Hike to the "Y" with the Rosses, Abbotts and Hansens. We all took our flashlights and headlamps and headed home in the dark. The kids loved the adventure.
Playing in the water fountain at Gateway. This is Waaaay better than Lake Powell??
Family hike to Stewart Falls. Lindsey is learning how to use photoshop and here is some of her awesome creativity showing through.
First day of preschool at Miss Sherryns. I have had a child in her preschool for 8 years running. This is our last.
Here is the latest from our one of a kind summer! "Life is good" and "we are just hanging in there" have become our mantra. Hope it keeps up.

Spring Break

Thanks to our budding photographer, we have pictures to document our family through the years. Lindsey loves to take pictures and she has hundreds of great shots. She has documented our wonderfully relaxing trip to St. George for Spring Break. We basked in the semi-sunshine while those back in Provo were enjoying a late Spring snowfall. We spent hours turning our blonde hair green in the chlorine laden pool at Curt's parents place in St. George. Our children were usually the only ones in the pool because we stay in a "senior subdivision". Hikes through Snow Canyon, wicked tennis matches, family board games, drives to Gunlock, and lots of sleep are highlights of our relaxing trip. When Katie was asked what she did for fun her reply included "playing games with mom and dad." If we only remembered how simple it really is to keep them happy.

Our favorite activity of the trip was naming the large ceramic turtle in Grandpa and Grandma's St. George house. Katie came up with the name Turdy and pulled him along with a leash fastened out of her jumprope. She was devastated when Nathan pointed out that Turdy meant poo poo. We had to quickly come up with another fitting name for the Turtle (which I can't remember because I became quite accustomed to Turdy).

Summer is on its way. The kids found an injured quail in our garage yesterday and spent hours outside trying to nurse it back to health. If nursing it back to health meant poking it, carrying it around on a shovel, and throwing crackers at it for food. We love the spring weather except for the allergies that seem to be running rampant at our house. Running noses, running eyes and lots of sneezes.

I am amazed at all the little things that our children do to keep us in stitches. Last night as we were preparing for prayer, Katie begged to do the honors. She has been using prayer as her personal forum to tell each family member what they have been doing wrong during the day. Usually the things that they have been doing wrong to HER. For instance, she will pray that Nathan will stop spitting at her, or looking at her funny, or that Josh will try harder to listen to mom and dad. As she was preparing to say the family prayer last night she was sitting cross legged and we asked to her kneel up. She then proceeded to say the prayer with her hands raised to her side in a traditional meditation pose. I started to laugh (which was exactly what I should NOT have done) and then she thought she was really funny. I guess the cross-legged pose was supposed to be a part of the ritual but we thwarted that portion of the prayer. I don't know where she came up with this goofy pose but she is constantly trying to be in the limelight. We really get a kick out of her even though we should be trying harder to keep her grounded. Boy is she giving us a run for our money and keeping us laughing the entire way.

Let the Madness Begin

This is my favorite time of the year. I get up early to finish my chores so that I can (without guilt?) lay in bed and indulge in hours and hours of basketball viewing on the not-so-big screen. I was reading my sister-in-laws blog reporting on the expectations of a basketball fans wife - and realized that I sound just like my brothers. During basketball season we eat, drink, and play tons of ball. Instead of bedtime stories, our children are lulled to sleep by gentle basketball announcers voices commentating the Jazz and Cougars. My children have learned to count by adding 2 points or 3 points each time a basket is made in a ball game. They can determine "elapsed time" as they watch the end of game clock countdown. The only downside is that I tend to ignore meal times, and homework if there is a serious game on. I've gotta run: playing mommy ball at 9:30, BYU Cougars vs. Texas A&M at 10:30 and the Sharon East Stake Women's All-Star team has a fierce brawl with the Tongan Singles ward tonight that I've got to get emotionally prepared for.

We are now thesbians...

Curtis, Lindsey and I have taken on a new adventure. Other than Curtis performing in his 3rd grade play and me performing in my 6th grade play, we have no prior acting experience - so we were so confused when the play director in our ward came searching us out for the lead roles in the ward Christmas Play. Someone must have given her some wrong info on us. We have NO acting talent, (except for Lindsey who leads and directs many cousin plays). As it stands, "BOB", "GRACE", and "ALICE" will be front and center on opening night... um, morning. We are performing "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" and we intend for the title to ring true in our case. This has been a fun family experience and we hope to remember it for years to come.

Spent Thanksgiving in Boise with some of the Hansen family. It was so fun to be taken care of and entertained for a weekend. We love our family and are very blessed to have so many near by. The kids are gearing up for Christmas programs, parties, and food. They can't wait for Santa to come. I did overhear Loryn and Katie talking about their chimneys and if they thought Santa would be able to fit down them. May this beautiful time of year remind us all of our savior.

Life is coming at us very fast. We just enjoyed a week of regular day to day and to top it all off - Katie is now sick. Curtis and I visited each of the kids classes this week and met with their teachers. We received the best reviews from all of their teachers who said that they were all great kids. Often times I wonder if they are really talking about my children. They seem to use up all of their "Good" during school time and then when they get home it is chaos. Actually, we are so proud of them and all of their hard work to be great kids. My days are spent volunteering in classrooms, helping with "colonial days", exercise, cleaning, cooking, and lots of driving. Thank goodness the gas prices have gone down.
This week I am preparing a sharing time about All of Heavenly Fathers Children. I am teaching that no matter what we look like or where we are from, He loves us. I am grateful for the opportunity I have to teach and learn the "basics" again.
We love eating our cow "Uchtdorf" and the kids are excited every time we pull it out of the freezer. Katie tells us that Uchtdorf says "moo" when we cook him or pull him apart to eat. She is very protective of him. We are grateful to have a cow in the freezer (and such a holy one at that). Our lives are good, we are very blessed!

We spent a night camping really close to our camping neighbors. But we still had fun!