Soccer Mania

We are nearly finished with our Spring soccer season. Caleb played his final game of the season last night...the championship game, which his team won. He was excited that now he had his own trophy, to add to the collection of trophies and medals that the boys have in their room. He needed a gentle reminder that it was okay to leave the trophy in the car for his brother's soccer game, and not carry it around.

Nate is almost finished with his season. He has been the center mid-fielder this year, but you wouldn't know what his position is, as he is always covering the whole field. He had two goals today, the first a header from a beautiful free kick. The second goal he got a break-away and went one on one with the goal keeper, kicking the ball to the left far post after a feint to the right.

Lauren has one game left in her schedule. She has only been to two games, as the weather on Wednesdays has been unusually bad this Spring, and her games have been canceled (thus no pictures of Lauren playing soccer this season). She is excited to play on a club team this Fall with her best friend.

This Fall we'll add Ashlyn to the soccer schedule. That should make things very exciting with all the overlapping of games and practices. I remember when I was in High School, I attened one cold and windy soccer game. I was glad to leave early and I didn't care to watch another game again. That was my first experience with soccer, and I never would have thought that I would eventually become a "Soccer Mom." But I am through and through, and I love it!

Branding Calves

Uncle Weston

Steve and the boys went to Idaho on Thursday, to help Uncle Weston brand his calves. It reminded me of the times I helped my grandpa on the Church Ranch brand his calves. Back then, we would get up at 3:30 in the morning so we could have our hair and make-up done before we had to leave at 4:00 a.m. My grandpa would just laugh at us, knowing that after a day in the dirt, grime and cow dung, our efforts on our looks would be useless. But, we had to look good to impress those cows (and the few boys who volunteered to help).

Just before the Nate and Caleb left I gave them a couple tips on handling calves, to help them look more like cowboys and less like "city" boys. Just as I expected, they spent the day pushing the calves down the shoot, since that is the job given to the youngest helpers. When they returned home, I asked the boys if my tips helped them. After a very short pause, Caleb let me know that my tips were all wrong.

In Tribute to Darby

Our first and best loved pet, Darby, died yesterday. She was nearly 10 years old. She died peacefully in her sleep, and for that we are grateful. She came into our family on December 5, 1998. Steve went to see her earlier, but he decided the cost was too great, since we had just moved into our new home. That was good news to me, since I didn't have any ideas of what to give him for Christmas, now the problem was solved. However, I didn't have the first idea of what we would need for a dog, so I visited Petsmart and they loaded me up with all the "essentials."

The kids and I did a 3 hour round-trip drive to pick Darby up and bring her back home. We tied a tag on her new pink collar that said, "On the first day of Christmas your true love gave to you...a dog to help you catch the partridge in the pear tree." We stopped at Steve's work and pushed her through the front door, then watched to see what his reaction would be when he spotted his Christmas present. It was better than I had hoped. He was so happy that he didn't even ask me how much I had spent on all the "necessary" items we had picked up for Darby. Since then she has been the seventh member of the family. We will definitely miss her.

Seasons

I love Spring! It is one of my favorite seasons. The best part of Spring is the tulips and daffodils that come up in the yard. The trees are amazing as well with their white and pink flowers. Here are a couple shots of the flowers around the house. Luckily there are no cows in the back field eating my tulips this year, so I'll get to enjoy them a little longer.

Spring Break

We decided to spend part of our Spring Break in Arizona visiting Grandpa. On the way, we stopped at Arches National Park and spent a couple hours hiking to Delicate Arch. This was the first time for the kids and they loved it. It was also a great way to tire them out for the remaining hours spent in the car.

Once we arrived at Grandpa's house, all the kids wanted to do was hang out with the horses. They fed and watered them each morning and evening. They even dug the brushes out of the shed to brush down the horses that would let them. There were two older horses that were quite calm and willing to let the kids come near them. The others were just over a year old and didn't like to be touched and wouldn't let us get near; except for one that would only let Ashlyn come up to it (as pictured above). She was very patient and persistent until it finally allowed her to touch him. She was pretty pleased and of course that was her favorite horse out of the bunch.

When asked what was the best thing they did on the trip, most of them said it was riding the horse with Uncle Ric. Each of them had a chance to ride around the fairground arena. Some were a little more daring than others, but they all loved it. It was fun to see their excitement and remember how much we enjoyed coming to Grandpa's house so we could ride the horses-the only chance us "city" kids ever had. Ric was great to spend his morning with us, and was so patient with all of the kids.

It was good to see Grandpa. You would often find Ashlyn snuggled up on his lap answering all of his questions (most of them asked repeatedly), or listening to all of his stories. And in keeping with tradition we made time to go to El Camino for dinner to finish our visit. We love visiting and can't wait for another opportunity to see Grandpa again!

My Kind of Tournament

On Friday we headed over to the "Rock, Paper, Scissors Throw Down," a tournament where no skills are required-only luck. Uncle Mike was in charge of the tournament. His college group was trying to set a Guinness World Book Record with the most participants in a Rock, Paper, Scissor tournament; and we went to support him (the final count of participants was 828). Everyone lined up and faced off against the opponent opposite them-with the winner being the one who won two out of three times. There were Rock, Paper, Scissor judges to judge each throw down. Nate, Caleb and Lauren all made it through the first round. Caleb and Lauren got knocked out in the second round, and Nate was eliminated in the third round. I thought they might be disappointed that they didn't win the grand prize ($3,000), but they were just glad to have beaten a college student at least once. Afterwards Tricia kept challenging them to RPS matches, to see if she could beat them. Keep practicing Tricia.

Updates

I need to add a couple of updates from my previous posts. Events that happened recently of note in our family. The first is Science Fair. Nate went on to the Region level competition two weeks ago. Of course it was a very busy day and so I tried to talk him out of attending the awards assembly at the close of the competition, since I was needed at the stake center all night to conduct Futsal games. I figured he was lucky to make it to the region level, and that would be the extent of any recognition he would receive. Nate's teacher thought differently and talked me into having Nate attend the awards event that evening. Luckily he did, because Nate ended up getting 2nd place in the Junior Division of Medicine and Health. His trophy and certificates are still sitting on the piano, and he is already talking about what his project will be next year.

The other item to update is the Geography Bee. Nate scored high enough on the exam to qualify for the state competition, which took place on Friday. He was nervous the morning of the event, but not as nervous as I was-as I forgot to even take the camera for pictures of Nate in the competition. (Steve couldn't believe that I would neglect something so important, but it was all nerves!) He got through the preliminary rounds and ended up in the tie-breaker rounds to determine the ten finalist. His last question knocked him out of the round, and he still is upset because the first answer he wrote down, then scratched out was the correct answer. Oh well, we think he did great as he ended up being in 13th place out of the 100 kids who made it to state, out of the many thousands of kids who participated in their own geography bees in their schools. (Sorry for the big bragging there, but I couldn't help it.) Anyway, here is the question that ended up taking Nate out of the competition, see how you would answer it:

Which country that is not part of the European Union, and is bordered by Belaurus and Ukraine, recently tightened its border patrols because of problems caused by immigration?