Spring at our House

Soon we are leaving for spring break, but before we do I thought I'd share Spring in my backyard, which is a very happy place to be right now, complete with the heady scent of orange blossoms all over the neighborhood. What could be more perfect?

Update on Holden, Brennan & Jordan

For those of you who keep track of Holden on his blog at elderhays.blogspot.com, this isn't news, but for those of you who do not, he was bitten by a dog while hiking in the mountains on his PDay a couple of weeks ago. Because church protocol says that anyone bit by a dog needs to go through the rabies series, and because Bulgaria does not have the rabies series (which is a little crazy since they have a multitude of stray dogs!), he had to fly to Frankfurt Germany last week to go through the rabies treatment. While there, he is tracting with the german Elder's and his German mainly consists of being able to say "Hi, I'm Elder Hays, Nice to Meet you, I'm sorry, but I don't speak German".

It is a challenge for him, but he feels that he can learn a lot from the experience. He will probably be there another week and 1/2 before they send him back to Bulgaria.

Jordan has turned into quite the hilarious little person. She makes us laugh every day. It is nice because Holden used to be our comic relief, and now she has stepped into that role. It makes us miss Holden ever so slightly less (though obviously, we still miss him like crazy). She has been heavily involved at school. She's on the yearbook staff and she is also in STUGO (which is Student Council). She loves both and plans on doing them again next year. She's a very BUSY person and loves to be busy all the time. She always does well in school and both she and Brennan never need to be reminded to do homework (for which I am hugely grateful). She has the easy confidence that I wish I could have had at her age. In short, we think she's kind of amazing.

Brennan is very involved in both speech & debate and choir at school. He's loved both, and has tried a little of everything in regards to speech & debate but thinks he's decided he might like LD (Lincoln/Douglas) debate the most. Next year, he may concentrate and focus on that more. But he's tried Impromptu, Prose, Poetry, and Storytelling. Holden's major focus was always Prose and Poetry but I think Brennan has decided his strengths lie more in the Debate area. He may even try policy debate next year (policy debate is not as big of a thing here in Arizona as it was in Utah so that not very many kids actually participate in that type of debate). They call him Baby Hays on the team because his brother is still remembered fondly by the seniors who were freshman when Holden was on the team. He has a beautiful voice and loves to sing. He's on the choir at school but he also loves to sing in the church choir, both the ward, and the stake choir, whenever he gets a chance. He has also taken his piano playing to a whole different level this year. One day last week I came home and the beauty of the piece he was playing on the piano almost took my breath away. He has been very dedicated about practicing this year and it has paid off. Almost all of his pieces he is learning now are classical pieces and they sound wonderful. I never have to ask him to practice, in fact, sometimes we have to ask him to please not practice so that we can have a moment of silence. :) He is equally dedicated about school, loves science, is very good at math and adores literature. He's planning on taking AP European History next year because he's very determined to do well in school and get scholarships for college. He's warm and loving and when he gives you a hug you just sort of want to melt.
(*this last photo of Brennan is of him doing his best portrayal of a nerd for show choir - they performed a number and had to dress as nerds...Scout shorts are pretty much perfect for pulling off the nerd look)


Both Brennan and Jordan are planning on doing Swim team again this summer, as well as Junior Lifeguarding. Jordan will be going to Girl's Camp and is excited about that and Brennan is going to both Boy Scout Camp and on a 3 day Pioneer Trek in the mountains (Jordan isn't old enough to go, which she is bummed about) - Kirk is also planning on taking Brennan on a fishing trip with Ken in June.



Does it sound like I'm bragging about my children? Yeah, I kind of am - it's just that they are worth bragging about, and I thought you might all like a little update on what's going on with them.

Michael the Mountain Man

Oh, how innocent and cute.

A little tired after living off the land and wrestling bear.

Always ready to defend himself.

A mountian man came to his school. Michael loved it. They then had a day when they could dress up as a native American or a mountain man.

Putting a new toy together.

A remote R2-D2. It is alot of fun to play with.

Michael Is Ten

Actually, he has been ten for over a month. For his birthday, he had some friends over for donuts, ice cream sandwiches, and pizza. He loved picking out his dounuts, all 12 of them for 4 kids.

London was Awesome

Our trip to London was fabulous!

We were able to visit all the major sites via bus the first day.

The second day the kids and Kirk went ice skating in the moat at the Tower of London! We saw the crown jewels and did the tour of the Tower. We took a quick trip to Harrods and saw ridiculous items like a $800,000 watch!

We visited several museums while we were there (Art museums) - we spent an entire day at The British National Gallery, and then another day at both the Tate and the Tate Modern. We saw some amazing things! Too bad they won't let you take pictures so we can't really share.

We took a trip out of town and toured Windsor Castle, Stone Henge and Bath, where the ancient roman baths are located. It was super cool!

On New Years it just all got ridiculously awesome. A guy Kirk knew on his mission set us up at the best seats to the best fireworks show in the world. We were on the Thames, right across from Big Ben (on the 150th anniversary of Big Ben as well!) standing almost right underneath the London Eye while crazy fireworks (millions of dollars of fireworks) were being shot off left and right all around us. It was almost insane that they let anyone stand there at all. It was just awesome!

We took the tube everywhere - one day we took it to Camden Lock, shopped around in the little stalls and on the streets and then Kirk went looking for a Banksy and found one. That was a highlight of the trip for us all!

One day we spent going to both Wicked and Les Miserable and eating in London's China Town.

We also spent some time eating street food, at a chip shop, pubs and managed to even catch some rides at a London Street Carnival.

We could not have had a better trip if we had planned it all out in advance!

Ashley's 12th Birthday Party

Her birthday tree. We have never had a birthday tree, but the girls thought it was a fun idea. It was upatairs by their rooms.

Her friends decorated her cake. Cute.

But they weren't finished....

The finished product. Yes, there is cake under there. Actually, it didn't taste too bad, until you bit into the fruit snacks that were on top.

Ashley loves being 12, especially because she is out of primary and into Young Women. I think there are 15 beehives in our ward. She said that their classroom was too small on Sunday, so they moved them into a bigger room, and they still bearly fit. She is enjoying the violin, even when she goes at 7:70am on Mondays.

Jessica is now 14!!!

Jessica's bithday party. I baked the cake , but let her friends decorate it. It was a lot of fun. Her friends got a kick putting anything on it they wanted to.

Ashley and Jessica had their party together. They each took turns with their friends to decorate their birthday tree.

I finally downloaded pictures from my camera, all 556 of them. So hopefully over the next week or two I will be putting some of them on the blog. Some of these pictures I took, a lot of them the kids took.

We had a fantastic Christmas. Overall, it was relaxing and we had a lot of mornings we slept in. Eric was off work the whole time the kids were home and that was a lot of fun. I didn't make too many chocolates this year. Which meant we didn't gain as much weight this year as last year.

Our family goal this year is to be healthier as a family. I should say that this is not the kids goal, just Eric and mine. So we are having everyone get up at 5:30 each moning to excercise. We are also getting rid of a lot of the treats and snacks and actually I am cooking much smaller dishes for dinner. Instead of making dinner in a 9 by 13 pan I am making it in a 9 by 9 and adding fruits and vegtables. We are hoping that this last longer than a few weeks. If we could keep it up for a whole year, we would be in such great shape.