Great Day

Today has been a great day. First - exciting news from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - our missionaries will now be able to call, text, and video chat with their families every week!! How awesome is that?!?! I heard the news first via text from my sister this morning and jumped right out of bed ready to go tell all the kids - I think it's the best news ever! How fun that we can talk to Joseph every week from now on! It's like every Wednesday is Christmas!

Two other great things - first for Hyrum: he took his drivers test again today and passed! He has wanted to get his permit since his birthday in August - but you know how life gets in the way. Corey took him out like in September or October, but Hyrum didn't pass the test. He was able to take it again right away there and just missed it by one point the second time, drat. And then schedule and life has just made it hard for us to get back out there, but today he didn't have school, so it seemed like a good day to go. I guess it was a good day for lots of other people too, cause there was a super long line at the DMV...

After we had waited for 45 minutes, we found out we didn't need to wait and could have just gone straight over to the testing place. Oh well. I guess it gave him more time to study. Peter was great and I sat and read stuff while we waited for Hyrum to take his test. 3rd time is the charm - he passed it! Let's see your victory smile, Hyrum!

And that is his proud "I did it!" victory smile. Corey said it's the worst victory smile he's ever seen. Well, these kids all do have different personalities, and Hyrum's personality is a mild one. Eth teased "Why do you look like you're depressed?" So that was one. Corey had a victory today too, cause all his hard work with Mel has paid off - because she got a victory - she was accepted to BYU!!

She was at work and got an email about receiving a scholarship. However, she hadn't checked in on her application status to see that she was accepted yet, so she was confused about what it was or what it meant. So she forwarded the scholarship email to Corey and asked him if he knew what that was about and then he logged in for her and saw she was accepted. He was able to text her and let her know she has made it to BYU!! Happy day! Corey feels a sense of relief knowing that we've finished one and now we've got another kid kinda "done". It looks like she's set to head out on her own and hopefully she'll be able to make it on her own out there in the big bad world, congrats Mel!!

- UPDATE - Hi - I'm here a few days later (2/17) updating this with the picture Mel put on her Instagram sharing the news that she's #byubound - We are all excited for her!