Rebecca's birthday

26 years ago we were blessed to have a beautiful daughter. I wasn't sure she was ever going to decide to come.  Once labor was induced it didn't take too long for her to get here.

We are so grateful to blessed to have her in our family.  In honor of her 26 years I will post 26 things I love about Rebecca.

1. She works hard at staying in touch with her younger siblings. I love that she thinks of them and calls each of them on their birthday.

2. I  love her smile.

3. I love to hear her call me "Mama"

4. I love how she will burst into song at any random moment.  She has a song to go with almost any comment.

5. I love her kindness.

6. I love her courage to follow her dreams.  I know it takes courage to continually audition for shows and know you are facing rejection but doing it anyway.  I have watched her do this since she was a small girl auditioning for MCT shows. She follows her dreams beautifully.

7. I love that she loves to learn. She has got to be one of the most well-read people around.  She has always loved to learn.

8. I love her laugh. I remember once when she was watching a silly movie and literally rolled off the couch laughing.  It makes me smile to hear her laugh.

9. I love that she isn't afraid to try new things.  She now likes sushi. I don't think I will ever even try sushi.

10. I love that she loves Disney and Disneyland. I think she can thank me for that.

11. I love that she spent a whole year wearing dresses and skirts to school every day just because she wanted to give it a try.  She isn't afraid to do things differently than others.

12. I love that she grew up telling Peter Pan stories to herself.  I am glad she is content with bearing herself and didn't need anyone else's approval to be happy with herself.

13. I love that she isn't afraid to handle stressful situations.  The two times the girls have flown and missed their flights she was the one who stayed calm and helped them get on another flight.

14. I love her musical talent. I miss hearing her play the piano and the guitar.

15.  I love that she isn't afraid to let her feelings show.  Sky high or in the depths of despair, I am grateful she lets me know how she is feeling.

16. I love that she knows how to fold paper boats.  I don't know how to fold a paper boat.  One time she and Bethany filled the whole ping pong table with very small paper boats. They used the advertising pages out of Readers Digest.  It took them quite awhile to fold them all.

17. I love that she loves Shakespeare.  I took a Shakespeare class in college, but she knows the stories much better than I ever have.  The girls used to use the castle people to act out the plays as they read them together.

18. I love that she likes to bake. One year we enjoyed the cookies that she made every Friday.

19.  I love that she is a true friend. She stands by her friends and is willing to help them out.

20. I love that she dreams big.

21.  I love that she is willing to do things with the younger children.  I have a picture in my mind of her sitting in the sandbox with Joshua when she a senior in high school. Josh and Lydia love that she and Justin took them to the aquariam.

22. I love that she has a sensitive spirit. Since the time that she was very small she had a sense of right and wrong and wanted to do the right thing.

23. I love that she sings along with the radio. When she was at home she would race in from the car and turn the radio on to finish singing along with a song.  Now the radio always stays on the same station and no one changes it.

24.  I love that Rebecca is willing to share what she is learning about.

25. I love to talk with Rebecca. She is fun to listen to when she gets exited about something.

26.  I love that Rebecca is happy. She looks for the good in people and is a happy person.

I love you, Rebecca! Thanks for making me a mama and learning and sharing this family journey with us.  Happy Birthday!! Love, Mom

TIMBER

We had a tree in our backyard that died before we moved in.  We were just going to leave it there for now, but then we decided to buy a trampoline. We needed the space where the tree was to be able to fit the trampoline where we wanted it.  We went out and looked and decided we could take it down ourselves.  It was kind of tall, but not too big.  It was fairly close to our house and not too far from the fence.  We wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall on the house, the fence or the neighbor's house.  We thought if we could tie a rope up pretty high we could control where it would fall. 

Neil climbed up and put a loop around the tree.  We tied the rope around another tree to hold the top tight and pull it the way we wanted it to go.  I am happy to say that our plan worked pretty well. We got the tree down and didn't damage anything.  It did brush the decorative light pole in the backyard, but we were going to take it out anyway.

Neil cut part way through the tree about 5 feet below the rope.  When he had it partly cut through Neil, Dallin and I helped pull on the rope to rock the top of the tree loose.  As it came down we pulled on the rope to guide it where we wanted it to fall.

After we got the top down Neil did the same thing to the trunk to get it down.  I was going to go back out and help but he did it on his own.  About the time he was getting the trunk down our neighbor, Brother O'Brien, let Neil borrow a chainsaw to cut all the tree up.  We all helped carry the wood out of the yard.  It is amazing how many sticks a tree has.

I was grateful that we were able to do it ourselves and safely.

A quick trip to Utah with Joshua

Joshua had the opportunity to participate in a study about congenital heart defects and brain development. The study paid for plane tickets and even paid him $100 for his time.  We decided it was a good thing to be a part of so Joshua and I flew to Utah on Thursday, June 21 and stayed until Saturday, June 23.  Joshua was excited to fly for his first time.

He decieded that he didn't really like being up that high. I think the airplane ride made him feel just a little motion sick.  He did like the snack that he got on the airplane. He was glad to land and see Grandpa and Grandma.  We went to Bountiful and had dinner at Robintino's to celebrate my birthday.  It was fun to take Joshua on an adventure. He was a good traveling companion. We had fun together.

Tender Mercies and moving

Well, it seems I let May get away without posting anything.  This seems to be a habit with me. I guess May must be a busy month around here.  This year it was even busier than normal because we moved into town.   There is quite a story behind us moving and how it all worked out so I will do my best to share it here.

It all started with us spending the 2015-16 school year in Virginia. I loved living in town while we were there. I really am a town sort of person. I love to walk or bike instead of driving places. When we came back I really missed being in town.  We thought of several options that we could do to move to town, but none of them seemed quite right or worked out.

In April 2017 I went visiting teaching to Helen House who lives on Mountain View St right up the road from Martha's house.  I parked across the street and saw a for sale sign in front of a house I had always thought was pretty from the outside.  I had the thought that I should look online when I got home and see more about the house.  I thought it probably wasn't big enough for our family and that it would cost too much, but I looked anyway.  I was surprised that it was bigger than our Henry Road house and was listed at $295,000. I loved the house so I asked Neil if we could look at it.  We came and looked at it and really liked it.  Candi, the real estate agent, told us there were several people interested in it and would probably sell that summer.  I was disappointed because we weren't ready to put our house on the market yet.

We talked about it and decided to put our house up for sale by owner.  First we had to fix a couple of broken windows. Neil also wanted to reshingle the roof.  We worked on those projects and posted our house on zillow.com.  We didn't get any calls from people interested in our house.  We decided to lower the price and list it with an agent in July.  We also made an offer on the Mountain View house contingent on us selling our house.

We showed it several times, but nothing too much was happening with selling our house.  I had pretty much given up on getting the Mountain View house because in October our offer expired and the house was foreclosed on.  It was off the marker for a time.

In January the listing for our Henry Road house was done.  The last day it was on the market someone called about wanting to see it. We said ok, but didn't really have much hope for the showing.  Long story short...the people liked it and made an offer.  We didn't accept it because the Mountain View house still wasn't listed and we didn't want to go just anywhere.

In February the same family, the Stovalls, sold their house in California and wanted to know if we were willing to sell to them now. We still said no.  I am sure they were disappointed.

The end of March Candi called me and said that the Mountain View house was on the market again and the bank had reduced the price to $210,900.  I said thanks, but I didn't think we would be interested in doing it.  I told Neil about it and he said he was interested at that price.  We had Dirk Cozzens come and look at it with us to see if the plumbing would take too much work to fix because of the frozen pipes. He told us he didn't think it would be too much to fix it so we made an offer on the house.

Candi said she would call and see if the Stovalls were still looking for a house. When she called they just happened to be in Powell from California to try and find a house.  They looked at ours again and made an offer. We countered and they accepted.  It was amazing to see how it all worked out in the Lord's time and plan. In two days we offered on the Mountain View house and sold our Henry Road house. 

We closed on the Mountain View house on April 25 and the Henry Road house the middle of May. We had to close on the Mountain View house first so the plumbing could be fixed before we moved in.  The plumbing was fixed on the 4th of May and we spent that night in our new home.  We took several weeks to move everything out and clean the Henry Road house. It was nice to do it ourselves and have the time we needed to get it done.

We weren't able to close as soon as we hoped on the Henry Road house because of banking policies in California, but it still all worked out.  When we talked with the Stovalls they told us they just knew our house was the one they were supposed to get.  They were disappointed when we didn't sell the first time, but the timing was better in March for them also.

I loved our Henry Road house and all the projects Neil did for me. It was hard to leave, but it felt like the right thing to do.  I love the Mountain View house. It has more space in the house, but not as much yard to take care of.  I am so grateful that we were able to see the hand of the Lord in our lives as we waited for it to all work out. At times I doubted my ability to listen to the spirit because I was so sure we were supposed to move into this house and it just wasn't working out.  I cried  over it several times. Neil was patient with me and helped me work through it. I had decided to just be happy where I was in the Henry Road house and then it all worked out. I know the Lord has a plan for us and He knows our desires.  I hope to remember the lessons I learned has I waited and hoped for things to work out.

Just yesterday we saw another tender mercy that the sprinkler system was not as damaged as we thought it would be over the winter. It works without Neil having to do much work, that is totally amazing.

I have loved being in town. The location is perfect. Close to Westside Elementary, the Church, a park, and Northwest are all within a couple of blocks.

Here are pictures of the outside of the two houses. 

660 Mountain View St

729 Henry Road

Rocket Launch 2018

This year the cub scouts did a rocket launch activity instead of the traditional pine wood derby. The boys had a great time in several stations. I was asked to go and help. It was fun to be there with Joshua. David and Dallin were also there to help.  The leaders had treats for the boys, took their picture, had a relay race to put on space equipment and race around the world, and they got to make their own rocket to launch.  The rockets were made out of paper rolled tightly and sealed with tape.  They used an air compressor to launch the rockets. It was a lot of fun to see how high they went. Several ended up on the church roof and the boys had to make a new one. It was a great activity.

Here are some videos of Joshua's two launches. 

Priest and Laurel formal dance 2018

Emma went to the Priest and Laurel Formal dance, but she only went for the dinner part. She didn't really have any desire to go to the dance.  She looked beautiful. I had fun doing her hair.  I hope she had fun and enjoyed a delicious dinner.

Robotics Club

Dallin had the opportunity to take part in the Robotics club at Westside this year.  He and his partner built a robot to sweep things up. It took a lot of thinking and tinkering to get their robot todo what they wanted it to. I am glad he had the opportunity. Robotics teaches good problem-solving. It doesn't always come together the first time you try. It teaches you to keep working and thinking. Here are a  couple of videos of their robot in action.