From Mr. Bentley

September 29^th, 2013

My dearest brother,

This is Jake. I am dictating while Shayla types this week just to shake things up.

I just want to let you know how awesome we all think you are. Today Shayla had a great idea and she proposed it to mom and she also liked it – we think it would be a lot of fun to have all 4 of your current brothers to sing a quartet when you get home. Shayla is really pushing for “Come Thou Fount” but Kayden had the idea to ask you if you had any particular song that you would want us to sing at your homecoming talk. Kayden is leaning toward a missionary song and I am leaning toward a Christmas song but I really think it would be best if you told us what song or, at least, what genre to sing.

School is coming along for both me and Shayla. Hopefully we will both be done next spring. In my case I will really need to get my act together to make that a reality, otherwise it will be later on in the year. Shayla sounds like she is really building some good report with her professors. She fixes documents and prepares official looking stuff and her professors really value her opinion. That plus the previous year where she showed them how dedicated she is with her previous work will really put her in a good position for a career.

The kids are a lot of fun. Nathan is saying more and more stuff and he is a really good kid unless we get him with Kiya. Abrielle is saying many things that make me just wonder how much intelligence really is in behind those grey, beautiful eyes. She seems very observant of the world around her and curious about things.

Our anniversary is next weekend but with conference and a baptism in our ward (for which I will be presiding) we decided to celebrate this weekend. We pawned off our kids on my family and we spotted a house not too far from theirs that is for sale. It is a little bit bigger than ours and is a cute house. It was foreclosed on and so we just kind of put our fishing line in the water to see how possible it would be to get into a slightly nicer house. It may not happen but it doesn’t hurt to just see if it is a possibility. It would put us just over a mile away from your parents and 4 houses away from my parents.

Don’t get trunky because your mom and oldest sister are doing plenty of that for you. You won’t be missing any trunkiness in your existence if you, personally, don’t get trunky. Can’t wait to see you.

Love, Jake (and Shayla)

These kids love the temple!

We are watching our nieces today and overnight. Getting to church with 4 kids was quite the adventure but we managed it! (barely...)