Tennis???

David's whole life pretty much he has played soccer.  He has always loved soccer but done well at a bunch of other sports as well.  Give him a ball and he's happy.  This year he came upon a dilemma.  His club soccer team no longer had Spring soccer because the boys are old enough to play high school soccer which is in the Spring also.  He has been interested in playing tennis also which is in the Spring.  It gets worse.  Tryouts for both teams were on the same days, same times and he had to choose.  He had been working out over the winter with the soccer team and also had been going to some pre season tennis workouts also.  He came home every day with a different decision about which sport to play, tennis one day, soccer the next.  On the day of tryouts he decided that he was having so much fun playing tennis that he would make a big change in his life and go for a new sport.  I honestly was shocked since he has loved soccer for so long but excited for him to try another sport.  As far as I know, he hasn't regretted his decision.  He has a lot of friends playing tennis also and is having a great time!

Thanks to all of the Pearce's for the great experiences playing with cousins and at tennis camp and also to Aunt Lisa for seeing some talent and encouraging him to play in high school.  He is loving it!

Thanks Holts!!

A HUGE thanks goes out to the Holts for their blogger expertise and resolution to my blogger grief!  I am excited to get back to blogging now that I am a google+ person.  Silly how all this internet stuff works isn't it?  Life has been crazy and it's been so long since I have done this I need to remember how I used to fit this in.  I may be slow getting started again but here's a preview of what I have missed blogging...

Whoa, it worked!

Well, since blogger is cooperating....

Caroline and her Preference group.  The swim girls ask swim boys to this dance, such a fun tradition.  The dance usually falls on the same day as Region swim so the tradition began.  They don't have a day date since they are all at the pool somewhere and then they go to the dance that evening, works out great.

I am having a love-hate, ok, mostly hate relationship with blogger since....well, let's see...my last post was in OCTOBER!  Sorry to drag all of you innocent readers into this mess.  Maybe some of you fellow bloggers can tell me if you have experienced some of the same problems I have.  Every once in a while when I try to upload pictures I get a message saying I am out of space and have reached my 1GB of free storage.  So I click on the little message and it proceeds to tell me I am at 37% capacity or something.  I wonder how 37% capacity is equal to 100% but nevertheless blogger will NOT allow me to add any more pictures...until this very moment when I slipped in under the radar somehow and actually got a picture to upload.  I have stopped even trying to blog because I will spend time choosing pictures, thinking about the story that goes with them, uploading them and then BAM, a big no way from blogger.  From what I have learned from the blogger chat groups is that my problem is not that I have reached maximum storage capacity but that my picture files are individually too large and must be smaller than 2048 pixels on the longest side.  If you look at the file size of most pictures taken on a camera not more than five or ten years old, they are all that big or bigger.  One comment said to either resize each and every picture (what a HUGE pain that would be) or to reroute your upload from an online storage site so the storage is not actually in blogger but somewhere else.  Not sure I really understand all of this or if I believe whoever it is that is responding to these posts requesting help sent out into the internet stratosphere.  

Does anyone have an answer?????  

I really love blogging and cannot seem to figure out how to make this work anymore...well, until just now when it allowed me (shocker) to upload this picture.  I am afraid to try to add another for fear it will remove this one.  

HELP! 

General Conference in St. George

This year we went to St. George for General Conference weekend.  Sadly, Katie couldn't join us this time.  It was such a nice thing to get away from regular old life and relax and be spiritually fed.  

I really enjoyed conference this year.  Maybe it was because I have never listened to every session from a hot tub!  No, it was just great because it was.  There was an historic announcement changing the age young men and women can choose to serve a mission now.  It is now 18 for young men and 19 for young women.  Katie and a group of girls from her dorm were at our house watching and they went crazy when the announcement was made Saturday morning.  They were jumping up and down, running all around, screaming, crying, carrying on.  They actually paused the broadcast for an hour because they were so excited, couldn't stop talking and were missing all of the other talks.  Katie has always wanted to serve a mission but wondered if she would go since the age girls used to serve was 21 and who knows what life would bring that many years down the road.  She is planning on going now!  She could go as early as March but will finish next semester and wait a month or so after Michael gets home so they can spend some time together before she leaves.

 We had dinner with Grandpa Lorin, Nana Kathy, and Jeramy and Cheryl even came!  We had a great BBQ and played some ping pong.

 This weekend was just what we needed!

Homecoming for Caroline!

Homecoming at Orem High is Caroline's first formal dance.  She was asked to the dance by a friend named Cameron Hernandez.  Side note...Nelson and Cameron's dad went to law school together and his mom and I had a sewing class together at BYU.  This was before either of us had any kids, a LONG time ago....now back to Caroline's story.... Cameron knows how much Caroline loves all things to do with Mountain Man Rendezvous so he asked her in a very unique way.  He made this bracelet that she is wearing that says HOMECOMING spelled out in leatherwork with a bead and leather lacing to tie it together.  Here she is wearing her bracelet in all of her rendezvous finery.  Sorry it is so hard to see in the picture but I promise that's what it says!

 Caroline answered Cameron with a bag of goldfish crackers that said "Of all the fish in the sea, I am so glad you picked me!  YES!"

 Here they are as Cameron picked her up for the day date.  They had a picnic lunch with another couple in their group.

 Here is Caroline all ready to go!

 You are so pretty Caroline!

 I love the dress Caroline picked.  It is very sophisticated and so Caroline!  She isn't into the big poofy, lacy, princess like dresses.  It is such a pretty color and very unique.

 We love shoes, how could we have a post about a formal dance without showing you the shoes?

 Here is Caroline pinning on the boutineer.

 They look so great!  Awesome tie to match her shoes Cameron!

 One more thumbs up...and they're off!

Here's the crowd that were here to see Caroline off on her date.  We are so lucky to have such a great family!  They come when they can to see the girls all dressed up and send them on their way.  Thanks everybody!

45th Birthday...really??

My sweet niece texted me first thing in the morning of my birthday with wishes for my day celebrating my 29th birthday.  She is so cute.  Yeah, I can't believe it either.  No, I am not sure I even remember 29.  That's right, I am 45.  For some reason this was a hard birthday.  Maybe because it's closer to 50 than 40.  Maybe it's because my dad is 25 years older than me and there is no way he could be 70.  No way.  Do you even have any gray hairs, Dad?  I don't think so.  My mom was younger than I am now when I got married.  I can't see the computer screen with the font on HUGE without my reading glasses.  I like afternoon naps.  Ok, that's not a valid point, I have always liked afternoon naps.  I probably have bunions or something!  Someone help!  Ok, calm down, it's ok, lots of people are this old.  

 Maybe because of my joy in having to claim this year I was not really super excited to make a big deal about my birthday.  It was a Thursday.  I had regular mom duties to perform.  We really didn't need a lot of pomp and circumstance.  However, my family decided I did and I guess after all is said and done I am grateful.  It is always nice to be remembered and have people express love for you.  Yeah, it was nice.  The kids were SO busy today so Nelson baked a cake for me.  Isn't that just so sweet?  He is really the best husband ever, really.  I like to think this cake is a tribute to my roots in a representation of the great Alaskan earthquake....or maybe it's just that Nelson didn't realize you are supposed to cut the bump off of the bottom layer of a stacked cake or this happens.

 45 candles

 taking forever to light all of them

 Finally all lit.  See the green one on the left?  wax running down the cake, the pink one next to it almost burned to the bottom it took so long to get them all lit.  

 Whoa, so bright!

 Caroline was so fun to bring me balloons after school.  Her gift to me is a pedicure.  That girl really knows what a girl loves, huh?  I am so looking forward to that.

 Even though Katie is at BYU with no car she managed to bring me some fun balloons, flowers and a nice card.  It was such a fun surprise for her to come visit!  Nelson and David gave me a nice shirt and sweater, I love them!

After a lot of dread about being ....45......the day turned out very nice and I feel very loved.  Thanks family!

HUGE Labor Day extravaganza family vacation

We decided to splurge and take 20 hours for a family vacation.  When you are short on time your choices of destination are limited so we chose to visit Provo.  That's right, Provo.  We took the motorhome and the boat to an RV park right outside Utah Lake for a night.  The next morning we went boating for a couple of hours and then headed home.  We really like to spend time with just us and the kids, even if it's for less than a day. 

 Caroline and David went wakeboarding.  I love how pictures of boating on Utah Lake have the Y in the background.  The rest of us were babies thinking it was too cold.  It really was, though.  

We really do need a longer vacation.  We got to go to California for a week before Michael left on his mission but that was 16 months ago.  Since he has left we have had 3 other less than 24 hour little trips, two of which were the same weekend with a return home for church in the middle, and that's it.  Can it be that we just need him home to have a real vacation?  Maybe so.