Fish and stuff

Grace has a science fair coming up. Somehow that turned into her getting two fish tanks with 5 fish each. She is going to feed one set flake food and the other set blood worms and see which grow better. She will weigh each fish once a week for 4 weeks. I am curious what the results will be, and even more curious how I got talked into more pets...even if it was under the guise of science.

Sierra and Papa and Grandma drove down today. They are helping with the kids during Ireland and Sierra is a traveller! 

Isn't this the stinkin cutest picture ever?!!!

And the newest family news: Katy got engaged!!!! Welcome to the family Taylor!

Raining today

I want this picture. I just love it. Next best thing to hanging it on the wall is to put it on the blog:)

Ethan got registered for high school. What??? He's so tall and smart and getting so grown up. 4 more years and he'll be off on a mission. I can not believe it. Nor do I want to think about it. He's my baby boy.

Dogs have been visiting Hannah's school. I don't know why but she is thrilled. Also tonight the play opens! I have a camp meeting and it's Rob's temple night so we will go tomorrow. This afternoon we ran, almost literally, and bought some jeans for her at the mall. We got rain coats earlier! In less than a week we will be Ireland bound!! Yikes! So exciting!!

Things that surprise me about cats

Percy is a clown. I am very surprised by him as a pet. We had cats growing up and I liked them but don't recall noticing them much.

As an adult I never had a cat and didn't really want one. It's the litter box mainly, and so many people are allergic and I thought the pay back was small.

Then we got Perseus and I have been so surprised by him. 

He is very affectionate. He seeks us out for companionship and likes to sit with us to sleep or watch TV.

He talks to us a lot, in fact in every way he is a noisier pet than Ziva. He meows, runs around, clanks on cords and knocks stuff over and off. 

He loves to play. He leaps and runs and entertains the whole family with his antics. 

He comes and is learning some tricks. 

He's smart and I like him.

He and Z follow me all day and keep me company. It's really cute. 

They tear around and stalk each other. Z is sometimes jealous but P is cool. They have such personality.

I still don't like the box.

Life

Grace joined a swim team. She is very excited about it. We want Ethan to join too but he doesn't want to. 

Tonight he is going to a life to eagle meeting. I had to go to the scout shop and get a new shirt as he has outgrown his, and I got to sew on all those patches again.  We are getting close! 1 1/2 merit badges and a project to go!

Lori and I visit taught Tami today. We had a fun lunch and long visit.

The one week countdown to our Ireland trip is on!!! I love Sierra's new vacation hair do!

Hannah has been coming home from school around 7 every day. Play practice is in full swing and opening night is Thursday. This is her directorial debut!

General Conference

In Texas I had a friend named Robyn Buckwalter.  She was in our ward for a little while and while we weren't besties or anything I really liked her and we became facebook friends when we both moved away from TX. 

Yesterday she posted these awesome "notes" made by her neighbor, a man named Kent Carollo. I loved them!

The best part of social media is keeping in touch with people you know and then the surprise gems that show up from time to time.

Conference was really really wonderful.  I love listening to the messages and feeling the spirit and learning so much.

To be 100% honest I almsot always fall asleep for a little while sometime during the conference.  That's the one bad part to watching at home.  It's too comfy.
The good news is I always record it and always watch it again several times so I guess it works out!

I don't even know which talk was my favorite.  There were so many good ones!

After the last session the elders came over for dinner.  We ate outside and grilled some really yummy burgers.  We ate early becasue they had a baptism to go to and I had AP/YW and youth committee meetings.

It was a good weekend and now everyone is back to school.  yay!  I think they were happy to go.  I know Grace was because she has been begging to ride her bike to school since we moved here and this weekend Rob helped her get her bike ready and found a lock and helmet and did a practice ride and this morning she got to ride.  I hope she got there.  As soon as she left I went in the backyard and looked over the fence down the road to where I knew she would be crossing and sure enough she crossed so she got at least half way there. I'm sure she made it....I'm just a fretter.

conference weekend

It's conference weekend.  I love hearing from our beloved prophet and the other general authorities.  How blessed we are to have living apostles and to hear the word of God.  I remember when I was little and we would listen to conference on the radio.  Then for a long time we had to go to the stake center and now we can watch it at home with the satellite dish.  I always record all the sessions and then I can watch them over again in the months between conferences.

handsome boys

Between sessions we went to JCP and bought Ethan a new suit.  He is growing like crazy.  He's not a good shopper but we managed to get him suited up and then ate lunch and came home to watch the rest.

The boys got dressed and went to the stake center tonight to watch the priesthood session together with the other men.  Our stake president asked that all the men and young men got together to watch.  We stayed home and made pilmeni. When the boys get home we'll eat it together.

kitchen queen

This morning Rob and Grace went fishing.  They didn't catch any fish but it's always nice to get out.

Longest spring break ever

We are still on spring break. Today I let Grace invite a couple of friends to the park. Only Charlotte could come but the girls had a very fun time together.

We brought bread for duck and goose feeding.

And a picnic for human consumption:)

We spent 4 hrs waking around the park, playing on the playgrounds, sitting by the water talking and feeding the fowl.