Merry Christmas to you all! We hope you are enjoying the season and had a great Thanksgiving. We are on our way home from a fun Thanksgiving weekend in St. George with our extended Brough family and thought this would be a good time to knock out this update of what has been going on with our family this year and we look forward to hearing what has been going on with all of you!

Caleb and Mollie got married in May in the Gilbert Temple and had a beautiful reception in Mollie’s parents’ gorgeous backyard. We are so excited to have Mollie in our family. We have loved her for years and always hoped for this! After a cruise to Baja California for their honeymoon they went back to Provo for work and school. Caleb was working for Frontier Communications and Mollie is continuing her education majoring in Communication Disorders at Brigham Young University and will be graduating this coming spring. Shortly after they returned to Provo Caleb got a new job at Wells Fargo Bank as a personal banker at the branch in the BYU Bookstore. This works out perfectly for them because they can ride to campus together everyday. Caleb has also started online classes at Rio Salado. Caleb and Mollie are learning how to research family history since they have been called to help other people in their ward in researching theirs!

Dalton continues to work at Pay Pal while attending Chandler Gilbert Community College. In December he completed his Associates of Arts Degree. He will be transferring to Arizona State University in the fall majoring in Human Resources. In between school and work Dalton found some time to travel.   In April he went to New York City with one of his best friends. While there he saw Hamilton with the original cast. He recently went to Hawaii where he was able to spend some time with one of his former mission companions. While there they did many hikes and also a cageless shark dive! Dalton loves his Young Single Adult ward and the activities it provides including a hike to Havasupai in the Grand Canyon in May. After serving in the elders quorum for two years he is now serving as a Gospel Doctrine teacher which he really enjoys.

Landon and Ashlin live nearby in another ward in our stake. Landon is finishing up his undergraduate degree with a B.S. in Applied Biological Sciences at Arizona State University and will be graduating in the spring. He has been accepted to vet school at Washington State University and Oregon State University and will be visiting both schools in early 2017 before making his decision. At any rate they will be going to vet school next fall! We will certainly miss them but are so excited that something he has worked so hard for is coming to fruition.   Landon also works at his father in law’s vet clinic and pet store, Market Street Pet Depot.   Ashlin works from home at Info Track Services and also has an Etsy shop called Popsicle Paint where she sells her darling handpainted watercolor products. But she is mainly a devoted mom to our aDORAble Dora (1), who loves her kitties, Ruben and Maple, and will be a big sister to a baby brother this coming May! Landon serves with the Young Men in their ward and Ashlin teaches the 11 and 12 year olds in Primary.

Zach and Tara moved to Provo in August. Zach was accepted to the MBA program at Brigham Young University so he left his job at Burns and McDonnell and they sold their home in Gilbert. We were sad to see them go but now that we have two of our kids in Provo we have more reasons to go visit! And we have quite a few times this year!  They live in a cute neighborhood with lots of other MBA students. The program keeps Zach busy not just with classes but also with efforts to secure an internship for next summer. He has traveled to New Orleans and Chicago for job fairs and interviews. Meanwhile, Tara is involved with the MBA Spouse Association along with posting videos every weekday on her YouTube channel, “Broughington”. One of her videos has received over a million views and another video at almost a million. She is such a fun mom to Porter (4) and Piper (2) who are often featured in her videos and are the cutest little siblings. And they will be getting a little brother soon because Tara is due in January with baby number three! Zach and Tara teach the 15/16 year olds in Sunday School.

Jordan and Casey will be our only married kids that haven’t deserted us come August! Jordan is still working for GoDaddy and loves his job. In the fall he also coached the girls swim team at Gilbert Classical Academy. Casey works a couple days a week at Blossom Salon and Boutique as a hair stylist and she has also started a new business called AZ Bridal Hair. Lindy (2) got a little sister in January when Jade was born! They are darling little girls and we are so glad that they will be sticking around because they will be our only nearby grandkids once Landon and Ashlin move. Jordan is a ward missionary and Casey serves in the Relief Society presidency.

Don and Nancy are just growing old together now that everyone has flown the coop except Dalton and even though he still lives at home he isn’t home all that much.   Don continues to work hard for us at Wells Fargo Bank (for almost 34 years now). Even though the bank has gone through a rough patch this year and has had a lot of bad publicity they have a long history of being a great company and of service in the community. We are proud to be associated with Wells Fargo! He has traveled a little bit on business this year to Portland and Salem, OR – Nashville, TN – Birmingham, AL – Charlotte, NC and San Francisco, CA twice.   Nancy was able to go with him on all of them except Oregon. While on the Charlotte trip they stayed in the south for a weekend and went to Columbia and Charleston, SC where Nancy got to wax nostalgic since she lived in the Charleston area (Mt. Pleasant) while her dad taught at the Citadel. Don ran in three 5K races this year, one in Chandler with Zach (Ostrich Festival) and two in West Jordan. One was with his sister and brother in law to benefit a charity for a friend of theirs whose granddaughter has a brain tumor. The other one was to benefit a non-profit that his sister started called Joyful Welcome which provides layettes for babies in need. There was a lot of Brough extended family participation in this one including Caleb and his whole team from the Wells Fargo BYU Bookstore Branch. Nancy walked in the two West Jordan ones and is a little bit bitter that her running days are most likely over. Don and the rest of us enjoyed going to Diamondback games this year although they did not have a good season. Don serves as the Executive Secretary in our Stake’s presidency.

Nancy loves going to the temple every week and goes to both the Mesa and Gilbert temples alternately. She refers to herself as a” temple junkie”. On their trips this year she and Don were able to see LDS temples in Birmingham, Nashville, Columbia and went to the new Provo City Center Temple for the open house in March with Caleb and Mollie. She and one of her dearest friends went to the Houston temple while there for the Houston Quilt Festival in November. They also took a little road trip to Waco to see all the Fixer Upper craziness and it was a blast! Speaking of which, she loves HGTV and binge watching shows on Netflix and Hulu. She hosted book club a couple of times this year although she has not been a super active participant. Once again she is making a new year’s resolution to get back into it. She has loved her 9/10 year old Primary class this year and sharing her testimony of the Book of Mormon with them. Most of them memorized Moroni 10:4 and 5, which tells us how we can gain our own testimony of the book. She will miss her class and being in Primary as she has a new calling in the Young Women’s organization which she is looking forward to.

As a family we went to our favorite beach town of Hermosa Beach, CA in August for several days and stayed in the newly renovated Hotel Hermosa, our digs when we are there. In addition to our other previously mentioned jaunts to Utah we also helped Caleb and Mollie move into their newlywed apartment in June. In July we went to St. George for the return of one nephew from his mission to Mexico, the departure of his brother to his mission in California and their youngest brother’s ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood. Then most recently to St. George again for the above mentioned Thanksgiving weekend where a bunch of us hiked Angel’s Landing in Zion’s National Park on Thanksgiving day followed by a quick amateur photo shoot in St. George for the picture on our card taken with Dalton’s iPhone 7. On the day after Thanksgiving we had our Brough extended family dinner at the historical St. George Social Hall. Almost everyone was able to attend.

We were blessed to have Don’s parents come visit us in January to celebrate his dad’s 81^st birthday complete with a cake with 81 candles that he blew out with no problem! Lighting them was a little tricky though! Several extended family members were able to join us for Caleb and Mollie’s wedding festivities and just recently we were so excited to get to have a visit from one of Don’s darling nieces for the weekend. Don’s parents are doing well and looking forward to his sister moving nearby them in January. They have been fortunate to also have his younger brother living nearby as well. Nancy’s dad, who is 88 years old is now in the VA Nursing Facility in Payson, UT due to some dementia and some recent falls. His wife has taken very good care of him for a long time but he along with the rest of us realize this is the best thing for him. It’s been hard for Nancy living so far away and she has always dreaded this day when they moved from Arizona years ago. Don and Nancy are planning a visit in January and we are glad that Zach and Caleb and their families at least live nearby.

We love this time of year as we celebrate the birth of our Savior. We have enjoyed our church’s Christmas campaign this year, “Light the World” and how it has helped us to remember each day in December the ways in which we can be a light in this world for good. We hope we can do these things not just at Christmas but always. We appreciate your love and friendship, hope you are enjoying the holidays and wish you a very happy 2017!

Love,

The Broughs

brough7@q.com

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