Photo of the week!

Photo of the week!

Photo of the week!

MAY 2015: by Isaac

Well, we’ve had a pretty eventful month and I guess I’ll start out with the youngest child and work my way up.

Ellie had her school track meet earlier in the month competing with the 7 Elementary schools in Spanish Fork.  Following the expected pattern, she performed spectacularly. The events she selected to run were the 50 meter dash, the 100 meter dash, and the standing long jump. As we hypothesized, she took first place in every single one. We obviously weren’t surprised, we expect high excellence from our children and are rarely disappointed.

Moving on to the next little beam of sunshine, our lovely daughter Miriam. She also had a few noteworthy happenings recently, quite a funny story actually. She had a little spell of illness for a couple days, during those days she had a soccer game. Like the little trooper she is, she still wanted to play in her soccer game, she started playing, but after a couple minutes, she felt too sick to go on. After watching the game from the car and witnessing her team being mercilessly crushed by the opposing ten year olds. She decided to give it another shot (literally). She jumped back in the game and proceeded to score three goals in a matter of minutes, tying the game at 3-3.  Sadly, the other team got in a lucky shot and won the game by sheer happenstance, but they will forever remember the day they faced Miriam.

Enoch similarly has a story involving soccer that he wanted to share, his team played a game in four inches of snow, they won 8-2.  Obviously, the other team didn’t stand a chance.

After Natalie’s ACL tear, she hasn’t been able to play soccer, but this last month she was finally cleared to practice with her team.  She has also been involved in track, she's getting faster, pretty soon she’ll be back to her old speedy self.

Isaac just had some pretty big track meets, the BYU track meet, the region track meet, and next week he has the state track meet. At the BYU track meet he performed very well making us exceedingly proud. He placed 13th overall in the state in the 400 meter (regardless of division) and 8th in 4A. In the 200 he placed 10th overall in the state, but we aren’t sure what place in 4A. At region he placed 4th in the 100, although he should have taken 2nd but he got jipped. His fourth place time was 11.12, the third place guy also got 11.12, the clock having to measure to the thousandth place.  The second place runner ran a 11.11, meaning our beloved son could have literally stuck out his tongue and taken second. As you can see he is quite sore over the matter. He took 4th in the region for the 400, and although seeded 2nd, he had a bad race and placed 5th overall at region in the 200. His 4x400 team, which happens to have the fastest time in the state, also ran terribly and took second at region by inches. So, they are looking for redemption at state.

Our eldest daughter Auriana just took a trip to Las Vegas with her cousin Rebekah and Bjorn. Bjorn going to a convention, Auriana tagging along to work at the convention and earn some money.

Photo of the week!

APRIL 2015

We just returned from our Spring Break trip to Disneyland. We had a really great time and made some fun memories. Here are some of our favorites.

Auriana: My favorite part of Disneyland was the Aladdin show that we went to on Thursday. They had some really spectacular sets, and they actually flew around the top of the room on a flying carpet. My other favorite thing was the racing ride in cars land and the grizzly river rapids ride. On Saturday we went on the river ride and got soaking wet, so since we were already wet we got right back in line and went again. We were all so soaked that we had to go back to the hotel and change! It was a blast. I really liked the parades and how nice everyone there is. We were talking about how the attitude of all the employees makes it such a different experience. The world of color show at Calfornia Adventure was really amazing as well, although we did have to hold Miriam and Ellie on our backs so that they could see. It was a super fun vacation, even if I did have to be the one to miss school right before finals week. :)

Isaac: Disneyland was a blast, they had some pretty spectacular shows there, and the people there have so much talent and it amazed me how much attention to detail was used in creating all the different "lands" particularly in California adventure. The rides were fun and it was really fun spending time with my family and finally having the experience I had heard about my entire life.

Natalie: Disneyland was really fun! Everyone that performed and worked there was so talented and amazing, and I especially loved the Aladdin show. It was really fun to go on such a fun vacation with my family. I really liked all of the rides and the parade at California adventure was really cool.

Enoch: I liked the splash mountain ride, the grizzly river run

Cars land ride, and the space mountain was really fun.

Indiana jones was really fun too.

Miriam: I really liked the Cars Ride, the Grizzly River Run, and the Toy Story Ride at California Adventure. And then I really liked Tarzan's Treehouse and The Pirates of the Caribbean Ride at Disneyland.

Ellie: I liked the Grizzly River Run at California Adventure. I liked the Cars ride at California Adventure too. I also  liked Tarzan's Treehouse at Disneyland. I pretty much  loved the whole trip!! (Except the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.)

Becky

My favorite part of the vacation was the river ride. The boat fits eight so it was just us, sitting in a circle boat, laughing and enjoying being together. I loved how family friendly and clean everything at Disneyland was! I also appreciated having a hotel room across the street to take tired children to. After a full and exhausting three days It was wonderful to arrive at Boyd and Karinne's house and be welcomed with hugs, and smiles, and comfortable beds.

Bjorn: I can’t believe we finally broke down and went to Disneyland. It was great to have the family time and to create so many fun memories. I agree with everything everyone else has written. My favorite moments were/are hearing my kids talk about their favorite rides and memories and seeing the excitement on their faces as they experienced Disneyland. I’m hoping my feet will recover soon from all that walking.

I can’t believe Isaac is 17 and Auriana is pretty much done with her first year of college and will be moving out in the fall. Miriam is now 11 - one more year until Young Women! She’s been having a growth spurt lately and lots of people have commented on it, so she’s pretty excited about that. Conference was wonderful as always. A big focus on marriage and families. Can’t wait to dive into the talks in detail.

Photo of the week!

Disneyland

Happy Easter!

Photo of the week!

March 2015: by Bjorn

Becky and I and the older kids just got back from a fireside that was a kickoff for the cultural celebration that will be taking place in conjunction with the dedication of the Payson Temple. It got all the youth and their parents excited about what they will be doing for the celebration and explained the specifics of our stake’s part in the overall celebration that will involve 13,000 youth. A member of our stake presidency was appointed as the Payson Temple Recorder so we have been getting the “inside scoop” on all the progress and our stake will be the first to assign or call workers and volunteers. Pretty exciting all around. The cultural celebration will be June 6 and the dedication June 7.

With basketball coming to an end, soccer season is now upon us. Thankfully the weather seems to be mostly cooperating. In a moment of pure insanity I agreed to coach Ellie’s city soccer team, so adding that to coaching Miriam’s club team will keep me running a practice or a game pretty much every day of the week except Sunday for the next 8 or 9 weeks. If work isn’t too busy I absolutely love it.

We enjoyed our time in St. George over President’s Day weekend. It was fun to have Jenny and Chad and Brenda and Matt down there as well. I know the cousins all had a blast hanging out together. The weather was perfect and Enoch’s team took 2^nd place and Natalie’s team took 1^st – even though she wasn’t playing.

Auriana will be rooming with Melissa starting next fall and she’s excited to be on her own and to finally be able to say she’s no longer a freshman. She was able to keep her scholarship and has been having fun with the bluegrass ensemble she’s in. She’s thinking she will try out for the traveling group that plays for the Folk Dance team. If she makes it that will be a great opportunity for her to travel to some neat places.

I can’t believe Isaac will turn 17 in a week! Is he really that old? He’s been having fun with Ultimate Frisbee and track and this week reached one of his goals to beat 2 of his friends in the 100M run. He got a personal best of 11.28 seconds and hopes to just improve from there.

Other news?... After years of either no interest from the kids or no money or no interest from the parents J it looks like we’ll finally be making a trip to Disneyland over spring break (April 8-11). So we’ll have to get all the best tips and ideas from each of you so we use our time well while we’re there. Another fun yet somewhat daunting opportunity we just found out about is that my uncle Dick Jacobsen has asked us to be in charge of one of the week-long family camps that they run at the Quickwater and Sky Mountain ranches in Idaho the last week of July. We thought we would be going as attendees, as that has become one of our family’s favorite “vacations,” but they had enough applicants that they decided to try and do 3 instead of the usual 2 camps. We feel very honored that they would trust us with this responsibility and love being involved with the great work they are doing.

Photo of the week!