Quick recap of life lately:
-Marcus's Robotics team made it all the way to the state competition! During the school year his team took first overall at one competition, which qualified them for state. They also won the Creativity award. His school was divided into 8 teams with 4 students on each team. 7 of the 8 teams made it to state, and 1 of those teams (not Marcus's, sadly) qualified for the Worlds competition. Marcus was a coder on his team this year, which was great for his first year on the team. I know he would have preferred to be a driver. He learned a lot this year and is already excited for next year!
Somehow I got the job of decorating their team table at the state competition. My mom helped me and it turned out pretty good! The boys were also in a parade and carried their team banner.
-Layla ran for student body officer for 8th grade. There were 6 students running for 5 spots, then a few days before the finals were announced, one girl learned she was moving, so the remaining 5 automatically made it. Layla is stoked because the other 4 sbos for 8th grade are her good friends. I'm sure she'll enjoy it next year! She did a great job with her campaign theme. She did the movie Up! and made an adorable video and great poster.
-It has officially been snowing for 6 months. We have broken all sorts of records with snowpack, moisture, etc. this year. Now that it's starting to warm up, everyone is preparing for likely inevitable flooding. Hopefully it's not as bad as the 1983-84 season of flooding. Snowbasin ski resort is still open and extended their season to April 23rd. They have received 600" of snow this season and other resorts in Utah have received even more (Solitude 780"!). It's been quite the winter. Looooooonnnnggg. But I know many people, including us, have been praying for the snow we so desperately need to help end the drought. It will take more winters like this one, but every drop helps.
We put the trampoline up too early and have to keep shoveling all the snow off of it.
-Marcus wrote and gave an awesome talk in primary the other week. He truly wrote this all on his own accord:
"This might seem random, but when I was little I thought about two songs. "Stairway to heaven" and "highway to hell." I asked my mom why aren't they flipped. She said "Because it's harder to get to heaven then to hell." I thought about this for a long time and thought I should give a talk on it. But before I end I want to say that we can all clib that stairway to heaven if we have faith. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
As you can imagine, this brought out several emotions in us: we laughed, we were amazed at his insight, and we were proud of the depth and care he put into the talk.
He also participated in the 4th grade Utah program:
-I will be starting a new job with a counseling agency next month. I will work as a Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CMHC) intern. This means I will see clients one on one, but they will pay only half the normal fee (because I'm still an intern) and I will have weekly meetings with my mentor to go over my cases. I am SO excited! Originally, I was lined up to work with a woman who runs her own private practice in Kaysville. I was ecstatic about that because she and I seemed to be so similar and had so much in common. Unfortunately, her husband's work might be moving them to London and she isn't sure when she'll know. I have to have an internship lined up by the end of the month, so I started looking for other places and found the one I will start at next month. I'm sad to not work with her, but who knows, maybe that will work out in the future.
-Layla had a dance recital at Peery's Egyptian theater and an orchestra concert at Davis High. Both were lovely and she did beautifully!
She also bought herself a used bass guitar and has been learning to play:
-Marcus asks great questions every day. Some examples: Would you rather be a turtle leather worker or a shark tooth necklace maker? Would you rather be able to teleport or fly? Would you rather only have ketchup or bbq sauce for the rest of yoru life? The kid is creative!
He made his Valentine's box all by himself this year (a car and you put the Valentine's in the trunk).
-Speaking of Valentine's Day, we had our traditional Fancy or Silly dinner
-Layla was Junie B. Jones in her 7th grade school musical. She blew us away with her talent! She did phenomenal and was on cloud 9 afterwards (so were Mitch and I, tbh. We both rewatched her play several times and cried tears of pride every time!).
-Mitch's work is busy, busy, busy as always. He has LOVED all the snow this year and has skied more than any of us. He's also shoveled/snowblowed the driveway more than any of us. He sure works hard!
-We got a new car! The Q7 hit 100K miles and we had to unexpectedly dump $5K into it and it needed another $5K so we decided it was time to say goodbye. Mitch and I were actually sad when we left it. We made a lot of memories with that car! I drove the kids to and from California where we lived for a summer, we drove to Lake Powell twice, Lake Pend Orielle, St. George multiple times, fall break trips with friends, Zion, Jackson Hole, Moab, hauled the boat everywhere, and other places I'm sure I'm forgetting now. Lots of good memories!
So anyways, we bought a Jeep Gladiator Rubicon. Whoever owned it before us put a lot of money into it getting it outfitted and making it awesome. It is so fun to drive! We're loving it so far! We ordered side steps to make it easier to get in and out of. Hopefully that will help the kids I drive home in carpool complain less about it, haha.
-Mitch and I spend a weekend in New York! Oh man, I love that place! I love the vibe, the ease of public transportation, the people watching, the walkability, the beautiful architecture, the amazing food, all of it! My birthday and Christmas gift was this trip to see Lea Michelle in the Boradway musical, Funny Girl. Barbara Streisand was the originally Fanny Brice in Funny Girl in the 1960's and this is it's first return to Broadway, so a pretty big deal. I think Lea Michele is incredible and was so excited to see her. Unfortunately, she got sick the day of our play, so we saw it with her understudy instead. I am still sad about it even as I type this out two months later. But it's okay because we had a great weekend and now I've had the experience of seeing a Broadway play on Broadway, which did not disappoint. We also saw the statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. How I wish we still built building as beautiful as the one on Ellis Island. Those windows! The tile on the ceiling! And to think of all the history there. It makes my soul happy to be surrounded in that beauty and history. And we also ate the best Indian food we've ever had in our lives. I don't even have the words to describe it. Must go back someday. Saar Indian Bistro. Yum!
-Sometimes Layla put Harvey's leash on him that she bought him and takes him on walks:
-General Conference weekend. The message I felt the most: Be a Peacemaker.
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