Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain

A thunderstorm is moving through the area.  I LOVE thunderstorms.  I love how the thunder shakes the house in sudden bursts and I also love hearing it roll across the sky like a shock wave.  I love the torrential rain and I love the lowhanging clouds that wrap the world up tight. 
Will and I were watching the storm during lunch and he said that the thunder was made by a cow.  It is my cow and his cow talking together and eating food.  So, if you ever wondered what made thunder, there you go.

Hard Job

The older my children get, the more I realize what a tough job parenting is.  If only there was one set way of doing things.  It would be so much easier that way!  I have wonderful children who...usually...make good choices.  They are learning and are loving learning those things that will help them.  But, I often doubt that I am doing the things I need to so that they will become the people they are supposed to become.  How do you take a sweet little baby and, over the course of eighteen or so years, transform it into a functioning adult with all the maturity and integrity and industriousness of an adult while retaining the sweetness and unconditional love they came here with?  I guess the answer is, you don't.  They do.  Maybe that's the hardest thing of all about parenting.  You muddled through trying your best to teach and to love and to nurture and to direct but in the end, it is up to them.  I hope to one day look back on these years and say, "Well, I at least did something right. Because they turned out alright" We'll see.

Because Pictures Tell It Better

My parents came to spend Easter and spring break with us. It was so wonderful to spend a holiday with family. It has been five years.

Hiking

At the exploration museum. They were in heaven!

Enjoying the newest generation...

And searching for an old one.

And then I was in heaven. I love the beach!

What I Have Been Up To or A Birage of Photos

Joe went on a class trip with his school. The only way we would allow him to go was if Matt went with him, which he did. They had a great time!

We had the Sports Extravaganza before conference (golfing this year). We tuckered the little man out.

Science Fair Project

Magnets and Magnetic Fields. Awesome work Joe!

Blue and Gold Bangquet. They did a fantastic job, and Joe earned his wolf, one bear bead, three belt loops, three arrow points, and two academic pins. Yay for Joe!!

Family History Friday

Sorry for the long hiatus. Just a quick memory about my Grandma. I loved going to visit her in Colorado. When I was in junior high and high school, she lived in a house with a good sized yard - a few acres I think. My cousin Becca and I would often stay over night there when we were visiting (my cousins live an hour away, and my family lived in Utah, about 5 hours away - or less depending on who was speeding through Diamond Fork Canyon, but that is a tale for another day!). My grandma is such a fun person. She is so funny and loving and really laid back when it comes to her grandkids. One time when we were staying there, she let us sleep in her RV they had parked out back. Of course since we were having a sleep over, we wanted to braid our hair in tiny braids - all the rage at girls' camp in those days. Grandma let us borrow her rubber bands but told us they she knew every single one of those rubberbands and that she wanted them back. I think we looked at her with that skeptical look teenagers are masters at, because she said more emphatically that she DID know each of them. She then proceeded to name each paperclip and rubber band in her little tin. It doesn't sound really funny, telling it back, but it is so Grandma. Silly, and funny, and wonderful. (Incidentally, we horrible teenagers left the rubberbands in the trailer anyway, and I still feel bad about it.)