Home Life

Yesterday, Angela went down to Indianapolis with some of her friends from the ward to the Indy Mini (half-marathon).  She was going to run but decided to cheer her friends on instead.  It was freezing cold and she was shivering the whole time.  They had a great outing and had fun together.  There were also a bunch of other people from our ward who went down and ran as well.  It was quite the gathering.

They came home after the race and Angela was dead tired (and she didn’t run)!  🙂  Her body got a workout from being out in the cold and trying to stay warm.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Zachary and I went to his first soccer game.  Our team was a little short but we had fun.  The kids were freezing and some wanted to sit under blankets on the sidelines instead of play.  We kept telling them that the more they ran, the warmer they would get, but it didn’t help much.  🙂  It’s tough for 5-year-olds to play in that kind of weather.  Hopefully it will get warm soon!

Happy Anniversary, Angela!  We can’t believe it!  This year makes big 19!  We’re getting old…  Angela and I were able to steal away for a few minutes tonight and go out to dinner at La Hacienda.  We both had steak and the chips and salsa were awesome!

While we were gone, the kids had a little cleaning party and cleaned up the basement!  🙂  It was wonderful to see a spotless room and smiling, helpful children.  They sat us down and gave us presents as well.  It was very sweet!  We have wonderful kids!  🙂

Happy number 19, Angela!  🙂

Tonight we went to a concert at East Aurora High School put on by the BYU Idaho Sound Alliance and Vocal Union.   This was presented to the community through the help of the Public Affairs arm of the church here, of which Angela is a part.  She has worked very hard over the last couple of months to help make this happen.  She has done everything from helping select the site, market the concert, and her main job of finding places for all the members of the group to stay overnight after the concert!  It has been very stressful for her, but the concert turned out GREAT!

Sound Alliance and Vocal Union combine to create an instrumental and vocal concert that will entertain and inspire audiences of all ages.  Both groups represent what is best in the students at BYU-Idaho. The group presents a multi-faceted program with both ensembles interwoven to present inspiring vocal and instrumental jazz selections.

Sound Alliance is composed of 17 jazz  musicians selected through a highly competitive audition process. Their repertoire ranges from the artistic to the “just-for-fun-of-it.”

Vocal Union, an ensemble of 12 singers, performs a variety of styles which feature the tight harmonies of vocal jazz in a performance of popular, big band and classic jazz tunes.

There were over 1000 people in attendance and everyone who went absolutely loved it!  The groups did jazz numbers together playing instruments and singing, and they each had separate numbers as well.  It was VERY entertaining!  It was a great way to spend a Friday night as a family.

We found out that my dad has to have open heart surgery next week!  🙁  For awhile now he’s been having chest pain, but ignored it somewhat. He told my brother Greg about it (who is a cardiac PA) who then listened to his heart.  Dad  has always had a slight murmur (rheumatic fever twice when he was a kid) but this time the murmur was way worse. Greg told him to have it checked immediately, which he did.  Bad news… he has critical aortic stenosis, which means the aortic valve is just a tiny little hole right now for the blood to get through.  That would explain the pain and him being so tired (not enough oxygen getting out to his body).   The scary thing is that at any time, if something were to block that off, he would die.  Today, he went in for an angiogram and with the exception of the valve, everything looked OK.  No bypasses will be needed, but it’s still a major surgery that will take 6-8 weeks of recovery. They’ll completely open him up and put in a bioprosthetic valve (from a cow).  We are all very thankful to Greg for his experience and insight into this.  He probably saved Dad’s life.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Today was Zach’s first day of spring soccer!  He was so excited that he got up way early and got dressed and ready to go.  At 7am he was ready to get in the car to go, and we didn’t have to be there until 10am!  🙂  It’s fun being his head coach and we have a fun team.  There are 10 kids on the team and they vary a great deal in talent.  Some have played before, and others have not.  The important thing, however, is that the kids have fun.

The trainer for the kids this season is much better than in the fall.  He didn’t get too technical with the kids and kept things very fun and simple.  He seems to really like doing what he does.  It also helps that I have 2 great assistant coaches who can help me keep things in order.

The kids practiced for the first half of the hour and then we scrimmaged another team.  It is so funny to watch kindergartner’s play!  🙂  Zach had a ball and can’t wait until next week!

Sorry, I didn’t get any pictures!  🙁

The other day, Brittany was given a photography assignment in school and she came home very excited.  She loves taking pictures and was excited to see what she could do.  Some of the pictures she took came out wonderfully well and we were all very impressed.  Check them out:

I think she loves outdoor photography the most!  It was fun to watch her out taking pictures!  Keep up the great work, Brittany!  🙂

Tonight Angela and I went to a reception of some friends that we have known for a long time.  We usually only see them anymore at the wedding receptions of their kids.  🙂  It was at a mansion near where I work.  It was a beautiful setup and the food was amazing as well.  What really warrants this blog entry however, is the bar.  No, not the alcohol bar (this is an LDS family), but the CANDY bar!  The wedding collors were green and purple.  Near the door was a table with every kind of purple and green candy you could imagine…  M&Ms, Jelly Belly beans, chocolate wrapped in purple and green, gummi bears, and all sorts of other things!

The picture above doesn’t even show everything that was there!  They had plastic bags with twist ties there for everyone to fill up a bag before they left as a gift from the bride and groom.  We thought that was AWESOME and put that in our bag of ideas when our daughters get married!  After all, you can’t get drunk on candy!  🙂

Today I took off work and we went as a family to the Brookfield Zoo.  Ben got a season pass for the zoo for his birthday and it included the whole family!  Ben and Zach love the animals.  The girls enjoy it too, but we think that they (especially Sarah and Brittany) are kind of sick of going!  🙂  Oh well!  🙂

Ben’s favorite animal was the hippo and the whole time, he kept saying “PO”  “PO” to go see the hippo again.  Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of the hippos.  🙁  We’ll have many opportunities to go back this summer.

We did get some pictures of the tigers which he loved as well!  He kept roaring and roaring and everyone thought he was sooooo cute!  He wanted to go pet the tiger and couldn’t understand why we couldn’t walk into the area and give the tiger a great big hug.  It was pretty funny!

The only negative side of the zoo today was the number of people!  It was a perfect day and the last day of spring break for many and so there were literally thousands of people there!  It was VERY crowded!  We had a hard time (especially) in the indoor exhibits, keeping track of the kids!  It didn’t deter from the fun we had, however!

We came home from the zoo completely exhausted but happy that we were able to spend time together as a family.

Spring Break for the kids started today, and instead of being NUTS and driving down to Orlando to watch Sarah and then immediately turning around and driving back, we decided to stay at home and relax…  Well, at least Angela and the kids did.  I worked most of the days to save vacation days for an extended vacation this summer.

Today Angela and the kids went downtown to the Field Museum.  It’s nice having a yearly pass, because you can go down and spend as much or as little time as you want and not have to worry about not getting your money’s worth!  🙂