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.

April 2017: by Bjorn

Conference was pretty amazing, eh? It always goes by way too fast. We enjoyed having Sarah, Melissa, Adam, Rachel, Matt & Lissa join us. Our kids look up to each of them. It was tough to see President Monson’s health deteriorating, but inspiring to hear his powerful messages despite his physical condition. Amazing to think that he was called as an apostle in 1963 and the next most senior apostle (President Nelson) was called in 1984.

It has been a wonderful fast Sunday – such a powerful spirit in our sacrament meeting. Several members in our ward are going through very difficult physical challenges (cancer, etc.) and it has been pretty tough on their families, but I am seeing how it is binding us closer together as a ward family as we fast and pray for these individuals.

Congrats again to Chad on becoming a tenured professor! Always wonderful to hear great news like that. It was also neat to hear about Mom’s family history dream. Sounds like the Spirit of Elijah is in full effect in that household.

We enjoyed a fun trip down to Arches National Park for Spring break this past week. It was fun to see the kids go from wondering if it was going to be fun to exclaiming at the end of our trip, “This place is so cool—I could spend a week here and not get sick of it!” It was neat to see their eyes fill with wonder and see the spirit of adventure take over as they enjoyed the hikes and exploring the different rock formations and all the cool places that I have enjoyed as I’ve gone there in the past. I’m sure Becky will include some fun photos of our trip.

We also enjoyed going to the Monticello temple to do baptisms. That was the smallest temple I’ve ever been in. I’m proud of Natalie and Miriam for making it to every temple in Utah within a year. Miriam started on her birthday last year, and barely made it with 1 day to spare. Just one more example of how my kids inspire me to be a better person.

Speaking of Miriam… thanks for all your kind birthday wishes to our newest teenager. Somehow I find it hard to believe that she’ll ever throw some teenager attitude at me. Has there ever been a happier person in the world? Maybe Brenda, but that’s it. ☺

Enoch is out in the garage right now, putting the finishing touches on a disc (frisbee) golf goal that he built himself. He had the idea and wanted to pay for it all himself and so we took a trip to Home Depot last night, got home at 9:45 and he stayed up late building it. He’s so good with his hands and he loves building stuff. So I guess from now on we’ll just be getting him tools for his birthdays. Soon I’ll be asking him if I can borrow his tools.

Everyone else is deep into soccer season. Enoch’s knee should be healed enough that he can start playing in games in about 2 weeks. Auriana is done with winter semester soon and then she leaves May 1 to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam for Folk Dance tour. Great opportunities come from developing and sharing your talents.

March 2017

Photos from Becky & Bjorn

Ellie was Martha Jefferson for her 5th grade presidents wax museum.  She learned a lot about Thomas Jefferson.  From her speech... "Thomas Jefferson was a well educated man and spoke 6 languages.  He was also an architect, lawyer, musician, and inventor.  Thomas Jefferson was my husband.  My name is Martha Jefferson.  I didn't live to see my husband get elected third president of the United States of America.  My daughters Patsy and Polly took on the duties of hostesses of the white house when I passed away." 

Ellie at the Treehouse Museum in Ogden

Miriam and Ellie's team both took 2nd place in St. George
We didn't get the warm weather we were hoping for, but we had a great time! 

Valentines Day 2017
from our boys

The girls cooked dinner for Enoch and Bjorn

Natalie at her choir concert

Auriana on tour in San Francisco

February 2017: by Becky

Enoch had surgery on his knee on Thursday! At 6 feet, no one at the hospital could believe that he was only 14, he was relaxed and a super patient too.  After a month of icing it almost everyday with no improvement, I took him back to the doctor, a different one this time.  His diagnosis was the same, other than this doctor was sure the root of the problem was his two piece kneecap. He said there would be no danger in living with it, but that if he stays really active it will never get all the way better without surgery.  It’s probably not very often that you go to the doctor one day and have surgery less than 24 hours later, especially if it’s not an emergency.  The surgeon was available to do it either then or mid March.  We opted for sooner than later so that Enoch can be recovered for at least part of the soccer season.  We’re hoping this surgery enables him to run without the knee pain he’s had for so long.   His kneecap never formed all the way, bipartite patella, so there was one little piece that was moving around enough that it was causing problems.  They removed that 1” piece (10% of his kneecap) and sent him on his way.  He can’t bend it for two weeks, mostly to help the tendonitis heal, but then he can start therapy.  The recovery so far has been a breeze compared to Natalie’s ACL surgery a few years ago, we hope it continues that way.  

Natalie has one more week of basketball, I won’t be sad to let go of the 5:30am practices, I don’t think she will be either, but she has had a fun season.  She plays a lot of JV, but has played a couple of times in varsity games.  The first time she played varsity, they had her number written wrong on the roster, so they called a technical on us.  She was in the middle of shooting foul shots at the time, she had missed the first one, but she was left alone out on the court to finish the 2nd one. Even with all that attention, she swished it!  All you have to do to earn a Letter in basketball is score in a varsity game and she did it.  

Miriam had a similar experience in her basketball game this week.  It was tied 11-11 with one minute left.  The other team called a timeout, but they didn’t have any timeouts left, so they called a technical on them.  We got to shoot two, and the coach sent Miriam out to do it.  She swished both of them, it was so exciting.  

Ellie started dance classes recently.  She loves it!  She also started piano.  She doesn’t love it … yet, but hopefully she will soon.    Miriam and Enoch are taking piano lessons too and it's fun to hear them all playing a little more often.

We’re looking forward to our annual trek to St. George for soccer tournaments this weekend, we’re hoping for some warm weather.  Miriam, Ellie, and Natalie are all playing this year.  Enoch already went to a tournament in Mesquite in January.

Auriana just performed with the folk dance group at the conference center, and begins her mid-semester tour to the San Francisco area pretty soon.

You all have access to Isaac’s letters, so you know how he’s doing. It is such a blessing to have a missionary out. It has been wonderful for our family as a whole, and wonderful for our individual relationships with Isaac as well.

Surgery Day
and Supportive Friends

Valentines Box

Happy Birthday Brenda!

I love this kind of homework!

Conference Center Performance
Photo cred: Rachel Jacobsen

January 2017: by Becky

We had such a great time talking to Isaac on Christmas, that was the highlight of our month.  I know he has grown and changed a lot, but it was fun to talk to him and see that is he still the same old Isaac too.  It seems like the 60 minutes we we had with him went by in 10.  

Auriana is back at school after a nice relaxing Christmas break.  She actually worked most days of the vacation, but there was nothing to do at work with all the students gone, so it was a very nice break for her.  She is to the point in college now that she is done with her generals and will have all major classes from now on (of communication disorders). We enjoyed having her with us for a few weeks, for Christmas, and for our quick to Rexburg.    

We were glad we braved the weather and went to Rexburg for Christmas Eve Eve.  We made some fun memories and enjoyed the traditional Christmas eve festivities of childhood at home again.  We stopped in Bountiful on our way home and enjoyed a meal and carol singing with Bjorn’s family as well.  Christmas continues to be such a magical time.

Natalie has 5:30 am basketball practice which is NOT very fun at all … especially since the heat isn’t even turned on at the school at that time.  But, she doesn’t complain and loves being part of the team.  She continues to put her whole heart into every game and always comes away with cuts and bruises, but somehow she loves it anyway.  The trainer told her that if he had a dime for every time she ended up on the ground he would be rich.  

Enoch and Natalie are student of the month this month.  All of the kids seem to be doing well and thriving, although Enoch does have extreme patellar tendonitis and probably has had it for at least a year now. I finally took him to an orthopedic specialist because his knee was giving out on him recently.  At least nothing is torn.  Phew.  He is enjoying basketball season anyway, even though he hobbles a bit.  Bjorn is taking him to Mesquite this weekend for a soccer tournament.  Hopefully they get some warmer weather there.  Enoch is officially an Eagle scout now as of Jan 5.  

We have had so much snow (like most of you.)  We keep hoping for a snow day off of school, but so far we have only had a two hour delayed start on one morning.  Our street doesn’t see the plow very often, so it’s a fun adventure every time we go anywhere.  The plow actually came during church today and left us some nice big piles to drive through to get into the driveway.  Enoch is such a great shoveler at our house as well as at several widows homes in the ward … even sometimes at 5am before school.  

Miriam and Ellie shovel a path for Berry everyday, so that he can find his way to a little bit of grass and shelter under the tramp.  They had a fun Christmas vacation playing together like best friends as usual.  They played school, and legos, and dolls non stop and I’m NOT looking forward for that phase to end.