Grandpa and Grandma Kissing

Young Womens Camp :)

Hey! Last night I went to camp kickoff where me and the rest of the young women ( even though I m not a young women till next week ) get to find out the theme of this years camp! I don't remember the exact name but it was something like this " United as woman we will come together to fight the battles of time " ! So are ward picked the 1960's as are time and are name is " Peace Makers , spreading the love " . I don't remember other teams name but are was the best :) WE ARE STILL WAITING FOR HOLDEN'S MISSION CALL !! But as soon as we get it we will let you all know !


- Jordan Emilee Hays


Ps. I am in the talent show tonight so wish me luck !!

King Richard the Lion Heart

Jessica getting ready to go to her wacky, tacky tea party with the young women. The right side of her head we curled her hair and put on make-up- her left side we left natural.

Michael read a book on King Richard the Lionheart, he then had to become King Richard and tell his class about his life.

Jessica doing a little dance before her wacky tea party.

Rockabilly Zoo

The kids had this week off for Spring Break and so when possible I took some time off work to hang out with them. So here's what we did this week.

We went to CrackerJax where we played miniature golf, hit each other in bumper boats and raced go-carts.



And here's and homage to Footloose and our footwear for the day.





We found two stray dogs who became part of our life for 24 hours. This one is a golden retriever (Cayman) and the other one was a beautiful Akita (Daakota). We found them on the street. Tanner loved having them around but Scout spent most of the time hiding under a table. Cayman loved to jump in the pool, which would have been okay except our back yard is all ripped up and so he'd just become a big mud ball. They loved to rough house with Tanner and in a scene straight out of the Brady Bunch they broke one of Lezlee's favorite vases and then all pretended like one of the other dogs had done it. The kids were pretty sad when it was time to say goodbye but we're glad that the dogs are back with their family.


We also went to the zoo and had fun watching the spider monkeys, petting the manta rays and watching two Blue Crested Jays try for an hour to set one stick in a nest they were building. The weather here is perfect for that type of outing right now.




Work continues to progress on our back yard. This week they completed the demolition, did the rough grading, dug and poured the foundations and delivered the three 30' glulam beams that will support the roof. Next week they demo the existing fence and building the new CMU walls.

Jordan had her friend Devon sleep over while her mom and dad are in Costa Rica. Devon's dad is a wildlife artist and travels the world taking reference photos of animals to use in his paintings. We took Devon to Chicago Dogs to get her first--what else--Chicago Dog. A Chicago Dog is a delicious hot dog with a pickle spear, tomato wedges, hot peppers and celery salt. Awesome.

Last night Lezlee went to the Tres Dios Rockabilly Festival with two friends Brian and Angel. Rockabilly is a subculture built around 50's rock and roll and old cars (nothing newer than 1964 is allowed). The people that came were all dressed up in 50's style clothes. The men almost all wore black jeans, white T-shirts and had their hair slicked back. The women were squeezed into tight dresses with their hair teased up and bright red lipstick. They had a pin-up girl contest and a pin-stripping challenge. There were all kinds of old cars belching fire out of their tail pipes or bouncing on hydraulics. And lots of bands playing awesome music. A lot were covering James Brown or Johnny Cash but some were playing their own stuff. Our favorite was a band that sang a song about a boy who decided he'd be a midget for a day--you had to be there.




The highlight was getting to hear The Blasters, which some of you may remember from the 80's.



All in all it was a pretty good week.

Still waiting for Holden to get his mission call. Hopefully it will come this week.

Ashley and Michael doing an experiment for Ashley's Science Project

Ashley made the clay herself and added the lava

The final project. She had fun doing it, but she was very relieved when it was done

Her project was to see which liquid added to baking soda would make the biggest explosion out of her volcano

She shaped the clay around a small water bottle to get the desired shape

She tested plain water, vinegar, and lemon juice

The idea was to put in the baking soda then the liquid and to quickly put a balloon over the bottle and then measure the middle of the balloon, the liquid that caused the biggest balloon would be the winner

Jessica overseeing the project and making sure the balloon was in tip top shape

Michael with his crown on enjoying Christmas morning and his new skooter

The kids had opened all their presents and Eric pionted out that they didn't get anything from santa. Santa had gone down our basement fireplace and had left a ping pong table, wii, and a air hockey table. Some of the kids were in shock, while others danced for joy

Of course after they found santa's stash they only had an hour to play then it was time to visit family. We were a bit late getting to see Grandma Tolman and great grandma Watterson.

Michael earned his wolf and is pinning the mothers pin on me.

He loves cub scouts. He is well on his way to getting his Bear. On Friday he gets to go to the Police Department and he will also get to go to Home Depot and build a bird house in a few weeks. Next month he will be making his pinewwod derby car also.

Eric enjoying Christmas. I'm not sure what he is hiding behind his back

Michael at Grandma Tolman's on Christmas 2008

Ashley at Grandma Tolman's 2008

Here are pictures that I took of getting mom and dad's quilt together. I was going to put it in a book for them, but never seemed to get around to it.