We had a lot of stuff going on in April. The kids had spring break the first week, followed by Easter. The second weekend was Brad Wilcox events - one night for the young single adults (18-35) and the next night for the youth (11-18). I helped plan and advertise the YSA night, since part of my job involves that age group. I made several cookies to contribute towards dessert for both nights. I helped with clean up on both nights, picking up tiny pieces of popped balloons from the youth dance that followed the devotional. Alex and Owen put up and took down all the lights for the dance.
Brad Wilcox is a religion professor at BYU and a well-known motivational speaker for our church. He was also in the Young Men's General presidency for 2 years (2023-2025). Nathan took one of his classes last semester and loved it. I loved his messages about grace, merits, and mercy (same message both nights). He also was very personable - he greeted and talked to as many people as possible. Owen was the chorister for the youth night. After the closing song, Owen headed over to give Brother Wilcox a hug. It was the biggest bear hug I've seen. He grabbed Owen and held on tight! This was the weekend that Weston was in New Orleans, so he missed out.
We had swimming, volleyball, and track meets (later posts). I also had my first Activity Days night, which involves activities twice a month for girls 8-11 years old. I got called as an Activity Days leader in March, but I didn't have my first activity until April because of track and Spring Break. (I'm also still a youth Sunday School teacher - doubling up on callings.) It was a little bit of a rough introduction. I thought our activity was already planned and organized - a pinewood derby. They had made cars at a previous activity. I checked in with the other girl's activity day leader the day before the pinewood derby to see if there was anything I could help with. She said, "I'm not in charge of it. Check with the Primary president." When I did that, I got the same response, except it was "I'm not in charge of it. Check with the other activity days leaders." There are 4 leaders - 2 for the boys and 2 for the girls. When I mentioned that I had already checked in with an activity day leader and directed to her, she sent out a group chat, asking how everything was going for the pinewood derby. No one had done ANYTHING except announce that it was happening (with dinner before the pinewood derby). No one arranged for the cars track to be set up, for the computer program to be organized, for tables and chairs to be set up, for plates and utensils, etc. It was the day before and no one had organized anything. When I asked about awards, I got the response, "Good idea!" Oh boy... what's a race without any prizes or awards? Guess who made awards?? I put together some certificates that I could fill in and attached Kit Kat bars to them. I found some printable paper ribbons online that I could make to attach to some soda bottles. I had things that day before all the way until 9:30pm, so I didn't get started until about 9:45pm on making the awards. Owen and I helped set up the track, tables, and chairs after volleyball that night with one of the boys' leaders. Luckily, it was a potluck dinner, so everyone brought food to share. The other girl's activity leader took care of the tablecloths, plates, and utensils. It actually turned out to be a successful activity, but I wasn't sure if we were going to pull it off.
Guess what stopped working in March and April? The used washer and used fridge that we bought back in September last year... The dryer still worked, but we couldn't get an installment for a new washer without also replacing the dryer, so we bought a new set at Home Depot. The fridge also wasn't working well, so we bought a new fridge too. Sigh... We got through 6 months on the cheap used appliances. The fridge is nothing fancy, because we were limited to options due to the space. We do have functional appliances again.
There were lots of baby showers in April and May. I made it to 4 of the 5 baby showers. One of the pregnant moms was not in this photo of 4 moms (the one in the pink dress in another photo). She actually had her baby 3 days after this photo was taken of the other ladies. Four baby girls and 1 baby boy on the way! Savannah came with me to 2 of the showers to see all the cute stuff.
Just some other random photos - a nice walk one evening, Kai, a date night, the temple, Savannah biking during her spring break since she was bored, Savannah's friends, and a youth activity. They did a fun night where the youth chatted and got to know the older folks in our ward. They only had a couple minutes with each person and then moved to the next seat, until they had chatted with everyone.
I don't have any pictures, but Alex, Savannah, and Weston went to a service project - an annual project packing meals that go to Ecuador and Uganda.
The fourth weekend in April, we got a visit from Nathan! He was in between terms, so he and his roommate made the drive home. His roommate Devan stayed with us a couple nights and then joined his family later in the week when they got into town. Most of us were still busy with work, school, and all the normal stuff, so we didn't get to hang out with Nathan very much. We did watch Owen's volleyball game, played 4-person volleyball, went out to eat, played some games, watched a Thunder basketball game on TV, had some good food and apple pie, watched a movie, planned Jared's BYU classes for the fall, went to an event to celebrate our friend Julie, and went to church. Nathan sang in our ward choir without having practiced (we were short on singers). He also replaced our broken screen doors while he was here. He visited me at work a couple days (coming for "waffle Wednesday"), did a little shopping on his own, took the dog for a walk, and went to the beach. Hopefully he had a decent week. The highlight may have been playing Ticket to Ride Asia, which is played in teams. Nathan and Weston finally beat Owen and me (previously unbeaten in our team Asia games). They had a depressing first game but then had sweet redemption when they smoked us in the second game! Savannah and Alex are usually teammates for this game and should have won the first game, if not for one mistake at the end. It's a pretty fun game, but the challenge is you can't communicate with your teammate during the game. Some people (ahem... Weston!) are not the most observant players as to what's going on! Ha ha. They still won by a lot the second round.
.JPG)
