Elder Devin Durtschi

Devin is on his way! He entered the Provo MTC on June 17th. It was quite the day for us as our first missionary went out. Lots of emotions. This is a big corner for our family. We miss him tons but when it comes down to it, we wouldn't want him anywhere else or doing anything else with his life right now. We are looking forward to his first letter....which better come soon, be long, and filled with details for his mother....and we will keep family and friends updated on him. He will be at the Provo MTC until July 7th, then on to Georgia!

His mailing address at the MTC is:

Elder Devin Durtschi

MTC Mailbox #190-0707

Georgia Macon Mission

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604-1793

Drop him a letter. He'd love it!

Here's some pictures from the day:

Devin's looks like a missionary!

I have a life-size cut out of Edward from the Twilight movie. We play jokes on each other with him from time to time...basically to startle each other. So Camille and I couldn't resist making him into a companion for Devin the night before Dev left by leaving Edward in the dark by Dev's bedroom door. We got him good! Unfortunately, Janell didn't receive the text message that warned her Edward was lurking in the hall that night and we inadvertantly got her too.

Grandma Hanson and Uncle Cliff Hanson with the family before we drove Devin to the MTC in Provo.

Grandma & Devin



The Crew

The Crew as we know (and love) them.

One more hug

Garren, Barb, Devin
June 17, 2009

Garren celebrated his 48th birthday by taking his first missionary to the MTC.
What a day!

Family Reunion

Ty, Ry, and Elise with a water balloon launcher.

Ryan and Grandma
Coats in mid-June in Utah! It was a cold and rainy day, but still lots of fun!!

Vampire sighting

The girls and I had a fun, very late night with my sister at a Twilight DVD midnight release party in the Salt Lake area in March. There were only 5 locations in the nation that were getting appearances from Twilight actors at midnight release parties. Rumor had it that the Riverton Walmart would be one of the locations and Rachelle Lefevre, the actress who plays Victoria, was expected to make an appearance and sign autographs. We waited in crowds and lines for quite awhile but finally got to meet her. She's so pretty and very graciously stayed and signed thousands of autographs. It was a lot of fun!

The initial mayhem as people were waiting for "Victoria's" arrival.

There was already a line half way around the store waiting for autographs.

This crowd extended this deep around all sides of us.

Think: Day After Thanksgiving sales and multiply it by 2.

An hour or so later and we're settled in line now and waiting....and waiting...

....and amusing ourselves while we wait.

Vampire sighted

Very fun night!

Another fun video

LOVE STORY (Taylor Swift) meets VIVA LA VIDA (Coldplay) - Piano/Cello - by Jon Schmidt

Just for Fun

I recently downloaded 8 months of pictures from my camera.

Here's some of them, just for fun.

Tyler & Clark - tough guys and best buddies

Camille & Ashley - Girls that just wanna have fun!

2 Webkinz + 1 cowboy + lots of candy = Halloween '08

Naughty or Nice??

Tyler decorated his own gingerbread house birthday cake.

Elise - relieving some holiday stress.

Ryan & Elise doing Christmas baking.

Our annual Nativity play gets a little crazier each year...from Garren accidentally reading "...with Mary, his estranged wife..." to the kids' increasingly creative interpretation of the characters. If lightening strikes our house on Christmas Eve some year, you'll know why.

Christmas Eve pajamas

Temple Square

Steven ready for a school dance.

Ryan and his dump truck birthday cake. The back of the truck was loaded with cookies.

Devin's Mission Call

This morning Devin received his mission call to serve in the Georgia Macon Mission! He enters the Provo MTC on June 17th...which is Garren's birthday. We are all very happy and excited about Dev's assignment. Since he's had the opportunity to live in Virginia, he's had some experience with humidity and will be a little more familiar with the climate, scenery, etc. of that part of the country. That will be one less adjustment to make so he'll be able to hit the ground running and get to work. We joked with him that language shouldn't be a problem either since he's already familiar with "Southern." We feel like he just got handed the greatest part of the world to serve in. He's going to be awesome!

Devin with his mission call. All the post-its on the map represent guesses from friends and family of where he would be called to serve. A few people guessed Georgia in passing, but Julie Gustafson committed to Georgia and so she's the big winner! The major award has yet to be determined but she is entitled to pretty impressive bragging rights as she was debating between Tallahassee, FL and Atlanta, GA and Macon is between those. Just before Devin opened it, Janell also said Georgia. Although it was snowing, it was a great morning!