State Track Meet

This weekend was amazing! Conner qualified for State in 3 events. Two relays and the long jump. The State track meet was on Friday and Saturday at BYU. Steve and I went down on Friday and were able to watch the medley relay. Conner did so well! The boys broke the school record by 5 seconds, and were so excited.

 Steve and me watching in the grand stands.

 The boys before the race.

 Conner running the 400M leg of the Medley Relay

After beating the school record by 5 seconds.  

Lorenzo Silva, Nephi Meono, Conner, and Colin Arave

After the races, we talked Jessica into letting us take Avery home for the night. We knew we would be back in the morning to watch Conner take on the long jump.

We had a lot of fun with Avery. 

 She loves to walk around my yard, picking all the pretty flowers. 

Then we went shopping, needed the bare necessities, like a binkie, or she wouldn't sleep for me.

It was a fun night. Avery went to sleep around 11:00, then at 12:30 we got a call from church security asking Steve to go check out a building that was alarming. Which got my adrenaline flowing, and I wasn't able to get to sleep for several hours. Avery got up the next morning by 6:30, but she decided to snuggle in my bed watching cartoons, so I got another hour of sleep. 

Then it was time to get back to the track meet. Steve had other commitments, so I met Jessica there, and we had a very exciting day!!

Conner was in the first flight, and wasn't expected to go to the finals at all. His distance going into the meet was 19.08 feet. He jumped 20.07! The furthest he has ever jumped, and it put him in the finals!

On his first try, he was running down the track and a kid ran toward the judges, and almost crossed in front of Conner. Everybody screamed, and the people in the stands said he should get another try, but Conner didn't let it get to him, he jumped farther than he had all day, and got 21 feet! (We think maybe it gave him a rush of adrenaline to almost run into that kid) He only gets 3 tries, and the next two tries he stepped over the line, and scratched. But his 21 foot jump put him on the medal stand! He took 5th place!

A very, very good day!

Track

Conner is a Junior this year, but it's the first year he has been involved in track. We are so happy he is!! He's doing really well. 

His events include the 100M sprint. He has qualified to go to State in this race. Conner has set a record at Grantsville high school for his time in the 100M.

 The 4X100M relay race. Conner's team usually places in the top 3 when they run this race. 

 And the long jump. Conner is going to State in this event as well. He has also set a record at the high school for his long jump distance. 

 Conner is VERY dedicated to his fitness. He has a pass to the gym, and usually spends 2-3 hours a day there after track practice at the high school. 

I wish I had this kind of dedication. It's really helping him to go places!! I'm so proud of him!!

Conner's Prom

My boys have never been into dating. It drives me crazy, because dances come and go, and they never ask anyone!! In Grantsville, they have Prom, the dance that the boys ask a girl to. They usually have a fun day planned, and then go home, get dressed up, and go to the high school. Then they have Promenade. This is when the kids are dressed up in their formals, and they are announced one by one. The boys escort the girls down the steps as their names are announced, and once they have all been announced, they do a dance for the audience. The unique part about promenade is that the girls ask a boy to promenade with them, so you may go to Prom with one partner, then Promenade with somebody else. After Promenade, you go back to your Prom date, to finish the evening. 

Conner was asked to Promenade with Mary Rigby.  She's a sweet young lady who Conner practically grew up with. They were our neighbors for years, and she would play basketball with Conner and the "guys" in the neighborhood. He was happy to go with her. He didn't actually go to Prom, but still got a tux, and dressed up for Promenade, and spent every night for about 3 weeks learning the dance. 

Conner met Mary at the steps, gave her a rose, and escorted her down the stairs, and across the dance floor. 

Then we watched them dance. They did a great job!!

 After the dance, they announce royalty for Prom. It was very neat that Mary was named attendant to the Queen. Conner escorted her to the front again to get her tiara, and sash. I'm so happy for her!

 I love Grantsville's tradition! It was so nice to watch Conner, he was such a gentleman! Mary looked so pretty! A great night for everyone!

She said YES!!!

Steve met Sarah Hardy in December. They have pretty much been inseparable since that time. They make each other so happy. Sarah reminds me of my girls. She ran cross country, and we actually have pictures of her with Kaylea when she was still in school. She spent some time with Jessica while Steve was working in Provo, and they get along so well. Avery LOVES Sarah. She knows her better than Steve! It's really funny!

Steve proposed to Sarah, and we are ecstatic that she said yes! We are so excited to have her as part of our family!! They set the date for September 26th. Steve is going to Pennsylvania to work for the summer again, so they will be apart for 3-4 months. Good thing we have Skype, they will be able to talk every day if they like. Isn't modern technology wonderful?? We can't wait for the wedding!!!

Easter

Easter was very interesting this year. It was the first time I can remember that I colored eggs on my own. Jessica lives in Provo, and was afraid Avery would make a huge mess. I can understand that. Kaylea is on her mission. I know she would jump at the chance to color eggs with me! But I'm left at home with my boys... Steve offered to come with his girlfriend, Sarah, but they always come by so late, I just decided to do it. And Conner... he was NOT interested. I asked my hubby, Steve to color eggs with me. He thought it was a bad idea. There are some things men just don't do... haha! It was okay, I actually enjoyed myself. I made glitter eggs. They were very pretty. 

This is before the glitter! :)

My grand daughter has a HUGE personality. She is the happiest child I know, but she is also very strong-willed. Jessica is such a good mom, she is really working hard to help Avery understand boundaries, and appropriate actions, and all the good things moms are supposed to teach kids. Well, for Easter dinner, Avery started acting up. Mom made her put her nose on the wall... It's hard not to step in and just hug my grand baby, but Steve and I stayed out of it. We just pouted a little bit... Isn't she the cutest thing??? After about a minute, she decided she wanted to be sweet again. Jess, you're doing a good job!!!

Funny story. Before dinner, Steve, Sarah, Conner, Chris, and Jessica all hid eggs. We basically have 7 adults and one child. She had a lot of work to do, finding all those eggs!!! Well, they hid the eggs, and then we came inside for dinner. About an hour later, we all came out to watch Avery hunt for eggs. We hid a dozen colored eggs, and about the same amount of plastic eggs with candy in them.  By the time Avery was done, her bucket was so full, she was dragging it on the ground, haha! We noticed that a lot of the colored eggs were missing! There were only 5 of the 12 we had hidden. We noticed the neighbor's dogs in our yard before we came out, but had no idea they were feasting on our eggs!! That's the only explanation we could find. It was pretty funny!

The best part about holidays is family time. I absolutely love having my family together. We were only missing Kaylea, who is on her mission. She was just transferred to Santa Maria, and seems to be doing really well. 

Jessica and Chris (Chris is up for a promotion, and when he gets it, they will possibly be moving... Yay for them, boo for me. )

Steve and Sarah Hardy (Hoping she will soon be Sarah Collings... )

Grandpa and Avery bug... we can't get enough of this little lady.

Me and Conner. He's one good looking young man!

HOPPY EASTER!!!!

Spring Break

It's been a long time since I had time off of work. Conner had Spring Break, and I took the week off! We invited Jessica's family, and Steve Jr, and Conner. Steve Jr had to work, and so did Chris. But the rest of us had a nice vacation. Actually my hubby Steve brought his work with him. So he was able to come with us, but had to make phone calls and do work on his computer. And, as always, do inspections while we traveled to and from our vacation spot. But it was so nice he was able to come.

We have a good friend, Paul, who owns this cabin, along with  600 acres near Delta, UT. We had the cabin from Monday to Thursday, and it was HEAVENLY!!!

This is a picture of the cabin. It was right on a lake.

Here is the view from the cabin. There are so many activities we were able to do! The first night we all snuggled up in the home theater for movies.

At one point, Avery was dancing to the music playing on the screen. She put on a great show for us. I think as grandparents, we enjoy watching Avery more than anything!!

I've never seen so much taxidermy!! Conner wasted no time at all feeding the bear! There were several deer, elk, lots of birds and fish, a mountain lion, a bear skin rug, a moose, it was crazy!

 We stayed up way too late, and eventually went to sleep.

The next morning, I slept in... my bed was so COZY!! I heard Steve get up, and take off on the four wheeler. I felt bad, thought he was going to go out exploring on his own, so I climbed out of bed. Jessica was outside my door acting a little concerned. She couldn't find Avery. We went outside just in time to see "Crampa" (as Avery calls him) giving his Avery bug a ride on the four wheeler. She was still in her jammies, bare foot, with a blanket, just grinning from ear to ear. (So was crampa)

As I said, there were a lot of toys to keep us busy. We spent hours riding four wheelers all over the property. And chasing a few stray cows that were not where they were supposed to be.

Jessica, Conner, and I also spent some time canoeing on the lake. We tried some fishing, but the wind was blowing, and we didn't have much luck, but the lake was so quiet and relaxing, and it was so warm. It was beautiful!!! Avery was a little frustrated we wouldn't take her out. She's a little too adventurous, and we didn't have a life vest her size. She had to settle for throwing rocks in the lake from the shoreline. 

Conner has had a lot of practice canoeing, after the canoeing trip he went on last summer. Jessica thought it was much easier on the lake with him instead of her mother!!! Haha! The wind was just blowing us backwards.

The weather eventually turned on us, and we had some rain! The nice thing about being in a cabin, is it doesn't matter if it rains! We spent the day playing games, and watching movies. 

All in all it was an amazing week!!

This and That

 

I just received an email from the Giles Ranch in California. They said my daughter is there right now eating cotton candy for her first time ever, and they sent me this picture. Then they sent these pictures of her with their sheep, they said it was taken last week.

So fun to know kind people are keeping an eye on my daughter!! And so fun to receive an email on a Wednesday! I usually watch for them on Monday, so it was a fun surprise!!

Well, my last post talked about the fun time I have been having with family history. Let me just say it has exploded!! Starting February 14th, I found a family record, and I have been working on this same record for 6 days. In six days, I have found over 180 names needing temple work, and was able to add seven generations to one of our family lines, and then linked it to other records that take the family back to the 1400's! I'm a total beginner with family history! It's been amazing! I decided if I can do it, ANYONE can! 

We have Stake Conference coming up on Saturday and Sunday. Six months ago at our last stake conference, Steve invited some of his co-workers to come. They are all Hispanic, and he arranged to have head sets for them to wear, and a translator in the other room, translating the meeting, so they could understand what was going on. It was quite a sight! There was half of a row full of his friends, with head sets on. During the meeting I talked with one of the ladies, and she said in broken English, that she was a member of the church, she had been baptized a few years ago.  Well, six months have gone by, and out of the blue, 2 days ago, a group of them went to lunch with Steve, and informed him that some of them want to get baptized, and others want to learn more, and want missionaries to teach them. Steve says, when it's all said and done, about 20 of them are interested. 

It's so exciting! Steve and I are each "hastening the work" in our own way, and we are being so blessed, just by being obedient.

January 2014

January is always a hard month for me. There's really not a lot going on, and in Utah it's cold, usually pretty foggy, grey, slow, there's just not a lot of great things going  on in January. Steve and I do like to go out to lunch several times a week, and on one of those lunch dates, we were able to convince our boys to come with us. These pictures are taken at a favorite local restaurant, "Casa Del Rey".  They always have great service, fresh food, they're inexpensive, and convenient. I absolutely love having all my boys living at home now. They keep life exciting.

Another notable date during January is my birthday. I'm not a fan of huge celebrations, and I'm usually just happy to go to dinner, and talk to my loved ones on the phone, but of course it's MY day, and I do sometimes like to spoil myself, and feel quite justified in doing so on my birthday. This year I decided I would approach my birthday a little differently. I turned 44 years old, and wanted to make this birthday extra special, so I decided to try and do 44 acts of service on my birthday. I was actually surprised with the whole feeling of my birthday. I was really excited to look for ways to serve other people, and was so focused on my goal, that I didn't really think of myself at all. I kept thinking what can I do for them? How else can I serve someone? That's a lot of little acts of service all in one day, so it really did take a lot of focus. I wrote letters to missionaries, chipped in money for several people who were trying to pay for special trips or medical treatments. I made meals for my family (yes, I do that all the time, but on this day it was a service and I was excited to count it). Being LDS helps a lot when you want to serve others, because you can do service in the temple, or family history research and indexing. My day was completely full of service, and completely wonderful. I'm thinking I'd like to make this a tradition. It fills the whole day, but fills it with good feelings, and love. Steve did pull me away for a couple of hours and we had dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. It is always amazing food, and I love him for pampering me!

I had two other fun "gifts" for my birthday. Steve Jr came home and said, "Mom, I have a birthday present for you!" Looking around I didn't see anything... so I was a bit confused. "Mom, for your birthday, I got a new girlfriend!" Hahaha! I give him such a hard time about finding that special someone and settling down, of course that's just about the best birthday present he could give me.

A few years ago I set up my niece, Amber with the son of a good friend of mine named Marcus Johnson. To my pleasure, they got married, and have lived in Stansbury Park for the past year.  Amber just had a beautiful baby girl named Rosie Lin, and she was born on my birthday!! My sister said that was their way of repaying me for setting them up. I'll take it!! I love sharing my birthday with this sweet little girl. That's another great birthday present. I really did have an amazing birthday!

Other fun news, Conner just got glasses! I think his IQ just went WAY up! He looks great! But even better, he sees great. I'm so proud of the hard work he's doing in school. This will help him see better in class, and while driving. 

My work is going really well. I was working as a private duty nurse at night and would rotate being the on call nurse for one week, every three weeks. This meant the office phone was forwarded to me on week nights from 5:00 pm to 9:00 am, and anyone who called the office for any reason, would leave a message on my cell phone. I would find nurses to cover if the scheduled nurse was sick. I would call off a nurse if the family didn't need them for some reason. And I would be the person to deal with any other problems that might arise. I also did this over the weekends, and this was from 3:00 Friday afternoon until 9:00 Monday morning. I really felt like I was tethered to my phone on those days, and wasn't able to go anywhere  that I couldn't take my phone, like the temple. I would take it to movies, and some days spent a lot of time out in the hallway fixing issues.  Well, long story short, I was feeling overwhelmed, and this was not a MANDATORY job, it was something I volunteered to do, so I gave my notice for the on call position, and decided to just stick with the private duty nursing. It's so nice!! I have my life back!! I work at the patient's home, and then I'm done!! It's such a relief!

 My patients are all in the Tooele Valley now. I was traveling to Salt Lake to take care of patients, but several nurses in this valley have moved on to other jobs, and voila!! I'm happy to be close to home!!

Kaylea continues to do well on her mission. Today she sent me two pictures. 

This picture was labeled "Asparagus Field"... It made me laugh...it does start with an "A" Haha! she cracks me up!

This is a picture with one of their investigators. Kaylea was excited to say they have 3 baptisms this Saturday. She absolutely loves the people in California. Her letters are always so happy. It makes my day brighter.

I started doing family history again. I feel like I'm being blessed just for being obedient. Both sides of our family are filled with Latter Day Saints that date back to the Pioneer times, and The Restoration. Family members that knew the early prophets on a first name basis. Many righteous family members who have gone before us have already done so much family history that it gets kind of discouraging trying to find someone new. (I'm not complaining about the great legacy we have, just the lack of work) Anyway, I was looking into my family history, and found out that there have been some new changes in the web site. I found out that we can upload sources to our family tree, and that, for the most part that hasn't been done. This would not give me any new people, but would validate the sources to the people we already have in our family tree, and help others who come along to see where we got our dates, places, etc.  While I was doing some of the research, I stumbled across a name of a woman who lived in Connecticut in the 1600's. The more I looked at her story, the more I realized none of her work had been done! I was so thrilled to be able to submit this single name for temple work!! It may seem small, but in my gigantic family, where so much work had been done, it's huge! So, I do feel like I'm being blessed for being obedient. The Lord knows my heart, and knows I'll do what I'm asked, but would really enjoy finding some people who need their work done. He's blessing me with exactly that, and I'm thrilled. I have enjoyed uploading the sources so much, because it gives me a chance to read life histories of so many of our ancestors! I really am getting to know them and love them. It's awesome!!