A Long Long Winter

It seems like this has been the longest winter. This is the last day of February and High School Softball, Baseball, and Tennis are suppose to start tomorrow. That brings back good memories of following the kids in their high school spring sports. It is still fun to watch a good game – that’s part of the community culture and social life in Blanding – still it is not the same without your own children playing – I surely do not cheer as much.

Still we are very involved with the youth. Stacey and I are now teaching the junior promenade and so are together everyday for lunch at the high school – one more week of that – Prom is next Saturday. Stacey spent the day yesterday with her sisters on a trip to Cortez and back. I watched games at the Stake YM Basketball tourney and read “The Undaunted” and cooked myself a steak dinner.

The past weeks since our last post have been busy scouting, Stake YM & YW stuff, trips up north for work and fun etc.., I taught the Citizenship in the Community merit badge for three weeks, helped teach a dance workshop for the youth on mutual for six weeks, planned and held our trek Ma & Pa Training and have been busy putting together all that is needed for the up coming Trek. We have shoveled lots of snow including roof tops and have worked hard at keeping warm.

I had a trip to Woodcross for work and enjoyed staying with Cody and Amanda. I always love the opportunity to see the kids and grand kids. We all went out to eat at Red Robin for Amanda’s birthday while I was there – Stacey could not come because of tax season and felt left out. She made up for it though when we went up for Presidents Day weekend and Valentines Day. We loved tending Carter and Trey and enjoy the grandpa – grandma role. Oh we still get the opportunity to feed, bath, and change diapers, but that’s fun too – it is so fun with Trey and Carter old enough to interact with us. I felt like I was on cloud nine when Trey cried cause I left the room. Of course that happens more often with Mom and Dad – still I think they recognize us.

For Valentines we sent the kids skiing – that Saturday morning we got up late as the kids would allow and met everyone for breakfast at IHOP – then went bowling before everyone headed home to get ready for the late afternoon and evening at Sundance. Everyone seemed to have fun but Haven – who is so used to being good at what ever she does, got frustrated trying to learn to snowboard. We all got together Sunday for dinner at Cody and Amanda’s – it was suppose to be a birthday gathering for Amanda but she still ended up doing a lot of the cooking. Since they got their house in Lehi they have had constant visitors and guests. They say they love the company – I hope that is true because they are definitely getting it. We enjoyed socializing with the family. We headed home on Monday (it being a day off) after visiting, helping Lant with some stuff and a little shopping.

That’s the highlights of the past month for the most part - other then that we have been living our weekly routines. We enjoy FHE even though it is just the two of us. We are working on meeting our couple goals including reading, temple attendance and service. We often end up snuggling on the couch after a busy evening, me on one side of Stacey and to my chagrin the dogs curled up next to her on the other. Even with all of life's challenges and commitments we feel joy in our family and look forward to spring and the rebirth of life that it will bring. Still we have to give it time for the snow to melt.