Last Day of School

All the kids had amazing teachers this year, and all three were both excited and sad to be moving on. We will definitely miss their teachers, but they all have been assigned great ones for next year. We are looking forward to another good year ahead (And I'm looking forward to all 3 kids being in school all day. Am I really that old?)

Zak & Mrs. Winter
All school year long when Brian would ask Zak what he learned today, he would either tell Brian "nothing," or that he "couldn't remember." On the last Wednesday of school after the kindergarten program, out of the blue he said "I've learned SO much this year (what a relief, he won't have to repeat kindergarten!) And he really has. He is a good little reader, and a good counter.

Because he is the youngest kid in the school, I was a little worried about sending him to school last year. But he really did so good, he caught on quick to everything that was taught that he didn't already know, and he acted with all of the maturity that a 5 year old boy should. I was very proud of him this year.
Watch out 1st grade here comes Zak!

Les & Miss Phillips

Les really enjoyed 2nd grade. He improved his reading dramatically, and is very good at math. I think his favorite part of math was when they started working on their times tables right at the end of the year. He is going to be really good at math. He came home many times from school and told us that he had run a mile and a half when his teacher took them all out to run a mile. He is proud to be a runner. Les is so excited for 3rd grade, and he is ready to start any day if they would just let him, he is both a very social kid as well as an active kid. He likes the social part of the school year, and the outdoor part of the summer.

Amber & Ms. Thornock
Amber also had an amazing school year. Highlights of the year for Amber were winning he 5th grade science fair, and earning the Presidential Fitness Award. She is quite a social girl, and has had to learn to control her social time to appropriate times, but she is figuring it out. She always does well in school, and is excited to have one of her 5th grade teachers again for 6th grade.

Pool Day

Every year the local swimming pool opens on the last week of school for the local schools to bring their students. Sometimes it's warm, sometimes it's not. And so far for us, it has only been canceled due to weather once. This year was so cold that I had mixed feelings about it being canceled. One the one hand, the kids look forward to pool day and know that it means school is all but over. On the other hand, I think that it was only 70 degrees on this day, had rained cold all week, and the wind was blowing. It wasn't ideal swimming conditions. But the kids all had fun, and of course, that is what matter!

Kindergarten Program

Zak's class put on a little program at the end of the year. They all had a short speaking part, and sang several of the songs that they have learned. Zak's favorite is based on Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. One day when he was singing the song to me, I pulled up the speech on YouTube, and he watched the entire thing. He was amazed by it. Thanks to Mrs. Winter for inspiring him.

(I tried to upload the video of them singing it, but is was too big of a file for blogger. Bummer. It is a really neat song.)

Presidential Fitness Award

This year Amber earned the National Presidential Fitness Award. Only 4 girls received it from the whole 5th grade. The hardest part was running the mile in the required time. I am proud of amber for working so hard on the requirements for it.

Amber, Tessa, Haley, and Marci

The fifth grade has also been learning how to play the recorders this year. Amber didn't have too hard of a time since she already knows music, but she enjoyed learning a different instrument. The 5th grade played a couple of songs at the awards assembly.

Spring Soccer

All 3 kids played soccer again this spring. They have all learned so much and improved tremendously.

Zak just loves to run with the other boys.

I think that he scored at least one goal each game!

Les is really fast. He can beat anyone to the ball. He likes to play any position on the field, but is really good at forward and goalie.Amber has learned to be an intimidating goalie this year, and has gotten really good at forcing girls to feel like they need to take a shot that they really can't make.

Brian coached Amber's team this year. He sure had a lesson in girls and emotions.

He enjoyed some aspects of coaching these girls, and not others. He started last fall with a very inexperienced team, and finished with a lot of successes.

Over all it was a great soccer season, with good coaches and fun teammates.

Les and Zak have decided to play again next year, and Amber has chosen to put a little more time into her running, and take some time off from soccer.

Cove Fort

We also stopped at Cove Fort down in Central Utah on our way home. It was really neat.

Afterwards, we ate up all the food we had left with us for lunch since it was Sunday and we didn't want to stop anywhere for lunch. It worked OK, and they had a nice grass spot for a picnic.

After he got done eating, Les was playing Frisbee with his hat. It landed in the tree.

The Gap

On the way home from Cedar, we stopped to show the kids Parowan Gap. It has petroglyphs all through it.
We hiked around a little bit to look at them and to see if there were any others that weren't obvious, and we found a few more.

The kids were amazed at the effort it must have taken to carve into those rocks 1000 years ago.

Zak misunderstood the word petroglyphs, and thought that we were looking at the "picture cliffs." I thought that was a pretty good explanation of what they were.

We decided this rock must have been the "face" of the Indian that made the "picture cliffs."

The Farm

What could be more fun to two little boys than a whole farm to play and get dirty? Really dirty!

We went to Southern Utah last weekend for Brian to do the St. George Triathlon that he does every year. This year the kids and I stayed in Cedar at my Grandpa's house while Brian camped down at Sand Hollow Reservoir where his race was the next morning.

When I went out to check on the boys, I found them feeding the sheep. but they had tied the hay in a rope that they could dangle in front of the sheep so that they wouldn't get eaten in the process (yup, those are my city boys!)

And they could "drive" the tractor anywhere their little imaginations could take them.
They were in heaven. Fortunately for everyone else, the tractor didn't run, but that didn't stop them.

Last time we were there, my cousins boys showed them how to get to the fort. Of course this involved rappelling down into the silage pit and climbing back out. It wouldn't be any fun to do it the boring way by walking straight there.

This is my cute Grandpa. Bronx the dog came to visit this weekend too. He belongs to my cousin that lives with and helps take care of Grandpa.

A Garden

When we first moved to our house, we had a garden off the back side of the carport. But then one of our trees got too big, and that spot doesn't get sun any more. So for a few years, we haven't had a garden. Last year, Zak really wanted a garden, and we never had time to worry about it because we were redoing the house. So this year, we decided to give it a try.

We have a spot at the back of our yard that is sectioned off with railroad ties, that we think may have been a garden at one time, but since we have lived here it has just been grass. We also have a problem that our backyard slopes off, and so any watering that we do just runs off to the neighbors yard. We haven't known what to do. But we think that we have the problem solved.

Brian tilled the area. I now think that we should have cut the sod out first, but instead we just tilled it all in. The ground was SO tough, that this small section took about 3 hours for Brian to till. We found that it actually helped to break up the ground by the shovel full to help the tiller break down into the dirt. It took quite a while, but everyone helped.

And the boys "raked."

We got a load of compost and tilled it in as well as removing grass roots through a screen. I wish we had had time to do a better job of this. Hopefully the roots will just break down, and not grow grass.

Then we planted. We planted green onions, onions, carrots, beans, cantaloupe, tomatoes, potatoes, basil, green peppers, and still plan on putting in broccoli, garlic and cilantro.

For Zak's birthday last fall, Grammy and Gramps gave Zak garden tools, seeds, and a sign for his garden. He was ecstatic to get to use them all. And he even planted his sign!

Hopefully the garden will be productive and we can manage keeping it alive. I'm sure there will be more pictures to come.

We're going to the Zoo...You can come too!

Yesterday I went to the Zoo with the kindergartners. What a fun day.

On the bus (Zak, Peyton & Peter)

Sam, Peter, Peyton & ZakUp close is always the best way to see the animals.

But the baby elephant was the favorite! It was lots of fun, and the boys were so easy.

Pine Wood Derby

Today was the day that Les has been waiting only semi-patiently for for 8 years. Today was

PINE WOOD DERBY DAY!!!

As long as he has known what the pine wood derby was about, he has counted down the years until he got to participate. And because this is only his 2nd pack meeting since he turned 8, he made it just in time.

Tonight he also earned his Bobcat award!

Now on to the important stuff....
The car....The racing....The graphite.....

Here is the car!

Here is the racing!

And at the finish line....

He won EVERY race!!!!

He was so proud. He even got the coveted certificate for the fastest car!
Les designed, painted, and got the car ready mostly by himself. Of course Gramps and Dad had to help some, but Les did everything that he could including polishing the axles.

GREAT JOB LES!!

After the race we got to talking to the man who owned the track, and he was telling us how this particular track became his. It turns out that he got it from a man in east Layton that is kind of a pinewood derby enthusiast.....It just so happens that that pinewood derby enthusiast was the man that Brian learned all of his tricks from when he was in cub scouts.

Brian called that friend after we got home, and we found out that the track that Les raced on (and won on) tonight was one of the ones that Brian raced on when he was a boy all the way down in Tucson!!

What a way to end the night with the legacy of Brian, Blair, Grandpa, Roger, Blair M, and all the gang. Thanks for the memories Roger!

Limo

Yesterday I was asked to help the PTA with a fundraiser reward for some of the kids in the school. The reward was a ride to and from McDonald's for lunch.

Zak got to come with me since his school is out by lunch time!

Amber and Les were pretty jealous. Zak and I had fun going out to lunch in the limo!

Gary Paulsen

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a big fan of reading. But as a kid I found the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, and loved every minute of it. Then, as Brian started teaching reading, my mom suggested that he try it with his students, because it is one that they could relate with as well as be successful in reading. He loved the book, and has read the entire series over and over again with his students. He has also managed to track down a movie version of the book.

Amber has found Mr. Paulsen's books too, and has loved everyone that she has picked up. Which is why when we heard he was going to be in Salt Lake doing a book signing, we had to go.

I think that we bought one book, but we also had him sign about 5 others. It was a fun night.

Made the News!

My mom called this morning

and said that she saw my apricot blossom

picture on the 2 News weather!

I just had to share!

I Looked Out the Window

There is Popcorn popping on my apricot tree!
Enjoy!

Spring Break, Easter Weekend, Accident, and New Baby

What a weekend. We really didn't do anything huge. Most of our plans were set aside until a weekend with better weather. We had a great time with Grammy & Gramps and the cousins at a little lunch and egg hunt on Saturday. They filled a children's swimming pool up with sawdust and hid eggs and money in it as well as a few outside. The excitement of the kids was fun, but the most entertaining by far was watching the adults sift through the sawdust looking for the left over change. In all they probably dug for an hour, and we were informed by Gramps later that as he cleaned out the sawdust, he still found over 120 coins that we missed.

We returned home from their house to find that the Easter Bunny had come. We aren't sure what happened, but he forgot to hide the real colored eggs that were in the fridge. So we had fun Sunday morning waiting for conference to start by hiding them from each other.

On Sunday afternoon, we had tickets to go to the Conference center for the final session of conference. However, kids under 8 cannot go, so we dropped Brian, Amber and Les off, at the Conference Center and Zak and I parked the car and walked back to Temple Square. He and I watched at the Tabernacle instead. After Conference, we headed out to go spend the night with my family and to see the new baby. This is when the excitement began!

As we were heading to I-15, we were in a wreck. We had to stop quickly, and the car behind us didn't stop. They rear-ended us. Brian and I both saw it coming and knew it was inevitable. I turned around to see if the car behind was going to stop in time, and all I remember seeing was everyone else being flung forward from the impact. It is kind of an eerie vision in my mind. Everyone's chest being thrown forward, and their heads all back (typical whiplash). And then was the instant screams of horror from the kids. They were terrified. They didn't see it coming like Brian and I did.

We instantly all had the headache at the base of our heads from the whiplash, and Les was crying enough about his that they had the paramedics check him out on scene. I wish now that they had checked out Brian too. He is hurting really bad today, and has a headache that won't let up. No one severely hurt, but we all have stiff and sore neck muscles, and minor headaches that come and go.

By looking at the vehicles closely, you wouldn't know anything happened.

Our car The License plate cover on my van got broken from the accident, but there is really no other obviously visible damage. The damage that we found was because the rear hatch wouldn't close right becasue the plastic trim wouldn't seat the way it was supposed to because around the door latch was crumpled a little. Also, the bumper is a little damaged from the impact.

The other car

You can see the small dent in the center of their van, but really it isn't too bad. The worst part for them was that both of their air bags went off, and so legally, this made their van un-driveable.

The interesting part of all of this is that the two girls were both just recently returned from their missions. The driver (Tiffany) returned from Brazil 4 months ago, and the passenger (Angela)just returned from Korea 3 weeks ago, and had wrist surgery late last week sometime. Neither of them had a valid drivers license, in fact the driver got a ticket for a suspended license, as well as for following too closely.

Me and the passenger from the other car (Angela)

After we finally made it out of SLC and to my parent's house, we went and saw the new baby. He is so tiny. I forgot how small of packages they come in, and was reminded how big my kids are getting.

Amber with little London

What a cutie!
He doesn't like the camera flash at all!