Welcome to the Hanners Family Times! I have decided to try my hand at a blog in place of the website I had been using. Hopefully this will allow me to post pictures and updates more regularly, and maybe we will even see some entries from Morgan in Iraq.

We have been having a wonderful summer so far. Shortly after Morgan went back to Iraq after our wonderful two weeks together, Braden, Lydia and I went to spend the month of June in Maryland with our family there. We had fun going to the beach in Ocean City, fishing, spending the day at the Children's Museum in Baltimore, and just being with family.



As soon as we returned, I was busy with my calling at church. I am president of the Young Women organization, for girls 12 to 18. They had Girls' Camp for a week, and I was able to spend a couple of days with them there. Then I chaperoned Youth Conference for boys and girls ages 14 to 18 the next weekend. We had a wonderful time. I even completed a ropes course at the camp we were at!



Braden started swimming lessons, and is really good. He and Lydia have also been involved with the Summer Reading Program at the Library again this year.



This past week, my family came to visit from St. George, UT. We hadn't seen them in such a long time, and I was amazed at how my sisters and brother had grown. The kids are having a wonderful time playing with their aunts and uncle, and just love their grandparents. Unfortunately, Braden has been really sick most of this week, so we haven't been able to get out much. But he felt better yesterday, and we went on a toy train ride, saw "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and had a barbeque and went sledding at White Sands National Monument.

Morgan is keeping busy, and seems to be doing well. We are looking forward to his safe return sometime in November. We don't have any definite dates yet, but we probably won't until right before he returns. But we are in the home stretch, and can't wait to be a family again.