the best dang farewell talk

Marcus' farewell talk totally rocked. He was constantly shifting between NT and BOM scriptures and linking them together so well. He is ridiculously ready to go. My favorite part of his talk:

My parents have been living examples of faith. And not just faith in the Lord. They showed incredible faith in me, even when I didn't have much in myself. Back when I was still thinking about whether or not I would serve a mission, one day I was having car trouble. I was talking to my dad about it. "Marcus," he said, "it's time for you to stop worrying about things with four wheels and start worrying about things with two." I took his advice and got a motorcycle.

He may have taken an extra year, but now his time is here. Even if Marcus questioned whether or not he'd go, none of the rest of us did. We knew him too well -- knew who he was past the fog of Amanda.


So, the talk was incredible. Showing off Betsy was great, too -- and so was being off duty while various friends, neighbors, and relatives all took their turns holding her. Kate especially loves Betsy. She can't get enough of her. And Marcus has been soaking in all the time with her he can. It makes me so happy to see him enjoying her -- and so sad to think of how much we'll miss him. Especially that Tanamo.

We'll take him to the Empty Sea tomorrow and say goodbye. I'm glad he's going, but saying goodbye still (always) bites.

Who Let the Dogs Out?

So, it's the weekend before Marcus' farewell. It's a delicious, summery Saturday night, and the Costantino fam decides to go see a flick or two at the drive-in. Dad is grilling hot dogs to take, Marcus is playing with the babe, and Mickelle is whining that both films are totally guy movies that she's not too interested in. (The Hulk?!? Seriously.)

So, Mom looks out the sliding glass doors and mentions someone is having a backyard fire. Actually, it looks a little big. Yeah, that's a bit of smoke. So she calls Dad, Scott, and Chase and sends them over to check it out. Before they've even made it out the door it is totally obvious that something not good is going on. And it's going on just across the street.

Nobody is home at this hot, happening house. Old Bro. Yorgousen has called 9-1-1, so he and Dad and Chase start to man a hose or two. Scott checks out the home's windows and sees two dogs frantically yapping through one of them. So he jams the windows open and the first dog comes sailing out. The second needed a practice jump or two, but he showed marvelous persistence when it came to not dying. And both of them ran far, far away as soon as they were out, not returning for a full hour.

I watched from a short distance, viewing the side of their house opposite to the fire. Scott says the flames were 12 - 14 feet high, but all I saw was the billowing smoke and the fire on the eves of the roof. By the time Betsy and I made it to the front of the house, the fire was mostly put out. And even when I did go, the smoke was bad enough that I took her back home instantly.


It took the firetruck 17 minutes to get there. By the time they did, the outside deck, kitchen and living room were both totally lost along with much of the roof. The rest of the house sustained severe water damage.

Quite an adventurous evening, no?

Whaddaya think, Missy?

I took photos for Missy yesterday and, since photo quality is lost through e-mails, I thought I'd post them here for her to see.

Name That Vacation Spot...