Easter and General Conference Weekend

What a weekend! It was so wonderful to be able to celebrate Easter and watch General Conference at the same time this past weekend.

We had all of our regular Easter traditions. Leading up to Eater we had a special devotional each night where we talked about the Savior and one attribute or characteristic of Him. We also set some goals each day to try to be more like Him, but our follow through on those could have been better. On Saturday we dyed some eggs and had our Easter Egg hunt. We hid all of the eggs in one room and then just let the children search one at a time starting with the youngest. We thought it would make each child have a successively harder hunt, but it actually just gave the older children more time to spy out all the eggs before they were released to go get them. On Sunday we tried to focus our thoughts on the Savior and His atonement. Being able to listen to several wonderful talks about the Savior by our church leaders really helped with that. We also had a delicious dinner of pork chops (we decided to switch it up from our typical ham), rolls, cheesy potatoes, and asparagus. And then for dessert Rebecca made a carrot cake.


Here is Asher getting some of his candy.



Here is another video of him showing off some of his walking skills.







We also got to do all of our regular General Conference traditions. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast on both days. Rebecca should really open up a shop and sell her rolls they are so yummy. We also went on a hike between the Saturday sessions. The children did treats for one session, legos for two of them, and some worksheets for another. I tried something new this year. Usually I just sit and listen. I feel the Spirit a lot when I do that, but I often forget the messages that I learn. When we were in my brother's church ward last week someone mentioned in a talk that he tries to just write down one sentence/impression for each talk. So I tried that this year. I liked it a lot. For each talk I tried to just write down one prompting of something I could do better in my life. And now I have some quick notes that I can read over periodically in addition to being able to read and listen to the full talks again from lds.org. The impressions that I received were kind of personal, so I won't share them here, but a few themes that stood out to me were the importance of personal revelation, the prophet is called of God, and the church really is moving forward. It was so exciting to be a part of this General Conference - we got to sustain President Nelson, we got to learn of two new apostles (one of whom served his mission in Taipei, was in the Asia Area Presidency, and was a special assistant to the US Ambassador to China), we learned about a reorganization of the Melchizedek Priesthood quorums (btw, I got released by the prophet in General Conference since I formerly was part of the Elders Quorum presidency), we learned that we will no longer have home or visiting teaching, and we learned about several new temples in places like India and Russia. I remember the feeling that I had when we found out about the temple in Pocatello just last year and it made me so excited for the people in those areas of the world.

If you want to watch any of the talks they are all archived here:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng


I am so grateful for my testimony of the gospel. I know that the Savior lives and that through the atonement we all will be able to be resurrected too. I am also so grateful for the personal revelation that I receive to help guide me in my life and the revelation that is given to the prophet to lead and guide Christ's church.

Spring Break

The week before last was our spring break. Originally we were not planning on doing anything because we have our Taiwan trip coming up. However, about a month before we decided that it would be really nice if we could try to have the children see all of their great grandparents.

We started the trip late Friday afternoon. That afternoon we headed down to Utah and stayed the night with Rebecca's brother. By the time we got there there was pretty much only time for the children to eat dinner and head to bed.

We woke up early (5:30 am) Saturday morning and started our drive to Las Vegas to visit Rebecca's other brother. It was a very pretty drive. It was really fun to drive through the first part of Utah while it was still dark out and see several of the temples all lit up. It was really getting me excited to see what our Pocatello temple is going to look like. Hopefully they will pick a spot for it somewhere close to our house or somewhere where we can see it out our windows. The short part of the drive through the northwest corner of Arizona was also very pretty. We got there around 11 and just hung out for the rest of the day. I think the kids and I spent a couple hours in their hot tub. They also have a pool which is not heated and we had contests to see who could do the most in the cold water. Christian won by jumping off their diving board and swimming the whole length of the pool. We also celebrated their cousin, Addie's, birthday and had some yummy pizza that night. We also got in lots of pinches since everyone forgot to wear their green.












On Sunday we had church with them. It was nice and sunny and the children enjoyed walking to church.

On Monday we woke up early again and made the drive to Arizona. We arrived there around noon. We were in Arizona for two and a half days. During that time we got to go to the park with Great Grandpa Swift, go to the library with Great Grandma Rucker, go to a ghost town that was a lot of fun, go to a old movie set for westerns, and go on a few walks in the desert. Julia and Agnes spent the nights with Great Grandpa Swift and so they got to see him a little more. My mom stayed over there with them each night. The rest of us spent the nights with Great Grandma Rucker. It was so nice to see them both! While we were there we also got to see the pageant that they do at the Mesa Arizona temple. It was an Easter Pageant, so it showed the life of Christ from His birth to His resurrection. Besides seeing my grandparents, I think my favorite part was the hikes that we got to do. It felt great to have the sun on us and it was fun to just explore around and see the cactus and terrain that we usually do not get to see.













































We woke up early Thursday morning to start our drive back up to Utah. That was a ten hour drive. When we started at 6 am the temperature was 67. It was sad to see the temperature slowly drop as we made our way north throughout the day. it was another pretty drive and it was fun to see the grand canyon from a distance, drive through some of the mountains, and see some of the forested areas. We didn't get in until kind of late Thursday evening. We first stopped at Rebecca's grandparents house so the children could spend some time with Great Grandma and Grandpa Meibos. It was a short visit, just to say high and for the kids to get some hugs. Then back to Rebecca's brother's house. They made some sushi for us which was really yummy.

We spent Friday with them, hung around their house, and went to the park. Rebecca and I did go to the Provo City Center temple that day. It was our first time going there. We had seen the outside before, but we had never been inside. It was really beautiful and impressive on the inside. That night we had pizza and watched Coco.

Then Saturday we went furniture shopping in the morning. We ended up finding a few really good things for our house. We made it to my brother's house by early afternoon and the children had a fun time playing with their cousins. My brother used his new smoker to make up a ton of ribs for dinner. It was so delicious. On Sunday we spent more time just hanging out with them and attended their church. That night we had a turkey that he had smoked as well. I definitely want to get a smoker after having those two meals.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures while we were in Utah. I did get a picture of the underground entrance for the Provo City Center temple, which was really cool.



Then we made our drive home and got back just in time for bed. It was a great Spring Break. It felt like we really did get a break from our usual routine, we got to enjoy the sun, and it was so wonderful seeing lots of family. And, even though we spent over 24 hours driving in the car, the children all did great with each other.

Pinewood Derby

Since the pinewood derby race was scheduled just a couple days after Christian's birthday, we ended up having two boys making cars this year. They had a fun time designing their cars. I made them each come up with three designs and then after drawing each one out, pick their favorite. Christian seemed like he knew from the start that he wanted to do an arrow car. Ethan's kind of evolved as he thought about different options and his final car was a mixture of a few. We got an early start on them so we had plenty of time for the boys to take their time on planning, sanding, and painting. I think the only thing that I did for them was cut them (we only have a circular saw and I don't think they are quite ready for that) and pour the melted weight in them.

On the day before the race we tested them on our folding table to see how straight they ran. Both went pretty well, but then the boys really wanted to see whose was quicker. Ethan's was faster than Christian's and at first Christian seemed a little bummed about that. We tried to fix part of the paint that was possibly rubbing against the wheels and I talked to Christian and Ethan about the point of the races and how it can be fun even if your car gets last place.

On the day of the race when they weighed their cars in, Ethan's turned out to be about half an ounce over and Christian's was about half an ounce under. We added some money to the bottom of Christian's car and drilled some of the weight out of Ethan's.

In our ward they use this racing program where all the boys are randomized into heats and a final winner is chosen based on speeds and how they do in their heats. So there was one race where Christian and Ethan were in the same heat. Ethan's car did end up beating Christian's again, but they were both great sports about it. In fact, they were great sports the whole time. In the very first heat Christian's car got last place and I was a little worried about how the rest of the night would go for him, but it turned out that the other three cars in that heat were the three fastest ones for the night. Christian's car later got first in some of his other heats and he was happy about that. In the end, Ethan got third for his age group and Christian got second for his. But most importantly, they both had a fun time.









Christian's car is the second one on the left that looks like an arrow and Ethan's is the silver one right in the middle.

Christian's Birthday

Back in early March, Christian turned 8. Eight is an extra special birthday and he is super excited to get baptized next week. I didn't get many pictures, but for his friend party he wanted a jungle theme. We played a game where the kids made animal sounds and the person who was it, while having his eyes closed, had to guess who the other kids where based on their sounds. We also did a jungle hunt for some stuffed animals that were hidden around the house, we did hunting where Ethan shot them with his gun while they tried to escape, we played a game where some of them were birds with eggs (balloons) that they tried to protect while the other kids were snakes and they tried to pop the eggs, and we played Don't Eat Pete, but with animal crackers. The kids had a fun time, but it was wild and crazy. There was also the start of a real skirmish between two of the boys, so I had to make sure that those two didn't get too close to each other for the rest of the party.



For the family party day Christian picked monkey bread and bacon for breakfast, we ended up skipping lunch because everyone was full from breakfast, we did pizza for dinner, and a chocolate cherry cheesecake for dessert. My parents were in town for his birthday and we had a fun time just hanging out with them.





A few things about our now 8 year old Christian:

• He loves to write his books. He has a couple of stories that he has been working on that he just slowly adds to almost every day. Typically they are about a family that has different spy adventures as they travel around the world.
• He also likes to read. His favorite series has been the Land of Stories.
• He likes animals a lot, especially bugs and reptiles. He likes to read educational books about them.
• He likes to be outside.
• He is really independent and seems to be just as happy playing on his own compared to playing with his siblings.
• He likes sports, but often prefers to watch Ethan and Elliott play, than play himself.
• He is really smart and does super well in school. He does often know how to spell words that I can't spell even if he has never seen the word spelled out before. He is also one of those kids who knows which days of the week certain days will be. He is really quick with math and logic problems.