Thursday, May 31, 2012
Photo of the Week!
School's Out and Ellie is toothless!
Monday, May 21, 2012
Photo of the Week!
It's fun to capture the moments when ALL of the kids are hanging out together. Sundays are nice that way!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
May 2012: by Bjorn
Our kids have been involved in a lot of things lately. Natalie just got first place in the 100-meter, and 200-meter races in her Hershey track meet today, and 3rd place in the standing long jump. Her 4x100 relay team also did well. Last week in her soccer game she stopped the ball near her own team’s goal and proceeded to dribble around and through every player on the other team and went all the way down the field and scored a goal! I was leaping in the air over on the sidelines. She had done the dribble from one end of the field to the other thing several times before but hadn’t been able to finish with a score and when she finally did it was very, very cool. Her final game is tomorrow (Wednesday) and then her team holds tryouts for next year. It has been a lot of fun being an assistant coach for her team. Natalie was selected by her teacher as the outstanding student in her grade for a Rotary Club recognition award.
Enoch scored 3 goals in his final soccer game of the year. He is loving his new club team and did really well in tryouts on Saturday. His Hershey track meet is Thursday. Tomorrow he gets to represent his class in the 3rd grade spelling bee. He has turned into a voracious reader lately—the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series are bound to do that to almost anyone. He and his business partner, Kavin, are having success with their waste transportation company. You’ll have to ask him about it. He also learned a bit about business at his school business fair where each student had to come up with something to sell. He created some very clever and intricate marble mazes out of legos and his idea was to charge people to take turns playing with the mazes. It was a great business model and he went to school with 5 different mazes of varying difficulty. Once he got there, he learned one of the most important rules of business: Location, location, location. He got placed right next to the kid selling cotton candy. Everyone walked right by his table straight to the cotton candy.
Auriana is raking in the bucks with her new job. She is a student sweeper at Canyon Elementary and Becky and I have been very impressed with her commitment and diligence. We’re excited for her to receive her very first paycheck! She was happy to learn that she made the Concert Choir for next year. I was caught off guard yesterday when she pointed out that there are only 10 days of school left before summer break. She’s going to be taking Driver’s Ed in June and will be driving on her own before we know it. It has been fun to take her out driving and see her improve each time.
Isaac just finished up track season and did very well, improving each of his personal bests and turning into a leap frog in the process as he increased his top height on the high jump by half a foot. His basketball skills have also improved dramatically. He still can’t beat his dad, but he’s getting pretty darn close! ☺ He is also quite the entrepreneur and is earning good money with his friend Nate and their lawn care business. As our lawnmower becomes increasingly rickety and unusable I have been trying to teach him about putting money back into his company and making some capital equipment purchases, and about my role as an investor in his company if I share in the expense of those purchases. We still have yet to see if he follows my sage advice.
Ellie graduates from Kindergarten on Friday. Wow, that year went by fast. She also recently “graduated” from Let’s Play Music and performed her own piano composition in front of about 150 students and parents and did an amazing job. We had several other parents tell us they thought her song was best out of all the kids in her class. And I think she was the youngest. She recently enjoyed a field trip to the zoo and a few days later got to be the Zookeeper in her class program. I think Becky has posted some videos and/or photos on our blog.
Miriam declared today at Natalie’s track meet that she wants to be just like Natalie when she gets older. She wants to be the fastest girl in her grade. She’s certainly the best Irish dancer her age. She has been excited to start going to Activity Days, and continues to make friends wherever she goes. Miriam is also a voracious reader. A few weeks ago I fell asleep watching TV and woke up about 1:00 am and decided to go check on the kids before going back to sleep. I peeked in Miriam’s room and there she was just reading away like it was the middle of the day and not the middle of the night. Sometimes I wonder if that girl needs to even sleep at all. ☺ Her energetic laugh and fun sense of humor sure keep us all entertained.
Becky has been getting things organized for the upcoming Youth Arts Festival in June. This year she is in charge of supervising everything that goes on at the school while classes are being held. Her organizational skills and practical way of doing things have already turned it into a much more efficient process that will make it a better experience for the children and the parents. She just had her last day of volunteering at the school yesterday. Recently she drew up plans for our backyard complete with a new deck, a cement basketball court, new garden and planter areas, and a shed. It’s a great plan that can be done in phases. I’ve only found one problem with it: it requires money. ☺ We’ll get around to it eventually, but I’m grateful for her patience in the process.
Our Camry recently died and so we’ve been experiencing life with one car while we try to figure out if its worth it to fix it or not, and also try to figure out a way to fit another car payment into our budget. The only time it gets a bit challenging is when four or more of the kids have something going on at the same time and we need to get them each to a different place and pick them up again. We’ve been depending on teammates and friends to help out a bit more with transportation.
Last week I enjoyed a canyoneering outing with my two older brothers, John and Mark. John has a couple of friends that are very experienced at rappelling and hiking slot canyons. They had a couple guys drop out and so Mark and I got invited. We spent Thursday through Saturday exploring slot canyons in the Hanksville area. They are called the Irish canyons and had names like “Blarney” and “Leprechaun” and “Lucky Charms.” It was extremely hard and I scraped up my knees and elbows and my whole body is sore, but it was a blast! The slot canyons are beautiful, the rappelling is a rush, and the time with my brothers was great. Cell phones didn’t work where we were, so it was nice to be “off the grid” and take a much-needed break from work.
Becky and I have enjoyed reading the conference talks together each night. I always think “Wow, that was a great talk,” when I watch them during conference, but then I read through them again, and am even more blown away by how inspiring and timely they are. As the world continues to degrade at an ever-increasing rate, I am so very grateful for living prophets, direct revelation, and the true gospel to guide and direct me and my family.
Enoch scored 3 goals in his final soccer game of the year. He is loving his new club team and did really well in tryouts on Saturday. His Hershey track meet is Thursday. Tomorrow he gets to represent his class in the 3rd grade spelling bee. He has turned into a voracious reader lately—the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series are bound to do that to almost anyone. He and his business partner, Kavin, are having success with their waste transportation company. You’ll have to ask him about it. He also learned a bit about business at his school business fair where each student had to come up with something to sell. He created some very clever and intricate marble mazes out of legos and his idea was to charge people to take turns playing with the mazes. It was a great business model and he went to school with 5 different mazes of varying difficulty. Once he got there, he learned one of the most important rules of business: Location, location, location. He got placed right next to the kid selling cotton candy. Everyone walked right by his table straight to the cotton candy.
Auriana is raking in the bucks with her new job. She is a student sweeper at Canyon Elementary and Becky and I have been very impressed with her commitment and diligence. We’re excited for her to receive her very first paycheck! She was happy to learn that she made the Concert Choir for next year. I was caught off guard yesterday when she pointed out that there are only 10 days of school left before summer break. She’s going to be taking Driver’s Ed in June and will be driving on her own before we know it. It has been fun to take her out driving and see her improve each time.
Isaac just finished up track season and did very well, improving each of his personal bests and turning into a leap frog in the process as he increased his top height on the high jump by half a foot. His basketball skills have also improved dramatically. He still can’t beat his dad, but he’s getting pretty darn close! ☺ He is also quite the entrepreneur and is earning good money with his friend Nate and their lawn care business. As our lawnmower becomes increasingly rickety and unusable I have been trying to teach him about putting money back into his company and making some capital equipment purchases, and about my role as an investor in his company if I share in the expense of those purchases. We still have yet to see if he follows my sage advice.
Ellie graduates from Kindergarten on Friday. Wow, that year went by fast. She also recently “graduated” from Let’s Play Music and performed her own piano composition in front of about 150 students and parents and did an amazing job. We had several other parents tell us they thought her song was best out of all the kids in her class. And I think she was the youngest. She recently enjoyed a field trip to the zoo and a few days later got to be the Zookeeper in her class program. I think Becky has posted some videos and/or photos on our blog.
Miriam declared today at Natalie’s track meet that she wants to be just like Natalie when she gets older. She wants to be the fastest girl in her grade. She’s certainly the best Irish dancer her age. She has been excited to start going to Activity Days, and continues to make friends wherever she goes. Miriam is also a voracious reader. A few weeks ago I fell asleep watching TV and woke up about 1:00 am and decided to go check on the kids before going back to sleep. I peeked in Miriam’s room and there she was just reading away like it was the middle of the day and not the middle of the night. Sometimes I wonder if that girl needs to even sleep at all. ☺ Her energetic laugh and fun sense of humor sure keep us all entertained.
Becky has been getting things organized for the upcoming Youth Arts Festival in June. This year she is in charge of supervising everything that goes on at the school while classes are being held. Her organizational skills and practical way of doing things have already turned it into a much more efficient process that will make it a better experience for the children and the parents. She just had her last day of volunteering at the school yesterday. Recently she drew up plans for our backyard complete with a new deck, a cement basketball court, new garden and planter areas, and a shed. It’s a great plan that can be done in phases. I’ve only found one problem with it: it requires money. ☺ We’ll get around to it eventually, but I’m grateful for her patience in the process.
Our Camry recently died and so we’ve been experiencing life with one car while we try to figure out if its worth it to fix it or not, and also try to figure out a way to fit another car payment into our budget. The only time it gets a bit challenging is when four or more of the kids have something going on at the same time and we need to get them each to a different place and pick them up again. We’ve been depending on teammates and friends to help out a bit more with transportation.
Last week I enjoyed a canyoneering outing with my two older brothers, John and Mark. John has a couple of friends that are very experienced at rappelling and hiking slot canyons. They had a couple guys drop out and so Mark and I got invited. We spent Thursday through Saturday exploring slot canyons in the Hanksville area. They are called the Irish canyons and had names like “Blarney” and “Leprechaun” and “Lucky Charms.” It was extremely hard and I scraped up my knees and elbows and my whole body is sore, but it was a blast! The slot canyons are beautiful, the rappelling is a rush, and the time with my brothers was great. Cell phones didn’t work where we were, so it was nice to be “off the grid” and take a much-needed break from work.
Becky and I have enjoyed reading the conference talks together each night. I always think “Wow, that was a great talk,” when I watch them during conference, but then I read through them again, and am even more blown away by how inspiring and timely they are. As the world continues to degrade at an ever-increasing rate, I am so very grateful for living prophets, direct revelation, and the true gospel to guide and direct me and my family.
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August: by Bjorn
Well, the 3 younger kids are off to their first day of school! Can't believe Miriam's in high school! We did father's blessings...
