MightyJohnsons

Spelling Bee 2013

And folks, we have another fantastic speller in our family! As you have probably read in years past, Jake has participated and done well in several spelling bees. Megan was hesitant to participate for fear she wouldn’t do as well as Jake has done, but she was wrong. She did great! She came in at second place after another boy from her class who is very bright. Here are her words in the order she spelled them:

syllable
hospital
cancel
abduction
facilitate
authoritarian
antagonism
affinity
adamant
figurine
valetudinarian
illicit
herbalist
jeopardize
vagrancy
agnostic
abhorrence
gastrovascular

She spelled all of the above words correct. It was down to her and one other boy, Daniel, for the last 7 words on that list. Her final word was “fraudulent” and she misspelled it. I have to say I think the announcer said it incorrectly (more like fraugulent) but that wasn’t for me to decide. She still did and amazing job, taking second out of over 100 kids! Way to go Megan. I can’t wait for next year!

Megan (second), Daniel (first) and Isa (third)

Happy 7th Birthday Claire!

Our “not-so” little Claire turned seven in April. She had a small family party on her birthday, but later the next week celebrated with TWENTY of her friends. Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting quite so many kiddos to come, but thrilled everyone wanted to come and spend time with Claire on her special day. Thankfully we left the party schedule open and instead of having a bunch of planned activities, we had a bounce house and let the kids play in the backyard most of the time. They only stopped momentarily for cake and pizza. So fun!

Claire is one unique lady! She is very independent and does what she wants, when she wants and how she wants and doesn’t care one bit what anyone else thinks. At times we bump heads a little because we are equally stubborn but I love her to pieces. She has such a sweet heart and loves to cuddle, even more than I do! Happy Birthday Claire! We love you!

All of Claire’s friends (minus 2 who left early!)

Blowing out the candles!

Somebody got a haircut!

Nearly five inches cut off and Claire has a new hairdo! Although I was a little hesitant to let her cut off so much length and get bangs, I have to say it turned out pretty darn cute!

Can Do!

Jacob decided to run for the 8th grade representative for student council for the next school year. In 8th grade at his junior high school, they don’t have the traditional student council positions, just a couple representative spots: one male, and one female representative.

The application process was rigorous. Jacob had to get a teacher recommendation, create a one-minute video (see below), create one flyer, write a report, and submit a transcript. The winner would be selected by both popular vote and faculty vote.

Jake and I had a lot of fun together creating the video. He came up with the main idea, I refined it a little bit and did some of the producing and directing. He was nervous about it because it was to be shown in front of the whole school during morning announcements.

This isn’t his first time running for student council. In 6th grade he ran for student body president and won, but he was pretty nervous this time around.

He came home a few weeks ago, beaming. The videos were shown to the whole school during morning announcements. Jacob said, “All year I’ve been totally anonymous and now even 9th graders came up to me and said they liked my video.”

It must have worked, because he won.

Spring Break in Moab

This year for spring break we decided to make our way out to Moab with five other couples. We hooked up with the Greg Rowberry family, the Darrin Rowberry family, the Howell family, the Jensen family, and the Cutler family. We rented a huge cabin (sleeps 50) about 40 minutes south of Moab. It turned out to be a fantastic trip with a bunch of great people!

The trip was filled with lots of hiking and bike riding! We left Monday morning and made a stop along the way do a little four-wheeling and mountain biking. Meanwhile, I hiked around with the little kids so Seth and Jake could enjoy riding.

Seth testing out the mountain bike.

We went to Arches National Park on Tuesday. We hiked to Delicate Arch first. I have done it before, but it was still as amazing as it was the first time! Afterward, we went to Sand Dune Arch. This is a favorite for the kids. Unfortunately, the wind had picked up and made it a little chilly to be playing there for long.

Delicate Arch

Ellie and me at Delicate Arch

Drew and his good buddy Micah

Ellie

Ellie and her daddy!

Claire and Allie at Sand Dune Arch

Ellie

Arches National Park Visitor Center

Wednesday involved a lot of mountain biking for most of the group. Those of us with little ones made our way to Devil’s Revenge to watch some of the jeeps climbing on the rocks. Afterward we had lunch at a park before meeting up with the others at the BMX park.

Thursday was our day to pack up and head out. We decided to take full advantage of the day and we trekked out to Goblin Valley and hiked Little Wild Horse Canyon (one of my very favorite hikes).

Some of my favorite parts of the trip consisted of late nights gabbing with the ladies (and husbands too). We rarely made it to bed before midnight. The kids were in heaven and played for hours and hours without a complaint. The food was amazing! We each coupled up and took one night for dinner/dessert. Mmmm, mmmm, good!

Jake and his buddies playing card games.

The girls practicing “cups” from Pitch Perfect.

Drew and Micah – nearly inseparable this trip.

We were all completely exhausted and worn out from the trip, but had a super fun time. It was great to have the opportunity to get to know everyone better and have a fun time with all of our families!

Easter Festivities

Easter surprised us early this year…March instead of April! It made for a crazy spring break weekend, but the kids still had a great time. We started our festivities by going to the Highland City Easter egg hunt. Afterward, the kids came home to find the Easter Bunny had also came to our house!

On Sunday we enjoyed Easter dinner up at Seths parent’s home. The kids had a great time and got lots of candy and cash. We love having our family close by so we can see them often and spend these special occasions with them!

Ellie and her little buddies!

Ellie

Claire

Megan

Jake

Drew

The Easter bunny even surprised Seth with a new water bottle and a remote control helicopter!

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Most of the kiddos (minus Jake who was out doing fast offerings) before church.

Easter Egg hunt at G’ma Jan’s house.

Basketball has come and gone.

The three older kids have been busy playing lots of basketball over the past few months. Jake started back in October on a competition team so he has been playing for months and months. Megan and Katelyn both played Junior Jazz from January to March.

The girls love playing basketball and they improve so much every year. I really enjoy watching them. Even now, after basketball has ended, I still frequently find them in the backyard playing “speed” and “one-on-one” with the neighbors.

Jake played on a new team this year, Flight, with a bunch of really great boys. They went undefeated all season. Unfortunately they lost in the championship game to a team they had beaten earlier in the season.

I am super proud of all the kids. I especially love how they put so much heart into the sport they are playing. I am sure it is not surprising that we won’t be getting a break around here as soccer is already well underway for Megan and baseball is starting up next week for Jake.

Coach Peterson & Coach Brinkman with Team Flight

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Katelyn and the rest of her Jr. Jazz basketball team.

The only picture I managed to get of Megan this year.

Ellie & Albert

Ellie is a phenomenon in our home and has lots of cute curls. Unfortunately for her, when she wakes up those curls are a ratted mess. It usually takes me until lunch time to convince her to let me comb them and style them.

Megan has been learning about Albert Einstein in school recently. Over the past few weeks Megan has been calling Ellie, “Albert” instead of Ellie (which Ellie does not seem to like too much). I asked Meg why she was doing this and she said, “duh, they have the exact same hair! I decided to see how well Ellie and Albert Einstein match up and Megan was pretty much right on, they do look alike!

Check out the resemblance Ellie has with handsome ol’ Albert.

I was a Millionaire

I was a millionaire yesterday. Unfortunately, it was only for about 10 seconds. Now, I’m broke. Again.

I had a check in my hand, payable to me, from an organization that wouldn’t have a problem cashing the check. The amount was for $1,572,320.00.

So, how did this happen? It was a scout reimbursement with a significant data-entry error. I’ve been the scoutmaster for a couple years now, and I often pay for scout camps which get reimbursed out of our scout troop budget sponsored by the LDS Church. I registered and paid for our troop’s summer camp and submitted a reimbursement for $1,572.32. Somehow, the financial clerk tacked on three zeros when he cut the check.

The money may have never technically been deposited into my account, but those 10 seconds of having a million-dollar receivable should still count. So yeah, I was a millionaire once. But now I have to get back to work.

St. George Getaway

We made another trek down to St. George this past weekend to spend some time with my dad and Kathy. We also met up with some of our good friends, the Denney’s and the Bergersons, and made it into a fun-filled weekend.

Friday morning we woke up bright and early, 5:30 am to be exact, and hit the road by 6:30. Seth wanted to head out early so we could get there early enough that he could do some work as well as sneak in an afternoon bike ride before any plans were underway. We arrived around 10:40 and spent time visiting and unloading before our we needed to be at the BYU baseball game. One of our friends that we met up with played baseball for BYU so he was able to get us free tickets to come and watch. The weather was amazing! It felt so hot…so much so that my kiddos were complaining of missing the cold weather up North.

All the kids enjoying the ball game.

Afterward, we all went back to our friend’s condo and headed out to the swimming pool. We didn’t realize it wasn’t heated (although quickly did) so we spent most of the time in the hot tub. The kids started getting braver as time went on and they were jumping in to show their bravery.

Brrrrrr!

The next day we had planned to go playing/hiking in Snow Canyon. Neither of our friends had been there so we thought it would be fun for them and their kiddos. My kids loved the sand dunes! Each kid took turns getting buried. The sun was hidden most of the afternoon, but came out once we got to the dunes. It was SO nice!

The Denney’s

Drew’s head.

Afterward, we went back for more swimming and then we hit up Smash Burger for dinner. We stayed up WAY too late visiting, but had such a great time laughing with everyone.

The next day Seth took the older kiddos to church while I got the younger ones ready, packed up and prepared to head home. Once Seth was back, we headed over to see my dad’s plane. He purchased this Cirrus last fall and we have been wanting to see it for quite some time. It was pretty spectacular and I can tell that Seth secretly wants to fly it. 🙂 After visiting the airport, we spent a little time having sandwiches at the park with dad and Kathy before leaving.. It was a perfect ending to a really great trip!