2/28/19 Gram's Thoughtful Gift

Today Gram thought of me when she went to the chiropractor. She remembered me saying that I've been getting a kink in my neck lately from my old pillow. She saw this special pillow and thought of me. I can\t wait to try it out. Thanks so much Gram!

2/27/19 Peter Preschool

Peter is excited about learning to be like his older siblings. Here he is learning to write some of his letters. This is Heidi in action.

2/26/19 Pinewood Derby and David and Rebecca Band Concert

Today, at the Pinewood Derby, I helped keep score with Bishop and Caleb Hinton. The kids raced. All of the cars we built made it down the track and nobody left crying so all and all I count that a success. We also got dinner out of the deal. I think that the kids, in general, had a good time.

Heidi got to go to the concert. David and Rebecca both did great.

2/25/19 Haws Pinewood Derby Prep

(L-R) Lexi, Kaleb, and Brayson Haws needed help getting their cars weighted and painted for the Pinewood Derby. Heidi and I are not the best car engineers but we did our best. I think that the kids had a good time.

2/24/19 Key Drop Box

Our first renter needed to drop off the car while we would be busy getting kids off to school. Heidi and I drove over and placed this key box so that she (the renter) could do so without us needing to be there.

2/23/19 Scout-O-Rama

Heidi had a lot of responsibilities in helping to plan and prepare for Scout-O-Rama. As you can see from these pictures, it was a big activity.

Joseph got to race his first pinewood derby car that he helped to design and build.

Buddy Nelson liked the snakes.

Max built his car from scratch during the event. This was a huge blessing to Heidi and me because we didn't know when we would be able to help him otherwise.

Sarah, TJ, AND Joseph all placed 5th in their respective age groups. We are not sure how that happened but all the kids got to feel that they did well.

Rebecca and Sarah both loved helping Cale Morris (Rebecca's 7th grade Science teacher) teach people how to hold the snakes.

2/22/19 Temple and How to Train Your Dragon 3

This morning, Gram, Papa, Heidi and I braved the rain to serve in the Temple.

Rebecca shared this tricky math word problem from her homework with me. Some people think that all word problems are like this one. How would you answer this question?

In the afternoon, Gram and Papa treated the family by taking us to see "How to Train Your Dragon 3". It was a fun, relatively light-hearted film. David pointed out that the villain didn't seem to be as well thought through this time. The ending made it seem like they couldn't decide between wrapping up the series and setting up more sequels. Still, the kids liked the theme of teamwork and friendship.

After the movie, we dropped off Rebecca at the Gilbert Temple to do baptisms for the dead with some of her friends from the ward.

2/21/19 Car Rentals

Today, Heidi and I were tidying up and she came across this picture of Noah's Ark that she made when she was a girl. It's a classic but, sadly, it was starting to crack. She decided that it was time to let it go so we took this picture to remember it by.

This afternoon was our first official rental of the Prius. It was raining and the person's flight was delayed over an hour. We realized how much better, in the future, it will be to use a key box or Kaddie's help instead of waiting around at Empire. 

One thing that we got to try while waiting was renting a Porche. Trent Powell recently bought this electric yellow Porche to add to his rental fleet. He was kind enough to let us take it for a test drive.

It is a sweet ride. We had fun but realized that we like our 15 passenger van much better. It is way more practical. Also, the Porche is so low to the ground that it is tough to get into and out of. Still, for being my first time driving such a fancy car, it was nice to check off something of a bucket list item. Still on my list is to drive a Ferrari one day.

2/20/19 Cub Fire Escape

Today, with the Cubs, we went over creating a fire escape plan.

By far the favorite part was getting to climb out the fire escape.

2/19/19 Gram and Papa Time

     New pictures today. Heidi and I had some time helping with Gram and Papa. One thing that we did was order the two Ant-Man movies and a Dr. Seuss book called On Beyond Zebra. Papa watched Ant-Man and the Wasp with us the other day and decided that it was fun enough that he wanted to see the first one.

2/18/19 Treat with Gram and a Place to Hang

Gram and Joseph sharing a treat.

Heidi hung this board in the kitchen. It will be nice to have a place to hang a few things.

2/17/19 Turtle Car

Gram invited Sister Postert over to hear TJ read the flower book that she wrote. it was a fun ministering visit.

Lexi Haws designed this turtle car but Heidi had the challenge of cutting it out of the block of wood.

It turned out pretty cute.

Becca B found our camera and took some selfies for us. She is very photogenic.

2/16/19 Dinosaur Tech Support and Park Photos

Today we had Joseph's birthday Party. Heidi and I gave him a dinosaur LEGO set. Now his dragon has a buddy to hang out with.

Later on, we went over to Grammie and Grandpa Mangum's house to do tech support. Rebecca and I helped set up their new printer while David set up their network hard drive. It is official, David is now regularly doing projects that I do not know how to do and this is one.

I'm having fun as the new Digital Imaging teacher. It gives me an excuse to take lots of fun pictures. Here are some that I took for the class at the park today.

TJ holding Joseph in his hands is an example of Forced Perspective.

Some portraits showing the use of shallow depth of field.