Monday, July 14, 2008

Cabo, the Freedom Festival, the Sound of Music, and Service

A lot has gone on since we last posted.

We spent the week of June 14 thru 21 in Cabo San Lucas. It was a blast!

We left the little ones at home with friends and family but took our older kids. We participated in a lot of things – beach, three swimming pools at our resort:



They had great restaurants at the resort and in town, parasailing, snorkeling, boating, big waves on the Pacific side, watching Tiger in that incredible U.S. Open and the Lakers get beat by the Celtics on the big screen in the hotel lounge, hangin’ with Aunt Andrea, swimming with the dolphins, timeshare presentations (three!), and buying stone figures, pewter, blown glass, and all sorts of trinkets. Everyone really enjoyed themselves.


The weather was perfect and the scenery was breathless. The famous Cabo Arch featured in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films is there.



Next time, though, I want to go deep-sea fishing, one thing for which Cabo is famous.

Great hospitality great people, great accommodations. It was all fantastic! I would recommend Cabo to anyone.

I golfed four times in a three week period: the Salt Lake Chamber Tournament at the Salt Lake Country Club, the DAI Tournament at Talons Cove, with the local full-time missionaries at the Old Mill (on their P-Day, of course), and at the Orrin Hatch Tournament at Wasatch. I love my job!

For the Fourth of July Trish and her friend Georgia Fairbanks attended the Freedom Festival Fireside at BYU’s Marriott Center the Sunday before the holiday. It featured Glenn Beck and Michael Ballam. She really enjoyed it. On the Fourth, and after a wonderful swim party at the Roberts’ home, Trish and I went to the Freedom Festival itself. After nearly two hours in traffic only a mile away from Cougar Stadium, we finally got in. Then, surrounded by thousands of screaming 10-year-old girls, we were witness to the phenomenon known as Miley Cyrus. I must always remember: she is a popstar, not a singer! The tribute to patriots and heroes was very nice and the fireworks were great. Blue Man Group was also good. The best moment, however, was during a live satellite feed between three Utah National Guard members stationed in Iraq and their families at the stadium. At the end, the last soldier said that he wanted to pay tribute to the fans there in Provo and then proceeded to hold up a Utah Utes basketball jersey for the camera. Priceless!

Last week we witnessed the debut of our own Lars Paulsen on the Herriman stage as Captain Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music.” And Ana Paulsen played the part of Gretl. They were both wonderful!! I still don’t get why Lars and the lead actress playing Maria never kissed on stage.



There has been a lot more we could talk about - a hike at Snowbird with Annie and Ruby, Aunt Christine’s 80th birthday party, "The Curious Savage" at Hale Theater, Peter at Scout Camp at Bear Lake Aquatics all week, our ward high priests social, the Brockbanks over for a BBQ at our house, Youth Conference this week for Parry, Peter speaking in Church yesterday, our family providing the Sacrament services at the Sunrise Assisted Living Center – but there just isn’t time. As you can see, life is busy at the Riggs household!

One thing more - we are going to incorporate a lot more service into our family schedules. So any suggestions for good family service projects wouldbe greatly appreciated.