November 2017: by Becky

This month Natalie has been busy getting a lot of stuff! I guess it's because she had a birthday!   

She received ...

her Patriarchal blessing

her YW Recognition award

Academic all state for soccer

MVP soccer defender for our region (Region 10)

Sterling scholar for world languages

And she made the basketball team. 

Hopefully she can stay humble! 

Enoch fell on is bike and hurt his wrist. Then he tried out for the 9th grade basketball team and made it. Then I took him to the doctor and found out his scaphoid bone is broken and he shouldn’t have been playing on it. Oops!!  He’s really excited to be on the team though... and at least he still gets to wear all the cool gear, even if he doesn't get to play ball until Christmas. Thanks to so many who came and supported Enoch at his Eagle court of honor, it is wonderful to have a supportive family. 

Ellie turned twelve and she was so excited to take her first trip to the temple to do baptisms. She celebrated with two other friends who have the same birthday week and went ice skating with all their friends. She fits right into the Beehive class with Miriam and for her first week in YW we had YW in Excellence. Ellie composed a song for her first project and sang it that night with Miriam. She obliged the primary president and did one last primary program today. It’s crazy to think we’ve graduated from primary. 

Ice Skating Party

YW in Excellence

Miriam has probably felt a bit left out of all the big happenings at our house, but you wouldn’t know it because she continues to be her happy helpful self. Soccer season is over and she is really excited to play basketball this winter. 

We’re grateful to have a missionary and we still look forward to Isaac’s letters like it’s Christmas morning. 

Auriana is staying busy with school, work, and the band! I still can’t believe it’s her senior year.

She has a few performances coming up that we are looking forward to.  Here is a link to a video with her playing and singing with the dancers!  
https://youtu.be/yrUMHHkc2d0

Have a happy Thanksgiving!  We'll be cooking turkey for the first time at our house, so feel free to drop in.  :-)

October 2017

The kids had some remarkable opportunities this past month...Bjorn and I are just amazed and feel privileged to be their parents.  We are really enjoying the ride! 

Performing for Prophets

Auriana and her band were invited to entertain for 30 minutes for the First Presidency and the Quorum of the twelve apostles in the Church office building.  She said it was a pretty amazing experience.  I wish I was invited!  She also turned 21 (crazy) and I'm not sure what to think about that!

Region Champs

Natalie's soccer team is ranked number one in the state for 4A right now.  That's something the Spanish Fork girls soccer team has never done, it should be a fun tournament the next few weeks to see who takes state.  Stay tuned!  Natalie continues to play her heart out during every game and does an amazing job as the center defender. She is having a fun, but busy senior year.  

Natalie trying to head the moon (I mean ball)

Region Champs

Homecoming

Driver Permit! 

Enoch keeps getting cuter and cuter!
Happy 15th Birthday

Top Varsity

Miriam and her tennis partner (Isabelle) climbed the tennis ranks
from below JV to top Varsity throughout the tennis season at the Junior High.
They only have one loss this season and they will compete in the district finals on Tuesday! 
They are so fun to watch ... they giggle throughout the game!

We had fun hanging out with Claire Ryann Crosby at the Harvest Moon Hurrah! 

Student Council

Ellie was elected to the Elementary School Student Council
after singing and playing "You Can Count On Me" on the ukelele for her school assembly (nerve wracking.) 
She was brave and did awesome, but I think she was truly elected because she is so nice and friendly to everyone. 
She is a  natural leader at school! 

Ellie and Berry having fun watching conference

Ellie as lunch worker

Sisters
Photo cred: Natalie

 Chad turns 40!

We were privileged to spend some time with Chad a few days before the big 40.
Happy Birthday to a great brother and uncle!

September 2017: by Bjorn

Has it been another month already? Well, let’s see, what happened this month? Soccer, soccer, and ummmm more soccer! I think we also occasionally ate dinner, went to school, worked and slept.

Summer flew by way too fast, but its good to be back in school. August was full of cousin visits, soccer tournaments, an anniversary, a pretty cool eclipse, and too many other things to mention more than just a few.

It’s hard to believe Auriana is now a senior in college. She continues to amaze us with her independence and her talents. I can’t believe she’ll officially be an adult on Friday! Happy 21st!

We LOVE getting Isaac’s missionary letters. This month we enjoyed getting a phone call from his mission president’s wife telling us that he had once again separated his shoulder. We were glad it was ONLY his shoulder. She also had many wonderful things to say about him and the good person he is, his positive attitude, and the great work he is doing there. We’re grateful he gets to associate with good people and that he’s having such a great experience and making a difference in many lives – including his own family’s.

Natalie is the other senior in our family, and her high school soccer team is doing really well. They have only lost one game (pre-season), tied one, and won all the others – some by quite a bit. We’re just glad she’s staying relatively healthy and injury free. She was called to be on Seminary Council this past week and we’re excited for the opportunities she’ll have with that. Too bad she doesn’t have anything to keep her busy. Will we ever see her this entire school year? ☺

Enoch is enjoying being a ninth grader – oldest kids in the school. Soccer is going well for him too. You’ll have to ask him about his “Charlie Brown swing-and-miss kick” at the end of his game yesterday. Wow, did he get some air! ☺ Enoch is also taking every opportunity he can to drive. In fact, as I write this letter he is out with Becky putting in some driving time. He will get his permit as soon as he possibly can after turning 15 on the 30th.

Miriam got a hat trick in her soccer game yesterday (scored 3 goals) and is loving her team and that experience. She’s also pretty excited about making the JV tennis team at school and being VP in her choir class. She was just called to be the Beehive class president and seems to make friends and bring happiness wherever she goes.

Ellie is in the choir at school, is continuing with dance, and keeps playing, singing and writing music. We have been having a lot of fun with her city soccer team where she also had a hat trick in a recent game. Its hard to believe that in 2 short months she will be in Young Women. Wow, our youngest is going to be 12 years old? I guess that’s how it goes when you’ve been married 22 years. Congrats to the others who celebrated anniversaries recently!

Becky and I enjoyed a trip to the temple and lunch and dinner out together for our anniversary. At the end of the day, I told her “Thanks for saying YES.” And then I realized that she didn’t actually say “yes.” She said, “I’d love to!”

We sure enjoyed our time up in Logan with Mom and Dad and the sisters’ families. Thank you to Jen and Chad for being flexible with our last-minute decision to come up the night before rather than the morning of. We missed seeing the rest of you, but it’s fun to hear of all the adventures each of you are having.

If anyone is interested, we have One Voice Children’s Choir, Claire Ryann Crosby (the 4 year old of YouTube fame) and James the Mormon performing at the Harvest Moon Hurrah this year (free admission). Its this coming Saturday, September 16 at the park on Main and Center in Spanish Fork. The good stuff starts at around 5:15 pm and goes until about 9:00 pm. No pressure, just though I’d let you know.

With all the crazy natural disasters happening lately, I’ll end my letter the way I end all my letters to Isaac: Hold fast and keep the faith. Onward, ever onward!

We love you!

Bjorn, Becky and family

Enjoying the sunset at Miriam's Soccer game

Baby quilt for Matt & Lissa's baby
made by Miriam

Artwork for Matt & Lissa's baby
by Auriana

Auriana's band at BYU

1st day of school

Favorite pic with Isaac & the Ukelele

August 2017: by Becky

We were with cousins for the entire month of July!  Life seems a little dull now that it's just us. Family is a wonderful thing!  We're grateful for all of you!

Highlights of our month...
Brenna, Katelyn and Ellie had a fun cousin week while the rest of our family was away from home adventuring.  Here is a picture of the girls attempting to 'clean the sink' at Angie's in Logan.

We went back to Idaho a few days after the reunion to find Miriam and Natalie safe and happy, after two weeks of adventures.  They had a great time and the report from everyone there was that Natalie is a steady and reliable leader and that Miriam is an energizer bunny.  We weren't surprised to hear it.

Miriam in front of her cabin.

The 'L Team'

Then we stayed as a family in Victor for a week to attend the family camp that we have grown to love.  In January, we made a long list of everything that we could potentially do this summer, family camp and cousin time is everyone's favorite choice!  I'm really glad!!

Bjorn and I hiked to the rocky peak just the two of us, we also enjoyed learning some new skills like painting, leatherwork, and how to make cinnamon rolls, fortune cookies, and sushi.  We made a bunch of new friends and enjoyed getting back to the basics.

We hurried home to get Enoch to the Timberline leadership camp where he was on the kitchen staff. He cooked, taught lessons, and even carried one sick boy down the mountain so he could get to the hospital.  He had a great (and dirty) time.  We picked him up after one week and drove him straight back to Idaho for 2 weeks at the boys ranch.  Mom and Dad got to see him at the end of that experience, so mom's letter gave a really great report of his time there.  He did some biking and metal work so he was happy!

Timberline 2017
Enoch is the tall one

While Enoch was gone we had one big, long cousin party!  It was fun to have Alan and Konnie come for a quick visit.  We were so glad to have Enoch come back home, he's been doing magic tricks for us every since.  We were able to visit the MTC open house, the new buildings are beautiful, but my favorite part of the tour was going through the old part where we got to walk through the lunch room and the gym and see the missionaries going about their normal routine.  They probably felt like they were in a zoo, but I thought it was really cool.  It's an amazing place.

OKAY

FLOATING in the Great Salt Lake

The Grotto Falls in Payson Canyon

Visiting the MTC open house

Nate Hanson (Isaac's buddy) leaves this week
on his mission to Chili

June 2017: by Bjorn

Well the summer of having no kids begins soon. Natalie will be gone for 3 weeks, Miriam nearly 3, and Enoch will be away from home for 5 straight weeks – though one and a half of those will be with the rest of the family at the family reunion and the family camp we go to each year in Victor, Idaho. Ellie will enjoy a few cousin outings as well. It will be nice for each of them to get a break from sports and mostly be out in nature.

Auriana had a wonderful 3-week tour to Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam playing the mandolin in the band that accompanies the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble. She got to ride an elephant, make many new friends, perform for a princess and many other dignitaries, and even got to do a little missionary work with one of their tour guides.

It was kind of weird for us to pray for Auriana in Vietnam and Isaac in Russia. My how the world has changed! Isaac continues to experience challenges and growth and wonderful experiences in Samara. He’s learning some good things about leadership as a zone leader. Since I assume most of you read his letters at least some of the time, I won’t expound too much on that. We love his positive attitude and his dedication to the work, and we LOVED seeing him and talking to him on Mother’s Day! He sent a package a while back that finally arrived and we thoroughly enjoyed the treats and ties and cool Russian stuff he sent.

Ellie performed with her dance class in a Wizard of Oz dance production that was pretty impressive. She did a wonderful job in both a ballet number and a jazz number. Natalie and Enoch just returned from youth conference down at Snow College. Miriam and Ellie have been babysitting for two days a week from 7:30 am to 2:30 pm and the kids love them so much that sometimes when the mom comes home the kids cry because they want their mom to stay out longer. The dad told me today that earlier in the week the older boy was so excited for them to come the following day that he said, “I’m just going to go to bed now so that when I wake up in the morning the girls will just already be here.”

Miriam and Ellie are also enjoying tennis lessons and Enoch is a mountain biking maniac. He bought his own bike and has gotten good quite quickly. He’s happy to drag along anyone that will go with him.

I guess that’s all for now. Becky and I just continue to get older and wiser and there’s nothing we can do about it. ☺

May 2017: by Becky

Auriana is off traveling the world and having a wonderful time!! She was in Thailand and is now in Cambodia. We are going to attempt to FaceTime her during our Skype session with Isaac on Mother's Day morning!  They are both about 13 hours ahead of us right now, crazy!  Having a missionary is a great blessing in our family and we LOVE getting Isaac's letters every week!

The rest of this is going to be a sports report, because I'm not sure if there is anything else to talk about in our family right now.  I'm so sun fried!  We had 5 soccer games and 5 track meets this week! The weather has been absolutely perfect, but we all got a bit too much sun!  All four kids competed in the 100 meter this week, they are all so speedy!
Ellie 14:53 seconds
Miriam 14:10 seconds
Enoch 12.59 seconds
Natalie 13:13 seconds

Ellie won the 100m AGAIN for the third year in a row against all the girls her age in Spanish Fork. She did great in the 200m, the standing long jump, and the 4x100 relay as well.  She had been sick for the three days before the meet, so she didn't have her usual energy and was exhausted by the end, but she was a trooper!

Miriam's great accomplishment this year was learning to do the hurdles.  She ended up as the only 7th grader in the final 100m hurdle race at the district Jr. high meet.  She very excitedly took 5th place! She also qualified to compete in the district meet in the long jump, 100m, and 4x100 relay.  Her soccer team is currently in 1st place and she has become the #2 scorer in her division with 9 goals this season!

Enoch decided to try throwing the shot put and discus while recovering from surgery.  He added the events 100m and high jump a few weeks ago.  He did amazing and qualified for districts in all four events and he even set a school record of 35 feet 8 inches in the shot put.  Someone beat his throw later in the season, but he held the record for a few weeks. :-)  Enoch bought himself a mountain bike last week and he has spent every spare second on the mountain trying it out.  He REALLY loves it and so far he only has a few (hundred) scrapes and bruises.

Natalie got her speed back  - it's been a long 2 and half years of effort since surgery, but I think she did it this week!  She qualified to run in the final 100m race in the region track meet which was a huge milestone for her!   She has her sights set on qualifying for state in that event next year, although she does get to compete at state this year with her relay team. Her club soccer team finished in 1st place this season which puts them as a Premier 1 team next year, that's pretty cool that they made it into the very top division for her senior year!  Natalie is currently at THE PROM while I write this!  She is speaking in sacrament meeting for Mother's Day and she is doing singing time in Primary so the women can go to Relief Society.  I think she has a busy morning of preparation ahead of her.