Good Sports

 

It was a great spring. We enjoyed becoming a lacrosse family and also did lots of other fun stuff! (Boston is #26 and played both JV and Varsity.)

Rosie at BYU's MOA, soaking up the magical thread rainbow.

I thought this was so cute, catching her wearing her cape for her superhero cartoon.

And you can tell it's been awhile and she's my sixth child, cause I don't even remember how she got the scratch on her face. But the expression--that's what I want to remember.

She was so tickled that the seeds she planted at preschool were up and growing even though there was still snow on the ground. She kept saying that she had spring in her bedroom.

Macy and I went to a fun Mystery Dinner party. She was a fair maiden, I was a fairy godmother, and Libby was Alice.

Our fair maiden also had a birthday. Since she has another friend with the same birthday, she opted to do a breakfast jammie party, with waffles, strawberries, homemade syrup and LOTS of whipped cream. 

Macy likes fluffy cows. I need to teach her some of my Dad's cow jokes.

This video of the girls singing in the basement at Macy's party makes me bawl. Like the song says, Slow down time!! They are just so glorious and coming into their own.

This is us, all geared up for our first ever lacrosse game. We used the -40 degree sleeping bags, plus ski coats, plus umbrellas. It didn't fix the 30 minute lightning delay, but we were fairly comfortable, and extra bulky, through this:

First it blew, then lightninged, then rained, then sleeted, then snowed and they had to switch to an orange lacrosse ball to be able to see it on the field. Boston said, on the way home, that it was the craziest sporting event he had ever participated in. He meant the weather, plus all the high-speed subbing in and out, and the physicality. At the game after this one, I got sunburned. 

Us at our niece Kelsey's wedding reception. 

Look at these two fine young priests. Cooper finally passed up Boston in height, but he was kind enough to wait until Boston was atleast six feet and in the best shape of his life, so that he didn't really mind.  I love seeing them behind the sacrament table together.

This is the sunburn game. Love it, and he probably had a striped sunburn at church the next day. Once again, I love that his high school and my high school (sort of) share a mascot.

Having some fun with Cole and Leslie. Cole won the first ever Childers-Day Pool tournament. 

Leslie got those long legs out on Luke's fancy scooter. 

A little sketch of my Dad as a new missionary. 

Luke was a good sport about helping with the Books Across Main event, as the neighborhood turned out to help carry library books across main street early one cold morning, from the old library to the new Library Hall. I figured it was a once in a lifetime sort of a thing. 

We only moved the children's books-they hired professionals to do the rest, but still, a cool community event.

Cooper mastered the art of the crepes flip. He forgot to wear his apron, though, which says, "Flippin' Good".

We took a nice last-minute trip to St. George to be with cousins, and thought it was probably time to visit Zion's again--first time at the south end since Macy was a baby. 

Pretty cool to feed the ducks and see the swans at the nature preserve. The swan's nest was enormous.

The kids didn't have any fun at all. Hooray for heated pools and very generous inlaws. 

Two long skinnies against a desert sky!

While we were in St. George, Cooper, Jaxon, and Mark got to go golfing with my Uncle Gib, one of our heroes, also the uncle who reminds me the most of my Dad, even though he is married to Dad's sister.  Gib is an avid, lifelong golfer and Cooper had talked for months about how he wanted to go golfing with Gib.  So, they set up the tee time. 

Gib was patient with the boys, until one hole where the group in front was taking their sweet time. He told Cooper and Jaxon to go ahead and hit, even though the previous group wasn't finished up. 

Cooper said, "Naw, 'cause I'm gonna hit it onto the green." Gib laughed at him--it was 280 yards, uphill.

"You are not!" 

"Yes, I am, I'm going to hit it right onto that green."

"Fine.  I'll make you a bet.  [I'm hearing Haynes all over this story.] You hit it onto the green, I'll buy you any driver you want."

"Deal!" 

They waited.

Cooper proceeded to mentally lock in his focus and ripped one down the left side of the fairway. It rolled around the bunker and right into the green, about 15 feet from the hole. He flashed his handsome dimple [I have a co-author for this story who will remain anonymous] and confidently stated the name of the expensive driver he wanted from Gib. 

Gib laughed incredulously. "Cooper, not only are you dreaming, but you're blind, too!" There was no way it made it to the green--they had lost sight of the ball.

But...when Gib and Mark drove up the hill to the green, Gib spotted a lone yellow golf ball on the green. "Who's ball is that??!?" 

"I think that's Cooper's."
"Well, now. I'm gonna think about how to explain this one to Patti."

Cooper ended up with a birdie, and a beautifully shaped package in the mail a couple weeks later, along

with a letter from Uncle Gib. 

Cooper:

If any of the following things happen, please return the Driver to me.

1. If you don't turn out for the golf team.

2. If you hit a ball out of bounds.

3. If you never Par a hole

4.  Any Drive less than 300 yards

5.  Any whining or crying on the golf course. 

They are all growing up so fast! This was a fun evening trip to the Cedar City temple.  It was a beautiful thing to see those cousins in their whites together, in a holy and joyful place. Aunt Patti surprised Rachel and I by also meeting us there and then the three of us went to dinner. 

Boston's mini-me, Toby, got to play during halftime. Glad they got their picture together. Toby's dad, our friend Dustin, has been pushing Boston to do lacrosse for a long time. We are glad for the support.

More swimming with cousins! Duke and Natalie and fam came down from WY over Easter and we were able to get together with their cute kiddos.

Speaking of mini-me's, that looks like little Duke right there in the water wings. 

Happy Easter!

Macy did junior high track this year. Shot put, discus, long and high jump. She improved in all of her events over last year, despite not having a high jump mat for practice until the season was almost over.

She was also very excited to make 9th Grade Student Council. Great job on your campaign Macy! (Thanks for the last-minute campaign t-shirt, Addie!)

This was a crazy morning. We were up early on a Saturday because it was our turn to help clean the church. Afterward, I was outside weeding and Luke comes running out of the garage. "Mom, LOOK!" There was a hot air balloon careening down the street, loudly firing away, headed...? They must have missed their target and were looking for someplace else to land. It was crazy how close they got to some of the houses--I was sure they were going to scrape a roof. Cooper's friend who lives in the house in the video woke up to the sound of the air blasting and opened the blinds to see this balloon directly on the other side! Just like on the movies when the kids see Santa or something out their window. It was unreal. The helicopters in the background also made it feel cinematic. (We live near a flight school and hear choppers all the time, but I bet they were also watching how the balloon was going to get out of its precarious situation.) 

Luckily, and probably with no small skill, the balloon landed in our neighboring cul de sac. The loading trailer followed and choreographed all the neighbor kids into packing up the balloon. You could tell they had done this lots of times--I had no idea that it would just land in a neighborhood. They gave out some free Chick-fil-A stuff when it was all over. (Mark said it was to help everyone forget that they almost wiped out a few homes, haha.)

Cooper and Luke helped pack things up. My favorite was watching the kids come out of their houses with their pajamas and wide eyes. 

This message was from our neighbor, Little Cooper's mom. I just wanted to document this fun Peter Pan-like stage of Luke's life. 

We had a lovely company retreat to the Cabins at Bear River Lodge. When we planned it, we were hoping to do a 4-wheeler trip, but the winter was so crazy long that the snow hadn't melted off the trails enough. Oh well, the cabins are beautiful and we played lots of games and ate yummy stuff.

Rosie got to come along as the company mascot, since everyone else had school. 

This was a fun crowd! Wish the whole team could have made it.

Rosie was so excited about this beach scene she made. She had the ingenuity to create a "beach towel" for her little doll by taking the scissors to one of my nice dish rags. Sigh. Atleast it wasn't from one of our actual beach towels.

Luke's mischief face. He needs a haircut and braces. The haircut we can do. The braces have to wait until he loses one more baby tooth, dangit. 

Boston, who plays Defensive Middie, even scored a goal at this fun JV tournament.  Cole and Leslie both work weekday evenings but since this was a Saturday tournament they got to come watch. 

Here is a video of one of Boston's goals. He is #26.

We had a fun Day cousin feast one Sunday when Sharon and Doug were down visiting for graduation. 

Rosie is such a good girl and continues to be a blessing to our crazy family. One day, I heard her singing in her bedroom. It was the children's song, "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus". It made me tear up--I had been having a hard day and needed that sweet little reminder. Then I heard her sing it a second time, and she loudly exclaimed at the end, "Take THAT, SATAN!"  Hahaha. Maybe I need that kind of attitude, too. 

Here is her rendition, minus the smack talk at the end.

The one time at basketball open gym that Cooper doesn't wear his ankle braces, this happened. The pediatrician's office was almost closed but they squeaked him in long enough to take an x-ray. Yup, it was broken, and he had to wear a boot for four weeks, messing up some tournaments, the beginning of baseball season, and Getting A Job. The boot also delayed his Driver's Ed requirements, so he didn't get his license for his birthday. He is feeling better now, and hopefully will be able to reschedule driving tests, etc., very soon. I'm sick of driving him to the golf course! "But Mom...it's the only thing I can do!"

Boston didn't get many penalties, but this one was kind of funny because we had three players in the penalty box at once. 

I enjoyed wearing my Boston's Ma shirt to the game. Mark has a Luke, I am Your Father shirt, so this seemed appropriate.

Rosie finished preschool. She loved it. Graduation was super cute, although I think she was a little grouchy that two other kids got "best artist" awards. I don't know, what do you think? 

Cooper had a very low-key sweet sixteen. He is always the victim of what my friend called "Maycember".  Good thing he went golfing with some buds earlier in the day, because that night we were quadruple booked with lacrosse, baseball draft, a choir concert, and preschool graduation. He stayed home by himself and ate his own dessert. No candles. We sang to him before we all collapsed into bed that night.

I almost wasn't going to even go to Macy's choir concert, but then I read the email that included the program and found out that she was featured as a soloist. When were you going to tell us, sister? Luckily, the concert was at the high school instead of in a neighboring town, and I could excuse myself after she was done to drag Rosie to the second half of the lacrosse game. She did great.

Just to embarrass her I will include the video here. (She thinks it is cringy, but I like her solo.) During the chorale stuff, she is in the back row, 4th from right.

This was a lovely morning on the Provo River Trail with our Cole & Leslie. 

Rosie saves her big smiles for when she really, really means it, and boy she liked being up in this tree.

It has been fun to watch Rosie learn to read so quickly, but I had to document a few things she hasn't figured out yet. Mainly, she still thinks "Thingers" go in "Glubbs". Her world is about to be rocked when she sees how those are actually spelled, haha.

My world is about to be rocked, too. Unexpectedly because of new legislation, this fall Rosie gets the chance to go to all-day kindergarten. She will do great, especially being one of the oldest in her class. I was planning on half-days, like all my other kids have done, so my life feels like it just sped up a year. It has been fun to think about what I might do with my extra discretionary time--first time I've not had kids at home in 22 years!  For now, I'm realizing that I don't have all that much discretionary time anyway because I manage a rather large household and need a lot of flexibility, but for starters I'm learning some database/marketing/payroll tasks at our company, Remarkable Home Loans. It's been super fun to pop into the office for a few hours at a time and hang out with the cool kids.

Here's a fun video of Boston muscling his way through the opposing team. 

The last game of the season Boston took a bad (illegal-ish? I'm new here.) full-speed charge while he was bent down getting the ball that compressed his neck. A stinger? Anyway, they cleared him for concussion but he had to sit out and ice his neck, so that's how he ended the year. I've got the vid.  The fans were already a bit raucous. You can hear the coach in the background yelling, throw that flag! throw that flag!

It was a great lacrosse season--fun to watch Boston progress from mostly JV to mostly Varsity--and we were happy to hear the nice things his coaches said about him at the team dinner. I'm excited for next year, and also hoping that having a spring sport will help with the senioritis!  PS, I didn't take a picture of it this year, but Boston also maintained his 4.0, as did Cooper and Macy. Way to go, guys! You must get the cool teenager genes from your Dad, because I certainly did not have any of that DNA to contribute.

To celebrate the rare weekend without any sporting events, we planned a road trip to San Diego over Memorial Day, hoping to have some warm beach time. The warm part never materialized, but we found lots of fun things to do anyway.  Here is Cooper who brought his own money to the gas station on the way to St. George where he knew there was a Cinnabon. He claims he had never had one before, so this was kind of a bucket list thing. He loved it and was generous to share with his mama.

We fed the turtles at the duck pond in St. George. This picture makes me laugh because it kind of looks like Turtles in a Tornado, with debris flying all around.

San Diego Zoo did not disappoint!

We took everyone on the Hop On/Hop Off Trolley Tour. This was when we drove up, up, up and over the sky bridge to Coronado Island. Super fun with no windows. I was very happy to hear that the teenagers thought the tour was really cool & interesting. (!) They are growing up!

Macy and I went into an antique hat shop in Old Town while we waited for our table at the Mexican restaurant to open up. 

Since the weather was cold, we were very glad that our VRBO had a hot tub! Boston brought his projector and the kids watched a movie outside while hot tubbing.

The Mormon Battalion Visitor Center was really fun for everyone. I wish there were more museums that are that interactive and free for families. Highly recommend. Here are the boys panning for gold. Boston's teammate Jack came along, on the right. They played catch with their lacrosse sticks on the beach until they finally lost the ball in the ocean. 

Up at the lighthouse. 

Cooper was a good sport about being an honorary Mormon Battalion troop member. He was also a good sport about all the walking we made him do on his boot, even though we tried our best to keep it minimal.

Rosie and I did manage to build a killer sandcastle while the kids polar plunged. Briefly. 

Mark and the kids at the beautiful San Diego temple. It looks like a castle in the clouds.

Luke is sure a happy kid. While we were in San Diego the two of us were checking out the suitability of a certain beach. He was raring to go, excited to play in the water. 

Luke, going down the checklist, assessing the beach:  "Weather? Perfect!"

Jackie: "It's raining."

Luke: "Weather? B+."

We stayed.