Caroline is so awesome!

This is the second year in a row that Caroline's art has been chosen to represent Orem High in the Alpine District Art Show.  This girl LOVES ceramics.  She would be in the ceramics studio all day, every day if they would let her.  She is often there after school for hours working on things. 

 Congratulations Caroline!

After the art show, she was off to work with the special needs youth.  She has a calling as a youth counselor in the Special Needs Mutual this year.  We don't have any pictures because her buddy lives in a facility that doesn't allow photos to be taken.  Caroline has a lot of love and concern for these special needs youth. You rock, Caroline!

David gets his Learners Permit

I can't believe our last child is old enough to drive.  Wow, someone slow down the clock already!  David has been so busy since his 15th birthday that we have barely had time to think about getting his permit.  First he had swim every day after school and now he has tennis every day after school.  We lucked out yesterday as it was raining so practice was cancelled.  

 David is pretty excited to have a learner's permit!  We stopped at the driving range at Orem High on the way home and David drove around for 10 minutes.  He did very well, I was impressed!  Maybe this will be less stressful than previous children, not to name names or anything.

 Yeah.  Just chillin.

Yaahoo!!!! it's official!

General Conference Weekend

We went to the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference this year.  Here we are in line on our way in.

Katie was part of the choir that sang for this session.  She is in the 5th row, 4th seat to the left of the aisle dividing the women.  This was a combined choir from all of the BYU audition choirs.  She was so excited to be picked to be a part of this!

Our view from the first balcony.  This picture makes it look like we are so far away.  It really wasn't this bad.  However, we did bring little binoculars so we could "see" Katie up close while singing.

After the session, waiting for Katie to come out of the conference center.  How funny is this picture?  We were all texting and calling her, wondering why she was taking so long to exit.  Apparently, the choir remains in their seats until all of the general authorities leave.  

It was a beautiful day!

On Sunday we watched conference at home on TV.  Max even joined in.

After watching conference we went for a bike ride.  One of the bikes had a flat tire so we borrowed the Cox's tandem bike for Katie and Cameron to ride.

It was a wonderful weekend!  I love General Conference!  It is so uplifting to hear the messages from our leaders.  It's definitely the best weekend of the year.

Spring Break Fun

The first morning of Spring Break we let the kids just sleep and sleep and sleep in.  It was almost noon,  realized it was April Fool's Day and went into action!  We found a couple of quick pranks on the internet and set things up.  We put saran wrap across the doors so when they got up with sleepy eyes they would run into the plastic.  This one didn't actually work.  Maybe it works when your kids wake up and it's still dark outside.  They both saw it before they ran into it.  

 The other joke we played was to switch the bags of cereal in the boxes.  We traded raisin bran for Cap'n Crunch.  David, like a teenager, checked facebook before he ate breakfast and saw all of our well laid plans.    Rookie mistake on our part, too.  Caroline did fall for this one, though.  At least one of them worked!  Usually April Fool's day is on a school day so it was fun for me and Nelson to have some fun together.

 Over the week, we mostly just relaxed, watched movies, read books, sat in the hot tub and really did a lot of nothing.  It was awesome.  We did however leave the house a couple of times for a little adventure.  We went on a hike above the Dixie sign, not sure what this hike is called.  I love to hike in the desert in Spring.  Everything is blooming!  

 The rock formations are so cool!  Caroline climbed up into a little nook.

 SO funny!  These guys love to scare me pretending to fall off the cliff.

 This hike reminds me of Lake Powell in places.  We love to find little places to squeeze through. 

 These two found a few high scary places to explore.  Not me, no thanks, I will just stay at the bottom and take pictures.

 What a fun hike!

 Another day we went to play tennis.  It was perfect weather, such a nice change from the frigid winter we have had this year.

 Nelson thought we needed Wimbledon style ball tending, running back and forth when a ball fell at the net, so funny.

Here I am getting some much needed sun.  I can't tell you how good it felt to bake in the sun! Ah, to be warm again!

We went to the temple and the kids did baptisms for the dead.  I didn't know this but the St. George temple is the oldest working temple in the church.  Cool.

 We had a little craziness also.  It was almost midnight and we decided to have a marco polo game in the dark.  We turned off all of the pool and house lights and played a few rounds.  Guess who was it mostly?  Yeah, not my strong point.  It's actually a little scary swimming in the dark with your eyes closed!

About now it dawned on us that we had an underwater camera and we should be trying it out!  Nelson gave it to me for Christmas and we are just not used to having one and totally forgot!  It turned into one of the favorite pastimes and the week was almost over!  Here are a few of the hundreds of pictures the kids took while experimenting with the camera.  

 What a great week!  It was hard to go home and back to the semi spring/winter we are still having at home.  

I am beginning to see why people love to live in St. George in the winter, it's perfect!