Semester’s End, Long Meet Day, and Kite Flying

Mike ended his second full semester working at the Y, Hallie spent all day Saturday working concessions at the meets held at Airtime, and we took advantage of the wind that kicked up Sunday to fly our kites.

On Monday, Landon made sure Eliza got to her after school Art Club. Such a helpful big brother! The Monday before Eliza said she didn't feel comfortable going so Mom and big brother decided to escort her and all things went well.

Mike had his school community council meeting Tuesday morning. It’s been rewarding to be part of that group and to feel like he’s making a contribution to the kids’ school with some of the ideas he teaches at the university.

As of Wednesday, winter semester was effectively done. Already the traffic patterns (and available parking spots) have improved. 

Hallie had her second dose of IV infusion, and Mike picked up the kids from school and then everyone met at gymnastics. 

She's learned to keep cozy by bringing along her Nova Scotia quilt. 

He and a group of faculty from his college met with school leaders at a local high school Thursday in the hopes of doing some research-practice partnerships, and afterwards he attended university commencement with faculty and students all “fussing and flapping in beastly black (and blue) like a murder of crows.” Along with speakers from the graduating students, former Governor Mike Leavitt and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke. Mike appreciates the positive and hopeful tone of speeches given to graduates. There is so much potential for good in the world!

On Friday, Hallie took Eliza to a doctor’s appointment. Later, Mike and Hallie helped out in the kids’ classes as their teachers took a well-earned long lunch as part of teacher appreciation week. As a tech in the Special Education department Hallie has been included in the Teacher Appreciation lunches and gifts. The whole week was amazing done by the PTA. Then Mike met online with his current doctoral student. In the evening, we watched a movie as a family and Hallie did some prep for meet day the next day.

We've chosen to let Fergus have some roaming around outside time again. He seems happier, and he sticks around close to home. He has also resumed his hunting, having brought home a gopher and a vole so far. Our lawn-owning neighbors should rejoice.

Saturday was a long day for everyone. Hallie left before 7:00 am to buy things and start the set up for the concessions stand for the meet at our gym. While Hallie was busy doing that, Mike and the kids went to the home of some ward members to help lay sod. So many people showed up that it only took 30 minutes to do all of the work! Mike did a bit of work from home, and then at about 11:30 he dropped Landon off at the gym so he could spend some time doing concessions and earning money for future meets. At 1:30 Mike came back to the gym with Eliza so Adi could do her hair for the meet that started at 2:30. Eliza looked so great!!! Eliza did super at her meet and scored 3rd place All Around in her age group. Her team took 1st place which was a sweep for AirTime Training Center, as Levels 3 and 4 also took 1st.  Mike took the kids home after the meet while Hallie cleaned up concessions and then finally headed home.

The weather was a bit cooler Sunday than it has been the last couple of days and perfect weather for Hallie to take a nap after she had read a chapter of Fablehaven book 4 to Landon (She may have fallen asleep a time or two during the chapter). When she woke up, it was just about time to get ready for church. When Hallie came downstairs, she found the other three in the front yard flying kites.

After church and choir, Hallie returned home to see the family out flying kites again, and Eliza told Mike she had convinced Mom to come fly kites too. Begrudgingly, Mom did go fly kites and Eliza disappeared into the house. That stinker!

In the evening, we talked with Grandpa and Grandma O and Alie on the phone tonight, which is always fun.

Landon’s new primary teachers also stopped by and brought him a treat and a survey to fill out. We are quite excited for him to have them teach him next Sunday.

“Every Man for Himself”

This week’s title refers to words uttered by Landon at Café Rio this weekend as he and Mike “shared” a salad. The boy has developed quite the appetite of late. He may be due for a growth spurt.

Monday was a pretty normal run of the mill day except for Eliza deciding not to go to Art Club after school. So, Hallie had Eliza tag along with the things she needed to do while the kids are usually at their activities.

Busy is the word to describe Mike's day. Hallie took over more of the teaching duties at school while the head teacher tested kids for the upcoming year. Hallie enjoys working with the kids for a longer period of time than she usually gets to do. Both kids ended the day with gymnastics.

Wednesday was a bit of a change for the family. About six weeks ago, Landon qualified from his class to go to the Nebo School District Keyboarding Championships. So after school, Hallie, Landon, and Eliza headed over to Spanish Fork High School for Landon to participate. The whole process was very long, and we all decided after Round 1 to leave and take Landon back to gymnastics. While waiting for Landon's turn, Hallie was texting with Lona Marie Cook (a lady from our ward), who told Hallie about an activity for the girls to attend on Friday evening.

On Thursday, Landon completed more of his SAGE testing at school. Hallie and Mike worked during the day. The kids had gymnastics during the evening where Eliza did some great work! Her coach was so impressed she called Hallie down to tell her how well Eliza was doing and to show her a video she took of Eliza's dismount on the beam. While the kids were practicing, Hallie and Lily went running errands to celebrate Coach Isaac's birthday. Toward the end of practice, we had pizza, drinks, and cupcakes with all of the boys on Levels 5 through 10. It was a lot of fun, and we can't wait to celebrate more fun things in the future with all of the boys.

Hallie's fun boss left this funny note on the board when the ladies came into work Friday morning.

Mike made sure the Momobile got sent off to its next owner before volunteering in Eliza's class in the morning after the school had an earthquake drill. 

During the drill, Hallie knew what to do from when she was a kid in California, but no one else seemed to know what to do except for Eliza. Thank heavens the first grader could teach everyone else. While Landon went to gymnastics, Eliza and Hallie went to UVU so Eliza could participate in a project with a group called My Story Matters. She took several photos and participated in some interviews, and she will end up with a personal book that represents who she is at this moment in time. We look forward to seeing how it turns out! Eliza had some very interesting answers with some being quite candid.

On Saturday morning, Hallie and the kids ran a few errands while Mike took care of some things in the home. By lunch time we headed for a fun trip to the Museum of Natural Curiosity. The museum had an indoor ropes course high above the ground level. The kids took full advantage, climbing all around the course. We also explored a kid-scaled town and an outdoor playscape, spending in total over four hours there.

Everyone was starving by the time we left so we headed to Café Rio, which is a family favorite.

Sunday was a little busy with Hallie starting the morning with a short meeting. We then had church, and Hallie had choir after church. The exciting thing was our choir doubled with just three more adults in attendance, and Hallie was happy to not be the only soprano at practice. Fergus got out this evening and spent time roaming the neighborhood. He let Landon and Mike know he was ready to come back in when he scratched on the door. This little action may mean the cat gets to travel outside more often.

April – Half Gone Already?

Last week we were on the road heading back from Landon’s meet, so we have two weeks’ worth of news to report.

The kids had spring break the first week of the month. They spent a lot of it at the gym, Landon going mostly in the mornings and Eliza at her usual times. Otherwise, they spent most of the week taking advantage of the warmer spring weather.

  

Eliza came up to work with Mike Wednesday morning for a few hours. He had a busy week learning new research techniques. Hallie babysat Lily and took Lily and Eliza with her to Dr. Phelps the chiropractor. Lily was not so fond of the noise the table made, and Eliza received her first adjustment.

In the afternoon Landon had his biannual appointment with his ADHD doctor. Everything is well, and Landon will see him again in another six months.

On Thursday, both kids went to the dentist for an overdue cleaning. Fortunately, they had generally clean teeth. Landon received sealant on his molars, and Eliza found out that she has a small cavity due to some crazy little whole in a tooth. Brusha, brusha, brusha, kiddos! We watched Lily again, and she came to the dentist with us, which was a lot more fun than going to the chiropractor. We won’t bore you will all of the rest of the crazy running around we did the rest of the day, most of it in preparation to be gone for the meets over the weekend.

Friday morning of spring break week Eliza had a meet in West Jordan at Academy West. Eliza performed well and had fun, taking a gold medal for her efforts. We're proud of all the hard work she has put in, and we look forward to a couple of meets yet before her season is over.

Hallie made cute little handouts for each of the girls with nail polish, and after the meet most of the team went to lunch at In-N-Out. Love a place that is open for burgers at 10:30 am, and with the rain the kids all got free hot chocolate.

After lunch we hit the road for Cheyenne, Wyoming, where Landon competed in the Region 9 Meet for his level. We hit snowy weather outside Cheyenne, but otherwise had an uneventful trip. By the time we got to the hotel, everything was covered in snow and ice. Brr! The thermometer said it was 19 degrees with a real feel of 0. “Kids, if you left anything in the car it won’t come in until morning.” Landon and Eliza topped off the long drive to Wyoming with some pool time at the hotel.

Saturday was mostly spent at or near the hotel. Mike did a bit of work, and the kids got some more pool time (both billiards and swimming). Hallie ran a few errands during the middle of the day when the temps rose a bit. We also met up with Landon’s teammates and their dads for dinner in town that evening. It is great fun getting to know the boys outside of the gym and a joy getting to know the parents as well.

Sunday morning, Landon competed bright and early. He placed eighth in Still Rings and Floor and got 12th place all around out of thirty-seven. Not too shabby! We look forward to seeing continued improvement next year. It may not sound like a big deal, but when his coach reminds us that last season he was competing two levels lower and that the beginning of the season meets were pretty rough for Landon, we are very proud of him! Landon has worked really hard this season and has shown much improvement.

(This is how the boys' sisters keep themselves occupied during competition -- gymnastics 'dos!)

After the meet, we headed home. We got a variety of weather on our trip, and like most of Landon’s other teammates we had to stop at Little America and most importantly get a soft serve ice cream cone for 75 cents.

Monday morning dawned too early for everyone, but we made it through that too.  Mike started participating in a study on stress reduction techniques today. He’ll walk on a treadmill three days a week and get paid (a very small amount) for it. This plus a three-part series in mindfulness meditation should help him find his mellow place. Speaking of mellow places, while Hallie got an iron infusion, she had a serene view of the mountains from the hospital.

Landon will now start training to compete at Level 7 later this year, and he also got accepted into Future Stars. Summer will not be much of a vacation for him with practices Monday through Friday 9:00 – 1:00. Eliza is not far behind with gym three days a week, and the two will only overlap by 30 minutes. The gym will be our new summer home. Can someone build Hallie a bedroom at AirTime?

Hallie got involved in helping Mothers without Borders by labeling a bunch of return envelopes. Eliza helped out too by giving Mom the labels to affix to the envelopes. Hallie’s friend Sarena from gym also helped out a bit. We did close to 3,000 envelopes in about three afternoons – quite a feat!

On Friday, Mike celebrated his birthday with some wild weather. We got snow in the morning which melted by the afternoon. Mike spent the morning volunteering at school before spending some time with Hallie after her work and then watching the kids at the gym for a bit before running up to a car dealership to look at cars. While we have appreciated having the Oldsmobile, it’s time for a newer-to-us car. After spending some time researching options, Hallie found a minivan she thought would work for us, so we took a look. We ended the day with cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes, ice cream, and The Greatest Showman. In all, it was a great day for Mike to be with family.

(Nice hat hair, dude!)

Saturday morning, Hallie took Eliza to the car dealership while Landon stayed home with Mike while he did some work. We made getting the car a bit of a surprise for the two of them.

Later, the boys joined the girls, and we completed the buying process before going to La Brioche for a day-after-birthday lunch of Argentine cuisine. Yumm-o! Mike enjoyed seeing the wide variety of South American sundries there but lamented at how much more the yerba mate costs relative to what he has paid in California and Michigan.

With the car buying process taking slightly longer than we figured (which is not unheard of), Eliza was a bit late to a birthday party of a teammate from gym. While Eliza was at the birthday party, the boys went and saw Ready Player One and both seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Having leftover birthday cake sure is a treat.

For the next few days, we’ll be a three-car family until the Utah Humane Society takes the Olds into the loving care of owner number three. We wish them well.

In an unusual turn of events, our schedule for church changed, and we now go starting at 1:00 pm. The later time is a mixed blessing. We get a more casual start to the day, which we like, and with the days getting longer it doesn’t quite feel like the day is gone by the time we get home. Hallie has a new calling as Relief Society chorister, a perfect calling for Hallie at this time, especially with the traveling we have done this year.  Eliza and Hallie went to choir after church, and it is not something Eliza will be joining Hallie in the future.

No Foolin’ – Happy Easter!

We had a bit of company this week to go along with the early spring weather. That with Easter and General Conference made for a busy and meaningful week. 

Eliza and Hallie spent some time during the week shopping for Easter goodies for the upcoming weekend. Eliza is so dang cute that anytime she tries something on Hallie has to take a picture.

On Friday we met with the Hopkins family, who had come up for a sealing in the Salt Lake City Temple, and Hallie volunteered to watch the kids. Mike actually ended up taking the "older" kids to the Church History Museum while Hallie went to pick up Marilyn from the airport. Looks like the kids had a lot of fun at the museum.

During the week when we arrived at gymnastics we saw this great sign that the gym put up to congratulate all who excelled at the State Meets this last month. Landon's name is in tiny writing toward the bottom. We are excited for all of our friends who made it to Regionals.

Friday night Hallie had the fun job of reading to the girls their bedtime story. Sawyer picked out Mine-O-Saur, and Eliza picked out another chapter from The Mouse and the Motorcycle. It was fun for the kids to have a sleepover with their cousins.

Saturday after Hallie finished up the Krispy Kreme fundraiser for gymnastics the whole family geared up and went to the Young Living Farm Easter Eggsravaganza in Mona. It was a great event except for the really long lines to do the activities once we got into the farm. The kids never complained, and it was amazing weather for a day out.

Finnley on her first horse ride

Sawyer just might be a pro. Eating a sucker and riding a horse with that big smile is priceless.

To pass the time while waiting for the paddle boats Mike stood in line and the kids climbed trees.

As Easter Sunday coincided with April Fool's Day, the boys decided to have some fun. Landon pulled a couple of pranks on Eliza that Mike ended up experiencing instead (gum on a light switch, anyone?), and Mike got him and Cru back by telling them early Easter morning that he had already put out eggs for the egg hunt. The boys bought it and ended up getting locked out in the cold.

Later on after breakfast and before conference, the gang went out for the real egg hunt. Then it was time for the Hopkins and Grandma M. to head for home.

This morning Fergus was not happy he did not get to participate in the egg hunt. However, he had many opportunities to go outside as he escaped through little and big legs alike when people would go outside. Fergus does not let an opportunity pass him by to escape. All of the neighborhood kids know he is not supposed to be outside and so they all chase him once he escapes. It can be comical at times trying to get this beast back inside.