Jill finally sees BYU

Jill has been jealous for months that her brothers have all been to BYU and she hasn't. So for general conference weekend I bought tickets and here we are! She has been having a blast with cousins Ada and Berkley up in SLC where we are staying with Jeremy and Tammy. Elaine's friend took her to the Bean museum and looking at purple pansies while I went to a class with Elaine. Then we ate at the MOA and visited a chem professor friend of mine. Easter egg hunt this morning and Cinderella this afternoon. Tomorrow we go to Alpine to hang out with more cousins then head home at night.

It's been a long time.

I'm posting from my phone so not sure how this will turn out but I guess I'll post some house pictures. Quality is poor, but you can get the idea, at least. All these walls used to be white. Bedding hasn't arrived yet for the guest room, but we hung the pictures. Nature Photos are by my brother, Jeremy. 

Ben Poem

Another awesome poem. He didn't write it in lines or stanzas so I'm editing but the words are all his. There is some discordant imagery: "still as some steel" vs. "never stop moving" (we'll have to address that kind of stuff another year) but I love the last line.

Have you every wondered how the soccer players feel?
Standing on the grass as still as some steel?
Do they feel nervous, scared, or excited?
After, at last, the crowd has been sighted?
Well I'll try to tell you, a little tale,
Just in case to you, they look kind of pale.

They feel nervous, right before the game.
They never stop moving, it seems they're not tame.
But when the game starts, they are excited.
There's so much excitement, it seems a fire has been lighted.

By the end of the game, they are very tired.
Looking forward to the rest that they have desired.
After they leave, the grass is waving.
The stadium lets loose the silence it's been saving.

The past few months have been a whirlwind! BYU Bowl game, trip to UT for Jeremy's birthday, VIP Tour of Gilbert Temple with Pres. (Elder) Walker, Hawaii (pictures in another post), and the Sedona Marathon (really a 5k this year, but I ran it twice).  Not a great Sedona picture with people in the background and all, but we take what we can get.

A few photos from Thanksgiving. My boys inherit their photo-ruining techniques from their father, or so I've been told. Jill was just cranky.

Time to Clean House

So I've been cleaning off horizontal surfaces in my house lately, partly to impress my husband (read: Dave is sick and tired of my messes) and partly because we have painters here fancying up our walls. Anyway, I came across some of Ben's school writing which I put before you now.

THE SILENT STREAM

Soundless starlight gleams
in moonlight and the stream,
is what my memory hears
before I see it in the windows.
Believe things unlike the truth,
like flight in a cloudless sky
that encircles the sun
in the beginning of the day.
Quiet flowing, waiting
and shining waters,
outline elsewhere.

Lest you think he is poetic, keep in mind that the way 3rd graders (last year) write these poems is pretty much like an ad-lib joke. He can't read it without collapsing in a laughing heap on the floor. But I do think it turned out lovely.

At the beginning of this year he had an assignment to learn about his ancestors (which country they came from, etc.) and give an oral presentation about them in class. We know way too much about way too many ancestors so we ended up focusing on a treasured heirloom, but not before we gave the actual assignment a shot. Here is his first attempt:

"My ancestors came from Scandinavia and the British Isles. Many of them came to America because they joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of them was the first school teacher in Utah. Her name was Mary Jane Dilworth. Another ancestor was a cowboy in Texas. Another one left England went to New Zealand before coming to America. Eventually they all settled in three states, Arizona, Utah and Idaho. Going to college has been important for most of my ancestors. Several of my great grandparents have taught at college and universities. My mom grew up in Idaho and my dad grew up in Arizona. They met at BYU in Utah. My grandpa told me his dad built a toy machine. On the machine was buttons to make a toy. Some of the types of toys were a horse, a plane or a truck. They would push a button and it would pop out. Soon for some reason when he pressed horse a plane would come out and when he pressed plane a truck would come out then he pressed truck and some spare change came out. Only years later did he realize that someone was in the toy machine and his dad had bought toys and one of the employees was in the toy machine throwing it out and eventually he ran out of toys so he threw his spare change out of the slot and that's the end."

It is good to clean house once in a while to find keepers like these.

Summer Vacation

Oh what a wonderful three week break it was. The kids pretended to be pioneers in the wilderness, swam in the river, and basically needed minimal input from ME! In other words, I told them to go have fun and leave me alone. {smiley face}. I played with them some, too. Elaine was at EFY for the first week, Jeremy was at the National Scout Jamboree for the first two weeks, and Dave was working for the first two weeks. Then he hiked/trail ran 27 miles along the Teton Crest Trail in 10 hours with some other crazy people before joining us. Since Jeremy was gone, we had his cousin Bryce with us for those two weeks which was the greatest plan ever! Chelsea and her kids joined us for a week also, and Grandma and Grandpa were with us the first two weeks.

We saw bald eagles galore (4, to be exact), moose, fish, osprey, cormorants, pelicans, squirrels, chipmunks, dragonflies of myriad hues, Canadian Geese, swans, muskrats, and several other birds for which I need the handy yellow sheet from Yellowstone to remember their names.

We took several day trips to various locations including Targhee Creek, Ice Lake, Quake Lake, and Lava Hot Springs (I'll have to get pictures from grandpa). Of course we couldn't omit ice cream at the Old Faithful Inn. We didn't take the 3 hour float trip, but we took the 20 minute one several afternoons in the kayaks. Fun, fun.

We also got to spend time with Nana in Alpine where Jill got to play with her step-cousins. Mariah spoke in church for her farewell to JAPAN, which we attended and then hung out at their house for an afternoon.

One of the most fun things we did was watch the daily slideshows set to music that Grandpa put together!

I'm actually still feeling refreshed after being home for several days. There is something about the mountain air and Snake River and memories of childhood!