White Sands

We took Emma and the kids to White Sands the last weekend of Spring Break.  It was pretty crowded, and the only spot we could find to eat was this handicapped area.  I sometimes think we should qualify for handicapped, so I didn't feel too bad that we were there.  Arthur roasted us some hot dogs and we had a dandy time.  

This is the only picture we got of Sydney smiling.  I thought she would be curious about the sand and want to crawl around in it, but after tasting it when we first put her down, she didn't want anything to do with it, and wasn't very happy the rest of the time we spent there.

Emma!  That white sand is BLINDING!

Here we are looking for a good place to slide down.

Climbing up the dunes is exhausting!

can't. go. another. step.

Last time we went, it was so windy, we didn't stay long because the wind kept getting in everyone's eyes, and just made us all really uncomfortable.  So this time, we kept our eyes on the weather before we left, and Friday was supposed to be pretty mellow.  Well, there was NO wind at all, and it turns out that you can get pretty hot without any wind out there.  So we found that if you dug a few inches down, you could cool yourself down with the cool sand beneath the surface.  That's what Sean was doing here in this picture.

A cool shot that Arthur took

I love the uniqueness of White Sands--I've never seen anything like it. 

Hayden had a blast-he was just covered in sand, and would go down and hike up and go down and hike up, over and over!  He totally wore himself out and fell asleep on the short drive back to the hotel when we were done at the dunes.

Sydney finding solace in her bottle.   

She does not like sand.

The girls.

Our family

(except Sydney who was drinking her bottle and it would have been tragic to interrupt her.)

And she is completely done with White Sands.

Heading back to the car.

We stayed in Alamogordo that night at the same hotel as our friends the McEntires!  So when the McEntire's got in we had a swim party in the pool.  Our kids thought it was so fun to see them there!  We were doing the same vacation in opposite order, and crossed in the middle.  Fun times.  

Elena Gallegos Hike

The weather was great during spring break, so we went for a little hike at Elena Gallegos one day.  We packed a lunch to eat there and then we went on a hike.  I promised the kids that if they didn't whine, we would go get Pop-Pop's afterward.  When one of them would start to whine, someone else would say, "No whining--don't you want Pop-Pops?"  Toward the end, I heard Sean and Hayden talking and their conversation went something like this:

Sean:  I'm happy.  Are you happy Hayden?

Hayden: Yep, I'm happy.

Sean: I'm not whining because I want to get Pop-Pop's afterward.

Hayden: Yeah, we want some Pop-Pops so we are not whining.  We are really happy!

Whatever it takes to cut down on the whining.  So I was happy because there was no whining.  And we had some delicious pop-pops afterwards which made us all happy!

Pagosa Springs Trip

Right after From Cumorah's Hill we took a family trip up to Pagosa Springs, Colorado where we rented a cabin with Natalie and Brian.  Julianne and Eric came up the last couple of days, and we all had a great time together.

Dallin went skiing with the grown-ups all three days and did just fine.  He tackled everything we wanted to go on. We put Sean, Daphne and Kyrie in ski school for 2 days at Wolfcreek.  They had a blast and made a lot of progress.  It was cute to ski with them at the end of the day.  

The cabin we rented had a hot tub.  It felt great after you were skiing, but they had some weird chemical in the water that tasted really bitter.  I'm not saying we were drinking the water, but when you are in the hot tub with a bunch of hyper kids, you can't help but get water splashed in your mouth.

The first night Natalie, Emma and I got in with the kids and they kept splashing so much we had to make a no moving rule, and if you splashed you had to get out and freeze your tush off for 30 seconds as punishment.  But they thought it was fun to get out and freeze, so that plan backfired.  

From then on, no one wanted to go in with the kids, but Uncle Brian was a sport and went out to supervise them the last night we were there.  Thanks Uncle Bubba!

Okay, the funny thing about this picture is that it looks like they are posing, right?

nope.

This is totally real.

These two girls were hot and cold.  

Daphne:  "Sometimes we were best friends and sometimes we were NOT FRIENDS AT ALL!

But now we miss each other."

The cabin we stayed at had all these  dead animals hanging on the wall.  The boys thought it was great and Brian spent some time contemplating which stag he would shoot if they were both standing in the same field.  Lilly was very scared of this bison head.  When she first got to the cabin, we were feeding her some lunch and she was sitting with her back to the bison head.  She wouldn't eat, but kept looking nervously over her shoulder and the big black head.  

Daphne:  Me and Kyrie wanted to pet it.  Uncle Eric lifted her up so she could pet it, but she screamed! So then Uncle Eric lifted me up to pet it and I said, "It feels rough."  Then Kyrie did it.  Uncle Eric told her that it is not scary.  But Lilly screamed again.  So Aunt Natalie said, "It's not scary.  It's just a big Kooky-head."  Then Lilly started calling it Kooky-head.  And she wasn't scared anymore.

THE END

Just a cute picture of Sydney

Lilly

Sean and Hayden playing a little chess.

Heading outside to explore

Adventure to the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Park:

One day, Natalie and I took the kids to this Rocky Mountain Wildlife Park.  It's really small but pretty fun.  When you first get there you are greeted by a gang of turkeys.  

I think this Tom Turkey felt threatened by Hayden wearing his chicken hat.  He kept taking steps toward him and finally I had to come over and shoo him away because it looked like there might be a show down.

When we went inside to pay, the gal at the counter said she was about to bring in the baby lamb, if we wanted to stay inside for a minute.  They hadn't named her yet, so we got to write down name suggestions.  Daphne submitted the name "Thumbelina" and I voted for "Sweet Pea."

The lamb drinking her bottle.

This sign made me laugh.  

I think I should make one to wear as a necklace at certain times of the month.

Sydney again.  You can see her two little teeth in this one.

The girls feeding a Donkey and a goat.

Clearly, she's my favorite photo subject these days.

This Elk's name was Trighton.  His antlers weigh about 30 lbs and he usually loses them around March.
We were lucky to see them still on, I guess.

Daphne fell in love with these cute little bunnies.
Unfortunately for her, they were too quick for her to get near.

We had such a fun time together skiing, eating, visiting, playing games, and relaxing in the hot tub.  Oh, I can't wait until we own our cabin in Pagosa Springs!  We love that little town.

From Cumorah's Hill

I'm finally starting to catch up --This is about a month overdue.

I was priveledged to be a part of our Stake's Youth Conference this year, in preparing the youth choir and conducting the choir and orchestra in their performance of From Cumorah's Hill.  From Cumorah's Hill is a Musical Fireside Presentation by Steven Kapp Perry, about the truths of the Book of Mormon and how they apply to our lives.  It is presented by a choir and speakers, and if you ask for the orchestral score, (like we did) you can have a live orchestra as well.  

(Only a handful of stakes ever use a live orchestra, so the score isn't  professionally pulished, and has lots of mistakes in it that need correcting.  So just a little tip,  in case you are thinking about using a live orchestra, be prepared to spend some time fixing a bunch of stuff in the music!)

For the first 6 weeks, the choir and orchestra reahearsed separately, and in the 7th week, we put it all together, with the speaking parts, and costumes and lighting, concluding with performances on Saturday and Sunday nights.  After all that time learning notes and repeating things over and over, it was so gratifying when it came together.

Here are the prophets in their costumes.  Lookin' good, boys!

The choir was comprised of 177 youth, and their leaders brought the numbers up to about 230 voices.  Many of those youth were not musical, didn't like to sing, or thought they couldn't sing, but they came and sang anyway, (some under severe duress from their parents) and I think in the end most of them had a really great experience.  There was a particular young man who I knew didn't want to do it.  I was really surprised when he randomly showed up to try out for a solo.  And who do you think got the "I Never Stand Alone" solo?  You guessed it.  Another young man who came kicking and screaming, got a speaking part and on the way home from Sunday's performance was asking his mom why the Stake didn't do stuff like this more often?

I had the best seat in the house of course, and got to stand in front of this awesome group and feel of their testimonies and their goodness.

 I feel so blessed to have had that opportunity. 

The handsome lighting guy.  Hands off, ladies, he's mine.

Okay, this is me telling the cast about my wand.  I mean, my baton.  It was a gift from Rob Sorensen from the Cherry Hills ward who handmade it.  The handle is made of leftover cherry wood trimming from the  Albuquerque Temple, and the stick part is holly wood.  (And I threatened to stupify any of the youth who were talking during someone else's speaking part.)

Arthur took this shot of the choir the night of the last performance.  It's hard to see, but they looked amazing.  They are up on the stage and spilled over onto risers on the floor as well.  What a sight!

Since our ward has church in this building from 2-5, and call for the cast was 5:30, we all had a picnic dinner together in the YW room in between church and the performance.   It was kind of cool to see lots of families who would be staying for the performance, just make the best of it and eating together in various spots around the building.  It was some pretty good ward bonding, I thought.  :) Emma, Dallin & Daphne got to stay after church on Sunday and eat with me quickly before finding seats in the cultural hall.  Thanks to the Carters for taking our other little guys home from church and tending them until we got home.

Dallin & Daphne with the Gold Plates after Sunday's performance.

Arthur and I after the first peformance--the youth committe gave me these flowers at the cast party afterward.  :)  

I felt truly uplifted and edified through this experience, and felt the Lord teaching me and sustaining me through some very long days.  I love the goodness and energy of the youth, and am so grateful I got to work with them in this.  I am so proud of them for what they accomplished!

My hope and prayer is that those youth will remember the spirit they felt as they sang this beautiful music together.  I hope they will remember the feeling of love and unity and comraderie that followed the rehearsals and especially the performances.  And I hope that they will remember the spirit's witness of truth as they sang the words, "Great things and small things, I can do all things, all that Lord may require,"  "The power of God is plain to see, there are wonders on every hand"  and "I Never Stand Alone when I Stand with God!"  I hope they find themselves humming the tunes and have those songs going through their minds as they walk to their classes at school to uplift them when they feel discouraged.  (The cool thing about music is that it acts as a memory aid.  People remember words set to music much easier than just spoken words.)  

I hope they learned a little bit more about what the spirit feels like and learned to better recognize it's still small voice.  (I know I learned a lot about that through those couple of months!) And I hope their testimonies of the Book of Mormon and of the reality of the prophet Joseph Smith were strengthened.  I hope they came away with a renewed desire to be better disciples of Christ, and better friends to each other as together, they seek after every good thing.  

Spring Break Plans

Tonight in family home evening we were discussing our plans for Spring Break. A few weeks ago, we had planned (rather impulsively) to go visit Natalie and Brian and do Disneyland again and this time hit California Adventure as well.  Emma hasn't been to D-land since she was 14, and when we were just there in October, I left definitely wanting more!

Well, last night Arthur and I took a hard look at our checkbook and decided it wouldn't be prudent of us to go again.  So this morning during breakfast I broke it to the kids, who actually took it really well.  And so tonight during Family Home Evening we discussed a little more about how we didn't have enough money to go to Disneyland during Spring Break, but we could do other fun stuff, like see Tangled at the dollar theater, or maybe visit White Sands & Carlsbad Caverns . . . Well the kids started quoting, "Despicable Me," (their favorite movie right now,) and this is sort of how it went:

(you have to read these with a Mr. Gru voice.)

Dallin:  "In terms of money . . .  we have no money."

Daphne:  "So how, you ask, will we get to Disneyland?  The answer is clear.  We won't.  But instead we will go . . . wait for it . . . WE WILL GO . . .  pause for effect . . ."

Dallin:  "TO THE DOLLAR THEATER!"

We were all laughing and laughing, and I'm so grateful for kids who just made the best of a disappointing situation.  I was pretty depressed today with our change of plans, but I don't feel so bad about it anymore.  After all, for Spring Break, we are going to the dollar theater.  :)