Weekend update

A few updates from our busy week.  Saturday, Amanda had dance pictures.

 I wasn't supposed to be taking iPhone photos, but I got a couple. She's growing up too fast!

 Big news! Amanda finally passed the learner's permit test! It took 5 times….stupid questions…and the last time she didn't pass, she was really upset.  We told her she'd probably seen all the questions now and to take it a couple days later.  Then, she passed! Way to go, Amanda!! Mike has taken her out driving a couple of nights.  She's doing great!

 Mike, Brandon, Sydney and I went to the Jazz game.  We are getting the Bailey's tickets a lot because the Jazz aren't that great this year, ha ha!

 Look at these great lunch boxes they handed out…..hee her

It was the mascot, Bear's, birthday.  So, there were about 5 other NBA mascots. This one was from Detroit and when Sydney didn't wave back to him, he came over and messed up her hair for about 30 seconds.  These pictures came from the people behind me.  Sydney wasn't impressed..

 The Jazz lost, but we still loved going to the dinner and watching the mascots, etc.

Sunday, we had great family time.  Mike conquered the Rubic's cube.  It was warm enough to bbq for dinner.  Amanda and I took Max for a walk.  Just a wonderful relaxing day!!!

I don't know about you, but I'm feelin' 22!

How can it be that we have been married 22 years already?  It just seems to have flown by.  I got married at 22, so I have lived with Mike longer than anyone else! ;)

We have been blessed with 3 amazing children whom we love so much!  We've been blessed with so many things that I can't even begin to list.  It hasn't always been perfect and there have been hard times.  But those times have cemented our relationship and our family and we know we can work through anything.

We are grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives and for a loving Heavenly Father.  We have turned to him and to the blessing of the Atonement through hard times and in good times.  We know that we have to have Heavenly Father in our marriage to sustain us through 

our eternal commitment to each other.

We watched our wedding video with the kids last week. The kids laughed their heads off at Grandma Arvy's hair!  They laughed at my hair.  But, it was fun to look back at the beginning of our lives together.  To see us fixing up the duplex with the family. To see Tucker.  To see video of family members who have passed away.  We watched my brother's videos as well. This time we had Amanda and I was pregnant with Sydney.  Amazing to look back and see the beginnings of our little family.

Time seems to be speeding forward.  I can't believe we have lived in our Kaysville house longer than we lived in our Murray house!  I can't believe we will have a high school sophomore in a few short months.  I can't believe we will have all 3 kids in different schools. Even Brandon was feeling that saying he was a little sad he won't ever be in school with the girls again.

All I can say is I'm so grateful for my life. I'm so grateful that after 22 years and many more pounds and grey hairs, that Mike still loves me!  I'm so grateful for these 3 children that our Father in Heaven has blessed us with.  I'm so grateful for my parents, Mike's parents and our brothers, their wives (my only sisters) and our nieces and nephews.  We've been blessed with good friends and good pets, too.  We've been blessed with good grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  I'm looking forward to the next 22 years and beyond.  So grateful that we have reached this milestone.  There are many people around us that haven't stayed married past 20 years and it's sobering….and yet gives me much hope for our life together!  I love you Mikey! I love you Amanda, Sydney & Brandon!

More February/March updates..

We are full blown into the world of Scouting. Mike is the Webelos leaders.  A calling which he says is teaching or trying his patience!  Brandon earned his Wolf and is earning belt loops and arrow points…..

 Pack Meeting was Olympic themed with bobsleds, luge, etc out in the halls for the boys to try-out.

 Then, the awards were given to the boys, leaders and the Primary presidency with gold medals.  So fun!

 Below is the girls I serve with. Ann Smith, President and Shanna Barker 1st counselor.  We also have Missy Couser as Secretary, but she didn't have to be to pack meeting.  Love these girls!

 Another picture of St George. I told Amanda this was how to get down from this steep rock….now what?

 Another dance comp this weekend.  This one was at Weber State where the Clytie Adams ballet recitals are held. Amanda was feeling melancholy for a bit.  I should have brought my nice camera, but the emails beforehand said no photography. Turns out it was flash photography and the house lights were on…which would have been the perfect time to take some action shots! Oh well…my phone did ok :)  Above is her contemporary routine….She's on the far right.  Below is her Jazz routine picture taken by her teacher.  Amanda is on the front row second from left.

 And her hip-hop routine which is so fun!  We have Christian the only guy in the comp stuff.  He teaches Sydney's rectial hip hop class. Super nice kid and super talented!  He's up front with the red hair.

 Amanda does so great at hip hop! So does Sydney. I think this is their favorite way to dance.

 The great thing about our studio is that our hip hop routines aren't raunchy.  Some studios think hip hop has to be hard and ghetto….ours is light and fun and we always win with our hip hop routines.

 This dance took an overall high point winner!!

 I was in the wrong place to get good pictures of Amanda. She is just off center and one row back….right behind Ally who is to the right of Christian…another amazing dancer and super nice girl.

 Nick and Hayden came to watch the girls and were awesome sports. They sat through 5 hours of dance just to see 4 dances.  Liz, on the left, did her hip hop routine and then Maddy and Amanda had 3 dances.

 The after pictures!  Hayden wanted to show his flexibly….but the real dancers are Amanda, Lyric, Maddy, Liz, Ally and Christian!

 I went with Sydney on her 6th grade snowshoeing field trip. Super fun! The day was amazingly sunny and warm and it was so great to be in the mountains and being able to spend time with Sydney!

 A few pictures while we were stopped.  Above, Abby and Nicole are in the front, the back row is Emma, Gracie, Addy and Sydney.  The second picture is missing Abby.

 Stopping for a snack break and another picture….still my iPhone….should have brought the nice camera, but I didn't know how far we'd have to hike and didn't want to drop the camera accidentally.

 More of Emma, Sydney and Addy.  After lunch, we headed to the big slide hill. We didn't have sleds, but the kids had on ski pants, etc and they were great for sliding down. The hill is quite big and steep. The pictures don't do it justice.  Sydney went down 22 times!

 They went as a train mostly.  On this time, Michael jumped on halfway down….he's crazy.

 She had a great time and we spent a good 1-1.5 hours sliding.  Good times and good memories!

 And last….Max had a birthday!  He's now 5 years old :)

It's March?

 Oh, I have been so bad at getting the blog updated!  Where did February go? Or January? The following pictures of the Bailey's Jazz clinic are from January 22nd.  We had Derrick Favors and Alex Burks.

 Super nice guys and Brandon was in Heaven! This year we were at the ESA, instead of the practice facility.  It was pretty cool to be able to be on the actual floor and in the arena where the Jazz play their games!

 We even got a tour of the locker rooms!  Above is Amanda trying to have a press conference. She's even on her tippy-toes, but is still too short for the mics!

 Earlier that week, over MLK day, Mike took Sydney and Brandon to St. George. I stayed home with Amanda so she could go snowboarding.  Mike sent me this picture one morning saying he was sleeping on the couch! Their trip was so short, they just wanted to use one room to make the cleaning when it was time to go less time-consuming :)  After they got home, Mike & Amanda played hooky and went skiing/snowboarding on a school/work day.  I love that they do that!

 Into February, we got to sit in the Baileys seats and go to the dinner beforehand.  Mike had talked to some Jazz helpers at the clinic asking for 1 more ticket for this game.  Ends up they gave us two.  Amanda brought Chezney and all the kids sat in the Baileys seats.  Mike & I ended up on the 3rd row behind the Jazz! It was pretty stinking cool!  At halftime, you go back to where the dinner was and get nachos, cookies, popcorn, drinks….and then I let Brandon go sit with Mike.  Fun night!

 I thought this picture was so funny :)  Liz Wilson doing a selfie while her dad, Brad, walks in her room..

 We hung out with the Wilsons in St George over Presidents Day weekend since they have purchased a  house not far from our place.

 Sometimes, we find multiple random pictures….I love them though….

 Then, we got Bailey's seats again!  Amanda wanted to stay home and hang out, so it was just the 4 of us.  Dinner, treats and fun because the Jazz won that game, too!

 Valentines Day….Brandon let me help make his box.  The girls always liked to do their own.  He was so happy with it and so appreciative saying he loved it and thanks Mom!  YAY!

 These are Sydney's valentines….a lot of work!

 I was hacked by Sydney and her friend, Emma Olson.

 It warmed up a bit, so Max and I hit the trail. The dog likes to run!

 As I am organizing my new office, I found this poem.  I think Sydney wrote it! I'll have to ask her again.  It's from 3rd grade and I think it's so cute!

 We let Amanda miss another day of school to go boarding/skiing with Chezney.  Amanda loves it so much! That's all she wants to do:)

 While she was boarding, I hung up her gallery wall. It's not all finished and she doesn't have all her pictures in, but at least the frames are off the floor. It's pretty fun to look at all her pictures.

 I love this picture of Amanda and Taylor Woods sliding down the mountain on their snowboards because it was so steep!  A rare moment where Amanda had a little fear….

 Another little surprising selfie from Amanda and Sydney.  Taken when I asked her to go pick Brandon up from Scouts because I was teaching piano. Amanda didn't have her learners permit yet…but we let her drive in the neighborhood.  She told me they were parked when they took this, thankfully.

 Another girl selfie in Dad's truck….

 I thought Amanda's hair looked so pretty hanging off the couch while she had a nap.  This is just before we cut 6 inches off.  You can hardly tell it's shorter and it makes it soooo much easier to do her dance hair…..

 We took Amanda off her soccer team.  Alignment (freezing the roster for spring season) was due in January and because she hadn't been going to practices, the fact that dance comp season is starting so she wouldn't make games, and the bunion on her foot that is painful and she doesn't want to get kicked, we pulled her off the team.  That also meant I am done being team manager! Yay!  I helped them through the President's Day tournament and will help randomly if they need it, but my life has become less hectic because I'm not worried about soccer and managing that team!  Since we still had the condo for P day weekend, we went to St George anyway.  We saw some of the team's games and watched some kids in the neighborhood's games and some of the boys from Amanda's school, as well as Maddie Arveseth's, too.  It was a fun weekend. She was a little sad, but overall I think she's probably relieved to not have to worry about soccer.

 Here's the kids as we climbed the rocks above the city.  We ran into a bunch of people we knew here.  Later, we had a bbq with a bunch of the friends that were there for the tournament. That was a fun time, too!  Love getting together and everyone's schedules match up in St. George!

 Look at that blue sky…no editing done at all.  And the picture was with an iPhone!

Good times!