March

 When Elisabeth got home from her mission, she got me hooked on duo lingo. I'd had used it before, but never super consistently. She had a long streak and it inspired me to work on mine. And I'm happy to say I reached a 400 day learning streak! That's not to say I never missed a day, I certainly have, but you can only miss a day every now and again (maybe once or twice a month so you have enough earned gems to buy a day-streak-freeze.). It has helped me improve my Spanish for sure. Just doing it daily, thinking about it daily, practicing conjugating etc is helpful. Now I just need to practice a more with natives...I could practice with my ML kids as I'm walking them to and from class...hmm, not a bad idea. 

Herriman city recently built these stairs into the side of the mountain. So we of course had to go climb them. I had to go slower than normal because of my back, but it was still fun. I love being outside and moving my body! 

I have quite a few family pictures downstairs in our basement but people hardly ever get to see them because not many people go down to the basement. So I decided to bring some upstairs and make a family wall in our kitchen. I love it! It's also a great talking point as guests ask about who's on the wall and our family history fan chart. 

We have had such a mild winter which made it nice for doing outdoor activities year round, like hiking and pickleball. My family loves to play pickleball. But the mild winter and lack of snow and rain also means our desert state is suffering, in need of more water. 

The week after Scott and I went to the herriman stairs, we talked our kids into doing a "family activity and breakfast" one Saturday morning. We didn't tell them what, just to wear tennis shoes. Some of them were annoyed when they found out what we were doing...well, just one really (Jane, ahem). 

Jane turned 16 and the weekend before her birthday she had a very large birthday party in our backyard. There were about 35 people that came. We had some games set out (corn hole, can jam, spike ball), we had the fire pit going, food and music. They had a good time. Jane is good and kind, she's hard-working and direct and assertive. For example, the night of her party, she was clear about end time and everyone left on time (by 11pm) and when the boys were throwing marshmallows she went up to them and said "stop throwing marshmallows." to which one of them replied, "oh sorry, I didn't know I shouldn't." To which she said, "Well does it look like I'm having fun walking around picking up marshmallows after you." :) 

Jane got her license on the morning of her birthday. We went before school. It was a bit of a crazy morning because as we were driving to her appointment we realized we didn't bring her permit or any id for that matter, so we had to go home to get it. But she remembered it was in Annabelle's car which was at the high school. Annabelle was just arriving at the school so we asked her to keep her door unlocked. When we got there, the door was locked. And she wasn't responding. So we went home and got a key, and then came back to get her permit. In the meantime, I went online and booked another appointment for a half hour later than the first (luckily there was one open!). We arrived on time, and then the man helping us said, 'it looks like she never took her quiz she was supposed to do after she got her permit. she'll need to do that. You can do it on your phone and then come back up to me when you're done." I asked how long it'd take and he said there's 4 videos w/a short quiz after each so probably around 40 minutes. I had to be to work within the hour and drop Jane off first, so I crossed my fingers that we could finish it a little faster than what the guy had anticipated. Luckily she was able to play the videos at double speed so that helped, but she also had to get 100% on each quiz before she could move on, which she did fine on the first two, but the last two she missed a couple and had to retake the quiz again. It all worked out and she got her license and I got to work nearly on time. I have great coworkers and just sent a quick text letting them know I'd be a few minutes late and they covered for me til I was back. 

That night we took her to Flower Child for her birthday dinner and afterward we came back home to sing and do gifts and donuts with the girls. She loves her Kreme filled Krispy Kreme donuts! 

Charles said most (or all) of the missionaries he flew out to Ghana with are now all either Zone Leaders or AP's which is so fun because then they get to see each other and conferences. 

The end of March began our Spring Break and our trip to Australia, but I'll go into more detail on the next post which will be all about our trip to Australia. 

February - Quarterly marriage retreat, WIDA ML students

Annabelle and Nora had soccer tournaments down in St George over the first week of February. At the same time, Jane's high school cheer team went to Florida for nationals. Jane isn't participating because of her concussion, but we'd already paid for the trip when she had been doing slightly better and were hoping she'd be better by nationals, so she still went to cheer them on. They also did a couple of days at Disneyworld and Epcot, although she wasn't able to go on a lot of the rides, also because of the concussion. She has gone back to the Tosh concussion clinic and she's being seeing another doctor Zimmerman in sports medicine, and together they're helping her come up with daily routines that are helping her to get better. But, that being said, she's not to do any high risk activities including cheer, for at least another year from after her last concussion, and possibly longer. So she won't be trying out for the team this year. 

Scott, Nora, Annabelle, Sophie and I went to St George temple one morning and they did baptisms while Scott and I did an endowment session. Sophie and her mom Brittany and their sister stayed with us at Ludwigs home because she needed help taking Sophie to games since her other daughter also had a tournament in Mesquite at the same time. Two of Annabelle's friends, Mia and Becca, came along as well because Annabelle was leaving early to get back to Sweethearts dance, and she didn't want to drive alone. 

 

Team party at the Peterson's home was a blast for both children and parents. 

Angelica's is our favorite Mexican food place to eat while in St George so we go just about every time. We especially love their street tacos. 

For Annabelle's day date on Sweethearts, they did puppy yoga. Doesn't that sound like so much fun?! Annabelle went with Grant to Sweethearts and had a nice time. 

Scott and I took a few of the soccer parents with us one morning to the stairs at tech ridge. We had a good time hiking up and down together. 

Both Annabelle and Nora's teams did well although they didn't make it to the finals. 

When we stay at Ludwig's house, we always try to do something for them at the house, or buy something the house could use more of (toilet paper, soaps, etc). This time we put up a shower curtain and we anchored and put up lights in the back yard (that was a special request elisa made since she knows scott's handy). The lights were a little tricky since we had to put an anchor in stucco and then put in two heavy duty poles to hang them from, but after a few attempts and several Home Depot runs later, we got the guide wire up and the lights strung. It turned out great! 

Valentine's morning, Scott and I were on a marriage retreat at Aspen Grove, but we set out valentine's love notes and treats for the kids before we left. 

This is our third time attending the aspen grove marriage getaway and we enjoyed it as usual. They cater food for dinner, breakfast and lunch over Friday night thru Saturday afternoon which is nice to not have to think about. There's always an inspirational speaker and a couple of activities you can do if you'd like...this time it was snow shoeing and axe throwing. 

I'd been experiencing some back pain for a couple of days before the retreat; I'm pretty sure it was from deadlifting 150lbs, and perhaps not good form? Anyway, I took some ibuprofen and then still did all the activities because I didn't want to miss out and I'd never done axe throwing before. Well, Monday morning I woke up around 4am with excruciating back pain. I could barely walk myself to the bathroom, I had to be all hunched over and lean on the bed and couch for support. When I got back in bed,  the pain remained and no position helped to relieve it. And anytime I turned it was excruciating and I had to use my hand and the edge of the mattress to help roll myself over. Once Scott got up I asked him for a priesthood blessing. Afterwards I ate some food and took more ibuprofen and then I reached out to my neighbor, who's a nurse, to ask her if she thought I should go into instacare or go see a back doctor. She said her and her husband had back pains before and also from weightlifting and she said usually they'll rest, heat, ibuprofen and use a back brace, but if the pains terrible her husband has gone into instacare to get a steroid shot to take away the pain for awhile.  I didn't really want to do the steroid, so I borrowed their back brace and started to follow the other instructions...each day after work I rested on the couch, lying down with heat on my back. I took ibuprofen for the next couple of weeks. I also made an appointment for a back doctor but he couldn't see me for another 3 weeks. Once I saw him, I was already feeling quite a bit better. He suggested I get an MRI just to be sure of what was going on. You can get MRI's at Wasatch Imaging for $299 if you pay out of pocket, so we did that and I discovered that I had a couple of bulging discs near my L3-4-5 in the lower back/spine. With that in mind, I continued to do the same things I was doing before: resting, heat, ibuprofen as needed. After a couple of weeks I didn't need Ibuprofen anymore, and then after awhile I didn't use the heat anymore either but I did continue to rest each day for a little bit and I modified my exercise. I stopped running because it's high impact, I stopped using my weighted vest, and did more yoga and walking. After about a month I started introducing light dumbbells into my exercise and that has been fine. And come mid April, I started doing jog/walks and got up to running a mile and a half. 

I'm grateful for Scott and that he enjoys our adventures and quarterly marriage retreats as much as I do. I love that we continue to love spending time together. 

I also secretly love that he wears these bracelets every day. One is the Ghana flag (I gifted one to him and myself over Charles' first Christmas away in Ghana) and the other is a bracelet one of the orphan children at the Child's Hope foundation made for me with my name on it. 

Annabelle turned 18 and Elisabeth and Tayson were able to come out and celebrate with us! We loved having them! Annabelle is a sweetheart and we sure love having her around. 

My girls love these lavash turkey and cheese wraps we've been making lately. We get the lavash bread from trader joes. I love that store and am excited to have one closer to us this year! 

Nora is doing Snow Blitz ski school! Both Elisabeth and Annabelle did it a few years ago, and now it's nora's turn. She gets picked up at her Jr High after school and they take a bus up to Brighton where they ski until around 8pm and then head back down the mountain and to the school where we pick her up. She loved it. Next year she wants to do it again but she wants to try snowboarding. 

I teach the English language to our Multi-Lingual (ML) kids at our local elementary. I love what I do(remember, my dad never mastered the English language, although he could get by alright) and I love those kids. It's so fun and rewarding to see them progress as they're immersed in school and doing lessons with me. We also hired someone this winter to help and she gets to play games with them and work on conversation skills. In February the kids had to take a break from our lessons and games and begin their WIDA test. It's a test the ML students take every year until they get a speaking score of 3.5 or higher for speaking and 4.2 or higher for their overall score (speaking, listening, writing and reading). The tests get harder as they get older as they're academic in nature, so if they don't pass while they're in elementary, they often don't pass and continue to take these 4 tests every year until they graduate. Also, once they get to the JR high, if they're still taking WIDA, they also have to use one of their electives to take an English class. So we do our best to prepare them and hope we can gets most of them to pass while they're still in elementary. I've noticed that the kids who are willing to try, even though it often means trying and failing and trying again, learn faster and do better than those that don't try.  

Charles is doing well in Ghana. I like this picture of the missionaries singing because I didnt' often get to see Charles sing...even in church, the kids for some reason don't usually sing. Sad. I love to sing! Especially about Jesus! 

It's supposed to be the dry season and yet sometimes they still get a storm that rolls in and they get soaked! One particular day they had to run to the church to give baptism clothing to the sisters and while they were out it started to pour! And it was windy! When they got home, their apartment was flooded! They had left their windows open and it was a wet mess! They used lots of towels to soak up the water on the hard floor, and then they'd squeeze them out and go again. 

They've been fortunate enough to usually always have people they're teaching and people who are ready and willing to enter into a covenant relationship with Christ that begins with baptism. 

Elisabeth made these AI pictures based off of our family wedding photo. I thought it was cute. She told it specific things about each person to add a little personality to the photo. 

For at least a couple of years now, I've been attending scripture class with Elisa L and her in-laws each Friday. We do a brunch and then we study and it's wonderful. I love talking about Jesus and his gospel and it's so fun to do it with these amazing women each week. It's also been a huge blessing for me in that it's given me courage and confidence to teach the gospel to others outside of my family. Right now I'm the gospel doctrine teacher in my ward and being able to practice on these women first is helpful and they have such great insights. 

My niece Leia was able to come spend a few hours with us one Sunday along with one of her mentors at The Other Side Academy. We ate dinner (Grandpa's enchiladas, rice, beans and guacamole) and we played games. It was fun having everyone together.