Congratulations to Russ & Tommi...and Gracie! That is absolutely wonderful!

We've had an eventful month in the Thomas household. After Tyler's gradution, I took Tyler Whitney and Dallin down to the Philippines to visit my folks (serving as mission president in Baguio). It was a great experience -- we were able to participate in the Zone Leader conference and Tyler even went tracting and teaching with the elders.

My favorite part (and I think the kids too) was seeing my dad and mom after a 2 year absence.

My folks are doing a wonderful job with the missionaries and the saints in the Philippines but I was amazed with the magnitude of the responsibilities in such a wild culture. Traffic laws (or lack thereof) are amazing. The poverty is very high but the faithful saints are obviously blessed.

Dallin was able to complete his Eagle scout project by delivering the teaching kits he made for the Filipino primary children -- here he is giving one to a wonderful primary president:

The children there have so few teaching aids that we often have here in the states. I'm sure the children will be very blessed because of Dallin's efforts.

I wished we could have taken the whole family but it was just too expensive. While we were gone, Nancy remained behind with the younger kids...good thing because Clayton about cut off his finger, the vacuum died and the refrigerator went out. :-( Fortunately, all are fixed (or are healing) and we're doing well.

Tyler's working hard doing landscaping as well as working in a dental office and at a fast food restaurant to earn money for his mission. Somehow he still has time to keep up a social life. Whitney too has a job (her first one!) working at Dairy Queen -- that's a good thing too to slow down her social life. ;-) All the rest the crew is doing well too. Dallin and Clayton enjoyed scout camp in Wyoming and Tanner just finished his basketball camp. Aaron now has a new superhero. He's moved from dressing as Spiderman to Batman! Just loves wearing the batman cape from grandma! We had to laugh the other day when he drew a picture of batman with all these explosion signs that said, "Dam!" "Dam!" "Dam!" Nancy was concerned until she realized he meant to write "Bam!" "Bam!" " Bam!" -- he was only off by one letter! Oh to be 5 again.

We hope you all are well and are looking forward to a great 4th of July next week.

Love,
Jeff & the Colorado crew