Daddy's Birthday

Birthdays are fun! Scott's birthday was last week and it was pretty low key, but Claire and Everett had so much fun helping me make a cake and wrap presents. We went out to eat later in the day and got pizza (Scott's favorite). Afterwards we came back home to open presents, and blow out some candles. Claire really understands the concept of birthdays now, it's pretty cute. She colored pictures for daddy and wanted to blow up some balloons and she was a big help in getting everything ready for him. :)

bryson reunion

oh, how i love the summer. warm weather, lots of family time, and, of course, a break from school. the joy of summer officially began with a fun bryson reunion in colorado. my eldest niece was graduating from high school, so we decided everyone should gather for the celebration. we tried something new and rented a nice big suv for the drive, which meant lots more room and we were even able to get my sister becca to ride with us. the drive went well (with the one exception of our two-hour detour when we tried a new route and ended up on a dirt road staring at a dead end) and we were at my sister's house late that evening. the kids had a blast playing with everyone as more family continued to roll in over the next couple days.

on saturday we all went to the local football stadium to see my niece's graduation. everett loved walking up and down the steps of the stadium, which meant i didn't get to see much of the event, but congratulations tori!

the next few days were full of fun family time. we even got the chance to head up to denver to see amber's sister, maelyn. it was such a blast. i loved that both claire and everett really opened up and bonded with everyone, especially grandma and grandpa. thank you hank and kim for putting us all up for the week and making this happen.

it was a great start to the summer and we hope the next few months are equally as fun. oh, and we saw this awesome complete rainbow. it was actually a double rainbow, but amber's lens wasn't quite wide enough to capture it all. still cool. :)

Living Planet Aquarium

The new Living Planet Aquarium was recently finished. It was bigger and better than the old one so we decided to check it out. :)

this is sparta!

so i was sitting at the computer, sadly pondering the fact that last year was the first year in 17 years that i did not play in an organized football league (not including the mission). but then, to my utter surprise and joy, i received an email asking if i wanted to play in the tackle league that i played in a couple years ago. i loved playing, but poor league management and the stress of organizing a team was too much for me, so i had walked away. but the league was under new management and had made many improvements including weekly highlights, stats, and a post-season, and i loved the idea of just being a member of the team and not in charge. and they wanted me to just play receiver, which was super awesome since i've never really known how to tackle properly. so i jumped at the chance and thus became a spartan for the 2014 spring season of the utfl (utah tackle football league). 

we started practice and it quickly became apparent that i would have to play some defense because there was no one else who could effectively play safety. that wasn't the worst news because i do like the coverage aspect of the position. again, i'm just not a great tackler. the real unfortunate news was that our quarterback proved to not be so great, and he loved to run at the slightest pressure, but he wasn't that great a runner either. our first game did not go so well. our qb went down with an injury on the first drive of our second game, which meant i unfortunately had to step up as qb. i didn't do horrible, but qb is not my strength. it also meant that the team wasn't going to let me play defense to reduce my chance of getting hurt, so i wasn't loving it. after a couple games we all decided my strengths were not being properly utilized, so we put our running back in as qb and i got to catch some touchdowns. our rb then also unfortunately went down with a knee injury and i was forced once again to play qb for our playoff game. all in all, it was not a good season in regard to win-loss, but it was so great playing again. i definitely didn't accomplish my goals that i set at the beginning of the year (lead the league in receiving yards), but i finished third in the league for interceptions, which isn't too bad since i only got to play defense for half the games the other guys did.

this is my highlight reel for the year. nothing spectacular, but a little bit of everything. i caught, ran, threw, intercepted, and tackled, and looked pretty cool doing it, in my humble opinion. ;) there is something special about putting the helmet and pads on. i feel like a samurai getting ready for battle or something.

Easter

For FHE the week before Easter we tried to teach our two kids a little bit about our Savior Jesus Christ and about the Atonement. It was a short lesson and I'm not sure how much they understood, but we want them to know how grateful we are for Jesus Christ and for all that he's done for us.

Our Easter celebrations started on Saturday when we got to dye some eggs. Everett was pretty interested in this activity, much more so than Claire in past years. He chose to color at least 5 eggs. Claire, with the help of her cousins, also colored a few. :)

The next morning, the kids woke up early and found their baskets (not hidden very well). They each got a few eggs with some candy and a new little toy.

We got dressed in our new Easter clothes and went outside to take some pictures. Claire and Everett weren't very excited about getting their picture taken though so I didn't get too many. We hurried back home for lunch and it was off to church we went. We enjoyed the songs and testimonies we heard that day about our Savior. The primary children went up to sing a song and Claire got a little scared and didn't want to go up at first. Near the end of the song she decided she wanted to go up and sing, but then when she realized she missed her chance she got pretty sad and we had to take her out to cheer her back up. :( After church we headed over to family for Easter dinner. We watched an Easter video and spent time talking and playing with cousins. Happy Easter!

Blood Moon

A couple weeks ago, after putting kids to bed, I was sitting on the couch looking at Facebook when I see a beautiful picture of the full moon taken by my sister-in-law. She said she was getting ready for the total lunar eclipse that would happen that night. I definitely wasn't planning on staying up to see it since it wouldn't start until 1 in the morning, and if I hadn't seen that picture I wouldn't have even realized that it ever happened. But I did see that picture, and being the photographer that I am, I felt the desire to go and try to capture at least a picture of the full moon since I wasn't going to be up for the eclipse. So I did. Scott joined me and after fiddling with my camera settings, I was pretty happy with my picture. Then I went to bed not really expecting to get up again. Scott however being the night owl that he is decided to stay up and watch. When the eclipse began Scott decided to wake me up and let me know just in case I wanted to see. I said no and he left, but I couldn't fall back to sleep right away cuz I did kind of want to see. So I got up again, and of course had to fiddle with camera settings and everything to try to get the perfect picture. I didn't get much sleep that night, but it was something fun and out of the normal routine. Scott and I enjoyed watching the eclipse together too. 

Dance Dance

Ever since Claire first fell in love with dancing, we have really wanted to put her in a dance class. So when we found this 6-week dance class through our city's rec center for 3-5 year olds, we decided to go for it. We talked to her a little about it before she went and she was so excited she couldn't hold her excitement in. :)

right before her first class

Parents were only allowed in to watch the first and last day and my camera battery died right at the beginning of the first class, so I don't have many pictures throughout the 6 weeks. They had enough girls in the class though that they split them into two classes. Claire was in the younger class. It was a lot more about getting them moving and exploring different kinds of music than really teaching them to dance which was exactly what we wanted. She loved it! :)

For the final dance class they combined the two classes again (I think Claire's teacher was sick), which is why in the video there are some with matching blue skirts and some without. Claire wasn't quite used to the teacher and the different activities they did, but I don't think it mattered. If you watch the video I think you can see she still had a blast. :)