April Activities

Shortly after returning from Spring Break, Weston and Savannah had their school jog-a-thon.  They both did well.  I'm not sure the distance of each lap and they had to stop each time around to get a mark on a paper, so it's hard to judge their performance based on the number of laps.  They ran for 30 minutes without stopping to walk, so that's great! They were worn out at the end of it. 

Savannah made an Easter decoration at Activity Days.  Apparently it's not edible, but it looks yummy! 

Alex was still in Scotland for General Conference weekend, but we enjoyed watching without him.  I had my friend Nicole over for the Saturday afternoon and evening sessions of conference.  We watched a March Madness game in between and had dinner.  Alex did check in via video chat and took me on his walk with him.  

Alison had her baby, their 6th child, on Palm Sunday.  They named her Bethany Ann.  Alison was ready that whole week prior to Sunday for her to come, but I was hoping she'd wait until April since we didn't have a family birthdays in April.  When Bethany was ready, she came quickly on the Sunday before Easter.  She's adorable! 

Savannah has done some fun friend things this month.  She got invited to an ice skating birthday party.  It was her first time trying ice skating - hard, but fun.  Savannah's friends have been scheduling their parties around Savannah.  They know she can't do most party activities on Sundays (the ones that involve businesses), so they have graciously scheduled on Saturdays for her.   

We had our first "fun club" at our house with 7 friends invited over for crafts, snacks, and fun.  They painted rocks this time.  It was a messy activity, but they had a great time!  I was surprised at how many snacks they ate.  They ate all the fruits and veggies and goldfish in the container I provided, and I had to cut some more since not everyone got strawberries.  (They didn't think to share?)  They also had 2 cookies each.  A little while later, they helped themselves to large bowls full of the goldfish out of the box and finished it off (it was a brand new box).  They also helped themselves to full-sized candy bars that they found in the pantry.  I didn't realize they were doing this until it was too late.  Savannah said she tried to tell them not to eat them, but they grabbed them and ran outside...  one girl even helped herself to a package of Ramen noodles - she opened the package and ate it uncooked!  I was really surprised they thought they could grab whatever they wanted without asking. We will have to set some ground rules next time I guess.  They had a lot of fun though!  

Weston and Savannah had a crazy hat and sock day for school.  That's pretty much every day for Weston... but he did add about 4 hats to the mix. 

The kids helped make Easter dinner.  It was a little crazy that day, since we made dinner for 25 people! We provided 4 potato casseroles and 90 rolls.  I didn't take a picture of the rolls that day, but I snapped a picture of the 108 rolls I just made for a missionary zone conference luncheon.  I also made another 36 for guests at our house for dinner.  That's 234 rolls in 11 days - good thing I like making them!

Alex and I got to take a spontaneous trip to see wildflowers at Carrizo Plain National Monument.  Alex had a meeting cancelled for the day, so he suggested we head out to see the flowers.  I was happy to take the day off as well.  We had a long drive to get there and back, but it was good to get away from the normal busyness.  We didn't see very many poppies, but several varieties of wildflowers were in bloom. I loved being out there amongst the flowers in a peaceful setting, with just the "chirpies" doing their thing.  You'll hear them in the videos.  

I have to share one moment from the day.  The only thing that day that I needed to do was pick up Owen from volleyball practice at 5:00pm (Owen rides the bus from school to practice).  We thought we would be back by then, but we lingered in the flowers for longer than we planned.  Anyway, I had mentioned to Jared before leaving where we were going and that he might have to pick up Owen if we weren't back in time.  I told him to watch his phone around 4:45 for a message if we needed him to get Owen.  

We realized that we wouldn't be back in time, and earlier in the afternoon Alex asked if I had messaged Jared.  At that point I said I'd just wait until 4:45 since Jared probably was at track practice.  Well, at about 4:40 I decided to send the message.  However... we had no cell service at that point.  I tried to send, but the message failed.  For the next 10 minutes, I watched for a bar of service, but nothing.  I was getting worried, thinking of Owen being stranded after practice.  At about 4:50, I said a silent prayer asking for just a moment to get a message out.  Right as I said that, I looked down at my phone and saw one bar of service.  I quickly pushed "send" and the message went out to Jared.  I literally had about 20 seconds of service and then we didn't have service for the next 30 minutes.  Jared didn't even have time to reply back within our small window of service, so I wasn't sure he would get Owen, but at least the message went out and I figured it would be okay.  I was grateful for my quickly answered prayer - more evidence of God in addition to all the beautiful flowers from the day (God's paint brush). 

 

March 2023

Savannah was Sally Ride for the 4th grade wax museum.  She had one of the best costumes (even though I put in together the night before).  I ended up finding a pair of pants and shirt at the thrift store that matched each other and loosely stitching some paper labels on the shirt.  A friend of ours happened to have an astronaut helmet.  Savannah has been doing a bracelet club with a couple of friends.  She wants to start a "fun club" at our house for crafts and baking.

Alex and I had a date night one evening since we drove Jared, Owen, and a couple of the young women to a church dance an hour and 30 minutes away.  We went out to eat and then found a cookie place where we split a large ice cream sandwich.  We've actually been doing a lot of driving lately.  Alex and I got asked to be in charge of training the Mas and Pas for our upcoming 5-Stake Youth Pioneer Trek, so we had to drive to 5 different areas to do trek presentations.  We'll do 3 training sessions later in April and May when the Mas and Pas have been selected.  The presentations were essentially recruitment talks.  

We got our March temple visit in - still raining.  

Savannah had a play date with friends.  She hurt her hand while playing on a Ninja jungle gym structure.  We actually had it x-rayed later in the week because she couldn't bend her finger.  It wasn't broken, but some of the cartilage was swollen and sore.  

We put together a puzzle, inspired by a talk at church that compared indexing to a puzzle piece of temple and family history work.  

Savannah had a couple friends over to our house - it was raining, but they still wanted to jump on the trampoline.  Fun, but they were soaked!

We did our festive St. Patrick's Day meal with green Alfredo sauce on noodles, green rolls, peas, broccoli, key lime pie, and sugar cookies.  The boys left right after dinner to go camping on the beach with some of the young men.  Savannah went with me to a young women night put on by one of the other young woman leaders.  The girls painted rocks, had festive snacks, and played some games such as shaking ping pong balls out of a box strapped to them. 

 

Jared and the priests group put on a youth activity which turned out to be a lot of fun.  Groups had previously prepared and submitted short videos of different movie genres of their choosing.  Some of them were pretty good and others were interesting... everyone had fun making their videos.  Our boys are pretty talented with the video editing and background music and things.  Jared's group made a "Jailbreak" video, which won best video.  Owen and Weston did a "Dog's Way Home" video starring Kai.  The video starts off showing Weston and Kai doing their normal activities - going for a run, watching the news, and playing.  Then Kai gets dog-napped, but she escapes and finds her way home.  It's pretty cute.  It was hilarious trying to get Kai to do what we wanted though.  She doesn't like leaving anyone behind, so it was hard to get the video of her walking by herself (having to leave Weston behind and walking towards Owen with the camera).  She also wouldn't get up on the "wall" that she jumps off of to escape.  I thought she was going to bite Owen as he tried to pick her up and put her on the storage bench.  

The activity was a success, with popcorn, brownies, and short videos.  Judges selected the best videos, although each group got a "top banana award".  One of the young men leaders handed out the awards and did great on the spot about defining each award given.  

Owen got to participate in a Musical Theatre Competition of America (MTCA) for 2 days in Anaheim.  He got up at 3:00am to get ready to go.  We left at 3:50am to arrive at the school by 4:00am... except the gate was still closed... we backed out and waited for 30 minutes.  The actual time to arrive was 4:30am.  Anyway, they got on a bus and headed there.  Their first event of the day was at 8:30am.  They had a full day of singing, dancing, auditions, and hanging out at the mall.  He had to sing some solo lines to audition for a song and also perform a dance number.  He wasn't excited about the (required) auditions which were late that night when he was exhausted.  He also didn't like the song (that everyone had to sing for the audition).  He didn't go to bed until midnight, so it was a long day!  The next day started at 6:00am with more competitions and classes.   He learned how to do some stage make-up (the wounded arm).  After the singing and competitions were over, they had some free time in the evening hanging around a fancy hotel.  Several kids went to a dance, but Owen was kind and hung out with a girl who had an injury and couldn't dance.  (That's the girl he's with in the picture.)  He had so much fun that it was hard to leave, but I drove to pick him up late Saturday night (easily the most dangerous thing of the week driving in the crazy LA traffic - I saw a tire that had just fallen off of a big truck in the lane beside me and cars swerving to miss it).  I did make it there, and I went so he could be home for Sunday.  He gave up going to Disneyland on Sunday so he could keep the Sabbath Day holy.  He also missed the awards ceremony on Sunday, but he found out they won 1st place in one category and 2nd in another.  There were groups there from other states, such as UT, TX, OH, and FL, so it was a big accomplishment.  He really had a great time and enjoyed hanging out with his friends.  He was a good missionary and example to those classmates.  He had to explain to all of them why he wouldn't be there on Sunday.  Then he also shared his testimony in church on Sunday morning about his decision to keep the Sabbath Day holy, so he was a shining example to his peers at church too. 

Here's a few videos from the song they won 1st place for (the videos aren't great quality - just a recording from one of the parent chaperones).  Good luck finding Owen - he's often in the back. 

Alex missed out on the fun driving to LA... because he was on a work trip to Scotland.  He would live there if he could.

The kids had Spring Break this past week.  When Dad is gone, that means Spring Break isn't very exciting because the rest of us just stayed home.  I really needed a break from driving to various activities and from our busy schedule, so we didn't do much at all.  The "fun things" for the week were getting Blenders smoothies, getting hamburgers at The Habit, one day of shoe and toy shopping (not fun for me...), and making homemade pizzas.  Savannah had two friends over one day, which partially fulfilled her need for social interaction.  We did some spring cleaning too and the normal grocery shopping (but obviously that's not part of the "fun things").  

Why do these kids always have to eat?! 😀  They are better at helping with the chores these days.

We had some other sports this month, but I'll save those for a later post.  

Missionary Update

Here's the January-March update on Nathan.  Nathan stayed in Otavalo for January and February before getting transferred to Quito at the beginning of March.  He enjoyed teaching with his companion, Elder Quispe, in Otavalo.  His new companion is Elder Kowallis from Logan, UT.  He lives in an apartment with 3 other missionaries - 3 Americans and one Bolivian.  

Back to January... the first week, they found a couple and their son who were interested in learning more.  When they asked the husband why he accepted to have a lesson, he said he had this amazing feeling when they walked up to him (he was feeling the Spirit).  Another experience with street contacting was meeting a boy named Santiago.  He was really curious about them and led them to his mom.  After a lesson with the family, Santiago followed them around for a bit, introducing them to some of the neighbors and asking if they were going to teach them.  Santiago's family didn't keep with it, but Santiago wanted to learn more.  He was disappointed when Nathan and his companion didn't teach their family.  What was funny is they tried - they were outside their gate, but the family didn't respond.  When Santiago talked to them later, asking why they didn't come (to their scheduled appointment), Nathan told him they tried.  Santiago said, "We were home though!"  

In January, they baptized a girl named Jaden, who was a social media contact referral.

Nathan had a surprise party for his birthday with the Erazo family (Guido and family).  I was grateful he was able to celebrate his birthday.  They made a cake for him and then told him he needed to try to take a bite without using his hands.  He could see what was coming but went along as they smashed his face in the cake!  It must be a tradition for the unsuspecting new missionaries or something.  Besides someone celebrating Nathan's birthday with him, the other tender mercy was Audrey's Christmas package showing up at this apartment ON his birthday.  It took 7 weeks to get there and then arrived on his birthday.  My birthday package hadn't arrived yet, so I was so happy that he still had something to open that day.  

There have been a few weeks when they only had about $5 left for the week, but he didn't seem bothered by it.  They've always had their needs met.  They ran out of toilet paper a couple of times.  The first time, they were able to use the roll of Charmin toilet paper (donated by Weston) that we sent for laughs in his Christmas package.  The second time, the shops were closed by the time they ran out at night and they had to find some in a restaurant or something.  

Nathan got to learn how to make Tallerines Verdes, a dish from Peru, that is pasta with a sauce made from onions, cheese, milk, and peppers.  Some of the church members invited them over to make pies and dinner with their friend who wasn't a member of the church.

They had another baptism in February of a 10-year-old girl named Juliete.  Her mom was a less active member and agreed to let Juliete get baptized.  The mom also was reactivated in the process of teaching.  

In February, they celebrated a holiday called Carnival, where people spray each other with water, foam, and occasionally eggs.  He got soaked from that in the streets.  He's played a little bit of soccer, basketball once, and Catan on preparation days.  He's still got some fun non-teaching time every week, so he enjoys that. 

He had to say good-bye to the people in Otavalo in March and headed to an area of Quito called Bellavista.  They've been working hard and doing a lot of street contacting.  It has rained a lot, so they've gotten used to doing things in the rain.  One day they helped a car out of a ditch and the wheels spun gunk all over their legs.  They ended up teaching 2 lessons after that (with sewer gunk still on them).  The next week was another messy experience.  Nathan went to an area called Guayllabamba to do a service project.  They were supposed to help build a wall, but the cement hadn't arrived.  They ended up cleaning out a cow pen that hadn't been cleaned in 3 months.  While cleaning out the cow manure, a cow gave birth, but the calf instantly fell in a large water trough and drowned.   When the owner realized what happened, Nathan and the other elder helped get it out of the water and carried it up the hill in their yard.  

We didn't get a weekly e-mail for this last week of March, but we chatted with him for a little bit and the work is going well.  He took us along on the bus ride and walk to his district meeting that evening.  That's probably why he didn't have time to get his e-mail out that night.  Since Alex is in Scotland right now, it was interesting to think that we were on a video chat from 3 different continents.  Technology is pretty amazing! 

He gets to go to the Quito Temple again this upcoming Tuesday and we'll all be watching General Conference "together" this weekend.  He got his Easter package this past week.  I made a scripture hunt, where they had to look up a scripture and find a word.  The words from those scriptures made a phrase.  The tricky part was making it in Spanish.  They also got a "golden egg" with a little spending cash and some candy and snacks.

Special Gift

Here's one more post for February.  I spent much of January and a good portion of February working on a 40 Years book for my sister Audrey.  I had scanned a ton of pictures a couple years ago when I was at my parents house.  I've been gathering photos since then for the book.  I hadn't cropped or organized them at all until January, so it took a while to finish gathering, editing, and organizing the pictures into years.  I even contacted BYU and got one photo from their archives for her BYU Racquetball season (I ended up being able to find a few more online after searching for a while.)  My mom and other sisters helped a little bit with identifying and providing pictures.  I didn't let Audrey know I was working on it, so I didn't ask her for help.  I'm sure there are errors on some of the picture dates or sequences, but it all turned out pretty good.  It ended up being 365 pages.  Her birthday was mid-February, but she was on a trip to Rio that week so I had to wait to get pictures from that trip to add to the book.  I didn't want to leave her 40th birthday out of the book.  She didn't get it until the first week of March, but I think she was pretty happy with it!  It was time-consuming, so my family was happy for me to be done with it.

Owen's BB season

Owen's team had a tough season.  They lost every league game, although one of them went into overtime with an amazing half court shot to tie it up.  They lost in OT though. Since they didn't win any games, they didn't participate in the league tournament.  They got a consolation game though and won that (against another team who hadn't won any games... a little sad that someone had to win or lose).  Owen has improved in his skills since last year - he helps his team more on defense than scoring, but he did score a few buckets throughout the season.  

I decided to make a little video montage of his season so he can look back on it and smile about his crazy season.  I think the background music is pretty fitting. 

 

February 2023

Weston and Savannah made some dog valentines this year.  Weston made one for the cafeteria staff, which was cute.  He said, "All the work you do is amazing.  I don't have to come late to school from having to make lunch.  Also, the food you make is amazing.  Thank you for the seconds you let me get.  You deserve a standing ovation.  Thank you, bravo, bravo."  I made some heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, along with Twix cheesecake bars and sugar cookies for dessert.  Savannah had a friend over to decorate the sugar cookies.  We delivered some of them to other people. 

I got some flowers and chocolate from Alex.  I might have picked out my own chocolate and told him he was giving it to me...😊 They're like Reeses peanut butter cups except with almond butter and dark chocolate.   He did pick out and buy the flowers on his own.  

For one of our Young Women activities, we made some cards for another young woman and also heart-attacked the Bishop's door.  

We got some snow on the mountaintops, which is uncommon for our area (picture posted by a friend).  

Savannah participated in her last annual pinewood derby for activity days.  She didn't win the whole thing, but she won some races and had fun.

Just some other random things:  Alex and I continue to go to the temple once a month.  Owen and I went on a hike with some other people from the ward.  Owen went to a luau-themed birthday party for one of his friends.  Weston was happy to snag a couple of unclaimed items from the church lost and found (which were headed for donation) - one of those was a Cheaper by the Dozen hat.  Weston and Savannah were top spellers in their class.  They both participated in the school spelling challenge (they didn't have a spelling bee where they had to spell the words aloud.  They wrote them on paper).  Weston got 3rd place in the school, becoming the alternate to the 1st and 2nd place spellers who went on to the next level.  Savannah enjoyed a field trip to a local botanical garden.  Savannah loves doing art and made some artwork for her teacher.  

January 2023

We got a lot of rain in January, with school getting out early one day and the next day off due to the amount of rain.  I tried to run on my usual route but it was too soon - the ground was still really wet and my shoes sunk down to my ankles in the wet grass and mud.  

It was still raining when we went to a luau birthday party, which had to be moved inside.  We enjoyed a Hawaiian meal and guava cake.  

We had a youth temple day (Savannah is still not old enough so she stayed with friends).  

We finally had Owen's birthday party.  He wanted to play volleyball so we got a group of friends together and played indoors at the church.  We had Twix cheesecake bars, fruit, snacks, Rootbeer floats, and cupcakes.