Dustin's Handiwork!

On Saturday as Kelly was getting ready to go run some errands with Dustin she had to go back into the house to get one more thing and left Dustin, Lauren and Katelyn in the car. Shortly after getting in the house Katelyn came running in the house yelling "Mom, mom! Come see what Dustin did!"

A bit alarmed that Dustin might have hurt himself Kelly ran out in the garage to determine the cause of the commotion. She found that Dustin had been playing in the passengers front seat and hit his head on the front window creating a nice big star of cracks in the windshield (see the picture to the right). Poor Dustin was so worried that he was in trouble he keep saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, ..." while Kelly was trying to figure out if he was okay. She checked him a couple of times and didn't find any big bumps on his head or dilated pupils. Here is Dustin's explanation below.

Whitney summed it up very well in the end when she said "I always knew that kid had a hard head."

Easter Festivities

We had a great Easter!! It started on Saturday morning when the easter bunny made an early visit to our house to hide the easter candy and baskets for us. That inventive little easter bunny had set out a yarn trail for each of the kids that they had to follow around the house, weaving through the bannister, out in the garage, behind couches in order to find their easter baskets. We had each of the kids go one by one and they had great time following the easter bunny trail. We took a video of each of them but they are kind of long so we'll have to see if they make it to the blog.

We also had a great morning of coloring easter eggs! I included a picture of Dustin holding our football easter egg. He thought that was pretty cool and I was afraid that at any moment he was going to throw a long bomb!

On Sunday the kids got dressed in their easter clothes and we took this great picture just before we left to got to stake conference. They created a new stake in the Twin Cities and as part of the shifts and moves we will be moving from the Oakdale Stake to the St. Paul Stake.

In the afternoon we got together with some friends and had a great Easter dinner and easter egg hunt in the backyard. Here are a few more photos of our hunt.
I think I had the most fun after we were able to come home and relax as a family. The kids had been wanting to play baseball all weekend so we took a little time to play a family game of baseball which was a lot of fun. We even has some neighbors join in.

Hope your easter was a great time to reflect on the life and sacrifice of our Savior as well as spend time with family and loved ones.

Dustin's Hopes and Dreams

In the car yesterday Dustin was telling me all about what he wants to be when he grows up. I'll let him tell you about it.

Skiing and Funny Faces

Whitney has picked up skiing this month. As part of a class field trip Whitney's class went to to a local ski hill, Afton Alps, and went skiing for the day. Turns out that Whitney really enjoyed it so her and Dad went skiing again last Saturday and had a blast! Sorry no pictures of the skiing - here is one of us sledding the back yard.

Believe it or not this is the first time that I have ever skied in Minnesota--it was such a shock to go from skiing in Utah to the small hills in Minnesota that I could bring myself to go skiing here until almost 12 year later (lost time). Whitney did a great job going down easy and medium slopes while I got to go down some black diamonds and prove that I still have it! We had a great time and Kelly and I have already discussed getting the other kids out skiing sometime. Maybe some day we'll have a tradition like the Andersons of skiing all day Christmas day.

We do have two snowboards that the kids will use in the backyard on our sledding hill. Katelyn is getting pretty good at it so we'll see where that takes us.

On the lighter side we took this funny video of Dustin and Lauren making funny faces after seeing Madagascar 2 the other day. These two are quite the pair with all the things they dream up. Rare is that day that I don't come home to a new fort begin built some where in the house with any material they can find. Sofa cushions seem to be their favorite materials right now.

Glasses for Whitney

Whitney got glasses this week. She had a friend that got glasses during the summer and she told me she thought it would be cool to have glasses. Then shortly after school started she mentioned she couldn't see the board very well. I thought she just wanted glasses because her friend had them. It wasn't until I took her for a check up and they tested her vision that I realized she wasn't kidding. Anyway, it took us a while to get in to see the Optometrist and sure enough she needed glasses. Am I a good mom or what? Next time I won't be quite as skeptical. Her glasses are really cute and she looks good in them as you can see from the picture. Katelyn says they make her look "smartacle". Whatever that is.

Ice Fishing and Winter Carnival

If you can't beat 'it, join 'it. That's what we say about the weather in Minnesota. A couple of weeks ago we had weather as cold at -40 with the wind chill and several days where the day time high never got above zero. So you can either cry about it or get out and find some way to enjoy it!

This last Saturday one of the ways we enjoyed it was by going out and doing some ice fishing!! One of my friends from work had a get together and brought his ice house, snow mobile and four wheeler. It also happened to be a day where the temperature got up to 45 degrees--break out the shorts and flip flops! So Whitney, Lauren and Dustin and I got in the car and drove out on the ice. Turns out the ice was about two and half feet thick. Plenty thick to even drive a dump truck on. As a matter of fact I saw on the news the other day they moved a house accross the lake. They just jacked it up the 60-ton house on a few trailers and on some trailers and moved it across the frozen lake about 15 miles from our house! Here is a link to the video!http://wcco.com/watercooler/house.moving.ice.2.919794.html

Of course Dustin's favorite part was riding on the snow mobile. We had all four of us on the snowmobile cruizing around the lake with Dustin yelling "faster, faster" and "Ready, set, go" every time we stopped. We also played some snow golf and played with a dog that was running around (it took Lauren about 30 min until she was willing to pet the dog).

Also during last Saturday St. Paul had it's annual Winter Carnival Celebration. One of our favorite things to do is to go look a the ice carving sculptures that are created as part of the carnival. On this particular Saturday it was -5 so we only hung around for an hour or so and didn't stay to watch the parade later that day in the freezing temperatures. Here is a few pictures of our favorite scupltures.

Back in Time to Tom Gibbon Teeny Bopper Days

Okay so this is a late post but it is one that I have been intending to write since this summer when we visited Cheyenne Wyoming on our summer trip. We hit Cheyenne about dinner time while driving back to Minnesota from a family reunion in Bear Lake.



Now Cheyenne has been described to me as a cowboy town out in the middel of know where. But for us it is also the home town of Tom Gibbons our brother-in-law (married to Becky). So we called up Tom and asked him where we should take the family for dinner as we quickly passed through town. Now Tom hasn't lived in Cheyenne for many years so his recommendations where a little rusty. However he did tell us about a Taco Johns next the state capital that he use to work at as a young cow poke. So after feeding the family at a local Sonic we headed over to the Taco Johns to relive a little slice of Tom Gibbon's life.



Once we got there Tom told us that he had created a menu item that still might be on the menu. It was called the the Super Ole and when Kelly saw it she called it a "Gut Bomb." Of course we had to order one and try it out to experience the culinary genius of young Tom. Imagine making nachos with every imaginable topping but instead of using chips you use tater totes. We had each kid try a bit and it got some mixed reviews. I personally thought it was a fantastic gut bomb creation and it took me back to my teenage days when I could have eaten the whole thing without any health implications. Unfortunately those days have passed but for one night in Cheyenne we got to relive them. Yee-Haa!!!


By the way, Kelly wants me to make sure that everyone knows that Todd is writting this. I think she might be imbarassed by this post...oh, well.