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.