Missionaries!

We have good news! We just received some missionaries that will be serving in our Deaf Branch! Maybe you have heard that we now have a St. George mission. The mission president lives about five minutes from us. Rick has been trying for awhile to get missionaries here to serve in our branch and the news of a new mission here provided him with just the motivation to push things along.

Well, we have good news and bad news. The good news is...we just got missionaries!! The bad news is -- they are not deaf and do not know sign language. Well, one of them has had a few years of High School sign language (which is why they chose him to be transferred to our area) but he is a little rusty. His companion doesn't know anything beyond the alphabet. But they are jumping in with both feet (and hands) and we will be praying for a miracle of the gift of tongues (hands). We know the lord will bless them and this area.

I didn't know until the morning session of conference ended that they were coming over for lunch, but luckily I already had a big turkey dinner planned and so we had plenty of food. They also brought two other elders with them. Rick decided that our lunch should be "sign language" only -- no talking. I think he is really into this "baptism by fire" thing. As you can imagine, it was a very quiet lunch. . The nice thing about sign language meals is that our children are also very quiet. So after eating and struggling to communicate Rick finally announced that everyone could talk again. Suddenly everything became noisy. Then Rick assigned the elders the mountain of dishes. Thanks Elders! And thanks to Janika for lending them your aprons!

They stayed for the second session of conference and a yummy dessert of apple crisp and vanilla ice-cream. We also dove into Jenna's birthday cake (sadly she was asleep but we saved her a piece!) The missionaries were right down on the floor playing with the kids who lapped up the attention. It will be nice to have missionaries around. Rick has often bemoaned the fact that you just don't get to know the missionaries in Utah. He got very close to certain members on his mission and still maintains those deep friendships to this day.

Welcome Elders!!

Janelle's Presentation

In Janelle's second grade class, each student was given an assignment to interview and make a poster presentation on a member of his or her family, or friend. Janelle chose to do hers on Janika. Actually at first she was going to do it on Jase. She even interviewed him with intriguing questions such as, "Have you ever been in love?" "Did you have friends when you were two?" and "Have you ever been to a chocolate factory?"

But I am glad that she switched to Janika. No offense Jase, it is just that "my sister gives me manicures, does my hair, and bakes me cookies" sounds a whole lot more sweet and sentimental than "my brother scares me with his fake skeleton, gets irritated and rolls his eyes when I pray too long, and grumbles at me when I can't keep up with him on the Wii." Not that she said any of those things -- but it happens. Now in his defense, I realize that Janelle could have also come up with many wonderful things to say about Jase.

But since she has always had a sweet sisterly bond with Janika, I think it made for a nice presentation. It was fun to watch her give her talk about her big sister. She obviously idolizes her. Janelle was animated, verging on silly -- not a speck of intimidation or shyness in her skinny little body. Great job Belle!

Jaiden's First Grade Class

Each of the classes at our school started out the school year with an Intern from Korea and each week the Interns switched classes. Our kids seemed to really grow fond of their sweet Interns and would tell me all of the exiting things they learned about Korea. Jaiden came home one day with a folded paper fan -- her neat written in Korean along the side. Janelle came home one day with a sweet little note written to her (in English) from her Intern in small, precise, beautiful print. Each of the Interns chose an "American" name such as "Miss Lucy,"or "Miss Monica," probably to make it easier for the kids to pronounce. Here is a class picture with Miss Lucy. Now all of the Interns have returned to Korea. We hope they all become wonderful teachers someday. Our kids miss them.

Picture Posting Problems

Okay, so I went to post some pictures this morning and a different set up pops up.  When I click on upload picture it shows it is loading but then it never loads.  Has anyone else had any trouble?  I tried to save the old editor but that doesn't work either. Frustrating!

Swiss Days Parade

The parade started and Josh said in a disappointing voice, "Is this a watching parade?" "Yes, aren't all parades watching parades?" He was getting really worried when four or five groups went by and no candy. "No -- I mean, will we get candy?" I assured him they probably would, and they did -- but not as much as the last parade they went to. We were at the end of the parade route and many candy-throwers had simply run out. Much of the candy tossed out was the red and white mints and other red hard-tack candy that is spicy. My kids don't like spicy candy and so they were a bit disappointed that they didn't get their usual haul. But I am perfectly okay with not having a ton of candy around. The kids still had fun and were excited to see Tarzan and Jane and the comic strip characters and darth vadar. Meanwhile Jase and Jared set up a booth on route to Swiss Days near our home selling home-made hats, capri-sun bags, water-bottles, and popsicles. I think they made about $15.00.

Swiss Days 5K

I just had to hurry and post our times on the Swiss Days 5K before we lose the cards...

Jared got 26:54.7
Wendy got 27.35.6
Jase got 31.37.3

This is Jared's first time running a 5K (and he hasn't done any training at all) and so he did awesome! I was also excited about my time too because I beat my last year's time by three minutes! My goal was to get under 30 minutes and I did it with time to spare. Woo hoo! Jase also beat his last year's time by two minutes. Great job boys!

Tarzan

Friday night we brought the family to see "Tarzan" at Tuacahn. It is a fun show with lots to see. It was Deaf and Hard of Hearing night and so the deaf community was able to get in for a discounted rate. Tonight's performance was completely sold-out. I had the CD to prepare for interpreting and so the younger kids already had all of the songs memorized. This is the first time we have brought Josh and he did great! Although he wouldn't get in any of the pictures with the characters afterwards. Since we knew he would be up way past his bed-time we made sure he took a good nap earlier in the afternoon. It took a while for him to fall asleep since he hasn't napped for well over a year, but he eventually gave in. All of the kids enjoyed the show and the deaf group really seemed to enjoy it as well.

Janika's friend, Madison, baby-sat Jenna while we were gone. She said that Jenna was good but when the Swiss Days' fireworks started she woke up saying, "scawey, scawey!"

The bottom picture shows a little friend we saw next to the water feature. The kids thought seeing a taratula was almost as exciting as seeing Tarzan.