EASTER

K-Kai Kahu Elli E Bailey (OK, someone help me out on the spelling?)

We had a great big celebration at our home for Easter. After all, this is the MOST significant event in Christianity. Even though we make a bigger deal out of Christmas, it is really Easter that has all the significance. Before diving into the wonderful food, we had a family spiritual experience, mom telling about a YW event, then Terrell sharing her testimony of the improvement in her life and her relationship with the Savior since she was baptized, exactly one year ago to the day! It was moving. A few more of us spoke and there was a wonderful spirit with us, a very nice Easter gift from the Lord.

We had 22 of us there. For us, it was mom, me, Nick w/ Hannah, Zac & Dustin. Then we had David and Terrell, Sarah, Carrie & Kai along with Debbie (yeah--finally got her back, way to go Dave!). We had both grandmas, Thelma and Mary. Then we had all of Ora and Troy's family, with Chadler, Sierra, Hayden & Zoee as well as Troy's mom Betty and her husband Arlo Young (great name). Here are pictures, hope you enjoy them. We enjoyed making them happen!

Dakota and David became good friends (David the canine, not David the human) And the only pictures of Dave and Terrell are here, unfortunately without their heads...

Zac & his cousin Sierra--NO CHIPPED TEETH! (private joke)

Sierra is getting pretty nice looking!

My sis and me

Troy, Ora and mom (grandma)

Hanna decided to tape Nick's face hahaha

Sarah, Kai and Carrie

Zac & Chandler waiting for dessert

OK, it's hard to get Debbie's picture, but this was her birthday too, so here's the cake 54 yrs

Arlo & Betty Johnson Young, grandma Thelma Young!

Zoee & Sierra, crazy sisters

My favorite one of all! Grandma says "Laurrrie!"

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DAKOTA IS AT IT AGAIN

This is an alert! I will have a new post with pictures very soon. Stay tuned.

This was the Happy Easter Card Dakota and I sent out. See you soon

Spring Get Away

It seems to get more and more difficult to get a post in once you get out of the habit. Katherine, how have you managed to keep it up? I know it was a NY res, but congrats, you have done it!

Life has been pretty full. We've had missionaries in our home on Monday nights to teach a young lady and her mom. We've been to Colorado, on some of its slopes and back, all over the state on business, down to Austin to testify on eminent domain--all in all, very diverse and very fulfilling. Here are some pictures:

Sounds like, from Julie's blog, that aquarium visits were a popular item! We found it so too. This is in Denver:



I think the shark is running from Kenedi...they both have their mouths open baring their teeth...
We have learned that running from her is the best course some times, right toot?!



They have great parks in Denver and surrounds. The weather is beautiful most of the time. Ahh, lunch at the park!


Here we are at Winter Park, what a studly group!




We had the good fortune to have Dennis & Suzanne along with Brandon and Jessica come up to Audrie's for a few hours. We had a great time. Chance and Tristan became fast four year old friends too!



Monday Zac Dustin and I went to Copper Mountain. What a place! More trails with more variety than anywhere I've ever been. It got up to about 50 degrees! What fun. Of course, watch out for the yellow snow...





We pulled off a slope, pulled out the food from my camelback, and had fun putzing around in the snow!



All good things must change venue, so we brought the crew (except Craig...) back to Texas. We love the road trips in the van! Oh what fun it is to ride in a 300 HP van. Really, we did not suffer any of Scott and Julie's fun. We enjoyed the ride!

Unibomber

So Zac was trying to identify his interests today. He revealed that one of them is blowing things up. Accordingly, he built a suicide bomber out of tongue depressors and dog pillow stuffing. Here is the video of the event:

Very educational stuff!

Courage

What did the lion (in this case "lioness") want from the wizard? Courage! Well, this one's already got it for sure--she married me, that proves it! New Beginnings in YW tonight has some sort of skit acting out the WofOZ. Call her for the details. Isn't she cute in her lionesse getup? I told her she needs to put some of those lioness moves on me:-) She still has to put her whiskers on...

Awards at Scout Camp + Pinewood Derby

We had a nice campout at Cedar Hill State Park. The weather was reasonable, a bit cold, but reasonable.

We seldom camp at a real camp ground like this one, but since we had electricity, we took advantage of it to have waffles along with the standard fare of eggs and bacon.

Since all of the boys truly struggle to beat Syd (the Sloth) at fire building unless large quantities of gasoline are employed (referenced in bold print in "The Guide to Safe Scouting", though not in a positive light), we thought it would be educational to review firebuilding techniques then have a competition. The contest was to build a fire, started with no more than 3 matches, sufficient to burn through a jute string tied across two stakes 18" above the ground. Sounds simple enough, right? This is what it looked like:

As the boys contemplated the challenge, what tinder to use, how to compensate for the gale-force winds, and so forth, I considered appropriate awards. Candy can always work for kids right? But alas, they had been eating candy and junk all night! We did not need more sugar crazed boys running around with fire. As I promenaded myself about the camp ground pondering this enigma, I happened upon a small baby pacifier lying on the ground. It was in pristine condition. My first thought was, some baby and his parents are missing this! My second thought was, I can use this for an award! The notion of always awarding a prize to the winner had begun to set in my craw, and as it did, I had one of those Eureka! moments: we would make an award to the losing team, and having just acquired the necessary paraphenalia, we would give it a very special name, to be disclosed ONLY at the awards ceremony!

The three teams set about making fires. Some used small dry reeds. Others found cardboard and lit it off. One of the teams found that lowering the string might facilitate a rapid burn-thru(remember the scout law??).

So the fires were built and strings were burnt...

and whose team would come in last you ask, the dubious "winner" in my backwards event? Yes, you guessed it, my own son Zac and his two young teammates. You can imagine the eager anticipation as we made a big to-do over the heretofore "secret" prize to be given. This is all the boys lined up in Olympic podium fashion, eagerly awaiting the coveted (but as yet undisclosed) prize:

We made a great to-do over the award, then announced that the last-place team would be the recipient. Great dissatisfaction was voiced by the fastest teams until we held high in the air the prize pacifier while simultaneously announcing the the name of the award: the YOU SUCK award! There was but a very brief moment of disbelief, followed by a vociferous melange of various emotions, including though not limited to disgust/anger/angst/violence/vocal outcry/etc. by the winning loser as well as taunts, catcalls, mocking and derision from the losing winners. This pandamonium was immediately followed by Zac slamming into me with all his might, just the way a linebacker would attack a running back trying to get past him. OUch! After a brief tussle, here is a photo of the "winning" losing team. Notice Kayden (the one in green) had no issues with the new award:

The following week was what may well be the FINAL running of the pinewood derby for this Young family. Here is Dustin being issued his drivers permit for the race:

Last year Dustin was the pencil car. This year he is the guitar car, which you can see at the lower right of the photo.

While his car was not the fastest, it was not the slowest. There were many admirerers of the most unique guitar car (mostly Led Zepelin fans).

The end.

HOWDY-We're Back!

So, after a lengthy hiatus from the blogspot, I figured I better throw one out there before the month is over. We got up this morning to the site of lots of ice! The news said that it was the most since 1980 this morning, but that must have been somewhere north of here. For sure, it was icy, but not historically icy. Of course, since this is Texas, schools were out and businesses were closed. Dustin and I got out pretty early so we could enjoy the 19 degree morning and slide around a little. We jogged over to the old Walter Stephenson road past the bypass bridge. We could slide down the road great just standing on our feet! What was really fun was trying to run back up the hill in the clear ice spots-hahaha--we just sort of ran in place. It is good exercise, but don't be in a hurry. Then we took a short cut across the hwy 287 since there were almost no cars, slid on it some, then found some more good ice over by the Temple's old place. What a crack up. I am good at being a kid. I could do it every day. It sucks having to be an adult...
Here is a short video of our first attempt at riding the inflatable sled down the driveway. See you next post : )