January & February Before COVID

We learned that Bo is a snow dog! He LOVES playing in the snow and eating it. We had a couple snowstorms this winter and he was excited with everyone.

Miss Smarty Pants Maddy was asked to be on the Academic Team for her school. She has had weekly practices after school, and she is on the written tests team and the Future Problem Solving team (FPS). For the written test portion she just takes tests, but for the FPS her team is given a problem and they have to come up with a solution in 1 hour, and present a plan to a panel. Her team won first place in the FPS category and went to regionals, but Maddy got sick and wasn't able to go so they had to call the understudy to replace her. She was devastated.

I love this girl's creativity-this is her Valentine box.

We celebrated Bo's 6th birthday on February 12th. 

Rylan tried out for Winter Percussion and was asked to play the timpani kettle drums this year. They practiced all of January and February and got in at least one competition before everything shut down because of Covid. They wouldn't allow videography for some violation law, so I could only take pictures but he was so into the music, bouncing to the beat, playing those drums, and from what we could tell he didn't mess up. It was so fun to watch him! They tied for 1st place!

Scott took Madelyn to a daddy-daughter dance at her elementary school. I volunteered to help the photographer at the dance so I could spy on their cuteness. 

We had the absolute pleasure of taking Maddy to the temple as a family. Her first time was with me and the youth but the 2nd time we were all able to go together and our ward provided babysitting across the street at the Stake Center for Ian.  Rylan was baptized by a guy in our ward who had just done his children, then Rylan baptized both me, and Madelyn and Scott did the confirmations. It was so pleasant and peaceful there, I loved being in the temple with my kids. We printed off some names from family search and brought them.  We stopped at DQ on the way and got home around 9:30pm. We left the house at 5:30, so going to the temple to do baptisms is a 4-hour thing, but so worth it.

There was a tornado that went through Nashville (about two hours away) that devastated a lot of communities in early March. Our stake was asked to send 150 volunteers this to help with clean up. They needed chainsaws to help clear the roads and get trees off of houses. Scott was born to do this!

Scott and Rylan left at 6 am, two other guys met at our house to caravan and ride in Scott’s truck. Scott was asked to pull the scout trailer and people stopped by the night before to put in some of their tools and supplies. They were meeting at a stake center to get instructions. There is a FEMA app that posts with a map places that need help, you claim it and get directions to the place, do the work, you unload the trash along the street, but it has to be sorted by building material, trees, garbage, household goods etc., A truck will come along and pick up all the trash later.  Then when you finish you can claim another spot. They went to an apartment complex that had trees down all over the place that they chopped up and removed.  I asked the guy that rode with them (who is the EQ president and my buddy from ward council) to take pictures of my boys for me.

 On day two they went to a subdivision and cleaned up some houses. The path of the tornado was selective in who it destroyed, a house would be perfectly fine, then next door the house would be in complete shambles. Entire sides of houses were torn off making it look like a dollhouse, Scott and Rylan told us all about it, but they were sensitive to the kids and told me more after they went to bed. Rylan found two discs in a pile of a house, one said family photos and the other had a name and a phone number. He called the phone number and asked if she would like these discs back, he explained where he was and the owner of the discs had lived 14 miles away!  How in the world did they travel all that way! The owner said she didn't need them anymore and that they could be thrown away. But Rylan felt so bad that he is going to try and send the pictures to her somehow, but the discs are so damaged he might not even be able to read them.  They talked to an elderly man whose house lost pieces of his roof but was otherwise fine. He came out and helped them clean up some of his neighbors' houses, he told them all about each neighbor pointing to each house. One house had three people that died in it during the tornado. This was a very humbling experience for Scott and Rylan, I don’t think they will ever forget it and they hope to go back and help because there is so much more to do.