A Family temple trip, End of Swim Season, Warren Plays John the Baptist

It has been a goal of mine to do more family temple trip this year. With that in mind, I scheduled an appointment for our family for Saturday evening. Originally I thought it would be Warren, Melanie and I attending. Then Warren decided he wanted to help time at Tyler' last swim meet so I asked Graig to come up. At the last minute, Graig accidentally miscalculated the bus/train schedules and called me to let me know he wouldn't be able to make it up in time. I was determined that Melanie and I would go anyway and suggested that he call Jessica just in case she was in Provo and could give him a ride. Our miracle of the day was that not only was she in Provo but she was in front of his apartment. She got him to the temple just in time. As they entered the font, Graig decided to hand his glasses to the temple worker and then he couldn't read the name to perform the ordinance. It was really sweet to watch Melanie whisper the names to him as they began each new ordinance. I was very proud watching these two children of mine serve in the temple together. Graig was just set apart today to be a temple worker in the Provo Temple on Saturday evenings. 

Tyler made it through his last Regional swim meet. He was excited to win his heat in the 100 freestyle and beat this personal best time by several seconds. He also did well in the backstroke.

Warren was asked to help out with sharing time in Primary today. He portrayed John the Baptist. He did a lot of study and gained a new respect for John the Baptist.

Love this girl

Instead of a book report on "The Merchant of Venice", Melanie decided to make a diorama with the focus being a time period dress for her Barbie doll. It is very detailed. She decided to do her hair in the same hairstyle of her doll for church.

In Young Women's today they were talking about how much Heavenly Father loves them. The teacher asked Warren to come and talk about how much he loves Melanie. He told about how much we wanted her to come to our family and how he cried when she was born.  He said he quickly diagnosed her with DHDI syndrome. (Daddy, how do I?)  When she was little she wanted him to how her how to draw and build things. Now that she is older, She wants him to show her how to do things like drive a car and use power tools. The teacher hoped the girls would make the connection that if their Dad's love them a lot, Heavenly Father loves them even more.

In Sunday School we were having a discussion Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life.  It occurred to me that the tree can also represent Christ (God loved us so he sent His son). That would make the fruit the atonement. It is up to us to pick the fruit, taste of its sweetness, and internalize its benefits. How wonderful to have a Heavenly Father and a brother Jesus Christ who work so hard to help us know true joy.

Last Home Swim Meet

Four years ago Tyler started with the High School Varsity Swim team as a Freshman.

This was the last swim meet of his Senior Season which meant he was honored and given a towel with his name on it.

Coach Dennis Meyring has been a great mentor for Tyler. All of the swimmers felt of his love for them. The swimmers were the most important part of his program, winning was second.

Zan Shin.

Back to a regular routine

It was a full week of work and school around here.  Tyler and Federica are trying to finish up their first semester while Melanie got a good start to her new semester.  She seems really happy with her classes.

I started a new fitness program at the Legacy Center that will go for the next six months.

Tyler swam in a swim meet on Saturday.  The coach has been putting him in the back stroke races lately and he likes it.

Melanie invited friends over to play cards and eat microwave popcorn on Saturday afternoon. There were some nice boys and girl who came over.

Snowmobiling

 As the sun came up over the lake, we could tell it was going to be a magical day. 

  Surprisingly, Melanie and Ashlyn were the first two kids to come for breakfast.

We had muffins, fruit and hot chocolate for breakfast and got everyone bundled up for a cold day. It took almost an hour to get the snowmobiles checked out and get trained on how to run them. We had five 3-person sleds for 13 people.

Graigry all ready to go.

Tyler and Federica all ready to go with Emily in the middle.

We didn't have anyone with us who was experienced with snowmobiles or where we were going. We rode a trail up the mountain until we came to this open field of fresh snow.  David decided it would be a fun place to play and we all followed.  Turns out no one was snowmobiling there because the snow was filled with air pockets and all five snowmobiles got promptly stuck in knee to waist high snowdrifts.  Some of them were harder to dislodge than others. A very nice man on an orange snowmobile helped us dig them all out and sent us on up the trail to a very large open meadow where we could drive around without getting the snowmobiles stuck.

Jessica and I decided we liked riding the trails better than hot rodding up and down hills very fast. We started up a trail that went through the forest of Logan Canyon and found it to be very beautiful.  After a while, we realized that Graig, Melanie, and Ashlyn had followed us.

The snow would fall off the pine trees and then shimmer as it fell to the ground in the sunlight. It looked magical.

Graigry and Melanie were snowmobiling buddies all day long. She was excited that he taught her to drive.  She drove around for 30 minutes without getting stuck or falling off.

We let everyone drive who wanted to try.  This included Melanie who thought it was great fun and Federica who was her crazy self.  Luckily, by that point we were pretty good at getting the snowmobiles out of deep powder and no one got hurt when she launched the snowmobile into the air after driving off a jump and she and Tyler went flying off. We definitely made some happy memories.

Tyler and Federica

We were glad that there were some bathrooms nearby. When Melanie got to the bathroom, she could hear someone inside asking for help.  Apparently the door is easily stuck.  Melanie yelled for some help and then did what she could to help free the Mom and her young terrified child.  We didn't close the door all of the way but instead posted a guard outside so that we wouldn't suffer the same fate.