SAVE THE DATE!!!!!!

After 12 long weeks, Josh finally had his Eagle Board of Review and we are TENTATIVELY scheduling his Eagle Court of Honor for May 23rd. (We just have to make sure all of the official paperwork gets back to us first.) So, save the date and we will get you more details as they come. This is only 3 1/2 weeks away, so we hope we can pull this off! Otherwise we may need to wait until August. Cross your fingers that this all works.

20 Pins Patch

Tonight Noah received his last two pins as a Webelos Scout and earned ALL 20 pins...so he got this cool patch!!!

Hands On Contest

Joshua participated in a contest to try and win a new band instrument. When they began, there were 161 people. His cousin Timothy and his neighborhood friend Tanner also participated. Josh was surprised when a judge told him that his finger had been lifted from the case and he was out. (He had no idea his finger came off.) Well, he made a good effort. We were glad that we could sleep in our own beds that night. The contest usually goes for at least 30 hours.

Hail, hail the HAIL's all here!

Wow!!!!! Just a matter of moments ago we had a heaven-load of hail dumped on us. It seemed to last for quite a while and the stones were not small. The ground felt like it was shaking and the sound was a very loud rumble. Elijah was quite nervous about the whole thing. Brad was actually out driving and did not have an enjoyable time with that. The gutters and the streets were flooded and overflowing. What a fun springtime occurrance.

Blind Date

Valesca had her first blind date with a relative of one of her friends. When they arrived to pick her up, he brought her these flowers in her favorite color. (I don't remember any dates bringing me flowers.) Then they realized that they actually have met before when the relative had come down from Roy for stake dances. Who knew?

Apparently it was this young man's first date...I think he is starting out pretty well with the flower thing.

Spring Soccer

Spring Soccer Season is once again upon us. Elijah played his 2nd game today and had 1 goal and 1 assist. Last week he was extremely excited because he got 3 goals! He is having a fun time.

FREE Chocolate!

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Chocolate Factory and very much enjoyed the FREE Chocolate at the end.
Then we went to the new Deseret Book Flagship Store.

And we stopped to smell the beautiful flowers. What a great day!

Girls Pref Dance

Valesca and Blake wearing "I Love Ice Cream" shirts to the Girls Pref Dance.

Welcome Home Elder Johnson

It has been 2 years since we have seen our nephew. Last night we attended an Open House to welcome him home from his mission to Brazil.

Taryn's Baptism

Saturday we attended the baptism of my niece Taryn. They asked me to lead the music and I accepted, but also reminded/warned them of how terrible I am at it. And of course, I didn't disappoint with mistakes and the piano player quitting before the last verse of the song. Oh well- that is what ALWAYS happens.

The moment you always seem to remember

Do you remember the day that you learned to ride your bike?

Did your dad run beside you and let go when you thought he was still holding on? You fell, but you got back up and tried again.

Finally "You Did It" and it felt so good to know that you had finally learned how to ride your bike!

Today was that day for Elijah- he was upgraded to his brother Noah's bike which didn't have training wheels. It probably took him less than 10 minutes to get the hang of it.

10:20 AM

It is already 10:20 am and we have made 2 batches of strawberry freezer jam and the boys are wanting to grind wheat. I am certainly lucky that these guys want to do this while they are off track from school. Result: yummy homemade bread with jam...can't wait!

Canning Butter

Yesterday and today I am trying my hand at canning butter- that's right! The lighter jars are the set-up butter from yesterday, and the darker is what I am doing now. It takes lots of shaking, and I should have used smaller jars, but I think it is pretty easy. Now we have butter in our food storage and supposedly you don't have to refrigerate it after opening if you use it within a reasonable amount of time. If you are interested in the recipe I can forward it to you.

City of Rocks

Yesterday we found ourselves in quite a bit of snow as we toured the City of Rocks on our way home from Twin Falls.

Snowy Hike

Yesterday our hike was a little cold up to Balanced Rock.

Spring Break

We traveled to a new Temple for Spring Break. For the older kids, this temple makes 32 that they have visited.

We took a hike while it was nice, but chilly.

This is Shoshone Falls just outside of Twin Falls, Idaho.
It was good we went there early in the day because in the evening it was snowing.