Our Forever Family

I am so happy that this race is over!  I have been training and preparing for it since the end of February!  The only reason I say I am glad it is over is because I never thought I would be in so much pain at the end of that race!  I guess I forget about that part!  But there is something that really makes you dig deep and you switch over from listening to your body to listening to your mind.  It tests your mental toughness because all your body is saying  is to stop and shut down.  You have to keep your mind telling you to keep going!  It  becomes a mental game at that point.  I love this race.  It is very well organized and it is just amazing to be able to run for such a great cause, Cancer patients! David gave me a sweet blessing that I will treasure always a couple days before my race that brought peace and comfort to me.  I was having problems with my achilles heel in both feet and it was really hard to walk without shoes.  It is from over stress of my body I think and also my sh

My parents came in to town!  They were passing through on a bike trip to Southern Utah and we were a MAJOR stopping point!  HAHA!!  We loved having them here.  They spent Saturday night with us and Sunday.  They left Monday morning and returned Friday night.  Just in time to see me race the next morning.  Melanie was in charge of the treats for FHE and Grandma was willing to help.  They turned out so delicious!!  We sat out on the camping chairs, ate donuts and watched Grandpa and his friend Lynn pack their motorcycles for their trip.  It was very fun!

This was the first year for us to go to the Carnival.  We ate the delicious food and bought 20 tickets for $20.  We let the kids choose 1 or 2 rides, depending on how much it was per ride.  Alyssa and Jenna chose the carousel and the dragon roller coaster.  The last ride proved to be a very good choice since the ticket taker gave Alyssa a whole handful of tickets he collected on that ride while she waited in line!  So they picked a car ride and the older 3 went on a ride called the Starship 2000.  It was the ride that you get inside and it spins so fast you can’t move very well.  They loved it and couldn’t get enough of it.  They went on it 3 times!!  I was just glad I didn’t have to clean up anyone’s puke! 

The girls did the Springville High School Cheer clinic  again this year and Jenna got to be a part of it this time!  She LOVED it!  She went with me to register a month before it started and that was all she could talk about.  She went to bed every night asking if in the morning we were going to cheerleading.  It was exhausting and cute all at the same time!  It was so fun for these girls to dress up, cheer two cheers and perform a dance routine each in their age groups.  They had 6 practices for 2 weeks and then performed on the High School football field.  This is Jenna’s performance.  Seriously one of the cutest things I have seen!  They were all a step behind the cheerleaders, trying their hardest! Alyssa is a “born to be cheerleader”.  We will see what happens in the future but right now she LOVES it! Melanie loves it just as much as Alyssa.  She had her routine pretty much memorized. We got to be in the Art City Day’s Parade.  I volunteered to ride on the float this year. 

We rode our bikes to the Sno Shack!  It was fun and delicious!!

The kids have been asking to go camping in our backyard for about a month but it was to cold in April!  So the last day of school was Memorial Day Weekend and that was perfect!  We set up our new tent that my parents got us for Christmas.  We loved the SPACE!  IT sleeps 10 people and that was perfect for us!  We roasted hotdogs on the fire, made s’mores, played tetherball and just had a fun time!  That night I read “Wayside School” and I loved that as much as the kids!  We had a few parts to crack up over and it was just fun.  We read until we all fell asleep, about 10 chapters!  We got up the next day and went to Seven Peaks Water Park.  It was the first day to open and the water was COLD!!  We stuck to the slides and the wave pool most of the time!  We decided we had so much fun the night before to sleep out in the tent again and read more of that book.  The kids really were excited about it.  I can’t wait to go camping more this summer!  

Melanie had her piano recital in May.  She did fabulous and her hard work really paid off.  She played “We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet”, “I Am A Child of God” and her favorite was a duet with her teacher called “Hang Gliders”.  It has been a rough year with a lot of ups and downs.  Tears and fighting over practicing but she persevered and ended doing very well.  I was so proud of her.  She performs well under pressure!  Piano has been over for a month but she will sit down and play “Hang Gliders” over and over playing up and down the keyboard.  She has it memorized by now! Melanie had an author’s fair in her class that I went to the last week of school.  They each chose an author, researched about them then gave a short 30 second memorized presentation on them and displayed the books that that author had written.  Jan Brett was the author that Melanie chose.  They also had to tell it to the other classes in the school throughout the day so she got really good by the end!  Melanie

The best part about Spring/Summer is everyone comes out from hiding in their homes!  We love to play with neighbors!  Jenna with Warner and Alyssa with Mia.  And finding snakes in their friends backyard!  They found 13 one day!!  Their house backs to Hobble Creek and they were in heaven for weeks finding and playing with snakes!

I feel so spoiled on Mother’s Day!  My kids really try hard to make this a special day for me.  Melanie is up and fixing breakfast for me and the other kids always want to jump in and help.  David hardly has to do anything anymore!  They served me breakfast in bed and each of the school age kids brought in their gifts that they had made.  I loved them all!  I got teary eyed when Alyssa gave me her gift.  She had her hand print painted on a mason jar holding a fake flower.  I will miss these little hands of all my children!  Jenna was sad when she saw everyone was giving me a gift except her.  I told her it was alright that she would get to make me something in her Sunbeam class!  This was the first year to have all my kids up on the stand singing to me their Mother’s Day songs in church.  The only thing was, I was sitting behind all of them playing the piano.  It has been a real treat to watch them all in Primary every week.  I love it!  When Jenna got out of church the first thing she