Milestones

CHRISTIAN

In August Christian was ordained an Elder along with 4 others in his priests quorum. All these boys are moving on to bigger and better challenges. Brady, Ben, Loren, Kyle and Christian.

Christian has moved into the Helaman dorms and is in BYU heaven. Seriously, I have never seen him so happy and excited about life. He loves the guys in his dorm, the sporting events, the cute girls, the happy atmosphere and hopefully his classes. We visited him for Labor day weekend and asked him if he needed anything from home that he had forgotten...he said, "Yes! I would love my tennis racquet, a volleyball and a football." We hope he remembers to study.

EMILY

In August Emily performed in "Broadway Revue". She sang "Vanilla Ice Cream" and in the finale she played Mary Poppins and sang "Supercalifragilistic" She was adorable.

On August 18th Emily entered the Missionary Training Center where she is preparing to serve an 18 month mission on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Her best buddy from childhood, Morgan, will also be going on a mission: leaving in October for Ecuador. We love these girls and will miss them! Can't wait to hear all about their uplifting adventures. If you want to follow Emily's mission letters, just click on her picture to the right and it will go to her mission blog.

50

In July, we celebrated Mike's 50th Birthday! Wow, what a wonderful milestone. Mike is such a wonderful husband and father and we love him so much! Looking forward to 50 more wonderful years.

BETHANY and SEAN

After a wonderful whirlwind wedding, our newlyweds are getting settled into their first apartment. They had an amazing honeymoon in Costa Rica and then went to Texas to pick up beautiful furniture provided by Sean's mom. We are excited to see what the future holds for this new family.

Wedding day!

Here are some favorite pictures from wedding day and reception day...more to come.

Reception prep

Saturday was a hot and busy day getting ready for the reception and ring ceremony that evening. Here are some fun pictures to document just some of the helpers.

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The boys had to try out the golf carts to make sure they could make it up the hill with a big load. These people movers were a real hit to get everyone from the upper or lower parking areas to the reception. Our drivers were Anthony, Ben G. and Jordan---they did a great job and always came back with a smile on their face.

LaRene was my kitchen coordinator and had everything organized and under control!

Rachel, Kennedy and Hannah used Grandma's kitchen to put together 400 yummy cream cheese and fruit tarts. Mmm, mmm, good.

In the basement kitchen, MaryLu and Kathy took care of the chocolate cups with mousse and bavarian cream filling. They turned the chocolate cups into yummy works of art!

Everyone helped! We swept, watered, put out the chairs and tables, carpets, piano, umbrellas and tents, tableclothes, centerpieces, etc. What a wonderful team of Betteridge/Bateman helpers. I love my family!

Grandma made the signs and Ben delivered them to locations leading to our home so no one would get lost.

Summertime

It has been an interesting summer. I have been consumed with wedding prep, some mission prep and more wedding prep....But the summer is passing and we have had some fun regular summer activities as well. Here are a few.....Today we spent the day in Seattle...

Monorail and the Seattle Center...

Mariners game!! We were in the very top row at Safeco field and had a great view of the field, the city and the Puget Sound. Can you see the players way down there?

GIRL's Camp at Zions camp was great. Katie was a C.I.T or Counselor in training and had a great time this year. I also went for 3 days and taught a Destiny class. I loved teaching this class. After just 3 days and two nights I came home and crashed. How do these other women leaders survive the full week??!!

Katie's skit with Andee, one of her first year girls.

Christian all packed and ready to go on his high adventure camping trip to Lake Chelan.

We are loving our new patio and how the flowers look with the new terra cotta tile....so fun to sit in the sun and relax a little each day.

In preparing for her mission, Emily went to the temple for the first time...wonderful to be with her on this special day.

Swimming at the Garlocks almost everyday has been a great diversion. Preston has learned to swim this summer....yeah!

Tacoma Stake Pioneer picnic... Preston loved the pioneer activities.

Finished

Finished product. Glad to be done. Mike and Christian did a great job masterminding the whole thing. This will be enjoyed for many many years.

Love those summer projects...

It was time to refinish the east patio. The green carpet that was put in 15 years ago for Ben and Rachel's wedding was tired, worn down and full of moss. So.... Christian tore out the carpet and we took out all the crumbled concrete and poured a new slab. Now we are laying tile. It has been exhausting and back breaking but also fun to work together. Everyone had a job: Christian mixed the concrete and cut tile, Grandma prepped each tile piece, Mike was the mastermind and he layed and cut the tile, Marie washed the tile and did the final positioning, Hannah was our official photographer and errand girl, Emily was Mike's assistant tile layer and Preston gathered spacers and washed the tile. Finished project will be posted soon.

Shout out to Hannah

Hannah had a great time Rocking with her cello for her Mark Woods concert. She sang, danced and played her cello in a most exciting way. We loved the entertaining songs---Yellow Submarine, Strings will Rock You and All Together Now.

Hannah with orchestra friends Lexi (behind), Mandy and Savannah.

When Hannah was in Kindergarten thru 3rd grade she had special tutoring to help with her reading. Now we rarely see her without a book in hand. When she was 10 she tore through the Harry Potter Books. This summer I challenged her to read the Narnia books by CS Lewis before the 3rd movie comes out in December. Within 10 days she had finished all 7 books in the series. I never thought anyone in our family would out-read Bethany but I think Hannah has done it. Way to go Miss Hannah!