Education Week BYU-Idaho 2010

I'm not sure if it all started 4 or 5 years ago, but Steve and I were invited to go to Education Week at BYU-Idaho with our neighbors the Tucketts. It has turned in to a yearly tradition that we all look forward to. This year was especially nice for me, I'm on break from nursing classes for the summer, and needed some uplifting, time to myself. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

One of our fun traditions is to go to a small burger joint called "Big Judd's". It's very small, with VERY big burgers, and even bigger ice cream desserts. We opted for more normal meals, with a small milkshake. Although Steve's small sandwich was "The Mother Lode". They crammed more stuff into that hamburger than I've ever seen, including bacon, mushrooms, onion rings, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes... I'm not sure what else. It was LOADED!!

Steve and Troy spend many hours in classes taught by Ron Bartholomew. He is an excellent teacher, and I like to give them a hard time that they are his #1 fans. They didn't complain when I asked if I could get a picture with him, in fact, I think they liked the oportunity very much. I've been to a couple of his classes, and they have been fine, but maybe a little too deep doctrine for me...

Here are just a couple of more pictures of us during education week. This is Steve and me waiting for Brother Bartholomew's class to start, and below is Troy and Shanna.

And this is just on campus. We are in front of the Taylor chapel. The flowers and gardens on campus are amazing! The weather was great, we had some rain showers that cooled off the day quite a bit, but it happened while we were in class, so we were able to stay dry.

Friday evening we went on a session in the Rexburg LDS Temple. It was a perfect way to end the trip. Now, I guess it's back to reality once again... I am looking forward to next year, it's been a fun tradition.

Good News!

Stephen David Collings was ordained to the office of an Elder today. We put in his papers for his mission as well. It's a great day at the Collings house! I'll let you know when we find out where and when he will be serving

Pioneer Day Grantsville Style

Days like this, I'm so glad to be from a small town. We have a tradition every Pioneer Day of having a primary parade, pioneer carnival, barbecue, and a pageant. All of these activities are free. It's sponsored by the two stakes in Grantsville, and it's such a blast. My kids are all too old to be in the parade, but they all came to watch their cousins and Aunt Erin show what the pioneers had to go through.

Erin and Corban walked along the parade route, and Gabby got to pull a handcart. She's the one in the bonnet.

During the carnival, the kids got to make rag dolls, hammer horse shoes, lasso a steer, shoot a rubber band gun, get their face painted, spit watermelon seeds as far as they could, make homemade ice cream, pull handcarts, and several other fun pioneer activities. We had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, along with chips, cookies, watermelon, and a drink. Steve said that we had over a thousand people come, more than last year. There was entertainment too. We had groups come play fiddles and banjos, other groups sang, and still others danced. Then it was time for the pageant. We had quite a crowd show up.
My sister Erin and her family were in the pageant, along with Conner from my family. It was really fun to have my brother Lee and his family show up to watch it with us. They had all been out of town for the week, and Lee was literally just off an airplane. What a treat to have cousins to hang out with.
During the pageant there is a scene where the "Stripling Warriors" from the Book of Mormon come out and show their faith in the Lord. I was proud to have a stripling warrior of my own to watch.
They all did the hakka (I don't know how you spell it.) And then they had a war with the Lamanites. Conner had an amazing fight scene that I got a video of. It's on my facebook page. I'll try to upload it here, but I'm not sure if it will work.
Later in the pageant they show scenes from our pioneer heritage. My brother in law, Brayden was playing the part of Willard Richards, who was in carthage jail with our prophet Joseph Smith. A mob came and killed the prophet and his brother, Hyrum. This is a scene of their wives, when they find out what has happened. Erin is in the blue checkered dress.
Then it's back to singing and dancing as the pioneers travel West to the Salt Lake Valley. I love watching Conner dance. He worked really hard for a couple of months, and I was thrilled to see him perform. His dance partner was a cutie!
The next scene steals the show every year. The pioneers are in the Salt Lake Valley and have just planted their crops when the crickets come. The crickets are played by the children ages 2-5. They hop around pestering all the pioneers. They stop and rub their hands and feet together to make cricket chirps, and then hop around some more. My nieces and nephew were crickets, and I must say they were the "cricketiest" crickets in the whole show!
Pretty soon the seagulls come dancing in, in all their glory. They are so beautiful! The pioneers are so relieved to see them.
And they gather up the crickets and carry them away. Once the crickets were all gone, the seagulls flew away. It was quite funny, one little cricket was left behind, he came walking out from behind some pioneers, and looked around; he started crying and ran off the stage because the seagulls had left him behind. Steve and I got such a kick out of that.
It might just be a small town production, but it was a lot of fun. There were some touching moments in the pageant, and I think all in all they did a great job. I just might be a little prejudice, Grantsville is the greatest town around!
Hope you all had a great Pioneer Day! I sure did!

My new nephew

Casi and Jared had number 4 yesterday. I got to go visit my new nephew, Ed Denney Wright, today. He was over 9 pounds, and such a cutie!! He was so sweet the whole time we were there. I think Jared has two football players on his hands now.We picked up Jessica at work and she was able to come see him with us. Jessica lives right down the street from the hospital where baby Ed was born. I'm thinking I kind of like new babies.

My sister Erin and her kids were kind enough to take me to Orem to see the new baby. We had a nice trip. I'm so excited for Casi and Jared!

A bit of a scare

I have been doing laundry all day. I set it all on the couch, and this evening, while watching the news, I decided to fold it all. It was 10:30 at night. My hubby was in Indiana, Steve was sleeping, Kaylea was working, and Conner was out playing night games. My house was VERY quiet.

I thought I saw someone's head by the banister. I shrugged it off, thinking Steve must have just come up to the bathroom. Then, I decided I was just seeing things and really hadn't seen anything at all. After a few seconds, Maizey's ears perked up. She gave a small bark (I wouldn't even call it a bark) and started to go into the living room. Suddenly she started barking like crazy. I should be used to it by now, but it always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I'm alone.

You know in scary movies when the person goes toward the scary noise instead of running far, far away? (Everyone is thinking, 'Don't do it!! You're crazy!') Well, I stood up and went in to see what all the barking was about. There standing in the living room were two kittens with glow sticks around their necks for collars! I didn't hear any doors open, and I went from room to room checking doors and windows. Nothing was open. I called for Steve and Conner, but there was nobody around. Then I remembered the person's head I had seen. I thought maybe the person had come in through a basement window, and was getting a little bit freaked out...yikes!

I was afraid to open the front door and see if anyone was outside, so I just picked up the kittens and put them in the laundry room. Then I saw a head in the window of the front porch...CONNER!

He had snuck in through the french doors in my bedroom. Crawled down the hallway, and placed the kittens in the living room. Then crawled back down the hallway and out my bedroom door. He and his friends thought they were so funny, I think they were giving each other high fives on the porch. I was so relieved that it was only them and not some creep sneaking through my house.

The kittens both had collars with little bells on them (the boys had put the glow sticks on them), so I told them to take them back to the area that they found them and let them go. But not before I took a picture of the pranksters! I think Conner should be grounded for life. He definitely gave me a scare.

Our fun weekend

I have a friend whose daughter is getting married in a couple of weeks. Our bishop's wife, Kelly decided to throw a shower for her, and I helped out. It was a fairytale theme complete with glass slippers, a tiara, and a throne for the princess. Kelly had so many fun ideas, and decorated everything so cute.

I came up with a couple of games, I think the ladies had fun with. Then Lori, mother of the bride, read a story she had written in the form of a fairytale. It had cute pictures of her daughter, Courtney, kissing a frog, and her prince charming taking her to the palace (temple). A very cute idea.

I guess the guys didn't think a bridal shower would be too fun, so Steve took Conner to our property in Evanston overnight and they went on a couple of horseback rides. Conner really enjoyed riding the horse, although it made dad a little bit nervous.

Here's a picture of Conner in the truck, trying to keep the sun out of his eyes. He's a funny kid.

Steve Jr. spent Saturday playing around with his air-soft rifle, and went into the mountains a couple of times with friends to have a war. He has been working all week putting a new roof on the Saver's Store in Ogden, and needed a break from hard work.

Kaylea invited 6 couples over to our house for a spaghetti dinner, then they all went to the new movie, "Despicable Me". I guess it's a cute cartoon, and then they all went to another kid's house to play games.

I guess Jessica and Chris had a Hoskins family reunion in Ogden. They also bought season passports to Lagoon, so after the reunion they spent a couple of hours at Lagoon. I talk with Jess on the phone a couple of times a week, but miss having her closer.

All in all, a pretty fun weekend.

Running

A couple of weeks ago, I was planning to run the Ragnar Relay. A relay race from Logan to Park City (189 miles). I ran it last year and was planning to run it again. The week before the race I was running a 10 mile mountain run when I pulled something in my leg. I've been running a long time and nothing like that has ever happened to me. I was in so much pain that I couldn't even walk on it. I was lucky that Steve decided to come check on me and bring me some water. If he hadn't done that, I don't know how I would have gotten home. Sadly, I felt that I had let down my Ragnar team, and was REALLY disappointed with myself. I was happy to hear that they found a replacement for me within a couple of days, and probably did better than if I was there.

Well, it's been a few weeks, and I hadn't run since the incident. I decided it was time to slowly work my way back into running. My family is all working towards a Ragnar Relay in Las Vegas, and although I won't be able to run it because of school, I decided to try and train with my sister and brother-in-law (he will be running it). We ran 2-3 miles a day, 2 days a week, for 2 weeks before the 4th of July, and then all decided to run the annual Ray Barrus 5K in Grantsville. Kaylea is my running queen, she took 2nd place in all the women and brought home a great big trophy, and also took 2nd place in her age group and got another, smaller trophy. Her time was 20:43, which is a number I'll never see after my name in a 5K... But I was able to finish, which is a huge milestone for me after my accident, and crossed the finish line in 3rd place in the old women's category. I placed 117th in the race... I'll take it!

Erin and Brayden ran it too. I think this is their first 5K ever, which was really fun. they both were able to finish without walking at all. They said that once the race started, they didn't let anybody pass them. It was fun towards the end of the race because their house is on the road where we ran and their kids were all out front cheering us on. It's very motiviating to hear them chant, "GO AUNT TRACY, GO AUNT TRACY, GO AUNT TRACY!"

I didn't break any speed records, but I'm running again, and I'm happy I can.

Read about Steve's Alaska trip below.

More about Alaska

For Steve Jr.'s senior trip, his dad decided it would be fun to go to Alaska. He has a friend that goes every year and they decided to tag along. They were unable to fish for King Salmon because the numbers are down this year, so they fished for Sockeye salmon in the Russian River.

The Sockeye are a little bit smaller than king, but as you can tell by the pictures, the men didn't have any trouble catching their limit each day.

After several days of fishing on the river, they decided to go Halibut fishing on the ocean. They were surprised at how calm the ocean was, it was more like a lake.

They didn't do too bad with the halibut fishing either. They both said they enjoy fishing on the river better, but had a great time on the ocean.

All in all, they brought home 120 lbs of fish, we should be eating it for the next year. It was a great vacation for them together. But personally, I'm glad they're home safe and sound.