Monday, April 23, 2012

License to Drive

This is the sight that greeted me today as Garrett exited his dad's car, along with the Driver License official, after taking his driving test this morning for the second time (the first was last week on his birthday):


In case you can't tell, it means he passed! Woot!

Here he is posing with his temporary license. 

And here he is getting into his "new" car to drive himself to school.

The lady who took him out for his test today (and last week) was fairly pleasant today.  Last week, pleasant, nice, polite, friendly. . . none of those would be adjectives I could use to describe her.  She told him he was less nervous today.  He didn't think he had been that nervous the first time.  I really believe it is their policy there to not pass young drivers the first time, just to make them "learn" or something.  Anyway, I don't want to say anything more about her because I would just be unkind.

The point is Garrett got his license to drive today!!!  In some ways, my life is about to get a lot simpler. And in other ways, it just got a lot more complicated (hopefully not too much).  Go, Garrett. :)

Saturday, April 21, 2012

She Inspires Me: My Sister Kd


It's been a while since I have done one of these.  And it is kind of a tricky thing.  I have two sisters, and I love them equally, of course.  The fact is, the three of us had an interesting dynamic growing up.  Two of us were pretty tight and one of us was often excluded.  I will admit it, I was the one who shut her out.  She was two years younger than me, but she outgrew me when we were both really young.  She was confident, popular; whenever my friends came over, it seemed like she would steal them away from me.  Or maybe that was me, trying to steal her friends away from her.  Needless to say, Kd and I didn't exactly get along when we were younger.  As a matter of fact, we had some pretty vicious fights.  One thing I always respected about her, though, was she was always the first to apologize, even on occasions when it was totally my fault.  It was a quality I admired and struggled to emulate.

As I said before, she was also really popular, friendly, outgoing.  Full of energy.  Fun.  Talented.  She had a way of making people feel really good about themselves.  She was great at the jobs she had, checker at Clark's Market, waitress at Elk Ridge Restaurant.  She was and is so good at customer service, people loved being served by her.  I know people would go out of their way to use her checkout line and she often received the best tips.

She has a huge heart and is also very tender-hearted.  She feels things deeply.  I love how passionate she is about life and the things she cares about, which is a list forever long.  One of the things she is passionate about is being healthy and helping others be healthy.  She has lost a lot of weight in the past year, and it has all been from making good eating choices and being active.  She teaches a super-fun Zumba class at the Wellness Center and I love when people tell me how much they enjoy her classes and how good she looks.  She really is awesome.

It is so fun to be able to tell people she is my sister.  I love and adore her.  Another great quality she has is she never hesitates to help others.  I can't even remember now what it was, but I ran into someone at the grocery store one day and they thanked me effusively for a kind deed that I had done.  I was confused at the time, because I had no idea what they were talking about.  Then, I realized they had confused me for her.  As soon as I could, I let them know she was the one who deserved the praise.  I love being related to her!


Yesterday, she had a birthday.  I got to join her and one of her best friends, Spring Berrett for lunch.  It was really fun to get to celebrate her.  She is so fun to be around and a joy in every way.  I hope she knows how much I love her and how much she inspires me to be a better person, in every way.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Easter Cupcakes ala Aunt Danalee

While we were visiting Matt and Danalee, she baked some cupcakes and made bags of frosting for the kids to make Easter cupcakes.  They were so excited and it was a chance to get more cute pictures:











Hiking and Hunting Part 2

It was just starting to rain when Britt and Matt decided we needed to hide the eggs, or we wouldn't have a chance to do the hunt at all.


You can't tell from the pictures, but the kids were getting sprinkled on the entire time during their search for Easter eggs










I think they had a good time, even though the rain made the colored eggs kind of sticky



Garrett's egg is colored outside and in.  He was pretty proud of that egg.

We headed home not long after that and actually managed to just miss getting caught in a huge downpour.  The road leading to Matt and Danalee's house was a dirt road, which Matt would grade himself with a tractor they had out there.  If we had not just beat the rain, we probably would have been there a couple more days, while we waited for the road to dry out enough to be passable.  It was lucky that we left when we did.  Even though we certainly did enjoy their company and hospitality during the time that we were there. :)

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Zion National Park June 2010

The sad thing about catch-up posts is you can't really remember everything.  This was our family's first visit to Zion National Park, but it will definitely not be our last.  We had a great time with our aunts and uncles and cousins.  That day, we were joined by Ryan and Kynzee and their kids, Rhevv, Raccer,   Kynzlee and Kayzlee (I am sure I have spelled something wrong; sorry).  Also, Jennilyn and her kids, Brad, Carson and Hannah.  Aunt Jennilyn let the girls ride part of the time with her.  They LOVED it!  They adore Hannah (and they didn't fight over her too much this time).



on our way

lots of holding hands


Umm, why are the boys showing off their backsides?

more hand-holding


cute kids


by the river

I'll hold hands with this guy any day (seeing this picture again makes me smile; love this man)

I thought the wildflowers were lovely

Daddy's girls



What's he doing?  Going rappelling with the guard chain? 

canyon walls



Some of the wildlife we saw there:




hiking back:

Rachel loved being with her cousin Brad


under the weeping wall


getting a little wet

:)


catching water drops




There are several more posts coming from our trip to Zion.  This was just part of our day.  Beautiful, beautiful Zion.