11 May 2025

Our family sponsors two scholarships through the Crater Foundation, a fantastic organization that awards scholarship money to every graduating senior who applies. On Tuesday the school held its 100% Celebration where students find out which scholarships they received. Becky met both of our recipients, neither of whom she had met before. This is Sean. He is planning on studying computer science.

And this is Fatima. She wants to become a lawyer. Both recipients were articulate, motivated and smart. We love being part of such a positive organization and helping students achieve their goals.

Brandan serves with the single adults in our stake. The singles group went miniature golfing on Saturday and we came along. Mercifully for Becky, the course rules limits the number of hits per hole to six.

Abe's triathlon was Saturday. A big group of friends went to St. George to cheer for Abe, Ashton and Tate. They shared lots of videos and photos as the day progressed. We also followed Abe using an app called Ironman. Abe completed a half Ironman, also called IM 70.3 for the total distance involved. It combined a 1.2 mile swim, 54 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run. This is a photo of Ashton, Abe and Tate arriving at the starting point for the swim.

The organizers of the event staggered out the starts based on the athlete's anticipated finish times. The boys had an hour or more to wait for their start time. Here is a photo with a few of the friends who came to cheer them on. From the left are Ben, Haley, Tate, Ashton, Abigail, Abe, Malakai, Erica, Spencer, and Chloe.

Here's a photo of Abe after the swim portion. This was the farthest Abe has ever swam in open water and it was extremely challenging.

He had a quick transition and then on to the bike portion. Biking was a great chance for Abe to clear his head, recover from the swim, and make up some time.

The app recorded participants progress as they passed through checkpoints and did a good job of estimating their position in-between checkpoints. As Abe and Ashton neared the end of the biking portion, Tate was in the middle of the run and all three were visible on the screen at the same time.

The bikers and runners overlapped at the end of the race. Altogether, the participants moved through Diagonal Street 5 times, once on a bike and 4 times as they ran. This made it easy for fans to cheer for their athletes, even if it was monotonous for the participants. Here's a photo of Abe zipping by on his bike.

And here he is almost halfway through with his run. Abe always had a smile, a wave or a fist pump.

And here he is on the final stretch of road.

Here are Abe, Tate and Ashton at the end of the triathlon. They trained for months and left it all on the course, accomplishing a grueling feat. We're super proud of them!

They took a photo with Tyler Haws, a former BYU basketball player who also completed the triathlon.

Sofi and Nate drove through the night from Wenatchee to cheer for Abe.

Nate, Sofi and Abe attended church together in the historic Pine Valley chapel. Built in 1868, it's the oldest meetinghouse in continuous use of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sofi and Nate took Abe north with them after church, on to further adventures together.