News from Murdock land

Dear Sister Kennedy,

The biggest thing for us this week was Justin getting a cold at work and having to stay home for two days, and then me catching it from him and also missing two days of work.  Stupid colds.  I also went to a Relief Society exercise thing at the church on Wednesday.  I could definitely tell it's been a long time since I did any real dancing.  I'm gonna have to step it up on the Zumba exercise game we got.  

We went to see the new Avengers movie on Saturday with Hilary and Max.  BTW, definitely on your "must watch" list when you get home.  Loved it!  But I can't give you any spoilers, so you'll just have to wait and see it later.

I told you about Justin's graduation during our Mother's Day phone call.  (For Grandma and Auntie Karla, the graduation ceremony for Justin's masters degree was on May 9.  Everything was great until the morning of graduation when we realized that we had forgotten his robe in Utah.  And we were in Idaho.  We had his cap, tassel, and hood, but not the robe.  So we started frantically making phone calls, and he ended up walking in his robe from BYU-Idaho.  The audience was so far away from the podium, though, that you couldn't even tell he was wearing the wrong style of robe, so it all worked out.)

Not sure I told you about his sister Shelby's homecoming, so if I did, sorry.  You're gonna hear it again.  Poor thing was so jet-lagged after spending 22 hours on airplanes and in various airports that we didn't talk much with her the night she got home.  The next day, we took her and Mayli into Idaho Falls to get Shelby "normalized" and de-missionary her.  So of course, the first place we go is Deseret Book (she needed new garments).  Shelby had the hardest time with not having a set schedule.  She kept asking what time we needed to be someplace or how long we had to get whatever-it-was done.  We took her to the mall and just wandered around for a while, getting her used to being in America again and not having a specific reason for being somewhere.  On the way back to the Murdocks' house that night, we played the "Frozen" soundtrack for her, and then watched it after dinner.  Apparently, that movie is even popular in the Philippines.  Shelby said she once saw a kid sitting in their fridge singing "Let It Go" and pretending to be Elsa.  This mental image is hilarious to me.  She was telling us about all the souvenirs she brought back, including this full set of real pearl jewelry she bought (necklace, earrings, bracelet, and ring) for about $34 American.  Dang!  A single pearl pendant will cost you triple that here, or more.  Crazy.  One of the best parts, though, was the candy she brought back.  Apparently, corn is considered a desert in the Philippines, and they have corn-flavored candy (It really tastes like corn-on-the-cob.  It was kind of weird.)  They also have cheese-flavored candy.  And their chocolate isn't as sweet as chocolate here.  Shelby brought back lots of the corn candy so people could try it, and there were very mixed reactions.  We got some good laughs out of that.  :)

Let's see, we went to Sarah Stewart's wedding at the beginning of the month.  There were problems with the mail, so we never got the paper announcement.  Kathy just emailed it to me, instead.  We spent the evening hanging out with Jason, Mary, mom and dad, and some people from the ward in California.  

I think those are the main points.  I'll end this now before it becomes a general epistle.  Love you, little sister.  Hugs and lots of love!

Symone

P.S. Here's a picture of Justin and Dr. Attebery, his academic adviser.  This is the guy who helped him with his thesis and made sure Justin got to graduate.