Our Trip to Utah, Part 1

I took David, Michael, and A.J. to visit Mandi and her family in Utah during spring break. Here are some pictures of some interesting things we saw during our drive to and from Utah.

A lemonade stand shaped like a lemon.

A Dancing Statue of Liberty.

And our all-time favorite, Zzyzx Road. I wish we had a Zzyzx Road near us when I was a child and was searching for those hard to find letters in the alphabet game!

The kids in the car.

God's Creations.

These pictures do not capture the full beauty of each scene,

but I wanted to share them nonetheless.

Most of these are of the Virgin River Gorge in Arizona, with a few of St. George, Utah, and finally, the sunset in the deserts of Southern California.

A Trip to the Dog Park

John works a good friend who has 5 dogs. We went to the dog park with him and his wife earlier this week, so the kids could play with their dogs. We had a great time!

Michael's First Scout Rank... Done!

Michael received his Tenderfoot badge at a Boy Scout Court of Honor this past Tuesday. It was a small court of honor with only the 11 year-old scouts and their parents. Here are some pictures.

Michael's Team WON!

Michael has been competing in the 6th Grade Basketball competition at school. His team has won every game and competed in the grand championship between the best 5th grade team and the best 6th grade team. It was a good game, and all players worked hard, but Michael's team won. Here are some photos.

Michael is blocking the other team's player in this photo.

Michael's team posing with their medals.

Michael humoring me for one more picture.

David has earned the NEW Boy Scout Welding Merit Badge

David's Boy Scout troop had a neat opportunity to be one of the first Boy Scouts to earn the brand, spankin' new Welding Merit Badge. Also, I've been told that they will be on the cover of the new merit badge book. They went to College of the Canyons and learned to weld. Here are some photos.

Finally! I went to a Spirit Assembly!

On Thursday last week while working at the elementary school, Michael's teacher told me that he was going to receive an award the following day at the Spirit Assembly. YEAH! I was finally able to attend one for one of my boys this school year.



Michael was honored for his high scores on his language and math benchmark tests. We are so proud of him! Here are some pictures. A few are not great, but Michael was smiling in them, so I included them. He doesn't like to smile in pictures, so I really appreciate the ones with a genuine smile.

Iowa State Supreme Court's Ruling Institutes Same Sex Marriage in Iowa

About 10 years ago, the people of Iowa enacted a law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Today, the Iowa State Supreme Court declared that law unconstitutional. Same gender marriages may begin in Iowa as soon as 3 weeks from today.

To read more, here's a link to the New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/04iowa.html?bl&ex=1238904000&en=e70ffe2956e3a3c3&ei=5087%0A

I was talking to my mom about the CA ballot proposition (prop 8), and said that this would become a national issue very soon. Well, it's here. It's something we should be talking about as a nation rather than saying, "Well, that's in California or Massachusettes, etc."