Spring Break #5

While it doesn't quite fit her (it was made for a developed woman), this was a dress made and worn by her Great-Grandma Wilcox.  I had pulled it out to show my cousin, Eowyn, and noticed that it had a hole in the seam.  I fixed it and then had Ada put it on just for fun.  

On Friday we did our big Spring Break outing.  We went to eat lunch with Daddy at work.  That was fun.  The kids love his cafeteria, and honestly it's probably the only time that he actually eats in there, but the kids get a kick out of it. 

Then I drove the kids up to the University of Utah Natural History Museum.  Thanks to bounce back tickets from Seth and I accompanying the school field trip, it only cost us $15 to get in.... It would have been about $65 otherwise. I really like this museum.  It has all about Utah, gems and minerals, Indians, lake Bonneville, dinosaurs, and this time they had a special Mayan exhibit.  

This is a game that you build your city, power it, build entertainment to keep people happy and try to minimize the impact to the environment.  

This is a mold of a duckbill dinosaur foot print.  Sam fit in, just barely.

Ada not so much.  She's gotten so tall!

This was the beginning of the Mayan exhibit.  Did you know that there is at least one known Mayan city that they don't know where it is?  They have a piece of one of the walls with the city name on it that someone had taken and ended up in the museum... but now they can't find that city again.  Sam and I tried to lift one of the rubber balls that they would have used for their game.  They were very hard and heavy.  That would have been a very painful game.  I told the kids that this is what happened to the Lamanites after they killed off the Nephites in the Book of Mormon.  I showed them the altar that they would sacrifice animals and people on.  I told them about the kings making themselves bleed to show that they were saviors of the people.  I was sickened and amazed at the same time of doctrines that Christ had taught and how they'd been changed over time by the wickedness of their society.  They had a section on the Mayan gods.  A lot of them were similar to other societies... fertility god, cave god that controls the weather, etc... but one sounded very much like Christ.  The Maize God.  He was the one that created and continually carries the universe and created the earth.  He's also dies and is reborn to keep the people that he created alive.  I think it's interesting that no matter how hard Satan worked to destroy and corrupt the truth, you can still see a little bit of it there in the history.  

Evelyn's favorite part was a computer that you could put your birthday in and it would give you your birthday day, month and year in Mayan.  The kids also took turns making Mayan names.  I tried to get them to name Dad something like Butterfly Shark, but they all resisted that idea.

After we got home, our friends, the Komens came over for an impromptu game night.  It makes me happy to see the kids play together and I sure like the adults.  Madeline reminds me of a shy Margaret and Nick is like a Jewish Jeremy. 

Saturday, my parents and Janelle joined us for conference.  Conference was different for me this time.  Usually it's just overall peaceful with bits of personal revelation.  This time the first session had lots of admonitions to love and be patient.  Talks about people choosing to leave their beliefs.  Then in the middle of the sessions, I checked my facebook feed to see what some of my neighbors and friends enjoyed from the session.  Instead of inspiration, I came out with lots of negative feelings.  Several friends of mine being either angry or haughty about new policy changes and lots of my friends that have left the church over the years getting on and trying to support each other and prove that they are smarter than anyone that had chosen to stay in the church.  By the next session, I was agitated and unhappy.  I didn't focus on the unhappy feelings and tried to pay attention to the rest of conference, but it wasn't until the final session that I really felt peace again.  It's sad that outside influences can make you feel upset when what they are doing has nothing to do with you.  

Grandma put these guys out in a flash.

Sunday afternoon session we went to our Robertson Grandparents' house with the Hansens.  The kids played and we had a waffle dinner.  It's good to see how healthy Jon and Walter are looking.  Aubrey is walking straight and tall... I think just a few more months and she'll be cleared to be able to bend and lift again.  Her piano is sounding beautiful.

All in all, we wore this kid out.  Monday the kids went back to school and my parents went shoe shopping with Ada, Seth and I.  After taking Ada back to school and saying goodbye to my parents, Seth and I went on a bike ride and got a start on pulling weeds from the garden so that we can plant soon.  We got back in and Seth fell asleep sitting up while I was in the shower.  Cute thing.

Here's us at the movies with everyone.

I'm glad that Spring Break came along because this is my current week.  (Just my calendar, not Jer's).  I'm glad to get a break from this occasionally.  

Another fencing class

We finished another fencing class.  It was probably Evelyn's last.  While she doesn't particularly enjoy it, she's pretty good at it.  But, she is now officially too old for my class.  I'm a little hesitant to have her join Ada and Sam in the older class, but she's the age that Sam was when he did.  

This round, we only had 4 students.  That was good so that I could get Seth and Liam to learn not to be at each others throats always.  Now they are friends that only get mad if they're in a really competitive mood.  Maybe Julie Seal will like having Seth as a student when he's old enough... enough competitiveness to run in his blood.

We got there for our class competition and all our equipment was locked in the closet.  I have a key, but apparently the doorknob had broken and they hadn't given me the new key yet.  Mark Stasinos had to run over and get me in.  It was very kind of him.  It was fun to have Grandma and Grandpa Wilcox at the competition while they were down here to help Sharon with her new baby.  I had told my kids that they were driving down from their mission for about a week.  Seth didn't understand that it was his Wilcox grandparents.... He walked into the house and ran back right out to me, "Mom!  It's not Dad's parents, it's yours!"  And I didn't think about it at the time, but one of my students, Dillan, is my cousin's son and his grandparents just moved here so they came to our competition.  That was a nice surprise for my Dad to see his brother.  Dad and Wayne were good friends growing up most of the time, just like all siblings that were born oldest and 2nd oldest.

Seth kept saying that he has Spiderman powers today, so Evelyn said that she had ninja powers.  She said, "In a fight between Spiderman and (La)Lloyd who would win?"

Janelle, my Dad, Wayne, Margo, my Mom

Seth and Evelyn were our last bout.  It was fun to see them fence together, but Seth got tired of fencing by the last two points and just stood there while Evelyn hit him.  Callin helped me ref.  He was very enthusiastic to help.  Ada and Brant sat on the bench and drew pictures for each other.  That was cute too.

Liam, Seth, Dillan, Evelyn

Evelyn won all three of her bouts and each of the boys beat one other boy so for the first time in my 7 years of teaching we had one class champion and three second places.  It was really cute.  All the kids were super proud of themselves and Seth, while he doesn't mind being second, tried to convince Evelyn to give him her trophy.

Afterwards, we went out to get dinner and Nellie used her Cinemark ticket rollovers to take us all out to see How to Train your Dragon 3.  That was really kind of her.  We've gotten to the point where it costs about $60 to go see a movie.  We don't do that very often anymore.

Spring Break #4

Wed, Jer had taken the day off to take everyone hiking but it ended up being very rainy.  He spent the day helping them cook, clean and play games at home.  I got to drive up to take Vivien home and to meet the new baby Thea.  She's so sweet and cuddly.  There's nothing better than snuggling a new baby.  Vivien loved singing The Wheels on the bus on the way up.  She also kept telling me that there was a baby in her tummy as soon as she saw the hospital.  Emma and Lance are good baby snugglers for sure.  I think Emma is especially happy.

I got home and we all headed out to the rec center.  Jer took Ada and Sam to the shooting range for the first time.  They were very good listeners and very good aiming too.  One of them got the target right in the middle.  (They were sharing a target).  The rest of us went swimming.  After shooting, they all joined us in the pool.  I had had to get Ada a new swimming suit right before we went too.  I can't believe that my oldest in now wearing women's sizes!  Stop growing!  We found her a pretty swimming suit after trying two different stores.

Thursday, we're spending as a video game/electronics day.  The kids sure know how to get chores done faster when one of these days are scheduled.... especially Sam.

Spring Break #3

On April Fool's day we got a call that my sister Sharon was going in to have her baby!  Janelle went up and picked up Vivien and we played and played.  She slept at Nella's house and on Tuesday we went to the park in the rain.  The kids loved it.  Vivien walked up to our car, took Ada by the hand and said, "I need you."  They walked off to play.  Then I took Vivien to my house for the night.  The kids had fun playing PJ Masks.  Seth is being Romeo in this picture... saying, "Bwahahahaha!"

Ada was an excellent cuddler.

Spring Break #2

We usually take a spring family picture... Sunday we were all dressed up for church so we snapped a picture.  It may not be as cute as some years, but look how they're growing!  We had a special youth group meeting with the recently returned missionaries.  We had the youth submit questions about missions, pre/post/during.  Sam is always anxious about missions.  We had him come sit with me and Ada during the meeting.  He had his hand up a lot. One of his questions was "What made you feel like you wanted to be a missionary?"  All of the missionaries pretty much said Love.  Love of God and love for their fellow men.  Sam took that down in his notebook and very seriously told Dad about it afterwards.  Ada has been talking about being a missionary daily since then.  Her first worry that she came to me with was, "What if I'm not ready for something like a foreign country?"  I talked with her about how everything in our lives prepares us.... I was ready for my mission because of learning Spanish and living in Kenya.  I think that our missionaries will be better prepared spiritually because of the new Come Follow me program.  I'm excited to see how a mission will strengthen my children.

After church, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Robertson's house for waffles and Hansen cousins.

Spring Break so far

Friday kicked off our Spring Break.  Jer and I got to use the last of our symphony tickets (we might have one more... gotta check) on a date with Jim, Judy, Amy and Jon.  They played the William tell overture and Jer's absolute all time favorite... Dvorak's New World Symphony.  It's been his favorite since he was a kid.

Saturday started cold and rainy and ended sunny and warm.  We had 4 soccer games anyways.  Jer took the boys in the morning and I took the girls in the afternoon.  Evelyn is definitely running better in her inserts.  Ada is a tough cookie!  Never complaining and running.  She loves to goof off with her teammates and she makes my heart happy.