Desert Rats

Living in the desert does have some advantages. You can wear shorts and play soccer on Christmas.  You can barbecue in January. Little things that are mundane to the rest of the world are exciting here. Case in point-rain. This morning we caught a fairly good rainstorm complete with lots of dark clouds and thunder. As soon as it got dark, the boys ran to windows to see what would happen.  As the rain started to fall, you would have thought it was Christmas from all the squealing and cheering and jumping up and down. My boys love the rain. They think it is the coolest thing EVER! Let's hope they still think it is cool after 2 weeks straight of rain...

William is not pleased to learn that I can not change the temperature of the rain

They're trying to eat the rain, the way the Peanuts gang eats snowflakes

Nathaniel decided to hang out inside, dry and stylish

Hockey pros already,eh?

What a bunch of goobers.  Jeffrey is so excited to have lost a tooth.  Now he can be the same as Seth... I think they will fit in up North just fine.

Miracles

So things are starting to fall into place.  It has gotten pretty scary at times, wondering if we were going to make a move without a house in which to live. Every time it looked like we were making some progress, some other unforeseen obstacle popped up. So officially as of yesterday we have a place to stay!  This is where it gets good. The past few years it has been difficult to attend the temple as much as we would like- babysitters scared of our boys, unfriendly work schedules, difficult pregnancies, you name it.  Bryant and I were hoping and praying that we could be closer to the temple. After the perfect house with a great location fizzled out we got pretty sad. Then a miracle happened.  A place that would be better for us in the immediate future opened up, it will have less overhead expenses and is literally around the block from the new Calgary temple. Now I know that generally the term miracle is applied to a life saving event or something involving nature but for our family this is a miracle. The Lord in His generosity not only gave us a home that we could not obtain on our own effort, He also gave us our greatest secret desire. And isn't that a miracle too?  The boys thought so... they started singing and dancing around like this:

home schooling

Head of the class!

We have been homeschooling this year. While it was not something that we originally planned on it has brought us countless blessings and lots of bonus smiles. Case in point: Seth and I were finishing his last state mandated reading/phonics test and were on the computer working away.  I had asked Jeffrey and Ethan to play quietly down stairs. I guess I should have done better when it was quiet and they stayed downstairs for longer than I asked. When Ethan came up, this is how he looked. SO... the lessons today learned are "silent e" creates a long vowel sound and baby formula should not be snorted. Gotta love homeschool :-)

Easter Sunday

Easter is a big deal in our home. It is the time to remember the Atonement, ponder it and refocus our commitment to allow it to work and bless our daily lives.  Perhaps it is why during this season it is easier for Bryant and I to see some of the tender mercies that our graciously sent our way.  This chapter of our lives is, to the say the least, challenging.  After a long weekend, wondering if what we were striving to teach our children was sinking in, an answer came in a most unexpected way.  All the kids were asleep- a know a rare occurrence- and then I heard something.  It sounded like one of the boys was singing.  They know that is they are sad or scared to sing a song.  So I went to see if the boy was ok.  He was sound asleep, singing.  And what was he singing, with gusto I might add? I BELIEVE IN CHRIST

I hope all of our testimonies of Christ may be so deep, so innocent and pure, that we do can sing in our sleep.

Happy Easter everyone.  May we feel this love and peace everyday

In the beginning...

I guess it is rather cliche to start this adventure with that phrase, but I would like to think of it in a different way.  That phrase is how one of the most important collection of sacred experiences begins. While not all of the experiences I hope to share on here will be able to classify as sacred, to me they are just as important.  This is a remembrance of the comings and goings, the life, of our family.  And family to me is sacred.