We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

Rylan is quite the funny kid! He has said some hilarious things lately. Ok the first was when Scott took Rylan to the movies in Scott's 1968 Chevy truck (Scott inherited it from his Grandpa). As they were driving the conversation went like this: Ry: Dad when I get my license, can I have your green truck? Scott: Well maybe,why? Ry: Because girls like boys in trucks. Then last night Scott was cutting Rylan's hair super short for the summer and he gave him a mowhawk just for fun. Rylan did not like this..he started bawling when he saw it in the mirror. Then he said: "It looks scary..I don't want to look scary then Lexi won't play with me."

Scott offically has his master degree in Business Administration. Whew! I am so proud of him and all of his hard work. He graduated with a 3.8 GPA from the University of Mary in North Dakota. He has been taking online classes for the past 15 months trying to finish up. He started his degree at Boise State, but then was deployed. After his deployment he decided that he didn't want to only be home two nights a week because he was going to night classes. So he found that the University of Mary online not only would accept his BSU credits but that because he was serving in the military they offered him a scholorship for the amount that the Army couldn't pay. We are both done with school (unless I want to go back and get my masters someday) without any student loans! YAHOO! Thank you military! Scott has it up in his office in a shiny frame. Way to go baby!

We had a great weekend. We went to St. George with the Topham family. They were kind enough to invite us to stay at their grandmothers beautiful home. We arrived late Friday night and then on Saturday morning Karin and I dragged the dads and kids out of bed to go hike at Zion's National Park. Here are some pictures from our hike... this last one is of a small waterfall that was trickling down, we had to hike under it to continue on our trail. It was very cool. We were amazed by the red rock, it was so pretty and different. It was a busy day at the park so we saw a lot of hikers, but that didn't stop the wildlife from coming out. One man caught a lizard and let our kids pet it, and there was a spot where we found a ton of tadpoles. On Sunday we found a church building to go to then came home and relaxed. Then that evening we went to the home of one of Paul's friends. They lived on the most peaceful piece of property. They had horses, chickens, goats, fruit trees (the ch...

During that crazy week (from the previous post) Rylan graduated from his preschool and had two t-ball games. His graduation was so cute. They came out in little gowns and did a little program. They sang about 10 songs including this one, which Rylan was SO excited to show me. I have been trying to teach Madelyn sign language, so Rylan and I have been learning together and he has been telling me for the past couple months that he knows sign language to the song "As I Have Loved You" Then they called out each name and he recieved a cap from his teachers. Rylan loves t-ball, he is on the Boston Red Sox team. And he isn't the smallest on his team! Ok he is about the 3rd smallest, but he is grasping the concept pretty well after a couple sessions with Scott out in the back yard. During this game he got to be the pitcher and thanks to Opa's picture taking skills (and his telephoto lens) he got some great action shots.

We had quite a week last week. On Monday I went to Logan for my Grandmother's funeral. It was a nice celebration of her life. We learned that Rylan has issues with dead bodies. So we went in to see Grandma one last time and I told him that he didn't have to if he didn't want to but he said that he did so we got about 6 feet away and that is as close as he wanted to get which was fine. Then he got distracted by cousins. A couple minutes later one of the men from the mortuary kindly pulled the kids aside next to Grandma and explained that this is Grandma's body but it really isn't her, her spirit which makes up who she is, has gone. During his explanation Rylan started to wobble around, he turned around and looked at me and said out loud, "I FEEL SO WOBBLY" and his face was stark white! There was no color his his beautiful red lips, they were white. I knew something was wrong so I quickly ran to the bathroom with him (Anna thankfully took Madelyn from my arm...

Well it is officially spring here in Utah (finally) and we have been itching to get out of the house for a while now. We found a website that lists a ton of local hikes. We LOVE to hike and each hike is ranked and has a detailed explanation of how hard it is, how long it is, and what you will see. As we were going to bed last night we thought it would be a great idea to go hiking in the morning, so we found a hike and did it! Life is short, our earth is beautiful, be one with nature! Those are just a few feelings I felt as we started. Then a few things happened along the way: a crying baby, a whinny 5-year old, and still no waterfall after we had been hiking for an hour and a half. We thought we better turn around, even though we didn't get to the end of the hike for the waterfall we still had breathtaking views and a couple bonding moments with Rylan and nature(he was assigned to find 3 different types of flowers, insects, and trees)...then he fell down and skidded down some rocks...

Since Madelyn has been born we have been wanting to get family portraits, but we wanted to wait until she was a little older. Our ward friend Monica came to our rescue! I mentioned on Facebook (which is addicting) that I was looking for a photographer, and she told me that she was trying to start up a photography business and would take our pictures for free to get her portfolio going. FREE! I felt bad having her do it for free, so when she needed some sewing work to be done, I was happy to do it for her. Isn't bartering fun? So here are our favorites... Thanks Monica! Check out her website: http://www.creative-lenz.com