe of this charming city we have grown to love so much!  We love our sweet branch (a smaller geographically defined congregation) so much.  Our branch president is only 32 years old and single.  Don is his first counselor.  It is not a fully functioning branch but we are doing what we can to help out while we are here.  It can be frustrating at times but we (mostly Nancy) have learned to be a little more patient.  Everyone knows that Don is the patient one in our marriage.   We have grown to love the members so much and already know that it will be so hard to leave them when our time is up here.  Our attendance for sacrament meeting is 25/30 people.  Not as many stay for the second hour.  As far as youth goes we only have one Aaronic priesthood holder and four primary children.  We were able to convince our branch president to let us have a Primary program this fall and he ended up telling us thank you and that he loved us!  That was a major milestone!  Albania is a very poor country (3^rd poorest country in Europe) and they have had so many challenges.  Most of our members struggle financially and it is so sad.  Our hope and prayers for them is that they can continue to grow in the gospel and hold onto the peace in knowing that if they put their faith and trust in the Savior that He will help to comfort them through their challenges.  When we first arrived here there were also four young missionaries, elders, serving in our branch.  They were so welcoming and helped “train” us in so many things and were and are our translators!  After a couple of transfers we now only have two elders.  We love them so much and are so in awe of how they can learn this very difficult language.  It is a testament to us that Heavenly Father is providing a way for His children to share the restored gospel of Jesus Christ to ALL of His children throughout the world.  As we had mentioned earlier, the Hanson’s had told us that most of the young folks know English (not true!)  and that we would have the young missionaries to translate for us (very true!).  The church provides tutoring for us if we want it and we did and had one session a week for four months and will resume that again in the new year.  There is also a language app the church has that we (mostly Don) have used as well.  Nancy can read it and know basic greetings and is in the process of memorizing her testimony.  Don studies every day with the app and knows a lot more words and phrases than I do.  Nancy can help him sound out words and Don can tell her the names of things or translate simple phrases for her.  It is a hard language and we will never speak it fluently but we try.  We love singing the hymns in Shqip!  We feed the missionaries every Sunday.  Don says that sometimes he feels like we are on a cooking mission!  There has been lots of time spent looking for familiar ingredients or making ingredients or learning how to make substitutes for them.  There have been several baptisms in our branch since we have been here so the work is slowly moving forward.  We were blessed to be able to go to the Rome temple when two members (Arjan and Aragon – father and son) from our branch went for their first time.  Although it was so special to go and be there with them and finally see that beautiful temple, the trip did not come without its challenges.  But it was worth it.  We are looking forward to hopefully being able to go again next year when Edlira (their wife/mother) and Albon (younger son/brother) can go with them to be sealed.  Edlira was baptized in July and she has to be a member for a year to be eligible.   We have one family of four that was sealed in the Rome temple right after it was dedicated.  There are only four other members who are endowed at this time.  We are hoping that some other members of the branch will be able to go next year.  We will be starting temple preparation classes at our branch in the new year.  We also love our neighbor”hood” and have made friends on all our walking routes in the morning.  We just love the Albanian people so much!  

Since arriving in the mission we have also been called to be Assistant Area Auditors (AAA) and this assignment has taken us to Gjakova and Prishtina, Kosovo and Skopje, North Macedonia, as well as Elbasan, Lushnje, Fier, Pogradec and Korcë in Albania.  We also attended an area auditing seminar in Madrid, Spain at the end of October.  Training the members on the use of sacred funds in a poor country can prove to be challenging. We have two more audit cycles before we come home, one in January and one in July. 

We also have an assignment to teach Institute (religion classes for adults) once a week in Vlorë , a city on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, every Friday night.  There was previously a senior couple serving in Vlorë but they didn’t replace them with another senior couple so our mission president asked us if we would teach an institute class once a week which we do on Friday nights (it is a three hour round trip drive from Berat).  Then they asked the missionary couple that is over the YSAs (Young Single Adults) who live in Tirana if they would go to Vlorë (about a 4 hour round trip for them) one weekend a month to spend some time with the YSAs in Vlorë doing an activity with them and attending church with them.  So, the other couple and us each have a room and bathroom in the vacant senior apartment we can stay in when we are there.  It has been such a blessing to be with the sweet members in Vlorë.  We have a beautiful young Albanian sister who previously served a mission in Albania (originally was called to the Washington DC Visitor Center but due to the pandemic ended up serving here).  She speaks perfect English and is our translator.  The four elders that serve in Vlorë also help with translation.  One of their friends, Lola, that the elders had been teaching and comes to our Institute class, got baptized recently and we were able to be there for that.  What a special experience that was.  She asked Don to confirm her and when he asked her if she was sure, since he didn’t know Shqip she said, “It’s fine, God will know what you are saying”.  He ended up reading the ordinance in Shqip but gave her the blessing in English.  I jotted it down and then the elders translated it into Shqip to give to her.  Lola is amazing and has such a grasp of the gospel and such a strong testimony.  She will be a such a blessing to the church here in Albania. We have loved this assignment and we enjoy our Saturday morning walks along the Adriatic Sea!

It has been such a blessing to serve here in Albania.  We aren’t going to lie!  There are challenges for sure.  Nancy had a hard time at first which really surprised her because she is not a homesick type of person.  She didn’t even really get homesick on her young mission.   She decided that it is harder to leave kids and grandkids than it was to leave parents and friends when she was young.  She also decided that being homesick is just part of this mission experience!  But it is SO worth it!

What the rest of the herd have been up to:

MESA on PLATA HERD    

Jordan, Casey and the girls are loving their fun neighborhood in Mesa.  Jordan had a career change this year.  He is now a high school Spanish and English teacher at Gilbert Classical Academy where he is also a swim coach and was voted “coach of the year”!  He continues to do real estate as well.  Casey is our favorite hair stylist and believe me, my hair misses her so much!  In my opinion, she should be awarded the “hair stylist of the year”!  She cut and colored my hair shortly before we left for our mission in April and it hasn’t been cut or colored since!  I’m scared to go to anyone else!  She is an amazing mom to their girls.  Lindy (9) is in 4^thgrade.  She loves gymnastics, got 20^th place in the school spelling bee and is a social butterfly.  Jade (7) is in 2^nd grade.  She is great at drawing, loves video games and animals.  She unfortunately broke an arm and while her cast was still on fractured her elbow on the other arm!  Fortunately, when the second incident happened the cast on her other arm was ready to come off.  She seems to have made a full recovery from both now!  Blair (4) is in preschool.  She loves dance and gymnastics and she made the local news due to a freak coyote bite!  She and her sisters had just gone outside to play with the neighborhood kids, she sat down on the grass and a coyote ran over and bit her on the side.  She was the only calm one when the other girls ran inside in hysteria and calmly said, “I was bitten by a dangerous animal”.  Game and Fish was able to hunt down and kill a coyote in the neighborhood although they didn’t know if it was the exact one that bit Blair but they did test it and it did not have rabies.  Meanwhile, the cops came to emergency and retrieved the clothes that she had been wearing and took them to do DNA testing to determine if the coyote they killed was indeed the same one that bit her.  As of the typing of this update the testing has not been completed.  So, fortunately the wound wasn’t too bad (only a couple of stitches) but unfortunately, she had to get a series of rabies shots and getting those was the only time she cried.  They are painful AND expensive.  Other than the shots she has enjoyed her 15 minutes of fame and all the gifts she received!  Several people commented to us and also on Jordan’s posts on social media saying, “She now has something for the game ‘Two Truths and a Lie’ in her future life!  

MAPLE VALLEY HERD  – Zach, Tara and their family are still in beautiful Washington in the darling bedroom community of Seattle, Maple Valley.  Zach had a job change as well.  After working at Amazon for five years he is now working for Chewy (an online retailer of pet food and pet related products) as an associate director of category management.  He manages the Chewy-Royal Canin relationship (pet lovers may be familiar).  Tarais such a fun mom and so creative.  You should see her fun Halloween decorations in their yard every year!  She gets to share her musical talents as their ward choir director. She has been creating some new home systems to keep their busy home running smoothly and shares them on social media.  Her girls trip this year was to Park City, Utah.  Porter (11) is in 6^th grade. He is looking forward to being a deacon next year but has lucked out and been able to go with Zach on all of the campouts and activities already since Zach is over the deacons in their ward.  He loves playing the piano and recently also started playing the cello this year at middle school.  He’s a natural at all the racket sports and also loves basketball.  He has developed an interest in Greek mythology and he, Piper and Beau all went with Zach and Tara to see Hadestown when a traveling broadway cast came to Seattle.  He will be coming to visit us with Zach and Tara next year when they will be taking him on a trip to Greece (the beginning of a family tradition of them taking their kids individually on a trip when they turn 12).  Piper (9) is in 4^th grade.  She keeps herself busy with all things music, arts and crafts and especially loves drawing and making flip books.  She is in her school’s honor choir and played a Cyclops in the school’s production of Hercules.  She is very smart and funny and loves to negotiate – especially at bedtime.  Beau (6) is in 1^st grade.  His imagination is as big as ever.  He’s an emerging reader.  He loves building and creating, especially Legos. He also loves Pokeman cards and was devastated when he ruined a few of his cards when he decided to wash them! Poor guy!  He played his first season of soccer this year, did great and loved it.  Brady (4) is in preschool.  He also played soccer this year but didn’t really love it but made it through the season.  He’s doing great with pre-school and is speaking really well now after having some speech therapy in the past.  He is such a cute, smiley kid.  Carson (2) is also a cute and smiley kid.  He loves books and cars.  Piper always says that he is their “CAR”son!  He is saying a lot of words lately.  He sleeps through the night and takes a solid nap everyday!  

GILBERT on RYAN HERD – Landon, Ashlin and their family are loving the “farm” life!  Their home on their acre lot has allowed them to start up a little hobby farm, complete with chickens and ducks.  Sadly, their beloved cat, Ruben, passed away this year from leukemia.  Ruben was everyone’s favorite cat, especially mine!  I’m so sad that I won’t get to snuggle with him when we get home.  They still have Ruben’s sister, Maple, who is a sweetie!  They recently acquired a “re-homed” one year old golden retriever lab mix named Marshall, our newest grandpuppy! We can’t wait to meet him when we get home!   Landon is still working as a veterinarian at Power Road Animal Hospital BUT is in the process of starting his own animal hospital called Sonoran Sky Pet Hospital and they recently started the renovation process in a space that was a former hair salon in Mesa and they are hoping to be up and running by the end of the first quarter of 2024. Ashlin is a such a creative mom and loves crafting with her kids, their friends and cousins.  She is Nancy’s go to for designing invitations and other things for her church callings.  And she is her tech guru.  Her degree in Graphic Information Technology has worked out well for Nancy!  She is loving their hobby farm. Dora (8) is in 3^rdgrade.  She was baptized this year by Landon and thank goodness for technology because we were able to zoom in for that.  It was almost midnight here but that’s okay!  Nancy seriously doesn’t think she could have served a senior mission if she wasn’t able to facetime, video chat or marco polo with the grandkids!  Dora is still doing gymnastics and piano.  She tried volleyball and took some cooking classes.  She loves reading and crafting and learned how to ride a bike without training wheels!  Theo (6) is in 1^st grade.  He is also still doing gymnastics and tried soccer and baseball this year.  He loves riding his bike and wrestling with Marshall.  He also learned how to ride his bike without training wheels!  Charlie (3) is in preschool.  He loves Disney’s “Cars” and loves helping with the outdoor chores.  He is shy and a good friend.  Graham (1) loves animals and eating everything all day.  He was blessed in March by his dad.  He is a busy body and very curious.  He also is a super smiley guy with big dimples!  Landon and Ashlin came to visit us in early November and were able to be here for 8 full days.  We showed them Tirana, then they got to spend some time in Berat and meet our branch, see the castle and other things that are part of our life now.  We took a little road trip with them to Korcë, then on to Meteora and Ioannina, Greece (we got permission from our mission president to leave the mission), then back to Albania to Gjirokaster and other sights around there.  Then back to Berat for a few more days at “home” with us.  We also took a short road trip to a Fier to see some old Roman ruins nearby.  It was so wonderful to share this place and the people we love so much with them.  

SARATOGA SPRINGS HERD – Dalton and Sarah are loving life in Saratoga Springs, UT.  Dalton enjoys his job at Neighbor. He ran the St. George marathon again for the second consecutive year.  He’s ridden over 700 miles on his e-bike, commuting to work and taking Russell on rides all over Saratoga Springs.  Sarah loves her job as a full time mom and working part time at June Rings.  She has made a lot of new mom friends in their neighborhood, plays pickleball and is in a monthly book club.  Russell (1) loves going on bike rides with Dalton and Sarah and walks and playdates with Sarah and friends.  His favorite toy is Tupperware and loves putting his building blocks and other small toys inside the containers.  His first word was “No” and he is chatty and fluent in “Russellese”.  He loves his Little Tykes basketball hoop and slide.  In May, Dalton and Sarah enjoyed a trip to London, to visit where Sarah served her mission.  They have also done several ski trips.  They have also watched a lot of their favorite show, Survivor.  As a family they have gone on lots of road trips to St. George, Island Park and Arizona.      

GILBERT on SERENO HERD – Caleb and Mollie had a change of plans with the house they were building in Queen Creek, which ended up being a blessing to them and us.  They ended up getting back their deposit as well as Caleb being paid for the “sweat equity” he had put into the house. And at the time they decided not to proceed with the house was the same time we were trying to figure out what to do with our house.  SO, they are staying in our house while we are gone.  However, shortly before we left they ended up buying an existing home in Mesa which they are renting out until we get home.  And shortly after we left, baby Chloe Paige (Paige is Mollie’s middle name) joined their family!  She was actually born in our house as Mollie chose to have a water birth this time.  All went well and we are so in love with this darling little granddaughter although we are so sad we are missing out on all her adorable babyhood!  But Mollie is the best at sending us frequent pictures of her.  Nancy’s dear friend, Rebecca Smith, made an “It’s a Girl” banner for her out of the scraps from Chloe’s quilt for Caleb and Mollie to have when she was born.  Caleb is still working for his father in law at Builders Flooring and Design.  He has continued his tradition of making wooden toys for the kids for Christmas. Mollie works part time as a speech pathologist along with being an amazing mom to the boys and baby Chloe.  She is dedicated to exercising daily.  She has become an expert at making sourdough bread using Nancy’s dehydrated starter which she was so happy to know re-hydrated just fine!  She has also taken up embroidery as a hobby.  She is embracing the mini-van mom life.  Bennett (4) is in preschool and loves it.  He loves transformer toys and legos.  Preston (2) learned how to ride his balance bike and loves it.  Chloe (7 months) is just sweet and as Mollie says, a “chill” baby.  As a family they went to Seattle and visited Zach and family and got to go crabbing with them and enjoy a crab boil.  They love camping and have been on several camping trips this year with friends.  They also get to enjoy boating with Mollie’s family.                    

And that’s a wrap for the update for 2023.  It is our “journal” entry for the year so we can document our life for future posterity.  IF anyone suffered through reading this whole thing this is our Christmas message to you!

OUR CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

Wishing you all a joyous holiday season as we celebrate the birth of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. We are grateful for our associations with each of you and wish you a very Merry Christmas and wonderful 2024! 

Email:  brough7@q.com – email us if you would like a monthly update on our mission from Don

Instagram:  @herdofbroughalo (our regular Instagram)

                  @herdadriatic  (where we post about our mission)

Brough Family Update 2022

Here we go again!  And as always, the purpose of this is to document our family history since we are not journal writers.  So, if you are one of the very few who take the time to read this, thank you for your interest in our life! 

We will start with some updates on our sons and their families:

THE MESA HERD

Jordan works for Rocket Media as their digital sales coordinator.  He also dabbles in real estate with a company called Gentry.  He coached again this fall for the swim team at Gilbert Classical Academy.  Along with Caleb he is one of our “chauffeurs” to and from the airport if we don’t Uber or park in long term parking.  In the summer he took the girls one weekend on a 14 hour round trip road trip to visit Don’s parents in St. George.   Casey is an amazing hair stylist and keeps us and many others perfectly coiffed.  She is a darling mom to their three busy girls.  She loves crafts and decorating.  This year she decorated the girls’ bathroom and Jordan’s home office.  She has been enjoying having Tuesdays to herself now that Blair has started all day pre school.  In December she and Nancy took a cake decorating class by one of her neighbors.  Lindy (8)is in 3^rd grade.  She played volleyball earlier this year and now she is doing gymnastics and did great in her recent showcase.  She has a beautiful singing voice and is in the elementary school choir.  She was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Jordan in May.  She is learning how to sew (she, Jade and Dora took a sewing class in the summer).  Jade (6) is in 1^st grade.  She is on swim team and loves it.  She and Lindy both have lots of friends in their fun neighborhood.  She is very creative and loves doing crafts and learning how to sew.  Blair (3) is a spunky, endearing three year old.  She started all day pre school this year.  She takes dance and did well in her recent recital.  She loves hanging out with her big sisters and all their neighborhood friends.  

THE MAPLE VALLEY HERD

Zach manages a team of product managers at Amazon, mainly remotely from home but goes into the office every once in a while.  He and Tara renovated the fireplace in their family room as well as other home improvement projects.  He loves camping and other outdoor adventures with Porter and the young men in their ward in the beautiful state of Washington. Tara is a fun mom to their five kids.  She has completed numerous home improvement projects.  We love how when she decides to do a project she just dives in and gets it done.  She puts on the most amazing Halloween displays in their front yard.  She went on a fun girls’ trip to Park City this year, something she does every year with the wives of the MBA students Zach studied with at BYU.  They have gone to Las Vegas, Charleston and other fun places through the years.  Porter (10) is in 5^thgrade.  He loves playing on his soccer team.  He and Zach have done numerous camping and outdoor adventures together.  He started taking piano lessons online from Landon and Ashlin’s friend and former next door neighbor, Sydni.  He enjoys Pokeman and playing video games with his friend, Cannon.   He is the sweetest boy and has gone with us on some of our early morning walks when they were here in February and when we were with them in Hawaii in April.  He also got up at 4:00 in the morning the last time we visited them to ride with us to the airport.  Piper (8) is in 3^rd grade.  She loves art and drawing and has beautiful handwriting.  She also loves to sing and has a beautiful voice.  She takes ballet.  She also started taking piano lessons this year.  She was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Zachary in March.  She has also gotten into Pokeman.  She holds her own as the only girl in the family.  Beau (5) is in Kindergarten.  He is very smart and hilarious.  He knows what he wants and knows a lot about a lot of things.  He can be a pesty younger brother and does not want to be left out of what the big kids are doing.  So, he is also into Pokeman.  He loves playing games AND making up his own version of an existing game.  Brady (3) is a smiley, happy little boy.  He loves to dance and being involved with what the older kids are doing.  His speech has really taken off this year.  Carson (1) is also a super smiley guy.  He reminds us of Zach as a baby.  He has started walking a little but still prefers to crawl because he can get to where he wants to go faster.  He is a speed crawler!          

THE GILBERT (on Ryan) HERD (formally known as The Queen Creek Herd)

Landon and Ashlin have two big news items this year.  On October 8th they welcomed Graham Anders to their family, our 16^th grandchild!  In November they bought an acre lot that they have lots of future plans for, including building their dream home, but in the meantime they have moved into the manufactured home that came with the lot.  Unfortunately, the lot is unfenced at this time so they had to rehome their mini Australian shepherd, Squeegee.  Their cats, Ruben and Maple are sweeties.  Landon continues to practice as a veterinarian at Power Road Animal Hospital.  He went on a bow hunting trip this year (his first hunting trip) during the off time at a continuing education conference in Colorado and got an elk so they now have a freezer full of elk meat and jerky.  He and his father in law, Bruce, also went to another continuing education conference in Philadelphia in July/August and Ashlin and her mom, Cherryl, went with them.  They got to tour the sites there during the off time as well.  Don and Nancy, Caleb and Mollie and their next door neighbors, Steven and Sydni tagged team with the kids while they were gone.  He has been doing lots of home improvement projects since they moved with the help of Caleb and family on Ashlin’s side of the family.  Ashlin is a fun busy mom of four, one being a nursing newborn.  She has been decorating their home in her fun colorful style.  She wrote, illustrated and self-published her first children’s book, “What Will My Mom Do While I’m at School” (you can find it on Amazon and it is darling). She has designed several flyers and posters for Nancy this year for some Relief Society events.  She loves to bake and has taken rice krispie treats to a new level.  Dora (7) is in 2^nd grade and is in the Spanish Dual Language Immersion program at their elementary school.  She enjoys gymnastics and also started taking piano lessons from Sydni, their next door neighbor, who recently moved, so now Dora is taking her lessons online.  She is the best big sister to baby Graham.  She loves crafting and learning to sew.   Theo (5) is in Kindergarten, also in the Spanish Dual Language Immersion program.  He and Dora roll their “Rs” perfectly when they speak Spanish.  He loves doing his own thing.  He also enjoys gymnastics.  Charlie (2) is such a sweet little boy.  He loves hanging out with his mom, baby Graham and their cats, especially Ruben (bless Ruben’s sweet little feline heart), while the big kids are at school.  Graham (2 months) has been a delight!   He is adorable, scrumptious and all the wonderful adjectives you could think of for a warm, snuggly newborn.  We can’t resist calling him Graham Cracker from time to time!  He will be the “Baby Jesus” in our nativity reenactment this Christmas.  

THE SARATOGA SPRINGS HERD (formally known as The Lehi Herd)

Dalton and Sarah also have two big news items this year!  On July 6^th they welcomed Russell Don to their family, our 15^th grandchild!  In August they sold their condo in Lehi and in September they moved into their new home in Saratoga Springs.  Dalton loves being a new dad to baby Russell.  He works for Neighbor (www.neighbor.com) which is a company similar to Airbnb but for the storage industry, as head of human resources.  He completed his first marathon, the St. George marathon in October.  Caleb, Mollie and boys came up in October to help them build shelves in the garage, mudroom and laundry room as well as some other random tasks.  Sarah loves being a new mom to baby Russell and does it seamlessly.  She has been enjoying furnishing and decorating their new home.  She and Dalton are very deliberate parents and it is so sweet to witness them as new parents.  Sarah works remotely from home for June Rings (www.junerings.com) designing custom rings.  She and Dalton love to try new recipes and when we were there in November they made some killer nachos.  Russell (5 months) has also been a delight!  He is also adorable, scrumptious and all the wonderful adjectives you could think of for a warm, snuggly newborn.  Some of his nicknames so far are Russ, Big Russ and Russet Potato.  Nancy thought that she would want to call him Rusty but so far he hasn’t seemed like a Rusty to her.  He is learning to roll over and gives out smiles for free.  He will be a sheep/understudy for the “Baby Jesus” in our nativity reenactment.     

THE TEMPORARILY DISPLACED HERD (soon to be The Queen Creek Herd)

Caleb works for Builders Flooring and Design (www.buildersflooringanddesign.com), his inlaws’ company in sales but also does quite a bit of hands on work.    He has been busy this year working closely with his general contractor on their new home in Queen Creek which should be completed at the beginning of the new year. He enjoys mountain biking with a group of friends and sometimes they bring their oldest kids.  As mentioned above he has helped Landon and Ashlin and Dalton and Sarah with some projects in their new homes.  He is basically our family handyman.  He also helps “chauffeur” Don and Nancy to and from PHX from time to time.  Mollie works for Ridge Zeller Therapy as a speech language pathologist.  Part of the week she can work remotely from home.  She is a darling mom to their two boys AND she is due in May with their 3^rd child, our 17^th grandchild!  She is an inspiration when it comes to eating healthy and it carries over to how well their boys eat.  Bennett (3) is a happy, smiley, talkative little boy.  He loves going to the John Deere store with his other grandpa, Nik, and dressed up as a John Deere tractor for Halloween.  Preston (1) has the sweetest disposition and has always been pretty chill.  Now he is walking and exploring his world and is pretty determined about it.       

THE GILBERT (on SERENO) HERD (aka THE HEAD of the HERD)

Don is officially off the payroll at Wells Fargo as of the end of October.  He and Nancy have enjoyed what we are calling our “gap year” by traveling to see family (details on that later) since we are preparing to hopefully serve a fulltime mission in the next year.  We enjoy going to the temple every Tuesday, mostly the Gilbert and Mesa temples (we live smack dab between both of them) and if we are out of town and there is a temple we try to go there.  Don loves to read and has read over 30 books this year.  Even though Nancy also loves to read, the only thing she has read this year is The Book of Mormon which they both read every year and the Come Follow Me (our church’s Sunday School curriculum) lessons and the scriptures that go with them, which was most of the Old Testament since that was our course of study this year.  Although the Old Testament is challenging and frustrating we did gain a deeper appreciation of it this year.  Nancy finally finished Preston and Carson’s baby quilts barely before they turned one!  Now she needs to hurry and get going on quilts for Russell, Graham and Caleb and the grandbaby due in May.  Nancy has been doing Duolingo in Spanish for over 130 days.  She’s always wanted to learn Spanish and even though it will be years (if ever) before she could actually speak it fluently, it has been a fun little hobby for her.  Don is still the Stake Executive Secretary in our stake and Nancy is a counselor in our ward Relief Society Presidency.  We enjoy the grandkids and even though we aren’t “day care” or regular babysitters for them we do enjoy watching them here and there when needed and we try to have “Brough Sunday” once a month with everyone here in AZ.  However, there are so many of us now, our home is not very conducive to having everyone, so we may start doing a monthly rotation for “Brough Sunday” in the next year.  We also try to go to their various games, recitals and other events.  For Christmas last year Don gifted Nancy with a gift card for two dance classes at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio.  We went to redeem it and of course ended up being coerced into more than a few more than two dance classes!   However, not enough to get very proficient but we learned a little of the rumba, waltz and cha cha!  And it was pretty fun although we think that might be where Don got Covid in July.  Nancy is still a Covid “virgin” and the only one in our immediate family that hasn’t had it yet, at least that we know of.  Her day will probably come at some point, though.  We enjoyed another season of ASU Gammage plays with our friends, the Petersons, and this year we got to see The Band’s Visit (had never heard of it and it was slow and kind of weird), Tootsie, Hadestown (SO good and now one of our favorites), Come from Away (another new favorite!) and Oklahoma (it was a horrible version of it!  People left before intermission and then after intermission tons more had left.  We stuck it out but it was miserable!).  For exercise, besides our elliptical machine we love to walk and something we started focusing on when we are in Utah is a goal to eventually walk the whole Jordan River Trail which is a 45 mile paved trail from Saratoga Springs to Salt Lake City (basically from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake).  For several years when we’ve visited Dalton and Sarah we would do our morning walks on the trail and walked multiple times on the same segment of it because it’s always been near all the places they’ve lived.  But then we decided we wanted to eventually walk all of it.  Which means we now have to drive to the different trail heads to do so.  We have been doing it in 1.5 to 2 mile segments (3 to 4 miles roundtrip) and have completed 25 miles of it now from Saratoga Springs to Midvale.  This will be a goal that we won’t complete until we get back from our mission but it has been so fun!  We had our pre Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday before Thanksgiving with all our Arizona kids and then went to Utah to enjoy actual Thanksgiving with Don’s sister, Joye, and brother, Mark and their families.  On the day after Thanksgiving we got to spend the day at Dalton and Sarah’s house with them and Zach and family who were in town from Washington to spend Thanksgiving with Tara’s family.  The next day we got to meet up with Nancy’s brother, Eric, and sister in law, Alex, who were also in town from PA and Nancy’s nephew, Matt, his wife, Jessica and their daughter, Kamrynn for dinner.  We had our 2^nd annual progressive dinner with our Arizona kids earlier in December and are looking forward to Dalton, Sarah and Russell coming for Christmas this year! 

Our portion of this update where we tell “where we roamed” (basically a travel log that only we care about!) is usually what we type up at this point but we decided we will start typing that up at the end now since we are the only ones who would even care about it.

OUR CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

We are so grateful for all our friends and family and are hoping that everyone is enjoying the holidays.  As we celebrate the birth of our Savior we pray that all will be able to feel His spirit of  peace this season and always.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Email:  brough7@q.com

Instagram:  @herdofbroughalo

WHERE WE ROAMED (and who roamed to visit us)

January

We went on a quick road trip to St. George to see Don’s parents and drop off something for his dad’s belated birthday, then on to West Jordan, where we spent a few days with Don’s sister and brother in law and also got to see Dalton and Sarah and Don’s niece, Kenzee.  Don was able to go to one of Kenzee’s fiance’s (Peyton’s) basketball games.  At the end of the month… 

February

…through the beginning of February, Nancy’s brother, Eric, and sister in law, Alex, came for a visit!  It was the first time they had come to stay with us and it was a great time!  Right after Eric and Alex left we had a quick turnaround and Dalton and Sarah came with some dear friends of theirs, Seth and MJ Townsend!  It was so fun to get to know the Townsends and Dalton had fun showing them G-Town!  Then in the middle of the month our Washington kids came for nine days during the kids’ mid winter break.  Lots of guest bedding got washed during February!  Also, at the end of the month, we got to go one Saturday to see Don’s nephew, Adler, who was here with his soccer team from St. George playing in a soccer tournament in Queen Creek!

March

At the beginning of the month Don’s brother, Mark, and sister in law, June, came for a short visit.  They had tickets to go see Bob Dylan in Phoenix and then spent the rest of time hanging around with us.  We went with them on a drive to Tucson to see the Pima Air and Space Museum, Davis Monthan AFB Boneyard and the Tucson temple and grounds.  We also showed them the Mesa temple grounds.  It was so great to have them!  Next, we flew to Seattle and met up with Dalton and Sarah to be there for Piper’s baptism.  We did a whirlwind Seattle day with Dalton and Sarah at a lot of the iconic places and some of our favorite places and later that day met up with Zach and family at Discovery Park.  The rest of the time was spent in Maple Valley at their home celebrating Piper.  Next, we were off to Atlanta to visit with Nancy’s brother, Kirby, who lives in a nearby suburb, Acworth.  We spent the rest of the time seeing the sights of Atlanta before driving to Hilton Head (and side trips to Beaufort, Charleston, Summerville and some cute backwood towns) so Nancy could get her SC fix for the year.  If Nancy had it her way, we’d go there every year and better yet, get some kind of property there!  We drove back to Atlanta, stopping in Savannah for a whirlwind morning tour on the way to catching our plane home.  

April

Zach and Tara had planned a trip to Hawaii on the island of Oahu for their family and asked if we would like to join them at their Airbnb.  They needed us to watch the kids a couple of times so they could do a few adventures while there.  Don had never been to Hawaii and I hadn’t been back since I went to BYU-Hawaii for a semester back in the winter of 1979!  I have a two to three week itinerary planned for the future for Don and I to go to several islands and was kind of scared to say yes to Zach’s offer in fear that I would never get Don to go again with me for my planned trip because he might say, “Oh, I’ve already been to Hawaii”, but then I thought that was stupid because if anything, once he saw how wonderful it is he would want to go back for more!  Surprisingly, he actually didn’t love it as much as I do but said he would still go again someday.  Anyway, it was a wonderful trip and brought back so many memories for me as we went to all my old haunts.  The Airbnb was right across the street from the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie.  We went on our morning walks all over Nancy’s old stomping grounds including the PCC, BYU-Hawaii campus, where we found her old dorm, and the Laie Temple Grounds and Visitor Center.  The temple was still not open to anyone other than the locals in that temple district so we didn’t get to go inside but the grounds and temple are breathtaking.  Don was awed by it.  We got to Oahu a few days before and left a day after them so we spent a few days in Honolulu on the front and back end of the trip.  The rest of the time was on the North Shore.  It was so fun to show Don around and to also experience it with their family.  

May

The boys planned a fun trip over Memorial Day weekend to San Francisco with all the couples, to celebrate Don’s retirement.  Unfortunately, less than a week before we were scheduled to go, Sarah got Covid so they didn’t get to come.  Dalton also ended up getting it while the rest of us were in SF.  We also had Preston on the trip with us because he won’t take a bottle but he was a dream.  We stayed in one of our favorite hotels, the Omni, in the financial district, which the boys all have memories of staying at when we took them all once while Don was on a business trip for a week.  We hit ALL our favorite places and restaurants and Don showed them all the Wells Fargo buildings he worked in through the years.  After going to SF multiple times through the years it had been a long time since we’d been there.  We love that city so much.  We fit a lot in in the short time we got to be there and it was a wonderful trip!  We just wish Dalton and Sarah could have been there with us.

June

At the beginning of the month we took off on a kind of crazy road trip to Utah so we could hit several family events starting with a wedding shower for Don’s niece, Kenzee, in Santa Clara (near St. George).  Don hung out with his brother, Brian, while I was at the shower.  We then headed to West Jordan to spend some time with Don’s sister, Joye, brother in law, Kim, and their grandson, Noa.  We went on a fun Sunday drive with them to drive by all the temples under construction down that way.  We saw the Taylorsville, Orem and Saratoga Springs temples.  We also drove out to Goshen, where some segments of the show, The Chosen, was filmed.  The set is owned by our church and it is where The Book of Mormon films are filmed as well.  We couldn’t actually see the set but we drove through the cutie little towns of Goshen, Santaquin and Elberta (where there is a church dairy farm).  I had no idea that any of those towns existed till then!  We’ve driven down I-15 for years and I never knew they were out there west of the freeway. We saw where Sarah works and Dalton was working remotely that day from her office so we had a nice little visit with them.  We went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple for our first temple Tuesday while there.  We checked out a deli in SLC, Feldman’s Deli, and it was delicious and of course I had to hit Orson Gygi while there. We happened to be in town for a few days the same time as Nancy’s brother, Eric, and his family and it just so happened that our nephew, Matthew’s, daughter, Kamrynn, was celebrating her birthday at a bowling alley while we were all in town so we all got to attend the celebration.  We also tried a new restaurant, Edna’s, with Dalton and Sarah and then started staying with them that night.  The next event we went up for was a baby shower for Sarah at her brother and sister in law’s house in SLC.  So, Nancy went to that and then we headed straight to Cedar City to attend the temple when Kenzee received her endowment.  Then we headed straight back north and stayed with Dalton and Sarah the next week.  They both worked during the weekdays so we just relaxed or ran errands during the days and hung out with them in the evenings.  We walked more segments of the Jordan River Trail in the mornings.  We got to go see the progress of their new home in Saratoga Springs.  One night, Don and Nancy went up to Bountiful to meet up with some of Don’s cousins and Mark and June on his mom’s side at El Matador for dinner.  We went to the Jordan River Temple for temple Tuesday that week. We ate at another yummy restaurant, the new Gourmandise in American Fork, with Dalton and Sarah.  For our last event we headed back to southern Utah (stopping at The Creamery in Beaver for lunch, another one of our favorites) to an Airbnb that Dalton and Caleb had found in Washington and met Dalton and Sarah and Caleb and Mollie there so we would all be there for Kenzee and Peyton’s wedding and reception the next day.  The wedding was at the Cedar City temple and the reception was back in St. George.  We also got to see the Red Cliffs Temple under construction in Washington.  The next day we headed back home.

July 

The daughter of our dear friends, the Steinackers, is the executive director of a drum and bugle corps called The Battallion.  They had just finished up a two week training in Winslow to prepare for their inaugural performance and the world championships in Indiana last summer.  They ended their training with a performance in Winslow so we decided to for a quick overnight trip to Winslow, which we had never been to before.  The performance was great and it was fun to be “standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona”!  It was a fun little jaunt.  The next trip we had planned was to be going to see new baby Russell on the 18^th but on the 13^th Don tested positive for Covid so we had to postpone that trip to August.

August into September

At the beginning of the month we headed back on another crazy trip to Utah to attend several events, the most important one being finally getting to meet baby Russell!   We are so in love!  Nancy got to have several “sleepovers” with him in the living room so Dalton and Sarah could get a little extra sleep.  We all went to dinner one night at a blast from the past for us, Log Haven in Millcreek Canyon.  We stayed home with Russell one night while Dalton and Sarah went out for dinner for their anniversary.  We knocked off a few more segments of the Jordan River Trail and actually have finally walked from the beginning of it at Saratoga Springs to Camp Williams.  We got to eat Utah peaches and I made homemade cheezits with my sourdough discard while we were there (I brought my sourdough starters on this trip because we were gone from home almost a month).  We also all went to a wedding and reception of one of Dalton’s good friends, Taylor Tenney and his bride, Melanie, in Provo.  Don and I hit the Mount Timpanogas temple that week for Temple Tuesday.  Don did some “Daddy do” list things and we helped them a little to start packing up some stuff for their upcoming move.  We flew from SLC to Seattle in the middle of the month to spend a little time with our Washington crew in Maple Valley and to go on an excursion in the Puget Sound with our dear friends, Eric and Diana Hakes.  We spent a few days hanging out with Zach and family and got to be there for Brady’s third birthday.  Then we met up with the Hakes at their Meridian “mini yacht” at Lake Union in Seattle and they took us out into the sound for a few days and nights.  We went to Kingston on the Kitsap Peninsula the first night and Langley on Whidby Island the second night.  We got to see salmon running while we were waiting to go through the Ballard Locks on our way out into the sound as well as a gray whale when we were docked at Langley and also the dorsal fins of some killer whales as we were out in the sound.  We both got to give paddle boarding a try but Nancy only sat on hers because she didn’t want to fall into the cold water.  But instead she crashed into a wall, the Hakes’ boat and the boat docked next to us.  She had never done any water sport involving oars and had no idea how to use them.  No boats were harmed.  Only Nancy’s ego. She is determined to get a paddle board and practice in our warm pool in the summer.  We ate at some yummy places, played games, just visited and had a great time with our wonderful hosts.  After we got back to Lake Union where they moor the boat we stayed one more night on the boat before going back to the Maple Valley crew for another day and night.  We had Sunday dinner with them and Zach and Nancy experimented with making churros with a recipe from someone they both follow on Instagram.  We headed back to Utah and stayed one night with Joye and Kim and then headed to St. George to see David Archuleta as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Tuacahn.  We got to have dinner with Don’s brother, Brian, and sister in law, Kim before the show.  We headed back north the next day and stayed the rest of the time with Joye and Kim.  We went to the Jordan River temple with them one day, got to attend two of our great nephew, Cameron’s, high school football games and our other great nephew Noa’s little league football games.  We went to Brigham City and Utah peaches were still going strong so we were able to grab a bushel of those. We visited Mark and June in Clarkston and got a tour of a small museum in town that is in an old original tithing grainery.  We went with them to a nearby town, Richmond, to have dinner at an old school diner, LDs Café and then to go see the Casper Ice Cream Factory, where our nephew, Cannon, works and is the home of the Fat Boy ice cream treat.  Side note:  While we were in northern Utah was when Jordan was in St. George visiting Don’s parents.  The rest of the time we were in mostly in West Jordan and we were able to knock off some more  segments of the Jordan River Trail.  One of the reasons we stayed up there so long on this trip (besides getting out of the stupid Arizona heat) was that Russell’s baby blessing was on September 4^th.  He was given a sweet blessing by Dalton and we enjoyed being with Sarah’s family, the Cummings at a little shindig afterwards at their community clubhouse.  A dear friend, Sylvia Tennison, who used to be in our ward but now lives near Dalton joined us for Russell’s special day.  The next day, we met the Cummings family at Ruth’s Diner for breakfast.  We headed home later that week, stopping in St. George to visit Don’s parents for a little bit and give his mom an early birthday treat and met Brian and Kim for dinner.  The next day we finally got back home to hot Arizona.

October

In the middle of the month we flew back up to Utah to be with Joye while Kim took Noa elk hunting.  And Noa got a big elk!  We also came up to see Dalton and Sarah’s new home.  Caleb and Mollie and boys were there so Caleb could help with some projects. Don helped hang up their TV in their basement.  While there we walked quite a few more segments of The Jordan River Trail.  Don set up a giant skeleton for Joye in their front yard.  We had the cutest little rental Fiat on this trip.

November

We initially planned this next trip to visit some extended family and see fall foliage.  Well they had an early fall this year so we missed the fall foliage, dang it!  We flew into Philadelphia and spent one and a half days seeing as many sites as we could.  On the way from the airport to our hotel we drove by the Citizens Bank Park, home of the Phillies and Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Eagles.  Don dropped Nancy off and drove around the block while she got pictures of both because they are across the street from each other.  The Phillies were playing in a World Series game that night, actually.   The next day we went on a whirlwind walking tour to lots of sites.  We went to the LOVE sign, Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Benjamin Franklin’s grave, the Betsy Ross House and Elfreth’s Alley. Then we drove to the Eastern States Penitentiary, recommended by Landon, and it was the coolest.  Maybe even cooler than Alcatraz.  Nancy has decided that she loves to visit old prisons!  Then we drove to the Rocky steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and ran up them (slowly).  Then it was off to Pat’s for Philly cheesesteaks.  Then back to the hotel to freshen up before we walked to the Walnut Street Theater, supposedly America’s oldest theater, to see Rocky, the Musical.   It was short lived on actual broadway but this local cast did a great job!  The next morning we went to the gorgeous Philadelphia temple which is right downtown, actually within walking distance from our hotel, but we drove because we had to leave right after to make it to our next destination, the Priesthood Restoration Site, one of our church’s historic sites, in Susquehana, which was about three hours north of Philly.  From there we drove to Pittsburgh and our GPS took us through a bazillion backwoods towns to get there!  We just stayed overnight in Pittsburgh and then headed to our next destination of Cincinnati but made a few stops on the way.  The first one was in Athens to pick up my cousin’s daughter, Meredith, from Ohio University, where she gave us a tour of the campus.  Meredith’s mom and dad (my cousin, Amy and her husband, Scott) met when they were at Ohio University.  Meredith showed us her sorority house, Amy’s sorority house and Scott’s fraternity house.  It is a really cute campus and a cute college town.  We love small college towns!  We took Meredith to lunch and then headed to Chillicothe, where Amy’s grandparents were from and I have a brief memory of going there when I was young.  We went to the cemetery there, where they and Amy’s mom, my Aunt Ginny are buried.  I was the flower girl when my Uncle Dick (my dad’s only sibling) and Aunt Ginny got married and I always loved Aunt Ginny.  There is a grave marker for my Uncle Dick there as well.  (they scattered some of his ashes there as well as some favorite locations of his).  We then headed to Cincinnati and got to spend what was supposed to be four days but ended up being five days because a few days in we got a call from Alex and Eric (who were to be our next leg of this journey) and Alex had just tested positive for Covid.  So we extended our stay in Cincinnati one more day and made some revisions on the rest of the trip.  While in Cincinnati we had a wonderful time with the Darrahs ( Nancy’s cousin, Amy, her husband, Scott and their kids, Meredith and Will.  They recently sold their house which was in the same subdivision as her parents.  Since Uncle Dick’s passing and his wife, Jane, going into assisted living they have now moved into their house and have renovated it and it is beautiful.  Amy is an amazing decorator and cook.  She made us delicious food.  We hit some of our favorite places including Findlay Market and Montgomery Inn.  Scott is a docent for a really cool cemetery, Spring Grove Cemetery and gave us a tour of it.  We went to the Krohn Conservatory, where I had been to before with Amy but Don had never been.  We got to see their annual Christmas village display which is a miniature village of all the famous buildings and neighborhoods in Cincinnati and it was so cool.  Don and I attended church at the Montgomery Ward at the Latter-day Saint meetinghouse that is right by Amy’s subdivision and just down the street from our hotel.  We had such a great time visiting with Amy in her beautiful home and watched the mid election results roll in while there.  As mentioned earlier our original plan was to go to Slippery Rock, PA to spend several days with Eric and Alex but now we needed to make some other plans so we stopped in Columbus and met Don’s nephew, Bob and his wife, Emily, for breakfast.  Then we decided to check out Cleveland and stayed overnight one night there.  We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and had looked up other stuff we could see in a hurry and was planning on going to the A Christmas Story house but totally forgot about doing that!  We stayed in a really cool historic hotel, The Tudor Arms Hotel, which is now a Doubletree by Hilton, that was close to a really pretty park surrounded by a lot of old cool buildings so that’s where we walked for our morning walk that day.  We then headed to Kirtland, another historic site for our church, which we had been to before but since it was so close and on our way to Slippery Rock to visit Eric and Alex from a distance, we had to stop by again.  We hadn’t realized how close it was to Cleveland because the other time we came we came from the other direction.  There was one part of it we didn’t get a chance to see the last time so we hit that and also got to see a new part of it that is still under construction.  We got to Slippery Rock that afternoon and had a nice visit with Alex outside in their beautiful backyard.  She was feeling much better at this point.  We went to dinner with Eric at our favorite place there, North Country Brewery, where we ate outside and we also got to see Eric’s ex-wife, Maryclare, who works there.  We stayed overnight at a hotel and the next morning got to go hear Alex’s son, Anderson, sing the National Anthem at the Veterans of Slippery Rock Bridge Dedication Ceremony.  It was Veteran’s Day and it was such a touching ceremony and we were so glad we got to be there for it and also so glad that we could at least see Eric and Alex briefly.  After we left Slippery Rock we headed to see the consruction of the Pittsburgh temple, which is actually in the town of Cranberry, another bedroom community of Pittsburgh and super close to Slippery Rock.  We went into the trailer on the site and the most darling senior sister missionary gave us a lot of fun information about the temple the mission she and her husband are serving for our church.  The temple is going to be beautiful and I’m so glad that Eric and Alex will have one close by them.  The temple district they are in right now is the one in Columbus. We headed east after that and stayed overnight in a small town called Somerset so the next morning we could go to the nearby town of Shanksville to the Flight 93 National Memorial.  It was a cold super foggy morning so that just added to the somberness and sacredness of this location and event.  We got back to Philadelphia in time to drive around a little bit in Valley Forge before heading to the airport.  It is so huge we didn’t have time to take it all in but we will hit it on another trip.  We got home and then it was time to get ready for our pre-Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  Then we took off for Utah, flying again this time, to have another Thanksgiving dinner with Joye and Mark and their families on actual Thanksgiving day as well as getting to spend time with Dalton and Sarah and Zach and his family, since they were in Utah for Thanksgiving with Tara’s family.  Eric and Alex were also in town so we got to meet up with them as well as Matthew, Jessica and Kamrynn.  This concludes all our trips for the year.  There are absolutely no trips planned yet for 2023.  I’m sure we will probably try to go to Utah and Washington before leaving for our mission which we hope will be in the Spring!  

Brough Family Update 2021

Merry Christmas!  If you are even reading this (hardly anyone does) you are kind and I must warn you that the main reason we write this every year is to document our family history since we are not journal writers so it is quite long.   So, we won’t be offended if you don’t continue reading.  Bless your heart if you do!

The biggest news of our year is that after thirty-eight years of being employed by Wells Fargo Bank (including the first few years of his career at one of its predecessors – First Interstate Bank) Don has retired!  He was planning on retiring next April but due to a series of events he was able to retire in August AND was eligible for a twelve month severance package.   Since he has been working remotely due to Covid since March of 2020 it hasn’t been too much of an adjustment being home all the time.  Fortunately, at the time of his retirement (in August) we were in the middle of some home renovations and also traveled a bit to see kids and grandkids so that has kept him occupied and helped with the adjustment.  Speaking of the kids here is what they are up to: 

THE MESA (on Plata) HERD

Their biggest news this year is that after working for Go Daddy for 7 ½ years, Jordan made a job change and now works for Rocket Media as their digital sales coordinator.   He is also still doing real estate and is a swim coach at Gilbert Classical Academy in the fall.   Casey continues to be a hair stylist and fun mom to three of our darling granddaughters and also keeps busy with her calling in the Primary presidency in her ward.  Lindy (7) is in 2^nd grade.  She decided not to do dance this year but played soccer in the spring.  Jade (5) is in Kindergarten. She also decided not to do dance this year.  She and Lindy both love to do crafts and play with all their fun neighborhood friends.  Blair (2) is a sweet little girl with the cutest little voice and loves being with her big sisters and started doing dance this year.  Sadly, we all (including Blair) missed her Christmas recital due to a Covid exposure and outbreak within our family.  We love having these precious granddaughters nearby and have been able to watch them from time to time together now that Don has retired.  Jordan and Casey have also done a few home updates this year – some flooring, kitchen backsplash and the girls’ bathroom. 

THE MAPLE VALLEY HERD (formally known as the Seattle Herd)

Their biggest items of news this year is that they moved from the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle and bought a house in the suburb of Maple Valley in April AND welcomed baby Carson to their family in October.  Zach continues to enjoy working for Amazon and has been working remotely since the beginning of the pandemic. Tara keeps busy with FIVE kids now but is such an easygoing and fun mom.  In October she was called as their ward Primary president.  She has done a great job painting and decorating their new home.  Porter (9) is in 4^th grade.  He played soccer this year.  Piper (7) is in 2^nd grade.  She started ballet this year and did a great job at her Christmas recital.  Both Porter and Piper love playing all sort of card games and board games.  They are so good at explaining the rules of the games to Nana and Papa and beat us most of the time!  Beau (4) goes to the most picturesque preschool out in the country.  There is a pony named Buttercup on the property.  He is very well versed on a variety of subjects.  He told us all about hurricanes and Iceland when we were visiting one time this year.  Brady (2) is a sweet, smiley energetic kid who loves to dance whenever he hears music and loves being with his brothers and sister.   Carson (2 months) is a delight!  We didn’t get to meet him until he was almost 6 weeks old and couldn’t get enough of him!  And we can’t forget Scottie (short for Butterscotch), their golden doodle.  She is a handful but Don and Nancy have bonded with her.  Nancy told Zach that she loves Scottie, but it’s a conditional love – she loves her at their house but not at ours!

THE QUEEN CREEK HERD (formally known as the Pullman Herd)

Their biggest news is that Landon graduated from Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine in May and Ashlin graduated from Arizona State University with her bachelors degree in Graphic Information Technology in December.  After four years in Pullman, WA, where Landon attended vet school and Ashlin did her online courses – all while raising their three kids – they are finally back in Arizona!  We fell in love with Pullman and even though we will be sad to not have them to go visit there, we are thrilled to have them back.  Dora (6) is in 1st grade in a Spanish immersion class.  She attended a cheer camp this year and recently started taking piano lessons.  Theo (4) is in preschool.  He did karate and is now in gymnastics.    Charlie (18 months) is the sweetest little guy and is starting to talk.  He loves their kitty, Ruben, who is the best cat ever.  He actually made a break for it this year and was missing for three days until he showed up at a neighbor’s house.  They also have Ruben’s sister, Maple, who is also very sweet but not as much of a fan of the kids as Ruben is.  And most recently, their family is nursing a sweet mini Australian shepherd puppy.  His mother rejected him so the owner’s relinquished him to the vet hospital Landon works at and he got to bring him home when he was less than a day old.  They named him Squeegee and they are hoping they will be able to keep him permanently.  

THE LEHI HERD

These two have several news items to report.  Dalton changed jobs a couple times this year.  He went from Jolt where he had worked for quite a few years to Pluralsight and now to Neighbor where he is a recruiter for them.  Their biggest news which they just recently announced is that Sarah is pregnant, due in July!  This will be grandbaby number 15 for us!  And, also in July their new home they are building in Saratoga Springs will be completed.  Sarah works for June Rings and they are both back to work in the office, not at home anymore, which they love.  They love playing pickleball and are hoping Utah will get some more snow so they can go skiing in the new year.  Dalton is the ward executive secretary and Sarah is a counselor in their ward Primary presidency.  They have the sweetest kitty, Jimmy, who has warmed up to us a little more.  Dalton and Sarah will be in Hawaii with Sarah’s family this year for Christmas. 

THE MESA (on Baywood) HERD

The news highlight this year for Caleb and Mollie was the birth of precious Preston in September!  Calebworks for his father in law’s company, Builders Flooring and Design, as a salesperson, ere go some of our family’s recent home renovations as mentioned above!  He also did some shiplap in our powder room and entertainment wall.  He continues to take online classes at BYU-Idaho.  He enjoys serving as the Priest quorum advisor in their ward.  Mollie worked for Ridge Zeller Therapy as a speech lanquage pathologist up until when she had Preston.  She is still working for them from home part time doing paperwork and supervising.  She is a darling mom to the boys and a great example of fitness and healthy eating.   She was also called this year as the Primary president in their ward.  Bennett (2) is such a fun kid, always smiling and has a great vocabulary.  He loves doing projects with his dad around the house and mountain bike rides with Caleb and Caleb’s friends and their kids.  Preston (almost 3 months) is the sweetest baby and it’s been so fun to have a newborn nearby to snuggle.

THE GILBERT HERD

Don and Nancy are grateful to have survived another pandemic year and that the vaccination became available.  We truly feel that it has protected the majority of the fully vaccinated from contracting the virus and alleviated severe illness and death to those vaccinated who had breakthrough cases.  It’s been hard to know how to navigate in this world at this time.  We just keep praying that this too shall pass and in the meantime we will try to do our part.  We were happy to be able to return to some things we missed out on last year due to the pandemic.  We are now back to our two hour block at church in real life and our bishop still offers a zoom option as well, which was nice this past week since we are isolating after being exposed.  We were able to go back to our plays (wearing masks) at ASU Gammage and have seen Hamilton, Mean Girls and My Fair Lady with some dear friends. Don has read approximately 35 books this year including the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants (our course of study this year in our Come Follow Me curriculum).  He has always loved to read but hasn’t done it as much as he’d like during his career so this has been one thing he has really enjoyed about being retired! He still serves as the stake executive secretary.  We bought a Roomba vacuum and Braava mop and they have become our “pets” but instead of making a mess they clean up our mess!  Our kind of pets except we can’t snuggle with them!  Nancy hasn’t done much this year other than deal with the renovation of our powder room, new flooring, new fireplace and new kitchen counters and backsplash.  We decided it’s easier to move than to renovate.  Having to move furniture and box up stuff as if you are moving but then living amongst the chaos is a challenge.  But we are finally getting settled back in and enjoying the changes.  We just need to get some more furniture items and wall décor which will take some time because Nancy has a hard time knowing exactly what she wants and then once she does decide is famous for having buyer’s remorse.  And then add to that the supply chain issues we are all experiencing it’s possible we might still be working on this until she’s writing next years update!  She hasn’t even been able to get into her sewing room because that’s where we stored a lot of the stuff we had to move during renovation so she hasn’t made Preston’s and Carson’s quilts yet so that will be her first project after the holidays!  She hosted a drive through bridal shower in April for the daughter of dear friends of ours.  This was fun for her because she hadn’t entertained for a long time.  On most Tuesdays she has had our stake family history specialist (who is a darling Scottish lady in our ward named Margaret so Nancy calls it “Tuesdays with Margaret”) come help her with her family history and has had some sweet experiences with that.  She is still a counselor in Relief Society.  We are so grateful that we have been able to start attending the temple again although it is kind of hard to get appointments.  We are praying that it won’t be too long until we can go whenever we want so we can get back to going every Tuesday.  I guess that will all depend on how the situation with Covid goes.  We enjoyed going to the open house for the renovated Mesa temple and now that it is rededicated and open we are looking forward to attending it next year as well.  As Nancy was typing this up she originally typed that we haven’t traveled much this year but then as she started typing up where we did go she realized it was more than she thought!    

WHERE WE ROAMED

In January we drove to St. George to celebrate Don’s dad’s birthday and then on up north to the Salt Lake area where we got to meet Nancy’s nephew and family.  We met up with them at my parents’ gravesite at the Bountiful Cemetery and Dalton and Sarah joined us.  We got to spend a little time with Don’s sister, Joye, on this quick trip as well.  At the beginning of May we flew with Caleb, Mollie and Bennett to Spokane, WA and the rest of the kids and families all met up with us at Lake Coeur d’ Alene, ID at a cabin to celebrate Landon’s graduation from vet school for a few days.  Don and Nancy along with Landon, Ashlin and Ashlin’s parents drove to Pullman to Landon’s graduation ceremony where we all watched it from our car in the parking lot and then right before Landon was to walk he went in, walked and then came back out.  The plan was for the rest of the family to watch via zoom from the cabin but the wi-fi was not working so that didn’t happen but we still had a fun few days being together and celebrating Landon.  Don and Nancy then spent a few days with Landon and Ashlin back in Pullman helping them pack up and then we drove their U-Haul back to Arizona.  At the end of May into June we joined my only cousin on my dad’s side, Amy, and her family in Hilton Head Island, SC.  Jordan and Casey joined us a few days in and we had a great time at what I really consider my home state.  I will always think of myself as a Carolina girl and I really hope to spend time there every year if possible.  Shortly after we returned from that trip we flew to Salt Lake City to help with Don’s sister for a few days.  At the end of June into the middle of July we went on a two week road trip to Utah for what we called our “bookend weddings trip”. After meeting Don’s brother and niece for a quick lunch in St. George, we continued to Logan and the next night was the wedding of the daughter of some dear friends, the Stangers.  Prior to the wedding during that day we spent some time in nearby Clarkston with Don’s brother Mark’s family for Pony Express Days.  We then went back to Clarkston the day after the wedding to attend their ward in a cool building that has church and family history connected to it.  They then fed us a delicious Sunday dinner before we headed back south to West Jordan to spend some time with Don’s sister’s family while Don worked remotely.  We also got to spend some time with Dalton and Sarah and meet up with Sarah’s family for dinner in Park City one night.  On our way back down to Arizona we attended the wedding reception of the daughter of some other dear friends, the Steinackers, in Escalante, UT and then made a quick stop in Orderville, UT to say hello to one of Don’s mission companions and his wife, Merlin and Christine Esplin.   In early August Nancy flew to Salt Lake City to help out with Don’s sister, Joye and then later that month Don and Nancy took another road trip up to St. George where we hit two plays at Tuacahn.  Don’s brother, Brian and his wife, Kim, joined us for School of Rock and then the next night we went to Count of Monte Cristo. Both were fabulous!  We love Tuacahn.  Since it wasn’t too far of a drive we drove up to Salt Lake City so we could attend the wedding reception of Sarah’s sister and got to spent a night or two with Don’s sister and family.  In September we flew to Seattle to see Zach’s family and their new home as well as to knock a few things off of our ever growing list of things to do in the Seattle area.  We stayed in Seattle the first week to do our Seattle things and then stayed with Zach and Tara the second week to spend time with them and their fun family.  On this trip Zach’s family joined us at a Diamondbacks vs Mariners game, we went to the Maple Valley farmers market twice, two of Porter’s soccer games, helped with running Piper to dance classes and Porter to soccer practices, picked Honeycrisp apples with Tara and the little boys and made an apple tart with them.  We also got to attend their amazing ward twice while there.  The first Sunday Tara was sustained as their new Primary president and the second Sunday we were there we got to go to Zach’s Sunday school lesson.  On the second day of this trip Don was kicking a soccer ball around with Porter and tore his calf muscle.  The first week of the trip when we were staying in Seattle he still went on a hike to Franklin Falls, walked through the Japanese Gardens and other places around the University of Washington Arboretum as well as other places that involved walking but he finally called our physical therapist who told him to stop it and get a boot.  He only had to wear it for about a week but it took about 8 weeks for him to be back to normal.  We checked out several foodie places that we hadn’t been to before while there including, The Crumpet Shop, Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, The Halal Guys and Meet the Moon.  We also hit some of our favorites such as Little Chinooks, Ellenos, Doughnut Company, Un Bien, Salt and Straw and of course The Cookie from Metropolitan Market (three times!).  We toured the Smith Tower and walked around the Pioneer Square area and found a pretty little hidden manmade waterfall park nestled in among the old buildings in what is the site of the original UPS building.  We hit Golden Gardens, Sunset Hill and the Ballard Locks and this time the salmon were running.  We also drove around the Queen Anne neighborhood which we had never done before.  We spent our last night in Seattle before heading to Maple Valley visiting with some good friends, the Hakes, on their mini yacht that’s moored on Lake Union and had dinner and played games. The original plan was for us to go out on the sound with them for a few nights on the boat but weather did not permit so once again that is on hold.   We went on several little hikes with Tara and the little boys around Lake Wilderness, a lake near their house and the Gnome Trail.  We shot bottle rockets that Zach and Porter made at the park in their neighborhood.  We went to Issaquah to Boehm’s Chocolate Factory and saw the salmon running.  We saw Mount Rainier everyday from the main street in Maple Valley. 

They are only about one and a half hours away from the mountain.  Nancy went on early morning walks with Zach and Scottie.  It was a wonderful two weeks.  At the end of September into October we flew to Salt Lake City to help with Don’s sister and it timed out that while there we were able to attend the viewing of the wife of one of Don’s childhood friends who had passed away after years of battling cancer. Our last trip of the year was in early December when we flew to Seattle to attend Carson’s baby blessing.  We are grateful for these opportunities to travel.  But when we are home we are really big homebodies! 

We are grateful that we had several visits from family  – in April Nancy’s nephew, Matthew, his wife, Jessica and daughter, Kamrynn, were in town and we got to have them over for our family Easter dinner as well as getting to introduce them to Joe’s Real Barbeque one night.  In May a distant cousin, my first cousin once removed, Ed Kufeldt, who I have had a few interchanges with through the years regarding family history on my mom’s maternal side but had never met was in town and asked if we could meet up so we took him and his wife, Kathy, to dinner at Joe’s as well!  In October our nephew and niece in law, Brayden and Sammi, and their darling new baby girl, Scottie, stopped by to say hi when they were in town for a wedding. And then Dalton and Sarah came for Thanksgiving and Sarah’s parents were also in town so they joined us for Thanksgiving as well.  In fact, while they were all here Dalton and Sarah surprised all four of us with their news of Sarah’s pregnancy.  We had to hold onto that news for a bit until they surprised the rest of both families.

OUR CHRISTMAS GREETING

As of the time of typing this we have actually cancelled all of our family Christmas gatherings due to being exposed to Covid and some family members actually testing positive for it.  We had a family progressive dinner but everything scheduled after that was cancelled.  The photos of Jordan, Landon and Caleb’s families on our card are from that night.  We are grateful that we had the house all decorated and our shopping done so that we can just relax while isolating.  We have tested twice since exposure and we are negative so far.  This was the first time we have taken a Covid test.  Our Christmas nativity reenactment, dinner and family present opening was suppose to be on the 19^th but since it was cancelled we had the present opening via zoom. That is also when Dalton and Sarah shared their baby news with the rest of our family! We are trying to make the best of this and are planning on keeping Christmas up into January so we can have a belated Christmas dinner and nativity after everyone is over Covid.  

Please know that we are grateful for your love and friendship through the years and enjoy receiving your cards, updates and photos. We hope that you are all enjoying a healthy Christmas season as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  

Email:  brough7@q.com

Instagram:  @herdofbroughalo

BROUGH FAMILY UPDATE 2020

What a crazy year!  We hope this all finds you safe and healthy!  We just want to document how this pandemic year played out for us.  Here goes:

THE MESA (on PLATA) HERD

Blair (1) is walking now, loves her big sisters and is the sweetest little thing.  She is great at entertaining herself and walks around talking in her own language.  She loves Papa! Jade (4) is in preschool and recently had her tonsils out.  She is in Pre-school.   Lindy (6) is in first grade and is very social.  Lindy and Jade both love doing crafts and are involved with dance. We recently got to see them perform at a socially distanced recital.  They also got to go to a Descendents (those of you with young daughters and granddaughters will know what that is) show with their other grandma, Grammy, recently. Jordan is still working for Go Daddy, though remotely from home since March.  He also ventured into real estate this year and now has his real estate license and has already experienced some success in this.  In the fall he continued with coaching a high school swim team.  He is a school teacher for the 15 and 16 year olds in his ward but with Covid hasn’t had to teach since March.  Casey, an adorable mom to three precious girls, has done some amazing home decorating this year.  She continues to cut hair in her home salon, all while having to do remote schooling with Lindy from March through the end of the school year in May.  Fortunately, Lindy’s school has been back in person (with masks and all the other precautions we are all too familiar with now) since the school year began in August but now with the high Covid numbers in AZ they recently went to a hybrid schedule until the holiday break.  Bless all these young moms that have had to deal with schooling during the pandemic! She is a counselor in their ward’s Primary presidency. 

THE SEATTLE HERD

Brady (1) is walking and keeps busy climbing in and on anything he can, including their new adorable and rambunctious golden doodle, Butterscotch (Scottie), our first grandpuppy!  Beau (3) is a funny kid that entertains us all. Piper (6) is in first grade. She loves to draw, crafting with Tara and singing.  She sang with the Millennial Choir and Orchestra (MCO) remotely this year and a quick video of her was included in their Christmas concert on youTube.  Porter (8) got baptized this year and became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He also sang remotely with MCO as well.  He also started taking piano lessons.  He is into Legos, Nintendo Switch and sports to some extent.  He is a helpful big brother, especially with Brady. He is also a great dog caregiver and helps Zach with yardwork.   Both Porter and Piper love to play board and card games.  They taught us how to play a few!  Zach is still with Amazon, albeit remotely. He is a senior product manager and works on developing private label products under the Amazon Basics brand.  He was scheduled to go on a business trip in late January/early February to Germany and Luxemburg which was cancelled when it was discovered that one of the main participants to be in attendance was from Wuhan, China and it was when the virus was going crazy in China but before it hit the USA.  In January he did a 25K trail run in the Orcas Islands.  He recently completed a 60 mile bike ride around Lake Washington on Halloween morning.  He serves as a counselor in their ward’s bishopric.  Tara is a darling mom to their four children and also keeps busy with home schooling (as a result of the pandemic) and crafting.  She put up an amazing Halloween display in the courtyard of their house this fall, including darling little fairy houses, made out of cardboard, egg cartons and empty bottles.   She also continues to enjoy vlogging on her youTube channel, Broughington and also does editing for other youTube vloggers.  She teaches once a month in Relief Society and their ward has had zoom meetings for all their organizations throughout the pandemic but they have not started having in person sacrament meetings in Washington yet.

THE PULLMAN HERD

Charlie (9 months) was born on March 1^st and is the grinniest, sweetest little guy and loves watching the shenanigans of his big sister and brother and is a delight to all of us!  Theodore – AKA Theo, Teddy, Bubba (3) started pre-school and it is actually in person.  He is a busy boy that loves doing whatever Dora does and he loves their pets and wearing his cowboy boots.  Dora (5) is in Kindergarten remotely.  She also enjoys crafts, doing fashion shows with her many dresses and strikes a pose whenever you take a picture of her.  Landon is finishing up his 4^th and last year of vet school at Washington State University. Unfortunately, the clinical rotations he originally scheduled for this year had to be cancelled due to Covid and his actual commencement for next May will not be as planned.  But he has been able to do his rotations in Pullman, Lewiston and Boise.  He has completed his senior paper, secured a job offer back in AZ and now just needs to complete his boards on December 20th.  He also planted a garden this year with some success considering the short growing season in Pullman.  He enjoys cooking and makes a lot of their meals.  He is in between callings right now when their ward recently split during the pandemic.  Ashlin is the cutest mom to three busy kids while also working on her degree in Graphic Information Technologies through ASU online.  She is also very crafty and continues to be Nancy’s go to tech guru!  She is the secretary in their Young Women’s organization in their ward.  Two sweet bunnies, Maggie and Rosie joined their menagerie.  And Ruben and Maple are the still the sweetest and most tolerant kitties ever!

THE LEHI HERD

Dalton is still enjoying working at Jolt and was recently promoted to Team Lead of Acquisition.  He has picked up golfing this year.  He is the ward executive secretary in their ward.  Sarah graduated in May from Utah Valley University majoring in Deaf Studies with an Interpreting Emphasis.  Actual commencement ceremonies were cancelled due to Covid but she and Dalton were actually visiting us on what would have been her graduation day so we had a little ceremony for her!  And then her family celebrated with her later.  She works for the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind as an American Sign Language Interpreter.  She also has a side hustle working for June Rings, an online ring company.  She is a counselor in the Primary presidency in their ward.  When the pandemic hit, our church sent home most of their senior missionaries and since they were staying in a couple’s home while they were serving their mission and the couple came home earlier than planned, Dalton and Sarah had to find somewhere else to live in a hurry.  They stayed at Sarah’s parents’ home for a while until they purchased their first home, a cute condo in Lehi.  Dalton’s birthday present to Sarah this year was a darling kitty, Jimmy, our 4^th grandkitty!  We all love him and he has made Dalton a cat person now!  Together they enjoy playing pickleball and skiing.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough snow in Utah to go skiing until just recently.  They have dealt with the pandemic by binge watching The Amazing Race and Survivor!  They got Don and Nancy into The Amazing Race as well!  In addition to some family trips with us this year they also had a fun trip with friends to Island Park, Idaho. 

THE MESA (on BAYWOOD) HERD

Benny (1) is a delightful little boy. He has the sweetest disposition and is starting to say some words.  He is a good eater but unfortunately he calls food, “nana” so it might be awhile until he calls Nancy “Nana”. (Nana does love food, though!).  Caleb continued with his job at Voya Financial until October when he started working as a sales/project manager for his in laws’ company, Builders Flooring and Design.  He is continuing to take some online classes through BYU-Idaho each semester as well.  He loves doing home improvement projects and he and Mollie have done a lot to upgrade their cute home.  He mountain bikes with a group of friends whenever he can.  He is the Priest quorum advisor in their ward.  Mollie is a speech pathologist at Ridge Zeller Therapy and Highland High School.  She also recently got braces and one day she had to go by the office at the high school for something and the receptionist asked her if she was late for 2^nd hour!  Haha! She is a primary teacher in their ward so due to Covid hasn’t had to teach for a while.  Caleb and Mollie tried having chickens this year but it was just too hot, especially this summer when we had record heat in AZ, so after they lost a few, they decided it wasn’t for them.  They did get several dozen eggs, though, while it lasted.  They still have our pretty grandkitty, Peia.

THE GILBERT HERD

Don and Nancy are grateful that up to this point they have not contracted THE virus.  Knock on wood!  If they do get it, it won’t be from a lack of trying to avoid it, that’s for sure!  Fortunately, Nancy was already OCD enough prior to the pandemic that using Clorox wipes on everything is nothing new to her!  And, fortunately, we had a pretty good stash and have been able to find them as needed to keep her stash sufficient. Prior to the pandemic, Don and Nancy were able to see three of the plays at Gammage with another couple that Nancy calls our “theatah” friends.  They saw Fiddler on the Roof, Beautiful and Once on This Island.  They were excited to see others like Come From Away, Mean Girls and Hamilton, again, with their season tickets package but that, of course, didn’t happen.  Don is counting down the months until he can retire from Wells Fargo Bank.  He is now working full time at home rather than just one day a week pre-Covid.  He has been such a patient, long suffering husband to Nancy while this has all brought her OCD ways to a new level!  He is still the Stake Executive Secretary and attends almost all of his meetings via Zoom.  Nancy was released as an adult Sunday school teacher recently and now serves as a counselor in the Relief Society presidency.   Our ward has actual church for one hour (with all the Covid precautions) but we also have the option of watching it via Zoom from home and are still authorized to have at home sacrament, which is what we do.  We attended a couple of times but as long as we can Zoom we feel safer doing that at this point.  Hopefully now that the vaccinations are starting to be available we will eventually feel more comfortable going in person.  Nancy was fortunate to be able to have her right hip replaced in April, right before they put a halt on all elective surgeries for a while.  Everything went great, and after six weeks of physical therapy she is so happy to be able to walk without her ridiculous limp and is able to walk and do the elliptical for exercise without any pain.  We ended up purchasing an elliptical machine when all the gyms shut down.  Nancy’s sewing room turned into a mask making factory for a while back at the beginning of the pandemic when it was hard to find any masks.  She made over 150 for friends, family and those we minister to in our ward.   She has also finished Brady’s and Charlie’s quilts this year.  After sewing on a 61 year old Singer that her mom got for Christmas the same year that Nancy was born, she finally got a nice new Bernina that she is still in the process of bonding with.  Nancy also got into the pandemic craze of making sourdough bread!  Her whole childhood her dad had a sourdough starter in their fridge and she grew up on sourdough pancakes every Saturday morning and sourdough bread often.  She’d give anything to have gotten a starter from his starter but at some point in some move he must have let it go.  She made several attempts at getting a starter going to no avail but finally one worked!  Her dad was the first “foodie” she knew before that was even a word!  He used to say that if he opened a restaurant he would call it “Cuz’n Rafe’s”.  Apparently you are supposed to name your sourdough starter so ours is called “Cuz’n Rafe”!  And it’s still going strong.  Don and Nancy have settled into the staying at home thing and are grateful that we have the option to do that when so many still have to go out into the world for their jobs.  Our thoughts and prayers are always with the medical professionals and essential workers that serve our communities daily.  We are grateful that we are somewhat home bodies (when we aren’t traveling) so this aspect of the pandemic hasn’t been that hard for us.  We have been binge watching The Amazing Race since April.  We never watched it back when it was original so it has been a nice distraction.  We are on Season 22 out of 32 seasons.  Thanks Dalton and Sarah for getting us into it!  We are sad that we can’t have family gatherings like we would like to.  We do get together about once a month and we try to watch the grandkids on some Friday nights so their parents can go on a date.  But whenever we are around them then we try to stay away for at least a week before we get around them again.   We have done a little traveling, some before the pandemic and actually some during it (with precautions).  Here is a month at a glance of where we roamed this year and other events:

WHERE WE’VE ROAMED  (Like we said in last year’s update – if you haven’t already stopped reading by now, this is probably where you will want to stop for sure!)

January – As I look back on January I’m thinking of how none of us had any idea of what was to come in 2020.  I mean, we all heard about Coronavirus in China but never could have imagined what it turned into worldwide.  We went to St. George to visit Don’s folks and celebrate Don’s dad’s birthday.

February – We went to Seattle for Porter’s baptism and to celebrate his 8^th birthday.  Dalton and Sarah joined us there.  Don and Nancy stayed in a cute little Airbnb super close to Zach and Tara’s house.  It was a pretty quick trip but we love going to Seattle anytime we can.

March – WOW!  What a month!  We had been planning a big family vacation for years to go stay at a beach house on the Isle of Palms, SC for a week.  Nancy lived in Mt. Pleasant, SC (a bedroom community of Charleston) for four years of her childhood.  Her dad is from SC and her grandparents lived in Columbia her whole childhood so even when her family lived other places they always went to SC for vacations.  Nancy had a dream of taking all the boys and their families to SC to see her childhood roots.  Well, things were starting to heat up as far as the pandemic goes just prior to this long planned trip.  Nothing had shut down YET but it was looking a little scary.  But we were able to squeeze this trip in by the hair of our chinny chin chin!  We brought a couple suitcases of just toilet paper, Clorox wipes and food because just a few days before we left was when we started seeing grocery store shelves empty!  Fortunately, we were all able to get there safely from Spokane, Seattle, Salt Lake City and Phoenix.  We were able to do almost everything we had planned before things started shutting down.  Right after our tour of Ft. Sumter they stopped the tours!  And the day we were leaving they shut down the beaches.  We got to take half of the adults to one of our favorite restaurants but by the time we were going to take the other half it had closed.  But other than that we got to do everything we had planned including showing them around Columbia (Nancy’s grandparents’ home, their gravesites, their Baptist church, the state capitol and the Latter-day Saint temple), Charlestion and Mt. Pleasant (Fort Sumter, Boon Hall Plantation, Nancy’s childhood home and elementary school, the Citadel, where Nancy’s dad attended college and later taught at for 4 years, and of course hanging out at the beach house).  Don and Nancy celebrated their 36^th anniversary while there and we got to finally get some professional family photos, the first time since any of the boys had gotten married. The photos on our card are from that photo shoot. And the best thing was that Charlie and Ashlin ended up getting to come.  At one point since Ashlin was due so close to the trip  we had decided that Landon and the other kids would just come.  But she ended up getting to have Charlie a few weeks early and everything was going so well that we booked them flights at the last minute so we all got to be there!  Nancy’s cousin and her kids were able to be at the Isle of Palms that week as well so we got to spend some time with them.  Each family was in charge of a dinner and we ate very well.  On Don and Nancy’s night they did a Low Country Shrimp Boil.  It was a fabulous trip and we are just so grateful we were able to pull it off in the nick of time!

April through June – No roaming!  Just hunkering down and laying low like the rest of the world.  Nancy had her surgery in April and was able to go to a wonderful physical therapist for six weeks, thank goodness, without incident.  However, she heard months later that her physical therapist got Covid from a patient!  She was grateful she escaped that!  Dalton and Sarah drove down for a visit a few weeks after Nancy’s surgery and just worked remotely during the day and we hung out at night.  That was when they got us hooked on The Amazing Race!  

July through the first week in September –  Long before the pandemic we had planned a huge summer trip to see our Washington and Utah families.  Once we were knee deep in the pandemic we were trying to decide if we should cancel the trip but decided that we could still take the same precautions in Washington and Utah as we would at home.  Prior to the pandemic Don had cleared it with his boss to work remotely for this trip but then once everyone at his work was working remotely anyway it definitely wasn’t an issue so off we went.  We drove and were just super careful at gas stations, etc.  We stopped one night at a hotel in Twin Falls on the way to Seattle (where Nancy just did what she’s always done even pre-Covid, wiping down the whole room with Clorox wipes).  Actually, on the way to Twin Falls we were planning on stopping at dinner time in Centerville, UT and meet up with Dalton and Sarah for dinner.  Just prior to getting there our car started doing weird things so we got it checked out when we arrived in Centerville and it was our alternator and fortunately we were able to get a new one in a timely manner so we could be on our way after getting take out and eating with Dalton and Sarah outside at a park.  When we got up the next morning in Twin Falls we found that someone had stolen our vanity license plate, THE HERD!  So, we had to make a police report where we found out that two other people in hotel parking lots had their vanity plates stolen as well that same night!  Victims of a pandemic prank for sure! It took several weeks for us to get a temporary plate so we drove around Idaho and Washington without any plate for a while.  Fortunately, we had a case number we could have shown a cop if we got pulled over but we never did.   We had a nice Airbnb in Seattle, in the Magnolia neighborhood, right by the sound, and close to Zach and Tara’s. The weather was gorgeous the whole time we were there and we had a clear shot of Mt. Rainier from Seattle almost every day we were there.  We had never seen it from Seattle on any other previous visit.  Nancy practically brought her whole kitchen because the places we stayed at had full kitchens so she was able to continue with her pandemic baking everywhere we stayed!  She also brought her new sewing machine and even took a Zoom class to help her learn how to use it.  During the days while Don worked, Nancy sewed or baked and sometimes went on hikes or berry picking with the Seattle herd.  Then Don would join us on some nights and other nights Don and Nancy would just stay at the Airbnb and watch The Amazing Race!  While there, Don got a crabbing license and twice he, Zach and Porter went crabbing and both times got some beautiful Dungeness and Red Rock crabs and we had a couple of yummy crab boils.  On Friday nights we watched the kids (and Scottie- she was the only one that gave us trouble) so Zach and Tara could have some date nights.  We did fly home and back (taking every precaution) one weekend in July for Benny’s first birthday party.  Our friends from AZ, Eric and Diana Hakes, bought a mini-yacht that they moor on Lake Union and they live on it during parts of the year.  Before the pandemic they had invited us and Zach’s family to hang out with them on their dock on the fourth of July to watch the fireworks display at Lake Union, which of course, didn’t happen.  They had also invited Don and Nancy to go out on the boat for a weekend which also didn’t happen.  Stupid Covid!  But we did go one night and brought take out and they took us for a ride to Lake Washington and back.  We all wore masks!  One day, Nancy and Diana, went to Crystal Mountain and rode the gondola (again, wearing masks the whole time). Don and Nancy tried to knock some things off of our long list of Seattle things but as soon as we checked one off there were several new things we added to it!  We walked the hills and steps of Seattle every day for exercise and Nancy’s new hip in her old body got quite the workout.  One Saturday, we went to Olympia to the state capitol and Mima Mounds. Another Saturday we went with Zach and Tara and kids to the Olympic peninsula.  Don took our last few days there off so we could do some other things.  We went to Snoqualmie Falls, Crystal Mountain again because I loved it when I went with Diana, we picked blueberries in Enumclaw, spent a few hours in Alki Beach, Gasworks Park, Bainbridge Island, Port Gamble, Poulsbo and other random things on our list.  The first time we came to Seattle with our friends, the Stangers, about three years ago, when Zach was doing his internship, we went up in the Space Needle but since then they totally renovated it and for most of the time we were there it was closed due to Covid but it re-opened right before we left so we got to check it out and it was awesome!  We love Seattle so much and were sad to leave it and our wonderful Seattle kids!  But we were excited to head to Pullman!  We ended up staying at the Residence Inn just across the street from Landon and Ashlin’s apartment.  We loved being in the Palouse and this time we got to see it during harvest time.  Nancy is obsessed by the Palouse in any season.  We haven’t seen it in the winter when the hills are all white and it looks like we won’t get to since this is the last year they will be there and we don’t have any plans to go this winter.  The first week we were there, Landon, was in Boise on a rotation but the last week we got to spend time with him on the weekend and evenings.  We took the kids mini golfing, went on a few picnics, went to the Farmer’s Market in Moscow, ID and got to check out other things on our Pullman list of things to do!  We are always adding to that list as well.  We have sure loved having this lovely place as a travel destination and will miss it when Landon is done with vet school.  We went on some fun walks through campus.  We love the WSU campus!  On one of our morning walks we ran into Landon as he was walking to his rotation on campus.  We also walked one morning through the U of I campus in Moscow.  We had some yummy meals with Landon and Ashlin and some fun entertainment by the kids and their pets.  We also got to watch the kids one night so Landon and Ashlin could go out on a date and Dora was Ashlin’s stylist as she got ready for the date!  Dora was so excited about it!  We were sad to leave them as we headed off to Lehi to spend ten days with Dalton and Sarah.  We got to stay in Dalton and Sarah’s guest room in their beautiful new condo.  On our first morning walk there, we ran into our friend, Sylvia, who had moved from our ward to Lehi and lives in the same huge complex that Dalton and Sarah live in (although they are in different wards).  While there Nancy and Sylvia went into SLC so Nancy could show Sylvia Orson Gygi, one of her favorite stores and they went to lunch.  Don and Nancy also met up with one of Nancy’s BFFs, Debbie and her new husband, Dave, for dinner one night in SLC (we ate outside).  We also had a belated birthday gathering for Sarah, with her family,  at the late Steven R. Covey’s home (Sarah’s sister is married to one of his grandsons and they are living there right now) and also went to dinner at a yummy restaurant called Traditions in SLC with Sarah’s parents to celebrate her graduation.  It’s the only time we’ve eaten inside a restaurant during Covid but we were the only ones in the restaurant.  We went on a hike at Tibble Fork Reservoir.  Don and Nancy went on quite a few walks along the Jordan River Trail.  Don helped Dalton do a few projects in their home.  Sarah and Nancy went to a book signing at a darling gift boutique in SLC called Jolley’s for a new cookbook by The Food Nanny (someone Nancy follows on Instagram) and to The Food Nanny warehouse, then on to “kitty shop” for Sarah’s new kitty at the humane society.   Dalton had given Sarah the go ahead to get a kitty for her birthday but didn’t want to be responsible for actually picking out the cat.  They went together after I went with her and found Jimmy and we got to be there when they brought him home. He’s a sweetie!  Most nights we just watched The Amazing Race with Dalton and Sarah!  Again, we were sad to leave but at this point we were actually looking forward to getting home although not looking forward to going back to the heat.  This was the hottest summer ever in AZ so we definitely picked the best summer to be away.  Almost every day on this trip Don would look up how many degrees cooler it was where we were!  It was usually 30 to 40 degrees cooler while in WA!  We were very grateful for the opportunity to beat the heat but also happy to be back home even though we drove into our driveway to see that one of our two new trees had died as well as a bunch of succulents.  Also, our queen palm in our backyard was toast!  Welcome home to AZ!

September – Nancy and Don’s sister Sheri both went to visit Don’s other sister, Joye, in West Jordan to help her out with a few things.  While she was gone, Don decided to go see his parents in St. George and celebrate his mom’s birthday.  

October – Don was grateful he visited his parents in September because in the middle of the month Don’s dad fell and injured both hips resulting in him having to have partial hip replacements in both hips.  Meanwhile, his mom was riding her bike in their senior community and a kid on a scooter ran into her resulting in her ankle breaking and her having to have surgery for that.  Those incidents in addition to their dementia issues and Don’s mom being a diabetic, necessitated 24 hour care for his mom while his dad was in the hospital for over three weeks and 24 hour care for both of them once he came home.  Most of the care was provided by Don’s youngest brother and his family as they are local.  But Don and his other three siblings have all taken a turn helping when they could. There have been multiple Zoom meetings with Don and his siblings and sometimes there has also been a wonderful social worker to help guide them through this heartbreaking process.    

November – At the beginning of the month Don and Nancy drove to St. George to take care of his mom for five days and then on to West Jordan to help with Don’s sister in West Jordan.  We got to stop by Dalton and Sarah’s as we were leaving West Jordan and heading to St. George one night on our way home.  They had takeout dinner waiting for us at their place and we got to have a quick dinner and see how Jimmy was doing!  We typically have our Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday before Thanksgiving but Landon and Ashlin’s flight didn’t get them in until late that night so we planned our gathering for the Monday before Thanksgiving so they could be with us.  On Monday afternoon, Jordan called to tell us that he had possibly been exposed a few days before so he and his family were uninvited (he drove by that evening and we safely handed him a big Thanksgiving takeout bag).  The rest of us ate outside spaced a good distance apart from each other and Don and Nancy took their orders, loaded their plates and served them.  We typically do our gatherings buffet style but not this year.  The plan was for Landon and Ashlin’s family to stay with us for a few days and then they were going to go to Ashlin’s family for Thanksgiving and the following weekend and then come back and stay with us for another week (which Nancy was really stressing about – them going to a possible “superspreader’ event and then coming back) BUT the next day Landon found out that he had possibly been exposed when picking up Ashlin’s siblings from the airport SO they packed up all their stuff and went to Ashlin’s parents’ home.  In hind sight we should have just told all the kids that we were not going to have any Brough gatherings for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year!  

December – Don and Nancy flew up to Las Vegas and drove to St. George at the beginning of the month for a few days to help move Don’s parents to an assisted living facility.  Of course, his parents are not happy about this but their children just cannot keep doing this rotation schedule and they will now have medical professionals 24/7 to take care of all their needs.  This has taken a toll on all of the kids and they all agree it is time to take this step.  It has been heartbreaking to watch his parents and his siblings go through this.   The only time that all of our kids and grandkids will all be in town at Christmastime is the night after Christmas at 6:00 PM so our plan is to cram ALL our Christmas traditions that we can into that evening.  Again, Nancy kind of wishes she would have just said no to any holiday gatherings because once again she is stressed out about families coming from other family gatherings and who knows who is exposed to what.  But as it stands those are the plans for now, albeit subject to change!  This month brought knowledge of a new extended family member that we are so excited to welcome into our clan.  The blessings that can come from DNA testing!  

OUR HOLIDAY GREETING

This year has been a doozy!  But we are so grateful for our testimony of a loving Heavenly Father and his Son, Jesus Christ who is the reason we celebrate this time of year.   We are also grateful for the knowledge that we have a living prophet on the earth, especially at troubling times like this.  We were blessed to have a very special message from him in November on our church’s youTube channel.  If you haven’t seen it just go to: youTube and search Church of Jesus Christ and then search Message of Hope and Healing President Russell M. Nelson.  He is a remarkable man of science AND faith and encourages us to find things to be grateful for even during these hard times.  He also offers a beautiful prayer in behalf of ALL of us, God’s children. We have been so grateful through this pandemic that even though we haven’t been able to meet for Sunday School or other church organization meetings that there was a new home based/church supported curriculum called “Come Follow Me” that had been in place for 18 months before the pandemic so we were prepared to continue studying the gospel on our own and it has been such a blessing throughout this year.   Our hearts have ached for those who have lost loved ones this year or have lost jobs and have had real challenges.  We pray for you each and every day.  We are grateful for all of you and pray that you can all remain safe as we go into the new year and that we can all remain hopeful that this pandemic will be over soon. 

Instagram:  @herdofbroughalo

BROUGH FAMILY UPDATE 2019

Happy Holidays to all! We sure enjoy this time of year and receiving your cards and photos.  If you are reading this it means you received our card this year and are probably one of the few who went to the trouble to go online!   Here is what has been going on with our family in 2019:

In our update last year, we announced that Jordan and Casey were due with their fourth child in June.  Well on Christmas day Zach and Tara announced that they were due in August with their fourth as well. That was followed by Caleb and Mollie announcing that Mollie was pregnant with their first child and they were due in July!  So, we started out this year looking forward to a summer of new grandbabies!

The Mesa (on Plata) Herd

Blair was born in June and is such a sweet and pleasant baby and is loved dearly by us all especially by her two big sisters!  Lindy (5) is in Kindergarten and loves dance and tumbling and is getting very proficient with her backbends.  Jade (3) is in preschool and takes dance and tumbling classes as well.  We unfortunately missed both of their dance recitals this year due to being out of town. We’ll need to plan better next year!  It is such a joy to have these cuties nearby.  Jordan is still working for Go Daddy and he also just completed his fifth year as head coach of the swim team at Gilbert Classical Academy. He teaches the 14 year old Sunday school class in their ward.  Casey styles hair two days a week in her darling salon at their home along with being a busy mom to the girls.  She serves as a counselor in their ward’s Primary and wrote the Primary program this year and did a fabulous job!  And we got a good view of Lindy singing her heart out in the program!  Their family went on a little trip to Albuquerque to visit our niece and family and go to the balloon festival in October.  We love that we get to have this fun family near us in AZ.

The Seattle Herd

Brady was born in August and we are all also in love with this sweet and happy baby!  Beau (2) is a delightful little guy and is talking up a storm.  Piper (5) is in Kindergarten and took a gymnastics class this year.  She is still singing, drawing and painting away!  She can sing songs from many Broadway musicals and this year she and Porter went to see Wicked with Zach and Tara.  Porter (7) is in second grade and is a sweet boy and fun big brother.  He was on a baseball team and also went to a soccer camp in the summer.  Zach works at Amazon as a senior vendor manager.  He is on the grocery team and is over the coffee division which is interesting because he doesn’t even drink coffee!  He and Porter had fun in the summer crabbing and had some success on most of their attempts.  Zach was recently called as a counselor in their ward’s bishopric.  Tara is a busy, fun and talented mom of four and still enjoys vlogging on her youTube channel, Broughington.   She teaches in the Relief Society (women’s organization) in their ward.   We miss them but sure love where they live and love it when we get to visit them.

The Pullman Herd

Theodore (2) is a sweet little boy albeit a little rough and tumble.  He has really started to talk and has the cutest voice.  He loves hanging out with his sister and her friends.  Dora (4) is in preschool and enjoys her gymnastics class.  She loves doing crafts and is very good about getting what she needs for her projects from their craft closet and then putting everything away when she is done.  They both love their very patient and resilient kitties, Ruben and Maple.  Landon has one more semester of classes at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State Universtity and then will be starting his year of rotations. He was chosen for a two week Practice Management externship in Kentucky at the beginning of the summer which he really enjoyed and he fell in love with Kentucky.  Landon is really learning his way around the kitchen and one of his specialties is homemade hamburger buns!  They are beautiful and delicious.  He serves as their ward activities representative.  Ashlin is taking classes online through Arizona State University majoring in Graphic Information Technologies along with being a cute mom to Dora and Theo/Teddy/Bubba and running her Etsy shop, Popsicle Paint.    She has been serving as the Activity Days Leader (bi weekly activities for the girls in the ward ages 8 to 11) but was recently released.  Landon and Ashlin announced this year that Ashlin is pregnant and due next March. So, 2020 will be bringing grandbaby number twelve!

The Lehi Herd

Dalton graduated in April from the Marriott School of Management at BYU with a bachelors degree in Human Resources.  He continues to work for Jolt as a recruiter and really enjoys his job. Sarah is completing her last year at Utah Valley University majoring in Deaf Studies with an emphasis in Interpretation.  She recently started working for Sign Glasses as an account development representative.  She is really enjoying it and the fact that she is able to apply what she is learning at school at her job.  In June, they went to Australia so Dalton could show Sarah around his mission in Adelaide and Darwin and they also got to spend a few days in Sydney.  In October they moved out of their adorable but super tiny first apartment into the over 4000 square foot home of someone Dalton knew from his mission who is serving a mission for the next year or so and wanted a young couple to stay in their home while they are gone.  It’s nice for Dalton because he CAN walk to work (although it’s been cold since they’ve moved in so has been driving).   And it’s nice for us because we have a free bed and bath in the basement now whenever we go up to that part of Utah!  And they are great hosts when we do!  They got a fun ski pass package for this season and have enjoyed that a few times and will continue that through the winter.  Dalton is serving in the Young Men organization and Sarah hasn’t received a calling yet in their new ward.

The Mesa (on Baywood) Herd

Bennett was born in July and it has been so fun and sweet to see Caleb and Mollie as new parents in the home they bought in Mesa and moved into in May.  Baby Benny is a cutie and it is so fun to have him and his cousin, Blair, nearby when we’ve needed that newborn baby fix.  In fact, the two Mesa families live about twenty minutes from us but only about four miles from each other so we have been known on any given night to make our rounds to stop by (we call before, don’t worry) to see our local grandkids.   Caleb works for Voya Financial, located in Tempe, but he gets to work from home a couple days a week.  He recently finished the Pathway Program through Brigham Young University-Idaho and plans to continue his studies online through BYU-I in the new year after taking a semester off as they have been working on projects in their home including paving a sidewalk in their front yard, renovating a bathroom and installing new flooring.  Caleb serves as an advisor in the Young Men organization in their ward.  Mollie received her master’s degree in speech pathology in April from Brigham Young University and will start working part time with clients through Ridge Zeller Therapy in January.  She has done such a great job decorating their new home and is a darling and dedicated mom to baby Benny.  She also worked at Guthrie Mainstream Services working with children with special needs between the time they moved back to AZ in May and when they had Benny in July.  She serves as a Primary teacher in their ward. Their pretty kitty, Peia, has adjusted to the new house and having Benny around!

The Gilbert Herd

Don and Nancy are enjoying the empty nester life to a certain degree but not loving everything about getting older. Don is still working for Wells Fargo. He is grateful for his employment throughout all these years but at this point is dreaming of retirement!  He’s grateful that he can work remotely and tries to work most Fridays from home and has been able to work on some of our trips so he doesn’t always have to use his PTO days.  He only had one quick business trip this year to Concord, CA in April. Don still follows the Diamondbacks but didn’t attend any games this year. He is still serving as the stake executive secretary which keeps him pretty busy on Sundays.  Nancy has had some issues with her hips and legs and is in the process of getting to the bottom of that.  It’s been quite frustrating for her to not be able to be quite as active as she would like. She has enjoyed serving as an ordinance worker in the Gilbert temple for almost three years but will be taking a break this next year to try to get a little healthier.   She plans on still attending the temple each week as a patron and also delving into her family history.  She enjoys piecing quilts and has completed quilts for Blair and Benny and is in the process of finishing Brady’s. She is an adult Sunday School teacher on the first Sunday of each month but with some of our trips she has had to get substitutes quite often.  Don told her that if someone asks her what her calling in the ward is that she should say, “Finding substitutes to teach my Sunday School class”.  She loves the new curriculum, “Come Follow Me”, and has enjoyed studying the New Testament this year, although she is not really comfortable in front of a crowd!   She has also had a small calling in the Young Women’s organization encouraging the girls to complete a program called Personal Progress and she, after serving in the Young Women’s organization off and on for years, finally completed it herself. Just in the nick of time as they are changing the program in 2020.  We have enjoyed having season tickets to Gammage at ASU and seeing some fun traveling Broadway cast musicals this year with another couple from our stake.  We were blessed in the greater Phoenix area in February to have our beloved prophet, President Russell M. Nelson come speak to us at the Cardinal Stadium.  We renovated our master bath room which ended taking up most of the year.  But it’s nice to have it updated.  We love to travel but our travels haven’t taken us to any foreign destinations this year.  Having three of our five families living out of state we have gone on a few visits to see them as well as to see some extended family.

Where We’ve Roamed

(If you haven’t stopped reading by now this is probably where you will want to stop for sure!)

January – We went to St. George to celebrate Don’s dad’s birthday and then up to Provo to spend some time with our Provo kids and while we were there Don went skiing with Dalton, Sarah and Caleb at Sundance again.  Mollie and I had to pass because of my stupid legs and Mollie was pregnant so we just relaxed in the lodge.  Don was able to work from our hotel and we could spend time with the kids in the evenings as well as visit Nancy’s dad at the VA.  At the end of the month Nancy went on a girls’ trip with some dear friends to Disneyland.  She hadn’t been to Disneyland since she was pregnant with Jordan!  It was magical!  Now she needs to get Don to go!

March – Just went to Provo again to watch Mollie defend her thesis, hang with the Provo kids and visit Nancy’s dad.

April – We went on a quick trip to SLC to attend the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We had tickets for the Saturday morning session and Dalton and Sarah went with us. Don and Dalton had tickets to the Priesthood session that night while Mollie and I had dinner and walked around City Creek Mall.  We got to meet up with a dear Australian family from Dalton’s mission for dinner at our hotel one night.  And we got to stop by to see my dad as well.  Later this month we went to Slippery Rock, PA to visit Nancy’s brother, Eric, and family for Easter as well as attend a couple of Diamondback vs Pirates in Pittsburgh.  Then we flew from Pittsburgh to Salt Lake City to be at Dalton’s and Mollie’s BYU graduations.

May into June – Sadly Nancy’s sweet dad passed away on May 22^nd.  When he and his wife moved from Arizona to Utah years ago Nancy remembered thinking that it would be most likely that when he passed away that she might not be able to be at his side when he passed and unfortunately that was the case.  But she takes comfort in the fact that she got to see him every time they went to Utah and she knows that he knows how much she loves him and she knows he loves her.   And she is so comforted to know that he is finally reunited with her sweet mom who passed away 27 years ago.  Fortunately, Dalton and Sarah were able to go to the VA and video the sweet tribute processional complete with the playing of Taps and also facetime us as it was happening.  At the end of the month we flew to Utah for the funeral and all the boys except Dalton (he and Sarah were in Australia) were able to meet us to be there.  It was a beautiful funeral service, followed by a military tribute at the cemetery and then he was laid to rest next to Nancy’s mom in Bountiful.

July – We had an extended Brough family reunion at Holmstead Ranch near St. George over the July 4^thweekend that was really fun and all of our kids were able to join us except Casey and Blair since Blair was just a few weeks old.  Following the reunion, we went up to Provo for a couple of weeks while Don worked remotely and Nancy could help with the settling of her dad’s estate.  We spent some time with Dalton and Sarah in the evenings and while there we got to meet up briefly with Nancy’s brother, Eric, and his family in Holladay while they were in town from PA. We also got to meet up with several dear friends for dinner a couple of evenings as well.

September to October – We finally got to meet baby Brady when we flew to Seattle for several days. While there we got to go to the Amazon Bring Your Parents to Work Day with Zach as well as get to do some of our favorite Seattle things and to also experience a few new things. There are SO many things to do and see and eat in Seattle!  We have a running list of things we need to do whenever we go there.  Later in September we went to West Jordan, UT to stay with Don’s sister while her husband guided a hunting expedition.  After her husband returned we stayed in SLC for a few days and again attended a session of General Conference (this time it was the Sunday afternoon session) and watch the other sessions from our hotel room.  Nancy watched the Saturday evening women’s session with Sarah, her mom and sisters at Sarah’s parents’ house while Don and Dalton went to dinner with Sarah’s dad. At the end of October Nancy’s step-mom passed away so we headed back to Utah for her funeral and several of the boys were able to be there for that.  We got to stay at the room in the basement of the house Dalton and Sarah are staying in that we mentioned before.  Our flight bringing us home was cancelled so we got to stay an extra day!

October to November – At the end of October, Caleb, Mollie and Benny flew with us to visit the Pullman herd!  Caleb was the only brother that hadn’t been to Pullman.  We had a super fun visit and Benny was a super good traveler!  Even though this wasn’t the most beautiful time to see the Palouse it is still beautiful.  We love it there so much!

December – The first weekend this month Don flew to Seattle for a quick last minute trip when Zach was called to be in the bishopric so he could ordain Zach to the office of High Priest. Nancy didn’t get to go because she had to teach her Sunday School lesson.  The next weekend we went on a quick trip to attend the missionary farewell of one of Don’s nephews in Clarkston UT.  We stayed a few nights at Dalton and Sarah’s and one night in Logan to be closer to Clarkston.  We love visiting Clarkston and Don’s brothers’ sweet family.

Almost Done with this TMI Update!

We are grateful for the visitors we got to have this year.  Don’s nephew, Brayden and his wife, Sammi,  stayed here for a couple of nights when they were in town for a wedding in January.  In March, our nephews, Marshall and Emerson, and their mom, Maryclare, stayed a few nights while they were in town to visit their grandfather on their mom’s side. Dalton and Sarah came for a quick Labor Day weekend visit.  Our niece, Kenzee, came for a short visit in July and got to be here when Bennett was born.  In October, some dear friends from our early married days were in town on business and we got to meet them for dinner.  Later that month, after Nancy’s step-mom’s funeral in Utah her brother, Kirby, who had driven to Utah from Georgia, caravanned back to Arizona with us for a nice visit at the beginning of November. We finally have a quest room and would love visitors if you are ever in our neck of the woods!

Our Holiday Greeting

We are grateful for this time of year as we reflect on our many blessings and you are all truly blessings in our lives!  We love our Savior, Jesus Christ and as we celebrate His birth this time of year we pray that we can always remember him in all we do.  We hope you all have a joyous holiday season and a great new year!

Email:  brough7@q.com

Intstagram: @herdofbroughalo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brough Family Update 2015

Here we are again scrambling to get our card and this update out to all of you, hopefully before Christmas! We want you all to know how much you mean to us, not only this time of year, but always! Here is a recap of this past year for the Brough family:

Caleb returned home from his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in July. He served in the Vanuatu Port Vila Mission and in March, category five Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu. There was devastating damage to the island of Tanna (where he had served previously) and significant damage to the island of Efate where he was serving at the time of the cyclone. Fortunately there were not very many deaths but there was a lot of rebuilding to do, which he and the other missionaries were able to help with for several weeks. After the cyclone all the missionaries that were serving on the island of Tanna were brought back to Efate but that caused a lack of housing for the missionaries so it was decided that most of the missionaries that were due to go home within the next few months would be reassigned to missions in their home countries. Caleb was reassigned to finish the last three months of his mission in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission. It was heartbreaking for him to abruptly have to leave Vanuatu and the people he had grown to love so much, especially at such a devastating time for them but he ended up enjoying his experience in Hawaii where he actually served in a couple of Samoan wards in the Honolulu area. At the end of July, Don and Nancy took him back to Vanuatu VIA Fiji for our last “post mission” trip. We’ve loved visiting all of our boys’ missions but we would have to say that this was by far the most eye opening, adventurous one of all! We fell in love with the beautiful and sweet people and their amazing hospitality.   For a few days we even stayed in an authentic village with Caleb’s Ni-Van (native people of Vanuatu) “family” on the island of Malakula. We also visited the islands of Santo, Tanna and the main island of Efate. While on Tanna we got to be up close and personal with an erupting volcano, Mt. Yasir!  We could see some of the damage from the cyclone but for the most part they had recovered and rebuilt by the time we went which was only a little over four months later. However, they have been in a drought ever since the cyclone and can still use prayers! Caleb is now living in Provo, Utah and working at Frontier Financial and is recently engaged to Mollie McCurdy, a darling girl who he has known since junior high. Mollie is attending BYU and majoring in Communications Disorders. We are all looking forward to their wedding in May!

Dalton continues to work full time at Pay Pal and attends school full time at Chandler Gilbert Community College and Rio Salado College. He will be transferring to Arizona State University next fall to major in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. He loves the young single adult ward he attends and keeps busy with his calling in the Elders Quorum. He went to Victoria and Vancouver, Canada in June for one of his mission companion’s wedding and loved it there.  He joined the East Valley Millennial Choir Organization because he said he missed singing in a choir. They put on an amazing concert at the beginning of December. We love having Dalton living at home with us although he isn’t home a lot!

Landon and Ashlin blessed us with a new granddaughter, Dora Capri (bottom right), in May, who has delighted us all. We surprised Caleb with her at the airport when he returned home from his mission. He knew that he would be getting to meet his other two nieces who were born while he was gone but we never even told him that Ashlin was pregnant or that Dora was born six weeks before he came home!   Landon and Ashlin live in a condo in another ward in our stake with Dora’s feline siblings, Ruben and Maple. Dora loves her kitties! Ashlin’s dad opened a new veterinarian hospital and Pet Depot in October at which time Landon quit his job at Pay Pal and is now employed in the family business. This will be great training, as he will be applying to vet school in the near future. He just finished another semester at Arizona State University. Ashlin enjoys being a stay at home mom and is also fortunate to be able to work from home for Fast Track Legal. She is the oldest of six children, and her youngest sibling is only six, so she is a natural at being a mom to little Dora.  Landon serves in the Young Men organization and Ashlin serves in Primary.

Zach and Tara keep busy with their little family. Porter (top left) is three and goes to pre-school two times a week. He loves robots and garbage trucks. Piper (top right) will be two in March and enjoys being entertained by Porter and loves to line up her toys. Zach continues to work as an engineer at Burns and McDonnell in Phoenix. He travels quite often to California on business. He took the GMAT this year and is now starting the application process for graduate school. So who knows where they will be this time next year. Zach ran the Phoenix half marathon in February. Zach enjoys his calling in the Young Men’s organization and Tara is an Activity Days leader and was also involved with their stake’s Young Women’s Camp last summer. Tara is a fun stay at home mom. She also teaches voice lessons and enjoys the world of mommy blogging!

Jordan and Casey are also busy with work and being parents to Lindy (bottom left), who will be two in April. Jordan’s new schedule at GoDaddy also allowed him to be a part time swim coach at Gilbert Classical Academy in the fall, which he really enjoys. Casey continues to cut hair at Blossom Salon and Boutique and is the sweetest mom to Lindy. Jordan is a ward missionary and Casey has recently been called to serve in the Relief Society. In July, when we were gathered at the house on Caleb’s homecoming weekend, Jordan, Casey and Lindy came into the house and Lindy handed Nana a paper which was actually an ultrasound picture of her sibling due to be born in January! They later found out that it will be a little sister for Lindy! We are all so excited for her arrival at the beginning of 2016!

Don and Nancy love being grandparents and almost empty nesters!! Don has worked for Wells Fargo for almost 33 years now of which we are very grateful. He didn’t have to travel on business as much this year as he has in the past. He did travel to Charlotte, NC and while there also visited a facility in Columbia, SC where he was able to visit Nancy’s niece. Nancy did get to go to San Francisco with him in July on one of his few trips there. Don and the boys are Arizona Diamondback fans and we all enjoyed another year of taking turns getting to go to their home games a couple times a week.   Both Don and Nancy had a few health “events” this past year. Don had his gall bladder removed about a year ago and Nancy recently had her thyroid removed. We can’t complain, though, because we have both enjoyed over 50 years of life without having to be on any medication. Now we are getting used to our new normal of getting old, dang it!  We both work out at a local gym four to five times a week. Hopefully the upcoming nuptials of Caleb and Mollie in May, will be incentive for us to get in shape! Due to our almost three week trip to Vanuatu and Nancy’s surgery, she quit her volunteer temple shift in the baptistry, which she had done for over five years. She misses it but still enjoys attending the temple once a week and hopes to be a temple worker again in the future. We enjoyed having extended family visit when Caleb returned from his mission and also went on several road trips to Utah to visit Don’s parents and brother in St. George, Don’s sister in West Jordan, Nancy’s Dad in Lehi and Caleb in Provo. Don keeps really busy with his calling as the stake executive secretary. Nancy was released a year ago after serving three years in the Relief Society. She was then called as the ward camp director and had a fun time with the young women in our ward in early June at a three day “glamping” retreat. She was recently called to assist with our stake’s girls camp next summer and will also be teaching the eight and nine year olds in Primary starting next year. Don and Nancy are on Facebook but are only “friends” with family members and currently serving missionaries. We are also on Instagram (herdofbroughalo), though, and our account is private but if any of you request to follow us we will accept. However, you need to be warned that Nancy is known to severely “overpost” especially when we go on a trip. Good friends have even unfollowed us because of this!

We are so grateful for our associations with all of you. We are especially grateful for this time of year as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

In April of 2013 our son, Caleb, opened his mission call to serve a two year mission for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was called to serve in the Vanuatu Port Vila Mission. When he read where he was going most of us said, “Where’s that?” However, there were a few people that were somewhat familiar with it. Landon had heard of it from serving in Australia, where a lot of the missionaries that served in his mission were from various islands in the South Pacific, including Vanuatu. Zach had heard of it because he had a friend that had served in the Fiji Suva Mission years ago at which time Vanuatu was a part of that mission and his friend had spent his whole mission serving in Vanuatu. (Apparently, less than a year before Caleb received his call, Vanuatu was moved out of the Fiji Suva Mission and was made its own mission.) Our neighbor informed us that there was a recent episode of House Hunters International about a family that was relocating from Brisbane, Australia to Vanuatu and there were several people who remembered that the 9th Season of Survivor was filmed in Vanuatu.

Other than that, the rest of us had never heard of it. So, of course we started looking up information online about Vanuatu. Here is a little bit of what we found in our search: Vanuatu is an island nation in the Oceanic South Pacific. It is located east of the northeast coast of Australia and west of Fiji.  Included in Caleb’s mission boundaries are the Solomon Islands which are northwest of Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the southwest. Vanuatu is part of Melanesia.

Caleb has served in the main city of Port Vila on the island of Efate, several areas on the island of Tanna and several areas on the island of Malakula.  On some of the islands, including the island of Tanna, are active volcanos which Caleb felt erupt on a regular basis.

Caleb was called to be English speaking but was informed that he would be learning a native language, Bislama, once he got to Vanuatu. It is an interesting “pidgin” English language and Caleb speaks it fluently and has also picked up some other island dialects as well. The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ,  has been translated into Bislama.

For this year’s ornament I wanted to represent the Vanuatu flag in the design because I really like the description of what the colors and emblems on the flag symbolize: The black represents the Melanesian people that make up the majority of Vanuatu’s population. The red represents the country’s unity through blood. Green represents the land and its agriculture. The yellow Y-shape represents the light of the gospel going through the pattern of the islands in the South Pacific (approximately 83% of the people profess Christianity). The yellow emblem in the black is a boar’s tusk – the symbol of prosperity worn as a pendant on the islands – along with two leaves of the local namele fern. The leaves are supposed to be a token of peace and their 39 fronds represent the 39 members of the Parliament of Vanuatu.

Brough Family Update 2014

Merry Christmas! We enjoy the cards, photos and letters we receive from you this time of year. Here is a recap of what has gone on in our family this past year:

Don and Nancy started out this year having the opportunity to serve as ushers during the open house for the new Gilbert Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   This was such a great opportunity to invite those not of our faith to see the inside of one of our beautiful temples. In addition to a weekly shift as ushers we went through the tour several times with different friends and neighbors. It was dedicated in March and it is such a blessing to have this beautiful temple in our own town in which to worship.

Jordan and Casey were blessed with the birth of baby Lindy Nicole on April 10^th! She is such a beautiful and sweet little girl and has truly healed our hearts since the loss of Elliot last year. Jordan changed jobs and is now working at Go Daddy and really enjoys it.  He is a huge ASU fan and has season football tickets and loves going to the games even when it is over 100 degrees outside.  Casey continues to cut hair several days a week at Blossom Salon and Boutique in Mesa, has a jewelry business called “A Little Bit of Princess” (www.alittlebitofprincess.com) and is the sweetest mom to little Lindy. They recently bought their first home about eight miles from us and have been busy getting settled in and seem to like their new ward.

Zach and Tara welcomed little Piper Amanda to their family on March 7^th! She is a little brunette beauty. Porter turned two in February and continues to delight us all.  Zach continues to work as an engineer at Burns and McDonnell. He has traveled quite a bit on business to California and had a trip recently to Wisconsin as well. He just ran the Gilbert Days 5K in November and is training for a half marathon in February. Tara is busy being the mom of two and does such a great job. She has a business making videos called “Shorts for Life” (www.shortsforlife.wordpress.com) and also teaches voice lessons in her home. Zach is serving with the Young Men of their ward and Tara is an Activity Day leader.

Landon and Ashlin were married in the new Gilbert Temple on May 16^th and we are so grateful to have another beautiful daughter in law join our family!  It was so nice to have lots of extended family in town for the wedding and while here they were also able to attend the baby blessings of Piper and Lindy. Landon is finishing up his classes at Chandler Gilbert Community College and will begin classes at Arizona State University in January. He is majoring in applied biological sciences (pre-veterinary medicine). He also works full time at Pay Pal. He has been working out with a trainer and is planning on doing a mini triathlon in the new year. Ashlin is working at Zerorez, where Jordan used to work. They are busy newlyweds and the proud parents of two kitties (our grandkitties?), Maple and Ruben. They’ve enjoyed serving as ward missionaries in their ward.

Dalton returned home from his mission in the Australia Adelaide Mission in March and then a week later Don and Nancy flew back with him for his post mission trip. It was so great to be able to see the areas that he served in and meet the people that meant so much to him on his mission. We got to see the Adelaide area, Alice Springs (with a day trip to Uluru) and Darwin. On the way to Adelaide we stayed in Sydney for a day so Dalton could see some of Landon’s mission and it just so happened that when we were there we were able to go to the season opening game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the LA Dodgers at the Sydney Cricket Field.  Dalton is working full time at Pay Pal and attends Chandler Gilbert Community College. He enjoys the YSA (Young Single Adult) ward and stake he belongs to and serves in the elders quorum.

Caleb loves serving in the Vanuatu Port Vila Mission. After serving on the islands of Tanna and Malekula for most of the year he is back in the main city of Port Vila. He was able to wear sandals (even flip flops sometimes) when he was in the outer islands but now that he is back in the “big city” he has to wear his dress shoes again. We also had to send him some new white shirts because his were all yellow from having to wash them by hand. He loves the people of Vanuatu so much and loves sharing the gospel message with them and has been fortunate to see them accept it. We have really noticed through his emails a big change in Caleb. We miss him so much but are so grateful he is having this wonderful experience. We are still looking forward to June 30, 2015 for his return, though!!

Don continues to work for Wells Fargo Bank of which we are so grateful. He has traveled quite a bit this year for work and Nancy got to go with him on several of his trips to San Francisco. On one of his trips to Charlotte, NC he also visited a facility in Columbia, SC and was able to visit our niece, Katie. He’s also traveled to Birmingham, AL and Boise, ID. Don has always loved to read but this year he has started reading a lot of books electronically. He also enjoys going to Diamondback games even though they didn’t do so great this year. He is enjoying serving in the High Priest Group in our ward. We are so grateful for Don and the great husband, dad and papa he is!

Nancy loves volunteering in the baptistry of the Gilbert Temple on Tuesdays, traveling with Don on business (and also pleasure) trips and stays busy with her calling in the Relief Society (women’s auxiliary).  She made some baby quilts for the new granddaughters and has discovered that she really enjoys piecing quilts. Lately she has been busy making ornaments to represent Caleb’s mission.   In September she went on a quick trip with a dear friend to St. George, UT to see the plays at Tuacahn as well as a “girls” trip to Chicago with some of her sisters in law and nieces. She (Nana) has been watching Lindy on Mondays for a few months to “pay it forward” for Don’s mom watching Jordan when he was a baby!

As mentioned earlier we were blessed to have extended family here for the wedding weekend in May as well as some family that came in March for Dalton’s return home from his mission. We were also so happy to have a visit from Don’s sister in September for a few days.

Don and Nancy also went to visit Nancy’s dad in June while Don worked at a bank facility in Salt Lake City for a week. He turned 86 in September and then a few weeks later had open heart surgery in October.   Nancy is grateful that she was able to visit him for a few days in November.  It makes her sad that he lives so far away but she is grateful that she got to spend some time talking to him when there and expressing her love and gratitude to him for the loving way in which he and her mom raised her and her brothers. She is blessed to have had parents who loved each other and made sure that we kids knew they loved us. And that they made it possible for us to learn about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

In October Don and Nancy went on a trip to visit Nancy’s brother and nephew in the Pittsburgh area as well as some of Nancy’s and Don’s family in Ohio. While back east they also went to Niagara Falls and visited the LDS church historic sights in the Palmyra, NY area. It was such a blessing to feel the spirit as we sat in the Sacred Grove where the simple ernest prayer of a young farm boy was answered and the restoration of the gospel began.

When we returned from that trip we were able to attend the open house and dedication of yet another beautiful temple in Phoenix. We are so blessed to have so many temples in our midst!

Don’s parents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in November at a Thanksgiving gathering in St. George, UT.   Most everyone was able to make it and it was great being together to honor this wonderful couple.  One of Don’s sisters and niece asked Tara to put together a video which we surprised them with at the gathering.  She did an awesome job!

We are so grateful for all of you and wish you all a “Hapi Krismas” and all the best in the coming year!

The Brough Family (brough7@q.com)

Giving Tree 2014