Where to begin?

I feel like we have been running a race for the last month or so and we have reached the "finish line."  Yesterday we dropped off Brandon at the MTC in Provo, Utah.  He will be there for 12 weeks learning Russian before leaving to Donestsk, Ukraine.  It was very happy/sad, and ultimately wonderful.  I'll have to elaborate later.

It has been an amazing month.  It has been an exhausting and busy month.  The emotional rollercoaster we have been on makes me dizzy. 

I seriously don't remember sitting down at all during several of the days last weekend as we prepared for Brandon's farewell, open house, and enjoyed having both sets of grandparents in town.

Today I feel drained.  Kind of empty.  I have no will to get anything productive done right now.  I figure that we have been so productive over the last month that we deserve a lazy day. So I wore my pjs until noon, watched two hours of home decorating shows on TV, and ate most of a pound of fudge (which we bought from the BYU Bookstore yesterday.) Joseph played video games for two hours before I shooed him outside to play.

I have a lot of updating to do and lots of pictures to post in order to document our lives. In the words of Scarlet O'Hara, "I'll think about it tomorrow". Tomorrow is a new day.  I will start a new list (now that we crossed everything off the list "Preparing Brandon for a mission.") Soon, maybe starting tomorrow, I will begin to address all the things I have put off.  Bailey said recently that she wanted to make me a Tshirt which read "After Brandon is On His Mission," since that has been my answer to everything for the last few months.  I am pretty sure that tomorrow I will rescind Joseph's unprecedented unlimited video game time (I'm thinking that he has probably played enough Lego Batman to last him the rest of his life.)  The video game controllers might just get accidentally lost, starting tomorrow.  Tomorrow I will set new goals, make a new to-do list, and refocus my attention.

If any friends or family members want to write Brandon while he is at the MTC (until the first part of August), the address is:

Elder Brandon Scott Porter
MTC Mailbox # 101
UKR-DON 0803
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

Another great way to write him is on dearelder.com.  You will need to create a free account and enter Brandon's MTC mailbox # and mission name.  Then you can very easily write him a letter anytime.  The dearelder.com people print out the letters every day at noon and deliver them right to the MTC (the service is free).  So, although the missionaries can only receive and send email to family on preparation day, they can receive and enjoy "dearelder" letters any day of the week.  He would love to hear from you!