End of Maxine's swim season...

Maxine competed at the region swim meet and shaved 6 seconds of her 100M freestyle and 5 seconds off her 100M breaststroke! Yay! I'm proud of her dedication and really excited that swim season is over!

El Cheapo!

Maxine was asked to El Cheapo by her long-time friend, Trentin. The dance was hippie themed. Maxine's hair is totally made for the seventies! 

I don't even have that many pictures of anything but they looked cute and had fun!

Gringos con Motos y no pasaportes!

Merril, Wade, and Wade's brother-in-law, Michael Richey, were planning to go to Mexico. Down in California, they realized that Wade and Merril had both forgotten their passports! No bueno! They tried to get the passports down to them but ended up changing their plans and headed north instead.

I like to think that something bad would've happened to them and the Lord made them forget, thereby protecting them. 💗

They decided to ride up the Pacific Coast Highway to the redwoods.

They saw cool beaches.

They found a beach with a ton of elephant seals. Merril said they smell bad. Hee hee. 

They still had fun riding motorcycles but next time they'll remember their passports for sure!

New 25th Ward and Merril's in the bishopric! What?!?

At stake conference, our stake was split and 2 new wards were created. We are now a part of the newly created 25th ward! My whole neighborhood has been divided for quite some time so I'm excited that it's all back together again! Parts of Park View, Rock Hampton, the older Canyon Ridge, all of Zions Gate Homes and half of Zions Gate trailers make up the 25th.

To our surprise, the new stake president wanted to speak with me and Merril on Saturday night. Merril was asked to serve as the new 2nd counselor in the bishopric. This is the first time Merril's ever been in a bishopric. 

Merril's Dad, Mark, was able to be here to ordain Merril to the office of high priest. Merril's Dad has served as second counselor in a bishopric before. Must run in the family.

I'm always amazed at how calm Merril can be in really nerve-wracking situations. I was excited and nervous and he was calm as can be. I'm hoping that calming influence will be useful when serving in this new calling. 

I think the hardest adjustment will be sitting alone in sacrament meeting. At least I'll still be able to see him and wink at him.

Fun Winter Saturday!

We started our Saturday at the Cedar City Aquatic Center to watch Maxine swim the 500M freestyle. That is a brutal race. Her time was just over 8 minutes. Her coach made her do it. After she showered and changed, we went to go play in the snow!

We drove up Cedar Mountain and found a great hill where we made tube trains!

Merril's exercise tracker said he hiked 2 miles. Really we only hiked a mile up because we rode tubes down.

The weather was perfect, sunny and calm. We were hot and kept having to strip off layers.

When we were switching cars, there was an epic battle for shotgun. Juliet won. 

Singing at George's Corner Restaurant...

Merril likes to sing and play the guitar. Okay, he really likes to play the drums but it's hard to perform percussion by yourself. He snagged a gig at George's Corner Restaurant and had Maxine practice up a few of her songs to play. She sang backup vocals for a few of Merril's songs too.

Maxine recently got her own guitar and she's getting so good at it.

Music has always been a part of my childhood and I'm glad to have met someone who gives the kids this kind of opportunity to perform. 

Goodbye boat!

We are getting rid of a few items this year, our boat included. We purchased this boat when Maxine was 2. I've had it for longer than all our cars and most of our kids. The interior is toast and needs several little things to make it awesome again. And we're going to let someone else do all of that. 

Merril's trading it for a snowmobile so we won't be getting a new boat this year. I don't know when we'll get one. It's been a sanctuary on calm summer nights and I will miss it. 

Ice skating in Cedar City...

Ice skating always reminds me of my Dad. He would take us to Baker reservoir or Pine Valley reservoir, when the lake had frozen over, and we would skate and he would ride the 3-wheeler around. He would tow us and spin around. He was always on the look out for skates at the D.I. up north. What a crack up. I still like to take my kids skating. We find a rink that rents skates. I can still skate pretty well but I forget how much work it takes!

It always takes us a while to remember how to do it. The Cedar City rink has walkers for the little kids and they help so much. The rest of us just look like spazzes for the first 30 minutes.

Maxine's wisdom teeth...

Oh man, it's wisdom teeth time for Maxine. Her teeth have been bugging her for a few months. We went to Simply Wisdom Teeth and had her scheduled for the 27th of December.  That way it would be after Christmas and she would still have a full week to recover before going back to school. It was so fast, she was only back there for about 20 minutes. She came out and was a little loopy, she said she couldn't see me. Her main complaint on the way home was that her eyes weren't working.

We got her home and inside. She was bleeding for a few hours and then it stopped. She barely ate anything. It took most of the day for the numbness to wear off and she didn't want to eat with a numb tongue and lips. She had some yogurt and applesauce and mashed potatoes. 

Day 2 she was hurting a little and lied around. Day 3 she was hurting and lied around. By day 4 she was doing better and was tired of eating super soft foods. She could eat but it took forever. She was a little frustrated by it.  After day 5, she was doing fine. We still had to manage pain a little but she didn't develop any dry sockets and was able to return to normal activity.  

All in all, she did great. Her two lower teeth were a little impacted and they were broken out. She didn't develop any complications and I feel like that was the best part.  Wahoo! Glad that's over with!

Goodbye 2018...

We went to Valerie Scott's house for games at around 6:30 p.m. She had people coming so we came early. My girls and I took up the Book of Mormon challenge at the end of the women's conference in October. Juliet finished first a few days ago but Maxine and I barely finished today! I'm proud of my girls for being so committed! Every time I read the  Book of Mormon, something different speaks to me. I'm thankful for a prophet, grateful for my family, and happy to start a new year!

It was fun to hang out with Val. I feel like her new teaching job at Hurricane Elementary is draining her and it was good to chat.

Maxine and Jack went to the Fagergren's house to hang with friends for the rest of the night. We came back to the house and stayed up until midnight. I won a huge aerial firework in a contest on Facebook and we set it off at midnight. It shot 30 fireworks into the air. It was windy, we probably shouldn't have done it! Oopsy! Now we're done with 2018!

Merril's ride from Torrey to Page...

Merril found a dirt road from Page to Torrey and wanted to do it.  It goes by Escalante and Boulder. He got lost a little and Wade is with him.  It's always better to be lost with friends instead of lost by yourself. 

Half-iversary

We met December 18th and we're celebrating 19 years of being together, married 18 1/2. I bought us a ride in a helicopter.

It had snowed the night before and the clouds were hanging low and it was absolutely beautiful!

We flew up by Kolob, down to Zion, and over by Colorado City and Water Canyon.

By Colorado City, there's a hike that ends on the top of a mesa and someone has hauled an American flag up there!

I'm smiling but my stomach was not doing well by the end. I had to hold an air sick bag but didn't end up needing it. It was a close one! I'm getting older and my stomach must not like air bumps as much as it used to. 

Happy Anniversary to the man I want to share all my adventures with!

Merry Christmas 2018

The lack of presents by the parents prompted the kids to step it up this year and really give to each other. I was amazed at the amount of presents under the tree and it made my Mama heart swell.

We were awoken at 5:00 a.m. Oi. I'm getting old!

Some of us had been awake for hours. 

Ew. Slime ball.

After presents, I went back to sleep for an hour. Then I got up to put the Christmas Carol Roll in the oven.

Merril's parents were out of town so I made the roll this year and it turned out perfect! I finally feel like it could rate up there with Grandma Campbells! I invited my parents over because we did Christmas on the Saturday before. They came over for breakfast at 9:00 a.m. I made the Christmas Carol Roll and the egg/sausage/potato bake the night before. I just popped them in the oven. We spent the rest of Christmas day being lazy but headed up to Merril's parents house to have dinner with Jared and Emily's family. They were staying there for the night.

On Christmas Eve, we decided to attend Catholic Mass with a neighbor. It was similar to our church but different. We didn't know what we were doing. Mark was asked to help put the baby Jesus in the manger scene and then the Father blessed it with holy water. Mark came back to our pew and said, "He got me all wet!" I guess he blessed Mark with holy water too. The kids didn't love mass, I thought it was interesting. It seemed like Maxine felt she was cheating on her church. She wouldn't participate very much. It cracked me up. As we left, the small children received small candy canes in mini crocheted stockings. We hung them on the tree as a memento of the evening.

New stake center...

My boys are used to walking home from church but we switched buildings today and the new building is farther away. They still walked the 1.5 miles home.  I drove.  I'm thankful that the gospel is moving forward. Our Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to be happy and make good choices.  I love this family of mine and the good choices they are making.  May they continue to do so!

Maxine and Merril trip day 2: Washington D.C.

Merril woke up bright and early and got Maxine up. They stopped at Waffle House for breakfast and then Maxine fell asleep in the car on the way to Washington, D.C. 

They arrived in D.C. and saw the Washington Monument.

This is the WW2 Memorial and there's one of these for each state.

Outside the Lincoln Memorial. Merril keeps thinking it's the Lincoln Monument.

This is where Martin L. King gave his 'I have a dream' speech.

This is the Vietnam Memorial and Maxine is pointing to Daddy's great Uncle Ken Maxwell, who died.

The White House is in the background. I think I see Trump!

This is the National Christmas Tree! There were some little trains and a tree from each state.

This is the capitol building.

This is where they inaugurate the President.

This is the inside of the Library of Congress. Maxine was able to get a reader's card (library card) to go back where the books were. She said it was the coolest part of the trip.

This is the oldest printed book I believe. It was printed on animal parchment, which is the only reason it's survived. Printed in 1455!

They stopped and bought some cupcakes from this shop. It became famous because it had a show on TV.

After this they left and boogied home. They took turns driving. They spent the next 36 hours eating, driving, sleeping, and getting gas. Maxine slept a lot but switched with Merril every so often so he could sleep.