MightyJohnsons

Basketball 2015

We had four kids playing basketball this year. It was quite a crazy season for our family. Katelyn and Claire both played on the rec league from Cedar Hills. Katelyn generally played point guard. Her quick speed was killer. She could beat just about anyone down the court. It was a learning season for her team as many of them hadn’t played before but they had great coaches (Thanks Emily and Greg!) and came out smiling.

This was Claire’s first year of basketball ever. She surprised us with her intensity and aggression. She was all over the court. No one wanted her to play defense on them because they knew they wouldn’t ever get the ball. She probably averaged six points a game and she can’t wait for next season to begin.

Megan moved up to a competition league this year. She played on the Lone Peak Bantam League. She was on a 6/7 grade team and unfortunately her team lacked experience and skill. Megan started out scoring upwards of 20 points a game. She is a natural athlete and could dribble around most players on the court. We ended the season 5 and 5, which wasn’t too bad considering the growth the team made. If we could improve her mental game on the court she would be unstoppable.

Jake played another year of rec ball. This year he played in the American Fork league with a bunch of his buddies. They finished the season with only one loss but went into the tournament and struggled to keep their streak alive. They should have taken first, but ended up closer to third. He had great coaches and loved playing with those boys. It was really fun to see them playing basketball and having fun at the same time. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of him.

The season came to a close this week as Jake finished his last game. It will provide a little calmer weeks for us. Well, that is until soccer season starts…

Red Cliffs Hike in St. George

The Red Cliffs hike was our favorite quick activity from our President’s Day getaway to St. George. We will definitely do this one again.

But, next time hopefully it will be a little warmer (the canyon you hike up has a lot of shade) and we will all be wearing swimming suits (the natural pools and water falls looked like a great way to cool off) and more appropriate footwear.

The Red Cliffs hike is easy to get to: from St. George just head north on I-15 to Exit 22 (Leeds) and then take a right (heading south) along Old Highway 91 for almost 2 miles. There are signs pointing to the Red Cliffs campground which are pretty easy to follow; it’s almost impossible to get lost.

The Red Cliffs campground has a bunch of day-use parking spots right near the trail head, so getting from your car to the beginning of the trail is also very easy.

The trail is well-marked and is a great hiking trail for little kids. It’s not very long, there are some ups and downs, but no significant elevation gain. But, you can’t just let your kids run amok — there are some points where there is some exposure. I also had to stop some kids from coming over to “throw rocks off a cliff” when there were a bunch of people playing in the pools below.

There is plenty of red rock scrambling to be had. I’m not sure what it is about the slickrock stuff, but my kids absolutely love climbing around on that stuff. Lots of nooks and crannys to hide and play in.

Further up the trail are some deep pools and steep walls which require a little more technical scrambling. Nothing crazy, as Claire was able to make it even without her shoes. Since it was February, none of us got wet, but we will come back to this spot again if we are in Saint George when it gets hot. This would be a great place to come to beat the heat.

Up above the rope section, the official trail disappears. I overheard a local saying you can follow that creek for miles further back. It was a beautiful spot, and it was tempting to keep going, but it was time to head back for dinner. Maybe next time.

We had a great time hiking the Red Cliffs trail while we were in St. George. I highly recommend it during your next stay down in Utah’s Dixie.

Cute and Crafty Valentines

I am horrible at Valentine’s day. Just ask my wife. I disagree with the whole premise (one day to show love to a person? — that’s just dumb) and think it has become too commercialized. So, I have tried to avoid it at all costs.

But, I live in household where the girls outnumber the boys. And for whatever reason, Valentine’s day is right behind Christmas in terms of importance for my cute girls.

The girls go crazy and get in super-crafty-hand-made mode and start crafting their cute creations weeks before hand. The excitement and build-up is very similar to the days before Christmas. Manina even showed them pinterest.com — and I didn’t see Katelyn or Claire for the next 3 days. But, eventually they emerged with several of their creations.

Claire made a birthday-cake inspired collection box that oozes cuteness.

Katelyn worked with Drew to make him a super-cool minion-inspired box.

Then, just for fun, Katelyn hand-made “Owl be your Valentine” messages (and now that I look at these carefully, I believe I have solved the “who just threw away all this toilet paper?” mystery). She even spent her own money to stuff them with goodies to give to everyone in our family. How cute is that?

And, yes, even I, the proclaimed “grouchiest man alive” got into the crafty spirit. Manina showed me a concept she’d seen and asked if I could do something like that for Ellie and Drew. I won’t tell you how much time I spent on these, but I think they turned out pretty good.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m still not a fan of Valentine’s day. But, I am a fan of my girls and if they are cute Valentine’s day crafters, then I guess that makes me one too.

Drew’s Two Truths and a Lie

It was Drew’s turn to play the “Two Truths and a Lie” game. He may have misunderstood the rules a little bit. Here is what he said,

I’ve been to the top of the moon.
I’ve played soccer.
I’ve been to Santa’s workshop.

TwoTruthsAndALie

This all started when we signed up for a church activity. The plan was to have a game night with neighbors we may not know. One family provided the house as a gathering place, one family brought a game, and another family was responsible for the dessert.

We volunteered to host at our house (much easier than coming up with games or a dessert, right?). One of our families bailed at the last minute, but the Card family brought us some fun games to play.

One of the break-the-ice games was “Two Truths and a Lie”. You’ve played it before. You give three quick facts about yourself, and the group has to decide which one is the tall tale.

Only a couple adults had gone when Drew volunteered to go next. We were all impressed. When he listed out his three items, we all got a good laugh—not only had he done two lies and only one truth, but the lies were all so ridiculously obvious. It was too funny not to share.

Happy 7th Birthday Drew!

Our not-so little Drew turned 7 today. We let Drew pick one friend and go to Big Hero Six the weekend before his birthday. On his actual birthday we just went to dinner as a family. Drew chose Buffalo Wild Wings. He was so excited when they called him up and he got to sit on Seth’s shoulders while the whole restaurant sang to him. It was super cute!

Afterward we came home for cake, ice-cream and presents. He got an outfit, a new Disney Infinity character and a new bike and helmet. He seemed pretty happy with his loot.

Drew is quite the character. He is a spitfire and stubborn to boot, but he has such a fun curiosity about him. He loves to fix things, make things and learn about new things. He is very neat and clean. He does well in school and loves to read his “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books. He seriously takes them with him everywhere (even to church sometimes…shhh, don’t tell). His teacher said Drew easily had the neatest handwriting in his class, even better than the girls. We earn our money with this kiddo, but can’t imagine it any other way. Happy Birthday Drew! XOXO

New Year’s Eve Party 2014

New Year’s Eve is always spent partying it up at our home. We have a family party for all of Seth’s side of the family and we also invite his aunt and uncle and their kids as well (The Rowberry’s). Although we missed the Haymonds this year, we had a great time. It was filled with games, delicious foods, ping pong, and many games of Rock Band.

Everyone playing the quarter game. Kate & Aleah were the winners.

Katelyn and I hamming it up for the camera.

Claire and G’ma ringing in the New Year with confetti!

Ellie convinced G’pa to read her a bedtime story before going to sleep. I am pretty sure she had him reading for about 45 minutes!

2014 Year in Review

best-of-2014

I skipped a “year-in-review” post in 2013, and all of our readers (hi, mom!) were up in arms. So, here is a look back at some of the fun moments with the Mighty Johnsons in 2014. We have quite the collection of these from previous years as well: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, but I’m going to break this one up a little differently.

Milestone Moments

There were a few milestones in 2014. In January, Jacob completed his Eagle Project. He worked hard and did a good job gathering bikes from all over the neighborhood and Highland city to donate. His Court of Honor was also a big occasion later in the year.

Megan turned 12 and joined the young women’s organization at church. She’s grown into a beautiful young woman and has really matured this year.

Claire was baptized this year.

Ellie started riding her bike. No more training wheels in the garage, and I’m not sad about that at all.

Funny Stories

The post about Megan’s forgotten lunch generated by far the most traffic to our little blog this year. We’ve been putting links to some of our posts on our MightyJohnsons Facebook page, and our friends and family really liked this one.

Another funny post that didn’t generate near the traffic, but I think is just as fun was the time Drew left me a note after picking up some books from the library.

The story about our travel nightmare coming back from Puerto Rico (complete with bomb threat) wasn’t funny at the time, but is one of those stories we’ll tell as soon as anyone whips out a travel nightmare story.

Tons of Traveling

I know vacation recaps are among the most vomit-inducing blog posts, but we write them as remembrances for ourselves. And, since all our readers (hi, mom!) don’t mind too much, we don’t feel too bad about posting these types of stories.

We traveled a lot this year. It started with a Midway getaway and a fabulous cruise in the stunning Caribbean (I needed 7 words for 7 links).

In the spring, we went on a fun camping trip and also had a fun road trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.

We spent the summer a little closer to home, for reasons detailed below.

But early in the fall, Manina and Ellie went on back-to-back trips to San Diego and then Alaska while the rest of us stayed home and entertained ourselves. Just before Thanksgiving Manina and I were able escape for a few days down to Coronado to wrap up our traveling for the year. Now we will stay home and ski.

Summer with Elijah

The biggest event of our year was being able to look after little Elijah. Our family went from 6 kids to 7 literally overnight and everyone had to adjust and chip in to help. It dominated our entire summer and really changed the fabric of our family. When we see Elijah at family events, there is still a different bond and connection that is still neat to see.

So, yeah, 2014 was pretty fantastic, but I have a feeling that 2015 is going to be even better.

Merry Christmas 2014

We had another wonderful Christmas this year. You never know how it will all unfold, but I think all of our family was pleased and mostly just enjoyed being together as a family.

As usual, Christmas Eve began at G’ma & G’pa Johnson’s home. It is another tradition that my kids live for every year. We eat a nice meal consisting of Grandma Jan’s famous broccoli soup in a bread bowl, ham, veggies, jello salad, and Grandma’s holiday punch. Scrumptious! I wish I would have taken more pictures this year, but I was too busy enjoying myself.

After dinner and visiting we watched the kids perform the nativity scene. Every year it gets better and better. Costumes, scenery, it was perfect. Afterward, we all met upstairs to play the candy bar game (another tradition). It can get heated, but it is basically a gift exchange with steals that only uses wrapped candies. So fun!

We then head home to open up pajamas, sing Christmas carols and read “The Night Before Christmas.”

Santa came and left all this! It was quite a site for the kids to behold. We have a tradition of all the kids meeting in our room and then running out every 30 seconds starting with the youngest on up the the oldest. I love watching them and all the excitement in their eyes.

Of course we had too many gifts, although surprisingly Santa and I planned well. The kids seemed very happy with their gifts. It was a great day!

This year each of our kids chose a name and they got to do “gifts of self” for each other. Jake planned a scavenger hunt for Claire and the gift she opened was her first clue. She eventually found her gift of a few goodies when she got to the end. Katelyn gave Drew a soccer ball and offered to give him some lessons and play a few games with him. Ellie and Drew gave coupons to Meg and KK saying they would make their beds. These are my favorite gifts. Here is a true sibling hug happening. It doesn’t happen often, but I like it. 🙂

We had a wonderful Christmas. I love this time of year and although it is filled with Santa and gift-giving, I am grateful we have this opportunity to take time and reflect on the real gift of Christmas, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas to all!

Sharing the Gift of Christmas

My mom and dad are good at giving gifts. Lately, they have given us tickets to a cool cultural event. Two years ago we went to see Les Misérables (which was great), and last year we all went to a Mannheim Steamroller concert (not one of their better choices) together. However, this year, they were truly inspired.

Early in December, at our monthly birthday cake gathering (the first Sunday of the month) they presented us with our gifts and told us to all unwrap them at the same time. Everyone unwrapped a picture of Jesus Christ, a stack of a hundred $1 bills, a $50 bill, and a note. The note read:

Merry Christmas!

Our gift to you this year is one that we hope will help us all really feel the Spirit of Christmas.

We have give you some money. The $50 is for you to use for whatever… family to dinner, movie, or anythings else. The dollar bills are to be used in a clever and fun way, however you see fit, to share some “Christmas” with others who are not in your family. They can be used $1 at a time, or in one big gift. We hope this will be a fun and rewarding experience for you. We would like you to write up the details of what you chose to do with the money, print it out, and we will read them all before the lighting of our tree on Christmas night (any photos or recordings would be fun, too). This will be your gift to us! We love you all so much!

Dad and Mom

We all talked about a bunch of options on the drive home that Sunday night, but weren’t sure what we should do. We had a family night the next evening and discussed even more options.

Several of the kids had fundraisers going on at school. So, we gave some money to each of them to contribute to their own good causes. Here is a breakdown of the funds:

$60 – Neighborhood “Christmas Donuts and Donations”
$10 – Mac’s Gifts fundraiser at MRJH
$15 – Make-A-Wish foundation fundraiser at Highland Elementary
$15 – Lunch surprise for a friend

The best part about this gift was that it helped us look for opportunities to serve during the holiday season. The money and the challenge to give it away thoughtfully were a great “head fake” (if you haven’t read The Last Lecture, you should go do it now), the real gift was putting our entire family into a service mindset for the month of December.

Anyway, here is the report of the activities and causes we supported with our $100:

Christmas Donuts and Donations

Manina and her friend Marianne were chatting on Voxer about neighbor gifts. They talked about how they were unnecessary and an added stressor during the holiday season. Marianne said she wanted to organize a food drive in-lieu of neighbor gifts, but said it would probably have to wait until next year. Manina saw the opportunity and told Marianne that our family would like to help make that happen.

So, even though it was a last-minute decision, our whole family jumped in to help Marianne organize the event. We financed and picked up the donuts and hot chocolate, and delivered flyers around the neighborhood.

On Thursday, December 18th we brought donations for the food bank. We had about 80 people show up in a driveway, huddle around a fire, eat donuts, drink hot cocoa and donate food.

Marianne posted a picture on Facebook that showed 328 lbs. of food donated. Not bad for an inaugural event. We had fun supporting this event. I hope it becomes and annual tradition in our neighborhood and that it continues to grow each year.

utah_food_bank

Mac’s Gifts MRJH Fundraiser

Mountain Ridge Junior High had a fundraiser supporting Mac’s Gifts, a charity that provide gifts for children with cancer. It’s the same one the BYU basketball team has been involved for a number of years.

Jake and Megan each donated $5 to the cause. Jake is the student body president of MRJH, so he was very active in planning the fundraising and even shaved his head alongside a teacher for the cause. Jake was able to go with the MRJH student council to purchase the gifts, and then give them out to the families at a celebration even held at the NuSkin building in downtown Provo.

Make-A-Wish Fundraiser

Katelyn, Claire, and Drew each took $5 of the money to donate to the Make-A-Wish foundation. They had a visit from a young cancer fighter named Annaleah who has a wish to sing on Broadway. Highland Elementary had a school-wide fundraiser for Annaleah, and each of our elementary school students contributed to making that happen.

Lunch for an long-lost friend

Manina and Ellie met me for lunch one day at Cafe Rio in Orem. I was a few minutes late and the girls were already in line when I came into the restaurant. I ducked under the line barrier and offered a lame excuse to the cute couple whom I had just butted in front of. The guy said no problem, but then paused for a second and said, “Hey, wait, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

I took my first real look at the guy and it was Mark Wilson from back in the days when I lived back in Alpine. Anyway, we chatted for a while as we waited in line to order and it was good to catch up with him just for a few short minutes. When we got to the cash register I told the cashier that I was paying for the meal for the couple behind me. I wish it could have been more of an anonymous surprise, but Mark and his wife were very thankful for this little act of kindness. We wished them a merry Christmas and enjoyed a nice lunch, which was even better than usual because we had just done a good deed.

So, we are grateful that we had the opportunity to share the gift of Christmas with others this year. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Ski Family

The Mighty Johnson clan is slowly becoming a ski family. We live in Utah, with the “Greatest Snow on Earth” and world-class resorts and ski runs within an hour drive. The main thing holding us back is that skiing is quite expensive. But, we’ve found some ways to enjoy the snow without spending a small fortune.

Some of it is sheer luck. Last year, the company I work for purchased corporate ski passes to Sundance resort. Even the rank and file employees like me get to reserve these a couple times each year. So, that essentially eliminates the cost of buying day passes. We also found out we can ski at Alta after 3pm for $5. So that really helps.

Getting the gear was part hard work and part good luck. Manina hit garage sales this year and found a lot of gear, we put the word out and had a family-friend give us a lot of nice gear they were planning on replacing. So, we got hooked up. I even made a rack in our garage to hold all our new ski gear.

Now we can nearly outfit our entire family.

We had a good snowstorm come through over the weekend, and it just so happened that I had the Sundance ski passes reserved for December 23, so we had a great opportunity for most of us to go and hit the slopes.

Jake, Megan, Katelyn, Claire and I all put our new gear to the test earlier today. The kids are all getting pretty good, the snow was nice (even though not all the runs and lifts were open), and it was a perfect bluebird day at Sundance.

Hopefully we can do this a lot more this winter. We’re hoping for snow in the mountains because we’re a ski family now!