Our Haunted House

This afternoon I had some extra time at home with the kids and with Amber. We took advantage of that extra time by creating a Halloween video for our family. Each of the kids pretended to be a ghost or other Halloween entity. We took a few shots of them acting as well as some background shots. We then played around with our green screen and with the at video editing software.

We spent about an hour together working on it. Everyone had a good time except for Jace. We still managed to capture him in action though!

Feel free to look at the video below. Hope you enjoy it! Oh, and happy Halloween!



The Video

The Witch left me with the Kids!

This weekend was the designated Andersen girls night out. A couple of months ago, Shantell invited all the girls over 18 to join her for a witch's a night out. There was a witch event in Salt Lake City that was supposed to be really fun. I took the last part of the day off of work so that I could come home and watch the kids while Amber joined the rest of the women in their adventures.

Not to be outdone by the cackling women, we had a little party here at the house in their absence. Aylee watch the kids while I ran to the store and got some candy toppings. The kids played with friends for about an hour and a half while I made dinner and sugar cookies.




After dinner, we had a sugar cookie decoration activity. The kids had a great time mixing up frosting, choosing candies, and arranging them creatively on their baked cookie. Just before we were ready to eat our newly decorated cookies, the girls called and announced that they were coming over to do a mini parade for us.




Aylee made a special sign for the women that we hung over the door. The sign said, "Welcome Witch Night Party Girls".

We frosted some cookies for the pointed hat clad women and demonstrated the our decorated cookies. They then showed us their costumes, cackled around the front yard for the neighbors to hear, and got several photo shots in our miniature Grove by the driveway.




All of the kids thought it was a neat thing to have the women, all dressed up as witches. Jace, however, was the only one with reservation. He took one look at that much estrogen dressed in black and made up with bluish purple makeup and decided he would rather be somewhere else.



After the gaggle of witches left for their special event, the kids and I snuggled down into the playroom and watched a movie. The movie was a little bit scary for the two younger girls. It was a movie made for families, what it had some jumpy scenes here and there. It ended well which made both Aliece and Alayna happy. In fact, as Alayna offered our family prayer just before bedtime, she thanked the Lord that the boy, Tom, in the movie, was able to be reunited with his family in the very end. :-)

Conference Fun!

The kids have been very excited for Conference this weekend. Saturday morning Aliece woke up and the first thing she asked me was, "When does conference start?" I told her it would be a couple of hours. "Oh!", she exclaimed, "I want it to start now!"

The kids had a fun time with some conference games that Amber prepared for them. Aylee laminated some fun coloring pages and other projects that could be written on with dry erase markers and then erased with a cloth. The kids had a ball.

Johnny had a non-member friend come over to work on their space derby kits together. We ran a little long with the kits, so his friend stayed and watched the first Saturday session with us.

Amber and I also made a quick trip to the store to by a cheap vacuum cleaner - our last one really sucks...well, doesn't suck...you get the idea :-). Therefore, in between sessions we were cleaning house, moving beds, and de-junking the office, etc.

Cornbelly Fun with Alayna

On Thursday, Alayna had a field trip to Cornbelly's with her preschool class. Amber went along for the fun.

They had a great time playing on all of the toys, bounce houses, and photo ops. Alayna and Jace even got to buy a little pumpkin. Alayna was so excited!

Conference Kit Movie

Earlier this week the kids made a conference kit for their cousins. I wanted their cousins to receive the kit before we posted the video. They should have received it by now, so I am posting the online version.

I thought the kids did a pretty good job!

To view the video directly, go to this link.

Green Screen Fun!

As part of our Sunday activities yesterday, the kids and I decided that we would make some videos regarding General conference and church that we would send out to their little cousins.

I remembered that when we bought our latest video editing software, a green fabric screen came along in the package. We had never tried it out, and since we had plenty of time yesterday we dug it out of the closet and set it up.

We made some movies of the kids talking and/or singing to their cousins. The software made it easy to replace the green background with a picture of our choice.

Aylee made a microphone out of a toilet paper tube and tin foil.

The cousins will be getting their movies in the mail this week. However, I thought I would post one extra video that we did not record onto the CDs. This one is a little song that Aliece made up. It features her in front of the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. There are a lots of concerts at the Delta Center, so that is why we chose out as the background.

So, sit back and enjoy the movie!

For those that cannot see the movie below, visit the following link: Aliece Jamming.

Clone Troops & Hanna Montana Winners

We had a very busy Saturday today. One part of our fun and hectic day was our kid dates. It was my turn to have a daddy date with Aylee. She wanted to go see "Star Wars: clone wars". However, Johnathan also wanted to see that really bad. Aylee wanted to see it with Johnathan, so she invited him to come along.

We were kind of late due to other shopping and adventures of the day. So we were racing down the freeway in the pickup truck. The only theater in Utah County that was playing the movie was in Spanish Fork. We got off of the Spanish Fork exit only to find out that the theater was not where I thought it was. We drove up and down the road a bit before I started to get nervous. The movie was supposed to start any minute now, and the kids were getting restless. Aylee and Johnathan were both getting a little nervous and kept asking where the theater was.

We finally had to call Amber to see if she remembered where the theater was. She gave us an idea for she thought it was located, and so we took off once again for that area of town. We were in luck, the theater was at the location she expected it to be. We got in just as the movie was starting.

I was not expecting much from the movie as I have had lots of friends go to see it. However, they said that it is made for kids and that the kids would like it. They were right. Aylee and Johnathan both seemed to enjoy the movie a lot.

While we were at the movie, Amber took the other kids to Pioneer Park. Shantell was doing a booth at the Farmer's market there. They went to say hi to Shantell. While they were there, they noticed that the park was also hosting a Boys and Girls Club event that was open to the public. They had tons of bounce houses and activities that were all free of charge.

One of the booths at the fair was a Wal-Mart vision Center booth. At that booth, they had a drawing for a plastic milkshake cup with a pair of sunglasses wrapped around it accompanied by a Hanna Montana case for the Hanna Montana sunglasses. It was all decorated with a fancy bow and shiny tassels. Aliece was ecstatic. She really wanted to win that price. Amber said that she was so dramatic about it that the people in the booth were laughing their heads off. Aliece quickly wrote down her name on the slip of paper and our home phone number was recorded.

When Amber got home, there was a message on the phone saying that Aliece had won the beautiful and grand prize that she had so coveted.

Amber was already home with the children, and she didn't want to go back to the park. So, she called me and asked me to go pick it up on our way home from the theater.

When I picked it up, they were clearing out the booths. I mentioned the name of Aliece and this gal excitedly said Aliece had won the prize! I told her that I would take it home to her and that she would be very excited. I mentioned that this was the perfect prize for her. The gal asked if Aliece was not there at the park. I explained to her that Aliece had gone home with Amber and the other kids. She was a little disappointed as she was really excited to see Aliece's reaction. They definitely remembered our child. Her enthusiasm is always so contagious, that they really hoped that they could see the delivery of the prize.



It is funny how Aliece always tends to win those types of things. I don't know if it is her happy, positive karma, sheer dumb luck, or if people see her excitement and rig the system because they want her to win so badly. Given Aliece's performance at the booth originally, and the attendants' rapt enjoyment of Aliece's enthusiasm, Amber does wonder if the system was rigged a little bit in Aliece's behalf.

Whatever cosmic forces were in place, it still amazes me that her excitement and enthusiasm always tends to draw the winning results!

Work Crew

I took the day off of work on Friday so that Amber and I could spend the entire day working on the front yard. We kept very busy and planted 33 plants, bushes, and shrubs. We redid some edging and created a flower bed around the flagpole. One thing that we did not get completed was putting bark in all of the newly planted beds.

On Saturday, Amber had an all day relief society retreat. She left at 6:30 a.m. I was left at home to watch all of the kids.

My goal was to get all of the bark spread out in all the beds by the time that Amber had gotten home. I enlisted each one of the kids in the process.



Aylee was my spreader. I would dump the bark in a pile and she would spread it out in the bed being careful not to cover up the plants that we had just planted yesterday.



Aliece and Johnathan and Alayna worked in the pickup truck. Their job was to push the bark to the rear of the truck so that I could easily put into the wheelbarrow. They were very efficient and did a terrific job.



Jace crawled around and played in the dirt. He occasionally sampled different varieties of dirt and rocks. He kept very busy and was extremely tired by the time we got done -- which was about 1 p.m.

I was really proud with the attitude that the kids had with being put to work all morning long. We had a good time working together -- it was just a lot of fun.

Once we got done with the yard, the kids started to clean their rooms. Jace was really tired so I put him to bed. While they were cleaning their rooms, I left them to go to the store to pick up Aylee's bike from the shop. I was so proud of the kids with their hard work that I stopped by the grocery store and bought lots of chocolates and candies and a half a gallon of ice cream.



Once they had finished their rooms, I brought them downstairs and we had an ice cream bar party. They loved it! About the time we were finishing up our ice cream party, Amber showed up and caught us in the act.

I was really surprised that everybody had a good attitude and a happy disposition throughout the day. They all had late nights -- Aylee had a sleepover, and Johnathan had a late birthday party for a friend. Despite their lack of sleep they were all able to enjoy the day together.

It was one of those perfect days.

The Grandma Dorma Report

Alayna was given a report template wherein she was supposed to interview a grandparent. She was supposed to have a parent fill out the responses on this piece of paper. They would then review and talk about the grandparent at their next preschool class day.

Amber asked Alayna who she would like to interview. She said you have Grandma Reed or Grandma Andersen. Alayna was adamant, "I want to call Grandma Dorma".

We had called to explain to Grandma Dorma what would be happening. We told her that Alayna would be calling her but Amber would be on the phone to help.

When the time came to call Grandma, Alayna was having a very hard morning. She didn't want to go to preschool and she didn't want to make the phone call. She was being shy and grumpy. Amber ended up having to ask most of the questions.

After Alayna delivered her report preschool, however, she was all excited about the report and about preschool.

We sure thought it was funny that out of her grandmas that she sees quite often, she was so sure she wanted to interview Grandma Dorma. We enjoy our visits with Grandma, however, they are not as often as our visits with her other grandmas.

Here is a copy of that report from the interview that Alayna made to Grandma Dorma.

Jumping In!

On Saturday, we took the kids to probably their last swim of the year. We had a only a few more punches left on our swimming punch card. Johnathan had been bragging about how he was going to jump off the diving board this time. Deep down inside, I thought he was just talking big talk.

However, when we entered the pool, Johnathan went straight for the diving boards. He wanted to go right away. I thought it might be best if he tried swimming first so that he can work out any kinks that he may have with swimming. We swam for just a few minutes. However, Johnathan kept begging to go to the diving boards. So I decided that he would probably be fine and we went over to the diving boards. He was not even nervous at all! He got on the diving board and just ran full board and jumped off.

I couldn't keep Johnathan off the diving board for the rest of the day. I had to finally pull him off a couple of times to have him take a break so that he wouldn't exhaust himself and die out in the middle of swimming back to the side of the pool.

We got a couple of videos of the jumps. The first video is of Aylee and Johnathan jumping together. The next video is of Johnathan and myself jumping. It is funny that just last time we went to the pool, we couldn't even hardly convince Johnathan to jump off the side of the pool into 5 feet of water.

Amber and I had decided that we would leave at 3:00 p.m. Right at three o'clock we are getting ready to get out of the pool. Just as we were doing so, there was an announcement that they needed to do a pool check in the kiddie pool. We got out of the pool and started getting ready to leave. As we were walking out, we saw pool in employees in the pool with nets, a bucket, and a bottle of chlorine. They were polling little brown chunks out of the water. Hmmmm, it didn't take much imagination to wonder what that was! We were glad that we were already done for the day.

See the Videos Below:


Aylee & Johnathan Jumping off at Same Time


John & John Jumping off diving board

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Our Friday evening activity as a family was centered around baseball! If you weeks ago we had invited a family in our neighborhood to come to the "Orem Owlz" game. They had never been to a game before, and we had not been to one this year. It also helped that we had received a large number of free tickets. We figured to our kids could play with their kids if the game got dull and we could watch the game.

The game was very enjoyable. It was not a close game by any means. Our team won by eight points. About halfway through the game the littler kids started going to the playground area and playing. Aylee and Johnathan had brought their mitts to try to catch any foul balls that came into our area. They hung out at the edge of the field for quite some time waiting for balls. After a while, Johnathan went and played with the kids. For most of the evening, Aylee both hung out with her friend and kept her mitt at the ready so she could catch any foul balls.

Aylee had gotten close to a least one ball, but the competition was too fierce. Near the end of the game we started to pack up. Aliece came running from the playground to show us what she had found. She had in her hand a shiny slick "Orem Owlz" baseball. Aylee was very jealous. Here Aylee had spent most of the game near the edge of the field to catch a ball. Aliece got a ball just by going and playing in the playground. Aliece said she found that stuck in the fence.

We all had a great time and it was fun to get to a baseball game before the summer was over.

An Intriguing Host

The other day Alayna wanted to have a friend come over and play with her while the kids were at school. Amber called one of our neighbors who has a child Alayna's age. The neighbor dropped off their child and Alayna and her friend went off into the play room and started to play with Legos and other toys. When it was time for the little girl to go, her father stopped by to pick her up. Amber went into the playroom to go get his daughter and found Alayna fast asleep in the Lego bucket with her friend dutifully playing by her side.



I think we need to give Alayna some lessons in hosting company!

Jock?

I spent a few minutes outside with the kids to shoot a few hoops with the basketballs lying around our yard. Amber had to clean up the kitchen so she brought Jace out to me to hold. He got a kick out of watching everyone shoot baskets. I grabbed the ball and we shot together - making a perfect basket no doubt! Man, he started laughing his head off. He thought that was just great.

We came in the house shortly after and Jace started playing with a basketball in the kitchen. He would grab it and then either throw it or roll it. He would then crawl over to it and laugh and laugh. He and I threw it back and forth a bit - him laughing all the time.

His "play fetch" games with the smaller balls (as mentioned yesterday) are mutating into mini basketball games now. Who knows, maybe the kid will have talent!

Back to School

Monday was the day everyone was waiting for in our household - it was the first day of school. It was especially exciting because the kids have a new school building to attend.

Although Alayna is disappointed that she will not be joining the older kids for school yet, she is comforted in the fact that she will be starting preschool in a couple of weeks.

Yesterday, at the dinner table, we were surrounded by reports from each child regarding their class, their friends, and the new building. They were all animated and detailed in their reports.

Alayna joined in the conversations with her own premonitions of preschool. During one rare lull in the dinner-table conversation she exclaimed, "Well, at my preschool, Miss Stephanie has water! If I get thirsty, I can have a cup of water!" Not hard to excite that one, is it!

Johnathan's Baptism

Johnathan's baptism took place the day after Aylee's birthday. It turned out to be a very nice occasion. We had family from both sides able to attend. Some of Amber's extended family here in Provo also attended. Amber played the piano for this service, and Jen let the music. Aylee gave the opening prayer. Grandma Andersen gave a talk regarding baptism. Both grandpas were witnesses as Johnathan walked into the font filled with water. He let me do the honors of baptizing and confirming him. Grandma Reed followed up with a talk on the Holy Ghost. After Johnathan's confirmation, he was invited to bear his testimony. He did a very nice job. The service was concluded when Ashlee gave the closing prayer.






We all met at the house afterward for a big taco bar of Amber had set up. It was fun to sit and visit with everyone that had come. As always, I never did get to visit with everyone that I wanted to chat with. It is always hard when there are so many people that you know and love and see very little of to be able to divide the time up just right to visit everyone. But I think everyone had a good time and it was a special day for Johnathan.



The desert for the event was a beautiful cake made by Michelle. The beauty of the cake did not lie in appearance only, but also in taste. I think it was Johnathan's first sin after his baptism because the cake was undoubtedly so rich and tasty that it had to be against the Word of wisdom. But, I have to admit, we all partook in earnest.

The Sprinkle that Made Her Day!

Over the weekend Aliece purchased a brand-new umbrella from Wal-Mart with her own money. She was so excited about the umbrella. On Saturday night the sky clouded over and the wind picked up. It looked like it might storm. Aliece sat in front of the family room windows all evening watching the sky and hoping that it would rain so that she could use her umbrella. However, the storm clouds were just teasers. There was no rain that night.

On Sunday, the day was bright and hot. However, again during the afternoon, the sky clouded over with storm clouds. Aliece again grabbed her umbrella. She waited by the windows and would venture out a couple of times every 15 minutes with her umbrella to check and make sure it wasn't raining. However, by the time it was time for bed, it had not rained.

After all the kids had been down in bed for about an hour, Amber noticed that it had started to rain outside. It went against all our better judgment, however since Aliece had been so cute in waiting for the rain the last two days that we could not help ourselves. We quietly went upstairs and got Aliece out of bed. Aliece took her umbrella and spent just a minute outside walking in the rain and enjoying a bona fide umbrella experience in the rain she had patiently, but eagerly, awaited.

A Date with Johnathan

In recognition of Johnathan's eighth birthday, Amber and I took him to macaroni Grill for a date. We like to do this on the kids is 8th, 12th, 16th birthdays. Granted, we've only done it for the eighth birthday up until this point.

Johnathan was the perfect gentleman as he helped open the door for Amber in the van at each and every stop that we made. He was dressed in a white shirt and some pants and shorts. His smile charmed our waitress for the evening.

This is come up upon us so quickly, as his baptism approaches this weekend. He is very excited to be baptized.

WAY TO GO MOM

WOW MOM

Our mom, grandma, & great grandma is incrediable.

Yesterday, July 23, 2008 mom reached her goal of indexing 100,000 names.
Not only just putting in the names but different information about these names depending if they were Records of Births, Deaths, Census etc.

If they were records of births, with each name she would enter information like,
1. Where they were born
2. Where they lived
3. Parents names
4. Parents occupations
5. Color & sex
ETC.

If they were records of Deaths,
1.Where they were born--State & City etc.
2. Their age @ the time of death in year, month, day
3.Parents names
4.Spouses names
5.Their color & sex
ETC.
It is interesting on the deaths however even though mom doesn't have to put down how they died, it does say the information how each had died. She reads about it and sometimes they die in quite interesting ways.

It has taken mom 9 months to reach the 100,000 names with a lot of STEADY HARD WORK.

There have been many many times when she has wanted to stop after sitting for so many hours to go and watch a DVD or something like that. But as she would leave, she would only be gone a few minutes to stretch, and then find herself right back at the computer, not taking the time to watch her dvd. There has just been such a pull on her to get these names done.
But it has been enjoyable and rewarding to her. It has blessed her life with something to do that is such and important work.
The Lord has blessed her so much and it's exciting to see.

SHE FEELS IT IS REALLY A GREAT BLESSING FOR HER TO BE ABLE TO SERVE AGAIN.

WE love you mom, and CONGTATULATIONS!

Novell's Lagoon Day

Novell held their annual "Lagoon Day" for all engineering employees on Jul 23. The kids have been really excited about the prospect of going to Lagoon for a full day on our typical one-a-year pilgrimage to the amusement park.


This was Jace's first time to an amusement park (Third, if you count the time he spent in the womb). He got a kick out of watching everything. He wasn't too sure about the rides though. He never cried, but just had a quiet, panicked look about him when he rode the carousel and other similar rides. He really enjoyed his All-Day-Passport hand stamp that they put on his hand when we arrived. He sucked most of it off his hand, but it remained on his face. Thus, when we would take him on a ride we just had to show them the blue ink all around his mouth :-)



We provided our own lunch which I made myself: Peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Novell provided the dinner later on in the day. The kids hurried to eat as soon as we got there so that they could start getting on the rides.




After eating, we went over some safety drills in case any of them got lost. We tried to get them to remember my cell phone number (only Aylee already knew it) in case they got lost and needed to tell an employee how to get in touch with us at the park. However, after drilling it in their heads, we decided it would be safer to write the phone number on their arms (as is displayed in the picture above). Everyone got to have the phone number on their arms and they thought that was cool!


Aylee and Johnathan found that they were tall enough to ride on any ride by themselves. Amber and I took turns going with them, or sitting by the ride while they went if it was a wet ride or one we didn't feel like going on. Aliece tagged along with John and Aylee a lot, but there were some rides she couldn't qualify for so she spent half the day with Alayna. From the picture above, you can tell that they had fun together (eg. playing in the bathroom) even when they weren't riding on rides.

All the kids did great keeping close and following our safety rules. We all had a great time together. They did so well, in fact, that we let them stay until about 10PM when most of the rides were supposed to be shutting down.

On the way home we saw various firework programs in bountiful and Salt Lake along the freeway - I imagine it was for the 24th of July celebrations. Man, it was a great day!

Bannock County Sheriff K-9 Named Top Dog

Posted: July 7, 2008 06:05 PM


For the third year in a row a K-9 from the Bannock County Sheriff's Office has secured the top dog position and has the bragging rights of being the best K-9 in the state.

"Rex" and his handler Deputy Clint Brown brought home the first place overall award from the Idaho Police Canine Association's Annual Training Competition that was held in Pocatello last month.

The award includes several competition categories including agility, obedience, area searches, apprehension and officer protection.

Another K-9 "Kijon" and his handler Deputy Jeremy Taysom also won first and second place at the statewide competition in agility and officer protection.

The dogs are with their handlers 24 hours a day and have proven to be a great asset to the Bannock County Sheriff's Office.

Deputy Jeremy Taysom, Bannock County Sheriff's Office: "It may take us an hour or more to search a vehicle for some narcotics where it will take the dog just a couple of minutes. If we're looking for a suspect out in the field you can have 10-15 officers out there searching the field and you might not find them and with a dog it could take anywhere from seconds to minutes."

The Sheriff's Office started its K-9 unit nearly 20 years ago and currently has three dogs.

My First Real Off-Road Ride

For a few months now, Joe and I have been planning on an off-road motorcycle trip to celebrate our graduations from school. Not only was I planning on graduating with my MBA this month, but Joe is going to graduate with his bachelor's degree also. We thought it would be fun to get together and go for a ride before Joseph moves to California to start his new job.

Amber and I were taking the kids to stay with Mom and Jen. They and their accompanying support crew will be tending the kids while Amber and I go to Oklahoma and Texas this week. Anyway, Joe and I decided that this would be the perfect time to go for a ride since Amber and I would be going through Arbon anyway.

Mom was at Jen's house in Idaho Falls so Amber dropped me off in Arbon on her way to Jen and Dave's place. Dad let Joe and I borrow his pickup. We loaded Joe and Jen's bikes into the truck and headed off to Knox Canyon.


We drove up to the top of the canyon and parked the truck and got the bikes out of the back. We rode down the road a ways and snapped this picture of Joe on the side of the road. The weather was perfect. The sun was out, but it wasn't too hot. Also, there were some bugs out but they didn't bother us too much.

Joe had done some searching on Google Earth and found some trails a week ago. However, as we rode the bikes to those trails, we found out that it was all private land. We didn't want to trespass, but we really wanted to go on those trails. After some soul searching we decided it would be best if we found some other trails to go on. We headed back to the top of the canyon and started riding down offshoot roads from the main road.

Whenever we would find what looked like a logging road or are a makeshift trail, we would take it to see where it went. Oftentimes, the trail would be obstructed by fallen trees or debris. The following picture shows one such incident where Joe and I had to get the motorcycles over a couple of fallen trees. This picture was by far our most trying obstacle. It took both of us at the same time to give the bikes some gas and lift them up at just the right time to help them clear the tree that had fallen across the path. Joe's bike is much bigger than Jen's. It fell a couple of times as we were trying to get it through brush and over logs. Good thing it is not one of our old Chinese bikes. It came out of the falls without any damage.



Another thing I had hoped to do on our motorcycles was to find a trail that would take us up to the tallest peak in power County. It is the same peak the Aylee and Johnathan and I tried to hike last year. However, it was not to be. We searched several trails but nothing got us close enough to a bare ridge that would take us to the peak. On one such search, we went up a ridge that took us to a great lookout point. This picture is of me standing on the edge of the viewpoint. There was not a trail up to this area. Rather, it was just a bare ridge line with many rocks. It was a fun climb.




We also found a small canyon that had a small creek running through it. We had to cross the creek several times to continue up the trail. It was a lot of fun. The water was really rushing down the mountain. Even though it was a small narrow stream, it sure made a lot of noise.




This was my first ride off-road. When we first started, I told Joe to take it easy on me because I wasn't very sure of myself. However, I gained my confidence fairly quickly and really enjoyed it.

We started our ride around 2PM and got back to Mom and Dad's house by 8PM. Joe told me that this was the longest and most challenging off-road ride he has ever done. That is a great compliment considering the Joe often goes out to do trail riding.

On our ride, Joe was trying to get me all convinced that I needed to buy dirt bikes for my kids. I told him that the other day when Aylee and I had to go to the auto parts store, they had a mini motorcycle there in the store. Aylee pleaded with me to ask the store clerk how much the motorcycle was. When he said it was only $300 for the little minibike Aylee started to calculate the dollars in her head. I think she has started to dream about it. It would be a fun activity, but I'm not sure I'm ready for my kids to be doing that kind of stuff. However, I have to admit that it would be a fun activity to do with them.

I cannot explain how fun it was to be out there with Joe. It was fun to spend some time with him. We are sure going to miss him as he moves to California in a few weeks. I hope that we can find time in the future to still get together and do things like this. This was definitely a fun day that will become a great memory for me.

Masters of Business!

Well, this was it! Jake and I finished our final class of the Utah State University MBA program. I can't tell you how good it feels to be done. Jake and I drove up in our cars to our house to find it all decorated outside. Amber and the kids had spent time yesterday and today preparing for our long-awaited arrival. The lawn was decked with balloons, a big congratulations sign, and plenty of party toys for the kids.



After our terrific reception Amber and Shantell and the kids had a graduation ceremony for us in the house. This, of course, included a plethora of pictures.



Jake and I made sure that we got pictures with the two people who have supported us the most throughout these past three years. If I am not mistaken, Jake has been in school the entire time that the two of them have been married. Amber and I have calculated it up and I have been in school half of the time during our 11 year marriage. I guess school has been a big part of our family's lives. We are definitely grateful for our supportive, beautiful wives.



The kids have also been waiting for this day. Each Saturday when I have arrived home from school, they gather around the refrigerator hall I tear off a link of the chain the Amber made me to symbolize the number of weekends I've had left. This past week, Aylee and Aliece both created daily chains for me to count down with. We are all pretty dang excited.



Jake and I are both very grateful that we had each other during these last three years. It sure has made getting through the classes a much easier ordeal to go through it together. It has been fun to be learning the same things and to be having many of the same experiences.



I think Amber's sign says it well, we are all excited to be done with this program and now have the degree behind us.



Celebrations of the day included a hot dog and brown sugar frosting cakes lunch just after the graduation ceremony. Jake and Shan took some cake with them, and returned to their house. We are hotdogs on the back lawn and the nice warm sun. After lunch, our family activity was to go swimming. We spent two hours up the pool having fun, splashing in the water. Once we got home, the kids went to the neighbors house, and Amber, Jake, Shantell, and I all met at the red lobster restaurant for a delicious dinner.

I just can't believe it's over!

Jenna's Pre-School Graduation 2008

I can't believe another year has come and gone! Jenna just graduated from her second year of preschool! She is so excited for Kindergarten, we almost can't contain her. She has already taken the test, and made sure that I knew she had passed it!
Here are just a couple of snapshots from graduation. We usually have it at the park, but this day was really crummy outside.

Jenna's 5th Birthday!

Jenna just had her 5th B-day party last month. From the pictures it looks like it hasn't happened yet because my camera's date is so off, lol.
She had so much fun. So many friends and family came!
She got a brand new Dora bike!
And a Dora bed set!
And her grandma Blacker just bought her a pretty new dress!

Memorial Day 2008

Our Family has a tradition...every Memorial Day we go out to the cemetery and take a picture by my babies' grave. It's really kind of silly, we didn't mean to start this, it just happened. But I really like it. It helps us remember the boys, and it shows how much the other kids grow each year.I just noticed that these pictures have the wrong date on them, I guess I better fix my camera.

I had a big eye opener today at work. I had a lady wheeled into the birth center just bawling. I found out that she had just found out that the baby she was carrying had passed away. She was 23 weeks pregnant. She had the same OB that I have, and it brought back a flood of emotion. All I can say is that I'm so glad that I know what I know, because I've seen many who don't know, and hurt so much more.

We do have to keep an eye on this little guy, he really likes pretty flowers!