April Tidbits

Jack is our kid that loves to try new things. Instead of playing tennis this spring, he decided to try track and field. The two events that he competed in were the 100 meters and the pole vault. There was only one meet that I was able to go to, and it happened to be his best one. I barely got there in time to watch, even though it was at our high school. It started at 3:30 but because Alice doesn't get out of school until 3:17 and because I was packing my suitcase, I just didn't make it over there until 4:30pm.  The parking was bad and I had to park in the front of the high school and walk clear around because the student parking lot near the field was full. It was perfect timing though as I was walking and looking around to find him, I walked behind the stadium and just as I came into view of the track, I saw Jack doing a practice start for his race. I was able to walk right up to the track and watch him take off at the beginning. I don't know how he placed because I couldn't see down that far, but I'm so glad I made it in time to see him! We both learned that apparently when running on the track you should have spiked shoes to help you get good grip. He did not have those this year, but we'll have to get him some next year.

Just as quickly as I found him and saw him race, I lost track of him again! There were so many people there. I finally just headed over to the pole-vaulting area and that's where he was. I didn't realize it at first, but they were doing warmups when I started watching and taking videos. I'm new to this whole track and field thing and how it works. I was about ready to leave after I saw Jack do a few practice jumps because Curtis and I were traveling to Nampa that night and I was itching to get on the road. I'm so glad I didn't leave then because now they were doing the real competition. I was able to show Jack a video of his practice before he did the real thing, and he saw some things he needed to work on. And it certainly worked. The lowest level for pole vaulting was 8 feet, and he was able to clear it! Then they bump it up 6 inches and tried it again. Jack was able to clear the bar again at 8.5 feet! They get three tries for each level. He didn't clear the 9 feet mark but was very close. I'm SO glad I didn't leave the meet early and was able to watch him until he was finished and get videos and pictures! It was worth getting to Nampa late that night. He loves track and plans to do it again next year.

  

This is him clearing the 8 ft 6-inch mark.

Our purpose in going to Nampa that weekend was for Curtis to get some new front teeth (veneers) and to attend our niece, Livvie's, homecoming talk from returning from her mission. Since we had just spent our entire spring break in Nampa with the kids and didn't want to pull them out of school, we went on our own and stayed with his parents this time.

He was happy to get rid of his gap and not have to deal with braces.

While Curtis and my in-laws were at appointments, I decided to take a walk over to the Islands subdivision. They have a nice walking path over there.

Those were the only two pictures we got from that weekend trip. It was nice to just be the two of us traveling and spending time with his parents and his brother Nic, then some of my family.

The very next week, the pool guys called and scheduled to install the new liner. They came on Thursday the 16th to do prep and then Friday to install and start filling. We used a hose hooked up to the house. Later Curtis added another hose to the front of the house and brought it around back to speed up the filling process. The pool guys needed it to fill to a certain point before installing the light fixture again. They had two big fans on the sides of the pools sucking in the air to keep out any air bubbles while filling. When it got high enough on Saturday for the guy to do the light, he removed the fans as well. We turned off the hoses overnight just to make sure it didn't over fill and then on Sunday morning. It finished filling by Sunday evening. We love the new color!

Having some fun while it fills up.

All filled!

Friday night we were invited to attend a talent show for the service missionaries in this area. Garrett wasn't really sure what he could do until I had suggested that he could have a display of the Japanese stuff that he has and write or recite something in Japanese because he has been teaching himself Japanese by using Duo Lingo on his phone. He ran with that idea and got excited about it. While he didn't recite anything, he did write down his favorite verse in Japanese and did show his notebook that has the alphabet written in it. He also displayed his Japanese dishes and Lego tree. And he would answer questions that people had, so it got him talking. Some missionaries cooked and brought food samples, plus we had a ton of food that others signed up to bring for refreshments. I got so stuffed! But it was a good activity. We learned at that activity also that Garrett's mission advisors were released from their calling and he has a new advisor that we met. There were lots of talents shared, from singing, musical instruments, computer programming, scripture reciting, Lego collections, baking, drawing, etc.

All of the missionaries got up to sing the opening song.

Garrett didn't know they were going to do this, so he was less than thrilled, ha ha.

Here's his display. His dishes, Japanese maple Lego tree, notebook and verse (Mosiah 2:17).

That same Saturday morning (the 18th) I had signed the girls up for the kid's fishing day in Kennewick. It was $15 for each girl but they received a regular sized fishing pole to take home, and they could each catch up to 3 fish during our fishing session. This pond was stocked just for this event with rainbow trout. We picked a spot where there was a guy there to help people so that he could help us. This was the first time either of the girls had gone fishing and they enjoyed it. And they each caught 3 fish, with the help of a man who brought his own gear. The man would use his pole and lures to get a fish on the line and then he would have one of the kids nearby come reel it in. At least half of the fish they caught were with his help.

She didn't want to tough the fish, so she stuck a stick through it to hold it up.

They cut and cleaned the fish for us afterwards. So glad I didn't have to do that!

We cooked them up after we got home and ate them for lunch. Well, some of us. The girls didn't want to eat them, ha ha.

And to finish off the month of April was Charlotte's 12th birthday! She had a friends' party where they braved the cold pool. We tried to get it heated up but because our pump was leaking quite a bit we had to keep refilling the pool with cold water. The heater would also start accumulating ice on the top and bottom, so we would turn it off to defrost it. Later we put a box fan over by the heater to create some air circulation so it wouldn't ice up so much and that helped. We were able to get the pool heated up some but it was in the 70's and not warm enough for me. I like it to be around 85 at least. But the kids had a blast anyway. They swam, got out for food and to watch Charlotte open gifts, and then swam some more. Originally Charlotte was going to try and wait to have her friends' birthday party for when it was warmer so that they could swim. We kind of decided last minute to go ahead and have her party right then. I had some fun decorating like I used to do a long time ago. We did her party on Friday night because the next day our ward was having a temple day. Many people came to do different ordinances. Curtis, Garrett and I did endowments while Jack and Charlotte did baptisms, and Alice went on a temple walk and played games with the younger kids. Then everyone met together at the church next door to eat dinner. It was a great activity. Anyway, we celebrated Charlotte's birthday with our family on her actual birthday, which was Sunday. 

Streamers attached to the ceiling fan.

She likes the Broncos, so blue and orange for the table colors.

She has some really good friends.

Sunday morning before church.

I made cinnamon rolls for her cake this year. I hadn't made them in years and they turned out pretty good.

Birthday kiss!

Her snack was a box of Biscoff biscuit cookies. Then she also got a new phone case, fidget cube, snow cone maker and flavors, Lego flower bouquet, water bottle and basketball that's her favorite color of blue.

Our Spring Break 2026

As a kid I never went anywhere for spring break. We never went anywhere after I got married either. That is, until we moved away from all of our family 3 years ago. Now it seems to be a tradition to go back to Nampa every year for the kid's spring break. I don't know if that will always be the case, but for now we enjoy getting to see family and old friends each year. We spent the week with my grandma again because she has plenty of space and she's all alone in that big house. And who knows how much longer we'll have with her since she is now 94 years old. Staying with grandma isn't always easy though, because she keeps her house a little too warm for the rest of us and a lot of her food is usually expired. 

We drove to Nampa Sunday afternoon after we went to church, because that was our Easter program and Jack was speaking in our ward that day. Curtis and I drove separate vehicles so that he could go to work. In fact, he stayed that first night with us but left early the next morning to go work in Ontario and stayed over there in a hotel the next two nights. I wasn't really sure what we were going to do on Monday, but it quickly turned into a cleaning operation as I discovered weevils in Grandma's napkins when I went to use one! I found weevils and remains of them in all of the cupboards surrounding her fridge and freezer. We started emptying the cupboards and throwing food away that either had weevils in it or was just expired. It was mostly Grandma and I cleaning out the cupboards, but I recruited the kids to take turns helping and then later Dad and Laverne came over and helped. That certainly wasn't on their agenda that day either. I think we spent a good 3-4 hours cleaning out the cupboards and washing any dishes that were in them and wiping down the cupboards. We threw A LOT of food away along with paper goods. I had wanted to help grandma in some way when I knew we were coming but I definitely didn't think it would be this! I am glad that we were there to help. We were all so tired and didn't feel like cooking anything after dealing with bugs, so Dad went and got pizza. Then the adults played the card game Golf while the kids did their own things.

I am just going to summarize now some of the things we did that week since it's been a couple of months and it's difficult to remember everything. The kids got to see some of their friends over the next couple of days and I got to do some clothes shopping. On Thursday, we went to the Meridian Temple and did a bunch of baptisms. We went with both sets of parents and my grandma. Afterwards, we ate at the Olive Garden in Meridian. Since Alice isn't old enough to go to the temple yet, she got to hang out with her older cousins, Ellie and Livvie. She had a lot of fun spending time with baby Evelyn, baking cinnamon rolls and going out for a special drink. Ellie was kind enough to send me pictures.

Cousins baking cinnamon rolls! (And they were delicious!)

Alice and Evelyn

So that was what we did early in the day. In the evening we met up with Ricky's family at the Majestic Theater in Meridian to see the new Super Mario Bros movie. We all enjoyed it.

Jack's friend, Porter, tagged along with us as well.

Friday was our Wahooz day where we stayed from open to nearly close doing all kinds of things like laser tag, mini golf, go carts, arcade, bowling, etc. Ricky's family joined us the 2nd half of the day and Porter came again.

Mini golf

Go carts. I was pretty happy that Jack wanted me to ride with him.

Pizza for lunch

Wall climbing

Once again we saw a friend from Kennewick. We saw her the last time we went to Silverwood. Neither time did we know that she would be there. So fun that we happened to go on the exact same day!

The Twister ride. I rode once without the extra spinning but that was enough. Mine and Curtis's stomachs can't handle it anymore.

When we did our first round of bowling, the computer had a fun option that put silly faces on our pictures.

Curtis went on this ride once also and that was enough for him.

The Dark Ride. We shoot things like robots or zombies or something like that to get points. I won this round!

I did pretty well on our 2nd game of bowling with Ricky's family, with a score of 122!

Inside the Dark Ride (this is what we saw on a tv screen)

Go carts

Garrett won this round.

Saturday morning, we went over to my in-laws' house where they served us a yummy breakfast of French toast, sausage and fruit. Then they had gifts for us to open from Christmas and missed birthdays. 

This was not necessarily a gift, but it came in a package of miscellaneous items that Gaya thought the girls might like. Alice had fun with this dog costume.

Saturday evening, we went over to Ricky and Jenna's house for dinner and then walked to the park to play some games. Curtis's brother Nic and our nephew, Andrew, were also there. We played Frisbee 500 and then some Bocci Ball. It was a beautiful day for it, and everyone had a good time. Afterwards, I set up an egg hunt in the back yard for the 4 youngest kids while the guys were inside playing video games. 

I think the name of this game was Rock Band. These 3 were singing and Ricky was playing the guitar (you can't see him in the shot though)

Sunday morning was Easter. It was fun for the kids to have a new big house to search in for their baskets. However, the only kid I got a picture of with their basket was Alice. Since it was also conference weekend, we didn't go to church that day. After the 1st session of conference, we ate our Easter lunch/dinner and then hit the road for home since the kids had school the next day. 

It was a fun filled Spring break and I'm glad we made the trip again.