heaven

We were at Town Square the other night and we turned a corner and I saw this new store!! I was in heaven until I remembered I was on a diet! I am so going back when I am having a bad day! My mouth is watering just looking at the picture! ahhh... it has all the old classic candies... like Zots! yum!

oops...

Mitchell learned an expensive lesson the other night... you can't drive very fast over the dips in the road. I can't think of the correct term for them (they don't have them in Washington... it's all underground there... there are drains every few yards that take the water underground...) , but ya know little dips here that create a path for the water to travel down the street... well Mitchell didn't quite get down to the 15 mph like the sign says... the radiator hit the road and cracked... there was a trail of water and antifreeze all the way to our house.

The volvo had to be towed away... the good news is, I have a slave for a while.

Tanner's band concert

Tanner had his final band concert of the year last week. He did a great job. He has really gotten good at the bass guitar! It's fun to watch him practice and get excited about a new song. He loves to watch tutorials on YouTube.



We are so sad the Mr. Matta is retiring this year. He is probably the best junior high band teacher in the country. For real! He teaches a lot more than band... he teaches a lot of life lessons and gains a respect from the kids like no other teacher i have seen. The kids hate him the first few weeks because he is so strict, but by the end of the year, they love and respect him. Mitchell still goes to visit him. Johnson Junior High will miss him! Thanks for all you have taught my kids Mr. Matta!!

Volleyball Season Over...

I am so sad that volleyball season is over! I loved going to the games to cheer on Mitchell and his team. They had a slow start this year... But after the coach figured out positions for everyone they started playing really good. I'm not sure what their record ended up being, but I know they won more than they lost! We beat Gorman at Gorman! That was the highlight of the season!! Gorman killed us at a preseason tournament... so we improved a lot.

This is Anna, she is a friend of Mitchell's and I love the poster she made for the last game!

Here are a few shots from the last game.

Go Bengals!

Go Mitchell!

His serve improved so much this year!

Our varsity team had a great season too. They ended up wining the district title and won the first round of the regional tournament. The coach had 2 seats open on the varsity bench for tournament, so he pulled 2 JV players up to sit with the team and get a little tournament experience. Mitchell was one of the 2 players! He was so excited! I forgot to take my camera to the games, so this one is from my cell phone... not the best quality, but he is the 4th person on the bench starting on the right...

I will anxiously await next season!

Easy life...

Don't you wish your life could be like "mam's"... I love coming home to her sunbathing on her rock! Notice how she flaps her little feet up and her head high! So cute. (don't notice how dirty my kitchen window is... maybe it's just the tank! I wish!)

April overview in pictures...

I am so behind and I have current things i want to blog about... so i am doing a quick post with lots of pictures... i love pictures! The weekend of April 9th was youth conference. It was lots of fun. Friday night we had an accapella group come sing. They do a musical fireside. They were great. Then the kids put on a carnival out in the parking lot. I was amazed at how much work the youth committee did for this event. They really did like 90% of the work. I can't say the whole committee did, but a handful of them worked so hard! They will be amazing leaders some day.

Mitchell and some friends hanging out at the carnival.

Saturday morning we had a light breakfast and a big service project. The kids wanted to do something for Haiti, so we made quilts and cleaned shoes. Brother Simister in our stake went to Haiti after the earthquake, so he spoke to the kids and showed some slides from his trip.

Mitchell, Dillan and Collin quilting!

Karen Adams and I...

President Worthen giving some instructions...

Saturday night, our stake joined 4 other stake for a big formal dance for the youth. It was incredible. The Red Rock Stake was in charge and they did such an amazing job! The dance was at an airplane hanger out at the North Las Vegas Airport. The decorations were beautiful! And the kids had so much fun! The danced all night! John and I got to be chaperons. It was one of those activities you wanted to chaperon because I wanted to see all the kids dressed up!
They looked so good. On Sunday morning we had a testimony meeting to wrap up youth conference. It was so good. The youth are so amazing! I will miss hearing their testimonies.

I already posted a little bit about our trip to Idaho Falls , but I didn't post many pictures... so here they are...

On April 17th we went up to Idaho to see John's mom. We drove up on Saturday, spent some time with Grandma and then drove 30 miles north to Hamer ID to stay at Barbara's house. Barbara is John's older sister. We spent Sunday at Grandma's. My brother Mark lives in Pocotello so his family drove up on Sunday to spend a couple hours with us while grandma took a nap. We went down to the falls and played around... It was so nice of them to come see us! The kids were cute and the boys loved throwing stuff in the river!

Mark, Trevor and Brad

Trevor

Carly

Katherine and Taylor

Mitchell tossing a log in the water

Tanner thinking about life...

John and I...

Barbara and Dave live out in the country... they farm hay and raise cows. And Uncle Dave teaches history at one of the high schools in Idaho Falls. We had such a good time staying at their house. We played some badminton, played some cards and ate good food! Thanks Barb!

Adam chillin' on his bike...

Stephanie and Uncle Dave watching the game...

An intense game of Badminton

Barb and Grandma

Uncle Dave teaches history. And he has a HUGE fascination with World War 2. He has 2 rooms full of WWII memorabilia. This is Tanner looking at a whole case of actual Nazi knifes.

He has actual military uniforms.

John checking out some Japanese rifles. He has several of them. The ones from the beginning of the war were so well made. They were heavy wood with lots of detail and then he has some that we made near the end of the war and they were light and cheap... very interesting... they were running out of money.

In the case of one of the Japanese guns Dave bought, it had a letter that the soldier was writing to his girlfriend back home. It had a picture of her and everything. It was pretty cool.

He had some Jewish concentration camp jackets.

We all had a great lesson about WWII. I wish Dave was my teacher in High School...
I might have learned something!

On Monday I drove back down to Salt Lake... I dropped Mitchell off at the airport. We didn't want him missing too much school. And then I drove to Provo to get Ashley. She is done with her first year of college!! Yahoo. We got her all checked out of the dorms and then we drove back to Idaho Falls so she could see Grandma. We spent all day Tuesday helping Grandma clean out her garage and spare room. I love this picture of Ashley talking to Grandma!

Our Nephew Kurtis came over for dinner one night... he is going to BYU Idaho.
It was fun to see him.
Ashley, Stephanie, Kurtis and Shelley

We learned a new card game called scum... it was pretty fun!

Tanner wanted to see cows and horses! So Adam took him
out to the farm and taught him a little about farm life...

We drove home on Wednesday.

April flew by! I will do my best to blog better in May!!