Riding in style (Day 1)

When we were planning our trip to hawaii a couple of months ago, amber convinced me to spend an extra ten dollars per day to upgrade our rental car to a convertible to give us more viewing angles of Hawaii as we drive through the island. I am not dissappointed!

Our rental car actually ended up being a brand new chrysler 200 convertible. It still had the protective stickers on the steering wheel and everything.

We have been having a lot of fun getting to our destinations in this sweet ride. There is nothing like driving a tropical island with the top down.

Oahu (Day 0)

Amber and I flew into Oahu, Hawaii today about 6pm Hawaii time (about 10pm MDT) By the time we got the rental car figured out and our bed and breakfast found, it was 8pm.  We went out to dinner and are heading to bed...hoping to get over the four hour time difference so that we can fit in with the locals!

Happy Easter 2012

Amber and I have always had our most commercial part of the Easter Holiday on Saturday since the activities and traditions fit better on a Saturday.  This meant that yesterday was a busy day!

When the kids woke up they went to find the baskets that were filled by the Easter Bunny.  They each received candy, chocolates, and sun glasses.  The kids were pretty excited about that.

We then got dressed and left the house to go out to our annual Ward Easter Breakfast and egg hunt at the church pavilion.  No worries that it was only 32 degrees at the time...the old timers said we would be fine eating our pancakes outside in freezing temperatures, and they were right, we survived :)  We had a great time seeing so many ward members.  Adee and Adam arrived at the church just in time for the easter egg hunt.  All of the kids had fun running around looking for the hundreds of eggs scattered out on the church lawn.

Later that day we held an easter party of our own.  We had Verne and Ann, Adee and Adam (and their family), and our friends the Rickabaughs.  

We started our party around 2pm.  We kicked it off with two different easter egg hunts.  The first was for the little kids down in our "orchard" lawn.  The older kids were responsible for hiding the eggs down there.  It was fun watching the youngest kids get such a kick out of hunting for the eggs.

Each egg had some pieces of candy in them.  After the younger kids hunted, the older kids had to hunt for the eggs hidden by the adults.  The Rickabaughs brought a silver egg with two dollars in it and a golden egg with five dollars in it.  The kids that found those eggs got to keep the money.  Man they were all motivated.  The oldest Rickabaugh girl found the silver egg, and Aylee found the gold egg.  The silver and gold egg ended up being the two last eggs found...thanks to the wicked hiding ability of Adam Christensen.

After the older kid egg hunt, we did the second annual adult/teen treasure hunt.  I had some booklets prepared with puzzles and codes.  People were running around with GPS units, booklets, and pencils searching for clues that led to the "treasure chest".  The teenagers (Aylee, John, and Emily Rickabaugh) were the first team to find the treasure.  They took a bold gamble and skipped a couple of puzzles to guess the final location of the treasure and it paid off!

We then enjoyed a little BBQ of hamburgers and hotdogs out on the deck.  After that, we had our pinata activity.  Kids of all ages had fun taking a whack at the easter bunny pinata.

Ann and Verne were the final batters and they scattered the sweet treasures across the grass amid kids on all fours rushing to get as at much of the sweet stuff as they could get.  After the candy was all claimed, the teens took turns shooting arrows at the remaining face of the pinata as it hung on the swingset.

After the neighbors left, Verne and Ann presented easter presents to all of the grandkids.  John received the most disturbing gift of all....a portable lighter.  Hmm...there goes the barn :-).  The kids really enjoyed the thoughtful little gifts at the end of the day.

It was a fun, and tiring day.  We were grateful to be able to share the day with part of the Reed Clan.  

Easter Egg Time

This afternoon when the kids got home from school Amber and Ann had everything prepared for easter egg dyeing. Ann sat with the younger kids and helped them decorate their eggs while the older ones worked on their own.  Some of the colors were pretty rich and amazing.  

Tomorrow (Saturday) we will do the hunt for the kids and most of all other easter festivities.  

Should I be Worried?

I am in the office right now working diligently on a presentation that I will be giving in the near future. I paused a minute to relax and realized that I can hear Jace running around the upstairs and playfully shooting, "You wanna piece of me? You wanna piece of me?"

Then I hear punching and jabbing sound effects before the feet are off again running to the next location.

I guess we'll have to pull Jace off of all of the Rambo-type movies and put him on some "Barbie Princess and the Star Fairy" ones instead.

Singing in the Bus

The other day Amber was telling me about John and Aliece and their habits of singing on the bus ride home from school every day. Amber met a woman in our neighborhood the other day. The woman had kids that are both John's age and Aliece's age. the boy was in the room first and Amber was asking him if he know John Andersen. The kid said, "Oh yeah, that is the boy that likes to sing on the bus. Man he sings loud too."

When his younger sibling walked into the room, Amber asked them if they knew Aliece. The younger sibling said nearly the same words, "oh, yes, she is the one that sings on the bus all of the time, and she sings loud too."

We have talked to the kids about it. John says that he and his friend are just doing missionary work by singing the hymns for everyone else to hear on the bus -- No convert baptisms yet though.

Aliece brags that she can sing loud enough to get the bus driver's attention (and she interprets that as a good thing, hmmmm).

Anyway, it reminded me of Dad always telling stories of when he would drive bus in his early married years. He would take the high school students on trips and he would sing the whole way to their destination.

There must definitely be a certain gene that is getting passed on here!

Look out Apple, here comes the P-Pad

Often when I am working from home and Amber has to run somewhere in the mornings without the kids, I'll just take out my iPad and hang it on one of the dresser drawers in Jace and Avary's room. They will watch a cartoon or something short while Amber is gone and I am in the office which is just the next room over.

Avary loves the to be able to use the iPad, but she has it in her head that the magical electronic device is a P-Pad instead of an iPad. It has always been so cute. Today however, Jace and Avary got into an argument because Jace was trying to tell her that it was an iPad. I think Avary believed Jace was saying it was his device (get it? I Pad). She would correct him and say, "no it is dad's p-pad".

I had to quickly get them distracted by a Movie so that they wouldn't get too mad at each other over the pronunciation of the device.

Given the number of iPads used in the bathroom, however, the name P-Pad might not be so far off.

Concert Take 2: Aliece

This evening we had another concert to attend at the Shelley High School.  This time it was the 4th grade concert.  Aliece's grade did a medley of classic Rock and Roll with Country music favorites in between.  They had the whole crowd clapping their hands and stomping their feet.  Although no square dances broke out on the gym floor during the concert, one of the teacher musicians did play the fiddle behind her back to the tune of "Play me some mountain music".

Aliece did a superb job with the various songs.  She had a smile on her face the whole time and looked like she was enjoying herself.

It was fun to have her grandma and grandpa Reed there as their visit coincided with the event.

Aylee's first track meet

Aylee had her first track meet today. It was a windy afternoon which made the meet a bit more challenging, but it wasn't anything we couldn't handle. Lucky for the us the temperature was warmer so the wind wasn't as biting as it could have been.

Aylee competed in the Shot Put, the Discus, the 100m dash, and the 200m dash. She did awesome at all of her events.

We didn't really get any pictures, but we do have a youtube video link of her throwing the shot:

http://youtu.be/L74YCFK0wa8

Alayna's Choir Concert

It was a busy night trying to coordinate attending Aylee's first track meet today with a back-to-back performance from Alayna's school concert.

Alayna's grade performed for about 30 minutes tonight on a number of songs that represented holidays throughout the year.

Alayna looked adorable in her colorful skirt and blue shirt with matching flower head band.  It was fun to see Alayna really getting into the music.  Her grade did an awesome job at performing.  

Alayna and Dad's Dictums

Over the past couple of months I have been putting a business card sized thought in the kids' lunches before they leave for school.  I typically go into the fridge in the morning and put the thoughts in all of the lunches before the kids take them to school.  

Lately, Alayna has taken on the challenge to take her lunch out of the refrigerator and put it in her bag in the morning before I do my refrigerator rounds.  She likes to make me go through her school bag to get the thought into her lunch.

This morning I almost beat her.  I was bringing a pile of the thoughts to the fridge when she swept in front of me and snuck her lunch out to put in her bag. 

The little stinker is way too quick for me!

Alayna - Easter and Scriptures

Alayna taught our FHE lesson on Monday. For her lesson, she prepared 12 plastic easter eggs. She put a picture or object in each egg along with a scripture. We have been opening two eggs each day this week for our scripture study. We have been talking about those Easter-based scriptures. It has been a good little exercise. Alayna loves teaching and does a very good with it.

She is very excited to have her Grandma Reed coming tomorrow. Grandma and Grandpa Reed will be staying with us through Sunday. Alayna has been reading the Book of Mormon on her own as she has been preparing to be baptized in September. Grandma Reed has challenged her to try to get done with the Book of Mormon before Grandma does. This has given Alayna a lot of motivation. She is really excited to see where Grandma Reed is currently at in the Book of Mormon when she gets here.

Heirlooms and Age

Well, another "heirloom" has been passed on today.

Before I go into it, I recall a couple other recent heirlooms that have gone from me to one of my kids. Jace has just finished wearing his cowboy shirt that I used to wear when I was his age. He has loved that shirt and has worn it nearly to shreds. Amber has had to perform a number of minor surgeries on it to keep it in tact.

Both Aylee and John have finished up the Harry Potter series and Aliece is now near the end as well. I remember writing a note to John in the cover of one of the Harry Potter books that came out the day (or day before) he was born. I read a lot of that book while Amber was in the hospital with him. With Aliece working on finishing up the series, half of my kids will have passed each book along.

This brings me to the heirloom used today. Aylee approached me to ask if I had a good graphing calculator that she could use at school. I have been saving my old blue TI-81 graphic calculator since high school for the express purpose of giving it to my kids to use through their high school years. This model was one of the first graphing calculators on the market at the time. It was a big deal when our teach required us to have a graphic calculator. I put that calculator to good use in highschool. It was programmable, and I had programmed formula solves and even games on it. It was a lot of fun for its time.

I had kept the calculator knowing that it would be handy some day. I had to search through all of our boxes both in the shop and downstairs. I knew I had packed it when we moved. After a long search I was happy to find it and even happier to see that it still worked. Aylee spent the evening finishing up her math with the calculator.

It is always touching to pass something on to your kids that you used to use years earlier. I guess it is just a sign of age, but it is fun nonetheless.

Bush-Be-Gone

We have been stewing over what to do with our enormous evergreen bushes that have lined our driveway and haunted our house.  Over the past year we have used bumpers, chains, chainsaws, and pick axes to remove bushes here and there.  However, I was beginning to see those bushes as an endless summer project at the rate we were going. 

We decided to hire the removal out.  We got a few bids, and one guy came in much lower than the rest so we hired him.  He loaded his dump truck up with about five loads of bushes over yesterday afternoon and this morning.

It is a lot of fun now to look from our house and be able to see our lower lawn and trees.  We're really excited to have the bushes gone, but now we have to figure out what to replace them with!

Our first furry pet

On our way home from Arbon tonight, we stopped by a lady's house outside of Pocatello and picked up our long awaited bunny rabbit.  The kids chose a velvety black standard rex rabbit.  As we drove home, the kids worked on a name for the little female.  They chose the name of "Dot" since she appeared to be a black dot on a canvas of white bunnies that surrounded her when we picked her out.

When we got home, we set up her water bottle and feed tray in her new hutch.  We placed the hutch in one of our stalls in the barn to keep her out of the weather.

The kids are giddy to finally have a pet that they can actually hold and pet!

Its Wabbit Time

After Amber's race, she and I ran to home depot today and purchased some wood for a rabbit hutch. We have been contemplating getting a rabbit for some time.  Last year, in fact, we took Joe's old rabbit cage from Arbon and brought it to our place.  However, so much of the wood was rotten that after we looked at it for a bit, we decided it would be better if we built our own.

Amber and I took some pencil to paper and came up with a simple plan for the hutch.  We then spent three or four hours cutting the wood from Amber's new table saw to get more familiar with it

We were able to get it all set up and it is ready for a rabbit.  We just have to but some food, get a water bottle, and then pick up the rabbit.  The kids are really excited with the prospect of being rabbit owners.

To the finish line

This morning, Amber and I headed off to a park in Idaho Falls. Amber had signed up for a 10k (6.2mile) race. I was the camera man and cheerleader, and Amber was the runner. She did an awesome job. This was her first 10k race ever. She ran it in 57min13sec. This equates to about one mile every 9 minutes and 13 seconds, which was a personal best for her.

She was surprised how fast her time was. She did a great job and hardly looked winded when she crossed that finish line. After she was done I put on her headphones to see what she had listened to for part of the race...wouldn't you know it...the power driver for Amber was the October General Conference. To each their own when it comes to running ambiance, ha ha.

Dad's Truck Stop

I had to make a "Spitz" run today during work. I haven't had sunflower seeds for quite some time, but today I had a bunch of boring documents to create and I just was having a hard time motivating myself to get them done.

I went down stairs and said that I was going for some seeds. Jace wanted to come along so I took him to Dad's Truck Stop at the freeway exit near our house.

I guess the name of the truck stop confuses Jace because he keeps calling it "John's Truck Stop". I guess I have my very own truck stop now.

The end of an era

A couple of years ago, Jace was big into appending "toosie" to the end of certain names...I think it came from "Tootsie Rolls", but I am not sure. He would call me "Daddy Toosie" He liked to be called "Cowboy Toosie" as well. It later evolved into his nick name being "Jacer Toosie". He has let me call him that for quite some time. Today however, was the end of the "Toosie" title. He asked me not to call him "Jacer Toosie" any more.

I asked him what he would like me to call him. He responded that I could just call him "Jace". He paused for few seconds and then followed up with, "Or you can call me Jedi Jace".

I guess the whole star wars thing is now replacing my little toosie man. Oh well, it was cute while it lasted. Now I have to address Jedi Jace with the respect his new title demands.

Deep Cuts

I don't think our apple trees have been pruned in years.  In addition to the mounting needs for pruning, we have also had a large number of limbs and branches come down over the fall and winter.  We decided to buy a little chainsaw since we were always borrowing Dad's.  We got a 14 inch Husquavarna chainsaw at lowes and put it to work on Saturday.

Janae made the mistake of hanging out with us on Saturday, so she got put to work as well.  We chopped up fallen branches and limbs.  I started cutting out more evergreen bushes.  And we got one of our two apple trees pruned.  

It was fun to have all of the kids out working with us.  It is so much fun to work together...and around here, there are plenty of opportunities for that!