missionary week

Our ward had missionary week for the youth.  It was awesome!  These are our two missionaries!  They kicked off the week with a special speaker and then got their "calls" and "companions" for the week.  Jared was called to the New York New York mission with the Monsons as instructors.  Ryan was called to the Portugal Lisbon mission with Bro. Boren as the instructor.  They each had great companions who were from the priests quorum -- James & Jeremy.  Each morning they had to be dressed up and at the church at 6:00 a.m. to study the gospel for a half hour before having breakfast.  Then they came home and got ready for school.  Each evening at 8:30 they had a devotional at the church.  During the week they were asked to give up tv, cell phones, video games, and computer time (unless they needed to do schoolwork).  Getting up so early was kind of hard near the end of the week, but they didn't complain.  They didn't even complain about setting aside the media for a week!  On Friday evening, each companionship went to a ward member's home to have dinner and teach the gospel lesson (apostasy & restoration of the gospel) they had studied all week.  Jared & his companion went to the Weed's home.  Jared loved dinner -- pasta! They had a great discussion and the Weed's threw them a couple of loops during the lesson for fun -- i.e. we would love to be baptized, but we're not married, is that a problem?!  Ryan and his companion ate dinner with the Hansen's, who have lots of little boys.  Ryan loved the spaghetti and homemade bread! They had a great discussion with the family and showed the little boys an awesome object lesson using 3 cups and 3 knives representing the church, prayer, & scripture study as a foundation for a strong testimony.  We were also able to host a set of missionaries (Clint & Rykker) for dinner & discussion.  It was fun to have them here and they did a good job on the lesson. Following dinner and discussions, all the youth missionaries went back to the church and had zone conference, i.e. testimony meeting.  Jared & Ryan had a great week of testimony building/strengthening experiences. I am so grateful for the good experience they had! I'm also grateful that they were willing to follow the "rules" and participate in everything, thus allowing themselves to have a memorable experience.

pinewood derby

 We survived another pinewood derby!! Wahoo!  Actually, this was Jacob's first derby.  He was very excited about designing and racing his car.  Mark really dislikes building these cars, but I must say he's getting faster and better with each one, as long as we keep the same basic design, which the boys are completely happy with! 

 A brief look at the competition.  All the cars were awesome.  I especially like the yellow car in the middle on the top row -- it was Colby's car and was made to look like cheese with a mouse on top -- very cool!

 This was the quickest derby ever! Pack meeting/derby was complete in just over 1 hour! Every car raced four times, once on each lane of the track.  The track was hooked into a computer which automatically averaged the times and came up with four winners.  Jacob took second place!  He was so excited!

One of the cubmasters made an awesome car rack for each cubscout. The top says what their award was (Jacob's award was Best Use of Color -- The judges obviously like blue) and then it has two pegs that balance the car and a hook on the back so they can display it on their bedroom wall.  So cool!

this is the place field trip

 I went with Matthew's preschool class to This Is The Place Heritage Park.  I had never been there before, so it was fun to explore a new place.  We started off by visiting a house where everyone got to learn how to card wool and watch a spinning demonstration.  The kids enjoyed playing for awhile at the little playground that is a miniature village.  Matthew enjoyed ringing the school bell.

 All the little houses had furniture inside, so the kids could pretend.

Next we took a ride on the train around the whole park.  I didn't realize it was so big!

 Then we visited the house where they talk about the chores that the children would have done during the pioneer days.  The kids got to try out various chores like ironing and churning butter.

Here's Matthew with a couple preschool friends outside the barn where we visited the baby animals -- lambs, rabbits, chicks, goats, and I can't remember what all!  There's lots of other houses and buildings to discover on another visit. It was a fun outing!

chinese

It's official -- Matthew will be in the Chinese Immersion Program next year!  Wahoo!

more easter picts

 Coloring eggs was left up to me, Matthew, and Jacob this year.  We did about 20 eggs.

 The football egg is my creation.  Pure genius, I think. 

 Matthew got a new Batman with a jetpack in his Easter basket.

 Ryan made this fabulous tower and accompanying jelly bean courtyard with his candy.  Can you guess what his favorite candy is?

 Sometimes eggs that rattle have money, sometimes its just candy.  Matthew checking out his winnings.

 Classic bartering.  Jared is offering Matthew some chocolate eggs in exchange for some jelly beans.

A good Easter was had by all!

spring break

 These picts are backwards, but oh well!  We planned two different spring break vacation agendas -- one to Moab, and one to San Diego -- but instead ended up staying here (mostly) so that Jared & Mark could do a backpacking trip on the weekend to Goblin Valley.  Anyway...  on Friday morning when they were to leave for backpacking, we woke up to snow!  Hence, the above picture of snow on our beautiful tulips!

 Now back to Monday activities!  We headed over to a trampoline park and the boys jumped to their hearts content!  This is Jared dunking on the basketball hoop.

 Ryan trying for a dunk too!

 This picture of Jacob airborne cracks me up!  He's about to flip into a pile of foam squares.

And here's Matthew bouncing around on the acres of trampoline.
Our other spring break adventure included going the long way to Idaho to visit G&G (that's thru Logan).  We made stops at the airplane museum at Hill AFB, Gossner Cheese, and Pepperidge Farms.  We met up with G&G after their temple shift and headed over to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  After stuffing ourselves with steak and peanuts, we headed to Idaho for the night.  The next day Jared & Ryan spent the morning working at the greenhouse and got paid with steak and ham from Uncle John.  Good stuff!

egg hunts

 We managed to fit in a couple egg hunts in celebration of Easter.  G&G invited us over to do an egg hunt with Ethan, Rachel, Katie, & Will.  Everyone found some eggs and took home plenty of candy and some spare change.

 We had another egg hunt here at home which also produced plenty of candy and some money. Definitely a successful hunt!