My little pioneer

Every year each grade does some kind of "program" at school.  Because the 4th graders study Utah history they did a pioneer program, singing many songs about Utah's history and performing dances.  Nicolas sang his little heart out and did a great job with his dances, in spite of his family laughing at him and being disgusted through the "boot scoot boogie" or whatever the heck that atrocity of a country line dance is called. :)
We tried to get pictures of his dances, but they are all blurry because we had to zoom and he kept moving!

Smarty-pants

My sweet Marin is much like her mom, always wanting to please and afraid to disappoint.  Fortunately this characteristic is paying off in school.  She is so smart, but more than that she is determined and willing to put her all in - to do her best.  She carried a 4.0 all year long in 7th grade.  Not only making sure she had a A, but going above and beyond and making sure that she was as close to 100% as possible, if not over.  She took advantage of every "extra credit" opportunity whether she needed it or not, and ended up with 103% -104% in some classes!  What a treasure she is!  I appreciate all her hard work and love to see her excellence acknowledged. 
She received a letter in the mail a few weeks ago that was addressed to parents and informed us that she was receiving an award in an honors assembly and we were invited.  At first I figured it must be some kind of junk mail as the only letters that have ever been sent home before were to inform me that I had a student failing or missing credits for graduation. :)
With great delight I went to the honors assembly (unfortunately Jared had to work and couldn't make it during the school day) and watched Marin walk across the stage and receive a "certificate of excellence" for maintaining a 4.0 all year.  I love this girl and hope that some day I will have a graduate with cords around her neck showing her accomplishments.  She will go far!
On a side note, her major goal this year was to get on the yearbook staff for her 8th grade year and she did it!  She's already making plans . . .

Young Women - back where I belong

Many exciting changes/events have taken place this past month.  May was a very good month.  I will post a few of the highlights in separate posts in chronological order.  First of all, on Easter in April I was released from my calling as first counselor in the Primary presidency.  We had served for almost 4 years and I really loved everything about the position.  I loved the children; I loved teaching sharing time; I loved getting to know the teachers; I even enjoyed helping to write the sacrament program each year. :) 
It was a sad day when I was released but I was surprised that I recovered quickly - not like when I was released from being the Laurel advisor almost exactly 6 years ago.  I mourned that calling for over a year.
I spent over a month calling-less, which is unusual in our smaller ward and after teaching indexing in Relief Society one week I was worried about being called as family history representative.
In the middle of May I was called to meet with the bishop who extended a new calling to me - Young Women President.  President???  Are you sure???  I'm the fun one, advisor-ish, not in charge-ish!  Of course I accepted hoping that with the help of my Heavenly Father I can fulfil and magnify this calling.  I love the Young Women and am SO excited to be back with them.  I have a lot to learn, but loving the girls comes naturally.  I have some great women to work with also, and I think this will be a labor of love.

Spring break 2012 - day tripping style - day 2

Day two of spring break adventures finds us at the Thanksgiving Point gardens.  Once again the older boys were off doing their own thing so it was the girls and Nicolas and Cody.  Today we added Dana Harrell, who is Markee and Tamsyn's friend and my friend Laurie's daughter.  

The weather held out for us until just before we left when the wind started whipping.  The rain began after we had returned home.  Perfect!

The gardens were beautiful and the girls had a great time together.  I am so blessed to have wonderful sisters-in-law and fabulous nieces.  How fantastic that the cousins are all such good friends!

 The younger boys had fun hiding from the girls and spying on them from afar for much of our walk around the gardens.   The tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, etc were in full bloom and we were able to enjoy the splendor without the hassle of the crowds who will descend on the gardens for the Tulip Festival later this week. 

One great addition to the gardens is the "Light of the World" garden which features full-size statuary of scenes from our Savior's life.  It is a work in progress so right now there are only a few life-sized statues, although there are many models of the work to come.  It is going to be incredible! 

We, of course, had to finish up our adventure with ice cream from the ice cream shop at Thanksgiving Point.  It isn't an adventure unless ice cream is involved!

 Here are pictures of our day:

Posing on the bridge

See a statue, be a statue

Feeding the fishies

Not sure exactly what was going on here . . .

But now they are all the fiercest models they can be.  Unfortunately Tamsyn was hidden behind Markee. 

Marin mid-leap

Spying on the girls . . .

"It is I, be not afraid". I was touched by this amazing statue. 

Best friends

Planking in the secret garden

Yoga in the secret garden

I love hyacinths!

Rolling down the hill, of course

Markee being Spidey up the hill - psst! is the sound of her webslinging.  There is a story that goes with this.  When we were at LegoLand last year a little boy was walking by Markee.  He looked at her and just held out his hand, Spiderman-style, and said, "psst" and kept walking.  It was hilarious!

 Can't go home without a stop for ice cream!

What?!  The ice cream is gone??

Spring break - day-tripping style - Day 1

We decided that this spring break is going to be a stay at home one so I had to come up with activities that we could do working around my work schedule.  Fortunately cousins decided to do the same thing so we have company on our activities.  Any adventure is more fun with cousins!  Peter and Erik would rather do their older "teenage boy" things so we invited Nicolas' best friend Cody to come along and everyone had a buddy. 
Today we went to This is the Place to see the baby animals and then stopped off the the new City Creek Center in SLC. Much fun was had by all, from doing pioneer chores to petting baby lambs, bunnies, chicks etc, to riding the train, "planking", coonskin cap dueling and shopping. Here are some of the highlights . . .

Wish they would work on OUR garden so enthusiastically!

Why can't I get them to do laundry at home??

Sweet tiny pig and lamb friends.

Baby lambs!  They got to feed the lambs, too.

 Planking

Dueling with candy sticks on stick horses in coonskin caps.  Silly girls!

I was laughing at how it looked like the statue was gazing adoringly at Tamsyn so all the girls joined in.

May I have this dance?

Continuing the animal theme at Forever 21 at City Creek Center.

Hiatus

Yeah, I let the blog lapse for a while.  I'm ready to get back to it.  New post coming soon. . .

Markee and Tamsyn's recital

So the day has come and gone.  The day that Markee and Tamsyn and their friend Dana, among others, have been training for all year.  And they performed beautifully - well, funkily, if that's a word . .  They had a great time and I am just really glad that the hobo dinner spacesuit will now be retired!  I didn't video the recital this year because Peter and his friend Jake were hired to film and edit and make DVDs of the recital.  I hope they get them done soon!

The girls waiting for their time to go on . . .

Striking a pose after the performance.  The spacesuits make them all look heavier than they are, but I LOVE Markee's face in this picture . . .

Yeah, Markee forgot to bring a change of clothes so she was really happy to be at Maggie Moos in her hobo suit. :-)  Ice cream - a Randall/Jones tradition after every event.