May 2017

April 29-May 1 were spent getting Rachel settled into Wyview for spring term at BYU. We had a busy time getting all her supplies together and grocery shopping and bike shopping. But she finally settled on one that she loves.

Jaron turned 15 on the 3rd of May and is now working on his Driver's education so that he will be prepared by his 16th birthday for the drive test. (Heaven knows how fast each year passes so it won't surprise me to find how quickly I post about his new license. In the meantime we celebrated his birthday at home with some cake and a few presents.

May 4th was the sports awards banquet for Brookside Boys. It covered every sport of the year for all boys, 7th and 8th grade. It was a lengthy event because of that but in the end Darik came home with four awards. He received a participation award for the three sports, a Coaches Award for Football and XC and a Most Improved Award for Track. He had a great night with friends and was pleased that his hard work was acknowledged by his coaches.

Sunday, May 7th Jaron received his Patriarchal Blessing.

For Anna's birthday on the 12th, she wanted to go see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. We had a fun time watching it together as a family.

May 14th was Mother's Day, my second favorite day of the year as a missionary mother. Because Rachel was in UT for school we attempted a three-way Skype. Unfortunately, the kind people that allowed Nathan to use their home and internet for the call were unaware of how bad their connection is. It took SO long to establish a connection with Nathan and the video was bad. We would get a still picture of him about every 10 seconds. So I took a pic with him and the kids at home only. We added Rae to the call and while the audio feed was okay, it totally obliterated the video. So we ended up talking to him via the television/computer setup but were never able to see him "live" while chatting. I try not to complain because I know there are lots of mothers who have kids serving places that don't have internet connection, but to be honest, I was a little disappointed. But here are my pictures of the day.

May 16th was field day for Caleb and I was able to come for part of it and capture a few pictures too.

May 17th was awards ceremony at school for Darik and field day for Sarah. I attended the ceremony and left early to arrive late at field day.

That night Darik had a concert, his last for the year. I love his middle school band teachers, they always make it fun to attend the concert, this one was no different.

The next night, the 18th Anna and Jaron gave their spring concert. They both played well and it was fun to come listen to their music.

Caleb's class had it's 5th grade swim party and Jason stopped by to take a picture of him. He also went over to the school across the street to say hi to Sarah and share a quick lunch with her.

Memorial Day Weekend I had to work (I get Labor Day Weekend off this year) so Jason and the kids were on their own. They left after church on Sunday for a campground 1 hour away. They set up the tent, had a nice dinner, played until 10 and then went to bed. Only to be awakened at 11 by thunder and lightening. Torrential rain followed and they packed it up and came home. They said they had no trouble getting the tent down in the rain because of all the lightening making it easy to see what they were doing.

And that was the month of May, in a nutshell.

April 2017

Cool creations during conference. General Conference was April 1 and 2nd, and as usual, we had the Hodsons over the Sunday sessions. We love this tradition we have started and look forward to it twice a year. Didn't get any pictures of the event but you can trust it was fun with the 16 of us.

Caleb's 11th birthday was the 7th of April. All he wanted for Christmas was a cat or kitten, he didn't get it. When it came time for his birthday all he wanted was a cat or kitten. We finally relented and let the boy have a cat. We were supposed to celebrate on the 7th but both Darik and Anna had Pre-UIL concerts that night. We went to Anna's and then drove straight to Darik's (on the other side of the district, literally!) just to find out they had bus trouble and would be performing 1.25 hours later! We ended up going out for dinner without Darik, even though we stayed to watch him perform. They did a good job there and later at UIL competition a week later.

The next day was Saturday and Jason took Caleb to try out instruments for band class next year. He has chosen to play tuba, we'll see how that goes come September. Afterwards Jason took Caleb to Petco to adopt a cat. He selected one named Silk that he renamed to DK, short for Dark Knight. He is a short-haired domestic cat that is very gentle and skittish. It took him quite a while to adjust to the constant commotion of our home but he finally settled in the end of April. He is a very loving cat and Caleb loves to take care of him.

A family walk after church on the 9th.

We attended our ward campout on April 14th - 15th. We went to Lake Houston and had a great time. I totally forgot to take any pictures but I poached some from a friend on FB. When we arrived home we discovered that the Easter Bunny had made his annual visit to our house. Baskets for all the "kids" and new swimsuits too!

More track meets and shotput.

April 28th and 29th was the weekend of a fun event called Time Out for Women. Anna, Rachel and I all attended Friday evening together. We got to see David Archuleta perform, he has a beautiful voice! Saturday Rachel and I had to miss because we were flying her to UT to get her settled into her first semester away at school. Anna attended Saturday morning until 2 when Jason picked her up to come home and prepare for Mormon Prom. She went with Madsen Baum and had a wonderful time! I missed it all (seeing a theme here with me and prom?) but her dad took really good care of her.

Saturday morning, after dropping me and Rachel at the airport, Jason took Caleb and Sarah to a Primary Temple Trip and brought Jaron and Darik along also. Jaron and Darik were able to spend some time in the temple working but Sarah and Caleb are too young to enter and they only walked around the outside after their primary activity. Then they all went over to a local park to picnic and play. They picked Anna up on the way home.