A naughty dog, A prom invitation, New Family Goals and More...

Milo has figured out that he can jump the fence at the back of the garden and get into the front yard whenever he wants.   It is super annoying.  He is mostly an inside dog but when we do let him out to go to the bathroom we have to watch him really close.  We will probably have to put a  fence around the garden to keep him out of the garden and in the yard.  He has started sleeping in Tyler and Melanie’s room at night so we put away the kennel that was in the living room and rearranged the furniture.  The piano is now on the wall between the living room and kitchen.  There is a green chair by the entry way and one where the piano used to be.  The couch is still in the window.  It is a nice change.  Feels very cozy.

Tyler blessed the sacrament in sacrament meeting for the first time this morning.  He was nervous, I could tell. He did a great job. He spoke slowly and clearly and correctly the first time.  I bought him a Missionary long sleeved white shirt from ctr clothes for Christmas and he looked very handsome. He was wearing of Graigry's old ties. I tried to bring up the memory of Graig blessing the sacrament for the first time but I couldn't and that made me sad. I have plenty of memories of Graig blessing the sacrament, I just couldn't remember the first time. I guess that is what journals are for. I hope I have that memory stored in a journal. I will get this one safely written down if no where else but in this letter to you. And I have started putting my weekly missionary letters on my blog since they are a great journal.  The closing song in sacrament meeting was "Come unto Jesus", a favorite Lyceum song. Made me think of Graig again.

Tyler is growing. I realized today he is taller than me now. He barely fits in the suit Graig wore his freshman year at BYU.

Tyler decided to invite his friend Tori to go with him to prom. She is a really cute girl and one of his best friends right now. Tyler made a poster that said, "Now that I've kissed the floor you walk on, will you go to prom with me? " After the swim banquet, he and Jannik put it on her front porch and covered it with chocolate kisses.  They then rang the doorbell and ran to hide. After she found the message they came out and helped her pick up the kisses. She hasn't officially answered him yet but I think the answer will be, "yes". He hung out at her house the rest of the night along with some other kids from swim team.  Prom will be April 28th.

Our FHE lesson was on strengthening our family. We talked about what we can do each day, week, and month. Daily: Try to keep a happy spirit in our home. Eat dinner together. Family prayers morning and night. Say, “I’m glad you’re here” (a daily validation).  Weekly: Go to church with a smile. Have a no technology hour on Sundays and play games. Do a project in the house or yard.  Go out as a family to an activity. Family Home Evening. Monthly: Fast without complaining of hunger.  Every person cooks a meal. Do a service project. Go on an activity that will achieve mental flow such as hiking.  Attend the temple.

 Melanie loved the mini door for kids to enter the museum.

 Melanie and her friend Amelia loved the large playground.

Warren and Jannik making music together.

My Mom got us free tickets to a preview party for the new children’s museum at Thanksgiving Point called the Museum of Natural Curiosity.  We went yesterday to check it out and were very impressed.  There is a huge indoor play area with lots of things to climb on and around and through.  There are a lot of interactive exhibits on lots of different subjects.  Melanie has already said she wants to take some friends there for her birthday party.  

Our weekly project in the house was taking down all the snowmen decorations and putting up the spring decorations.  I told Jannik that is was the last time we will redecorate before he leaves.  I think he thinks we are a little crazy with the decorating for each season.  It is spring in Utah which means we have a really warm day and then a really cold day.  Today is cold and rainy but one day this week the temperature got up to 75.

Melanie and I got to hang out twice this week at church activities.  The first was the RS birthday party.  We had a nice dinner and then listened to a descendant of Joseph Smith talk about his conversion story and how he now works to help convert his cousins living and deceased (through temple work).  He made an interesting statement which was basically that missionary work on this side of the veil will be easier and quicker the more saints there are on the other side of veil who have had the chance to make covenants.  He emphasized how tied together family history work is to missionary work.  It is cool to have Elder Collin Henrie doing his mission in the family history center as you two focus on converting those on Earth.  Both are such important missions.

Melanie and I’s second hang out was at the stake center to watch the first Women’s broadcast.  There was a wonder feeling during the broadcast.  I loved the emphasis on keeping our covenants and loving and serving each other.  We had a great attendance at the stake center.

We had our first no-technology hour today.  We played a bored game we rented called “Forbidden Island”.  We had to work together to gather up artifacts and get everyone off the island before it sank. We did it but barely.

LHS Swim Team Banquet

The swim banquet was fun to attend. Tyler got an award for great practice attendance and hard work. They call it a cutter award. He also got the scholar athlete award for maintaining a 3.0 or higher during the season, the "too smart, why are you capless?" award from the captains, and he earned a letter. The “Too Smart” award was given him by a senior captain who is in his same math class.  The “why are you capless” is apparently an inside joke that he didn’t want to explain.  Jannik received similar awards plus the "biggest surprise of the season" award from the coaches.  His award from the captain's was the, "our German secret weapon".  He was also honored for being a senior on the team.

Battle of the Books, MORP, and more in an exciting week

At the middle school they had a Battle of the Books competition. For the contest you formed a team with your friends. Then between the people on your team you read a book list. Then at the competition you as a group answered questions about the books. Melanie's team had some struggles with people dropping out and one team member wasn't able to come so they couldn't answer any questions about the books he read. Her team still placed an impressive 4th place.

Tyler and Whitney 

Melanie and Tyler trying on the pirate costumes from Aunt Connie.  Kayla and Mitch wore them to a high school dance.  The theme for MORP was "disney duos" so you were supposed to dress up like a disney couple.  My first thought with this is, of course, Disney Prince and Princess couples.  We found out about it kind of late about needing a costume so after finding out Aunt Connie already had the pirate costumes we decided that "Pirates of the Carribean" was a disney movie. Tyler's date, Whitney liked the idea and Kayla's dress.

Lehi High School had their orchestra concert. They have two levels of orchestra classes at the school. Tyler is the only bass in his orchestra. They had the two orchestras play separately and then they had them play two songs together. It was amazing how much better they both sounded together, the less experienced orchestra did not bring down the better orchestra; they made them sound better. I thought it was a great analogy for life and a ward or branch. The more people you have united in a common cause the stronger the outcome will be, even if some of those in the group are not as strong (or as good of players) as others. I hope that made sense.

Melanie's orthodontist has been waiting for her last baby tooth to come out so he could continue her orthodontic treatment. The permanent tooth was under the gums in a funny place and so he decided it wasn't ever going to be able to push out the baby tooth. I too her to a dentist this week to get the baby tooth pulled and it wasn't easy getting it out. The dentist ended up cutting the tooth in half and pulling it out in pieces. She was very brave.

I think maybe I told you how the dentist we had doing Tyler's braces just didn't seem to know how to get his teeth straight and his bite and mid-line right. We took him to two orthodontist for a second opinions and they both said that the dentist's treatment plan was not going to work. We decided to have the dentist take off the braces even though Tyler's teeth aren't right yet and start over with an orthodontist. The dentist was fair with us and gave us 1/2 of our money back since he did not do what we had paid him to do (fix Tyler's teeth). The plan was to take Tyler to one of the orthodontists and get the braces back on so he could get his teeth fixed for real. Now that his braces are off, Tyer is not sure he wants to get them back on. Can't blame him.

I was asked to be a Subject Matter Expert or SME at doTerra. This means I will coordinate with the finance and commissions departments to make sure that the call center has up-to-date information on all doTerra policies. I will also help to train the other call center employees on my are of expertise. It means more responsibility and I was flattered to be asked.

 Brother Caprio (The apostle Thomas), Tyler (Joseph Smith), Sister Frandsen (Mary Magdeline)

Tyler was one of three characters from history who came to Primary Sharing time today to bear their testimony of the Savior.  (The Pirate shirt worked well as a Joseph Smith shirt - oh the Tender Mercies in life)

Pi day and other exciting events this week

The youth in our ward were divided up into missionary companionships and sent to dinner with ward members. Our "missionaries" were called to Germany so we got Jannik to cook German meatballs and potato dumplings for them. Jannik then talked with them about German culture. They shared a brief message about how they know we can be with our families when we die. It was really great. Tyler and Melanie had some great experiences as well. Sis. Andrews said Melanie came to her house and that she told her she wants to serve a mission. That is the first time Melanie has said she wants to serve a mission, to my knowledge.

It is spring in Utah so the weather has been teasing us a bit. It was really nice yesterday so Dad took the opportunity to teach Jannik to BBQ some chicken. Yummy!

Graig asked what I do at work so here is my answer in case the rest of you are interested. I work in the call center at doTerra. People who are members of doTerra call me to place orders or ask questions. My favorite part of the job is helping the customers. Sometimes I suggest oils to people but I have to be careful because the FDA regulates what we can say. We aren't doctors and so we can't diagnose ailments or say that a certain oil will cure a problem. We can say what works for us or our family members or other members we have talked with. We can make general statements about the oils. I say 99.5% of the customer love the products and are very nice because there are probably .5% that are unhappy with the company and are sometimes ornery. I am ok with that and try to help even the ornery ones as much as possible. It is rare that a customer is still upset with the company after talking with me. I am really good at handling "escalated calls" which means I am good at calming people down and making them happy. This past week they promoted me to be a "senior agent" which means if a regular agent doesn't know how to answer a question or if they have a mad customer they can call me for answers or transfer the mad customer to me. I also have greater computer privileges to do more things in the customer database.

I will forever remember the date that Graig and Jessica opened their mission calls because it was 3.14 or "Pi" day. I decided we needed to celebrate "Pi" day in honor of Graig and the opening of the mission calls one year ago. It also happened that 3/14 fell on a Friday so we invited friends over for a game night a bonfire and of course, pie. I bought a big Costco cherry pie and Tyler went to Kohlers and bought a chocolate cream pie, a raspberry pie, and an apple pie.

We had a great discussion in Sunday School this morning about the Holy Ghost. I think for most of my life I have kind of thought of the Holy Ghost as an "it" or a "thing". For the last few years I have been realizing that the Holy Ghost is a man and my brother. His mission is to bring people to Christ and to testify and to seal ordinances. He will wait to get a body until he has seen all of us through the trials of this life. How grateful I am for him in my life; for the comfort he brings during trials and for the testimony he has helped me develop.

Tyler's Ordination

Tyler was ordained to be a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood by these men:

Tyler turns 16

 Thursday was Tyler's 16th birthday.

 Melanie wanted to show him her love so she stayed up late Wednesday night "decorating".  She took her three stick horses and made "bodies" for them out of stuffed clothes.  One was on a chair just outside his door with "happy birthday" written on the whiteboard.  He said it about scared him to death when he opened his bedroom door at 4:45am and saw the outline in the dark.  The next one was in the laundry room by the washing machine on a stool.  The third one was next to the counter in the kitchen.  The "horse" people with wearing Melanie's clothes and were slightly creepy.  I told Tyler Melanie was just trying to show her love.

Tyler opened his gifts just before he left for school.  When I got off work I picked Tyler up at school and took him to get his driver's license.  The Draper DMV was very efficient and we got in and out very quickly.  Tyler drove himself to his swim workout and Dad and I took him to Texas Roadhouse for dinner for his birthday.  While we were gone Melanie and Jannik decorated the house and some of Tyler's friends came over.  When we got back they jumped out and yelled "surprise".  We had some cake and those friends who stayed around played some games.  His friend Whitney Harper asked him to MORP. Her family comes to our exchange students BBQs in the summer every year.   They have been friends since Kindergarten.

Willowcreek Band Concert

On Tuesday night Melanie had an band concert at Willowcreek. The bands are getting ready to go to festival.

Grooming Milo

Before:

During:

After:

We bought a grooming set for our very long haired dog.  It took two days and several sessions but he is now a shorter haired dog.  His hair was so long that he had lots of mattes in it that couldn't be brushed out.  I told Tyler to give him a "swimmers" haircut. (They shave their heads bald.)  It was tricky to figure out how to get him to hold still.  They ended up putting a leash around his neck, a leash around his hind quarters and tying him between the two fruit trees. Then they took turns one shaving while the other tried to hold him still. Hopefully the new haircut will cut down on the shedding too.

Melanie took this selfie during stake conference while we were sitting in the choir seats.

 It has been a great couple of days with Stake Conference this weekend. For the first time the Saturday evening session was for members of the church age 12 and up. The theme for our conference was "hastening the work". The visiting members of the Seventy did a good job of encouraging us to stay true to our covenants and have faith as we live our lives. Dad, Tyler, Melanie, and I all sang in the choir. For the closing song we did a really nice arrangement of "I know that My Redeemer Lives". It was hard to not cry the spirit was so strong. I love music. 

Brother George Tripp passed away this past week his funeral will be this week. Nice to picture him back with his wife. We will miss him. During stake conference Elder Snow talked about patriarchs and patriarchal blessings. I was thinking about how Brother Tripp gave Graigry and Tyler their Patriarchal blessings. Elder Snow challenged us to read our blessings often and use them as a guide for our lives. I took the opportunity to read the blessings of everyone in our family (except Melanie who hasn't gotten hers yet) and it was a blessing to get a "big picture" kind of look at each of our lives. It is great to "see" what our lives can be with God's help and our faithfulness.