12 April 2015

With both Easter and General Conference occurring last Sunday, we waited until today to take a photo of our kids in front of the temple.  It was a little hard to get the kids to pose since they were looking straight into the sun.  Today was a big day -- Abe received the Aaronic Priesthood and was ordained to the office of a deacon.

One last Easter photo-- we did a different kind of countdown leading up to Easter this year and called it our Easter Walk.  Every night we added a new picture to the wall and talked about part of the Easter story.  We encouraged our kids to imagine they were witnesses to the events in the pictures and to add drawings to the wall to show what they imagined they would see, do or feel.

Abe gave a short talk at the monthly school board meeting on Tuesday.  He described the solar oven he built in science last fall.  He was one of a group of students who spoke showcasing the great things that are happening at his school.

 Abe ran in his first track meet this week.  This is a photo of him running the 1500 meter race-- that's 3 ¾ laps around the track.  Abe looks a little green in the photo and he threw up immediately following the race.  Apparently vomit is not a bad thing in track and his team cheered loudly.  Abe went on to run the 400 meter race and the 200 meter hurdles.

 Luckily Abe was feeling better by Saturday when he ran the 10 mile Pear Blossom race with Becky.  At least he ran the first half of the race with her.  He left her at the halfway point and sped ahead to an impressive finish of 1:27:56.  Running 10 miles would be enough for one day for most people, but Abe also played a soccer game on Saturday, running for almost another hour in the rain!

 Abe and Helen squeezed their piano syllabus adjudication in between the Pear race and soccer.  They have prepared for the last 8 months, learning a wide variety of music theory, sight reading and ear training.  Also, they each memorized 3 different piano pieces from 3 different time periods.  An independent piano teacher listened to each student play and judged them on their performance.  Helen successfully passed Level 3 and Abe successfully passed level 4.  In the photo Helen is practicing a B flat major scale.  She likes this scale because it is easy to play.

One last event from Saturday-- AJ asked Sofi to prom.  Josh asked Sofi for help getting Joey to the mall so Josh could ask Joey to the prom.  Their plan was Sofi and Joey would come down a particular escalator where Josh would be waiting with a big sign that would ask Joey.  Sofi shepherded Joey through the mall, texting Josh for directions and trying not to be too suspicious.  A fun surprise for Sofi was that she got asked to the prom as well.