9

Lydia turned 9 on Monday.  We had fun celebrating her. We started the day off with omelets and present opening.  She got a set of walkie talkies that she was really excited about, and her sisters made her a cute bag, and then put a notebook and pens and chapstick inside.

Before school we stopped at the store so she could pick out a treat to share with her class, she picked doughnut holes, she had fun being the birthday girl at school.  After school she had activity days, so we made butterfly shaped sugar cookies to take for a birthday treat to share, she thought that was pretty fun to get to go to activity days on her birthday.  We had hot dogs for dinner.  At 7 everyone finally got home so we did cake and ice cream.  She is a special girl, we loved being able to make her day special and fun for her.

Easter

We had a nice Easter.  We started the day with a nice breakfast and watching some Easter videos and having a good discussion.  After church we went over to our friends house for dinner, they do a passover type dinner, they dress up and eat food that you would find at passover, it was fun to try something new. We played there for a few hours and then came home and had a little Easter Egg hunt.  The weather was perfect and we had a nice family day.

Easter socks from Penny

Visitors

My parents came for a quick visit this past weekend.  Friday night we ate pizza, played some pickle ball, played some card games, and then everyone started playing crazy games, like leg wrestling and the slapping your hand games, Hailey still has bruises from it. Saturday the 2 older kids had tennis matches, Kyle went to the Tri-cities for his so we didnt get to watch him but he won both of his matches a friend that was there sent me some pictures.  Hailey played her matches here, the matches were only for varsity but she got invited to play, the first match was her first singles match, it was really fun to watch, she lost but played well, her second match was doubles her and her partner won pretty easily.  it was a great little visit with my parents we always look forward to seeing them.

 Kyle won with his right arm, but Grandpa won the left

Lydias artwork

Lydia brought home some fun artwork

projects

Lydia did this clay coral and fish for the art show at her school.

Hailey had to do a project called "what would Grandma Do", they had to reuse something by turning it into something else, Hailey made a rug out of old sheets and fabric, Grandma Beck taught her how to tear the fabric and helped her start it and she finished it. it turned out nice.

Katie has been working on her CO2 car for her pre engineering class.  Hers turned out great and was the fastest in the class.  She came into class today and someone had broken it in half, the teacher figured out who it was, but she was pretty sad.

tennis update

Kyle and Hailey are both having a lot of fun with tennis this year.  Hailey is playing on the JV team and has won every match so far, she is slowly moving up on the team.  She has learned a lot and really likes it.

Kyle is the top of the JV team, but has been able to play on the Varsity team the last 3 matches, he has won most of his matches, and is really getting good.  He plays with his friends every chance he gets.

Temple trip

Marc and the 4 older kids got to go to the temple with the youth from the ward, it sounds like they all had a great time.

Spring Break part 2

Thursday morning we got up early and started the long drive to Utah.  When we travel we like to leave early and get a couple of hours of driving in and then stop and eat breakfast, it was pretty cold so we just ate in the car.  We drove again until we got to Twin Falls, where we stopped and ate a quick picnic lunch and walked around Shoshone falls, it was really pretty, we were really glad that we stopped there.

 a little race after lunch

Kyle took this picture of the falls

We continued our drive and made it to our hotel, the girls and Marc got in some swimming before bed.

Friday morning we got up and drove over to BYU, Marc had always wanted to hike to the Y, so we met up with Marcs brother Richard and his family and did the hike, the kids all raced up it, but I moved a little slower and am still feeling it in my legs, it was a pretty steep hike, but it was fun to make it to the top.

 We stopped at the BYU store before the hike

After the hike we all went and got burgers at our favorite burger place.  Kyle had wanted to look for running shoes at the outlet mall so Richards family went home and we did a little shopping.  Then we wanted to try the cookies at the store called crumbl,  that was our dinner.  The girls wanted to go to a park so we found a good one not too far from Richards house because we were going to meet up with them again for games.  The park was great, it was a little cold but we had fun running around for a little while.

We hung out with Richards family for awhile, playing games, we also got to see Kim and David, it was fun to spend time with them, we don't get to see them very often.

Saturday morning we got up early and drove to conference, we weren't sure how parking would be so we got there pretty early, we got in and found our seats.  It was really great to be in the Conference Center with everyone, we really enjoyed it.  Afterwards the plan was to meet up with Marianne and Ambur for lunch, which we did but didn't realize how crazy it would be, the lines were really long to get food, but we ate and visited for a little while. Marianne brought everyone a yummy treat from her favorite bakery to go with lunch, we walked around the temple for a little bit, but it was cold so we didn't last very long.

We got back to the hotel and rested for a but, then the boys left to go the Priesthood session, they said the talks were great and they enjoyed being in the conference center.  The girls and I went to the pool I sat and watched them in a coat while they swam, it was way to cold outside for me.

Sunday we drove home and listened to Conference while we drove, it was a long drive home, but we made it.  We are all glad we went, it was fun to see family, we loved having the opportunity to go to conference, and we loved having some good family time.