Baby Bear

Mackay was in a play this week at school. All of the 3rd graders put it on. The play was called "Character Matters". It was all about character traits that a person should have. Mackay was in a section of it that talked about forgiveness. He played baby bear from Goldilocks and the 3 bears. He was all upset about what Goldilocks had done done to all of his stuff, but his parents were trying to teach him forgiveness. Below I have included his part in the play. He did a fabulous job, but then I am his mother and I am suppose to say that, eh!

Hiking Adventures

Telescope Peak Hike
Valentine's Peak and Red and Grey Hill

Our happy hiking family

My husband has gotten on a hiking kick this year and taken us along on his adventures. It has been fun to see new places and enjoy the surrounding of the area that we live in and where Justin grew up. I believe we go to feel close to Justin's dad. It helps Justin with dealing with his dad's death in February. His dad loved hiking and the outdoors.

Last weekend we went to a wedding in St. George, Utah for a nephew. We decided to go a little early so that we could hike Red and Grey Hill and Valentine's Peak. Red and Grey Hill were pretty easy to hike and made for an enjoyable afternoon after driving to Parowan. The next day we hiked Valentine's Peak. There is no established trail going to the peak so we forged our own way. It was a pretty steep climb and we passed some fabulous rock formations. One of these formation is named the castle. It is made of white rock and was a fun place to stop and rest and let the kids explore. The sand was moist so Tyler made a small sand castle. We tried to get to the peak, but couldn't find a place to safely get up so we aborted our mission and headed back down the mountain. Justin is still trying to figure out how we can get to the peak. Instead we drove up to Brianhead peak and Justin climbed it while the kids and I hung out and read a book in the van. He just had to get to the peak of something I suppose.

The wedding the next day was wonderful and we are so happy for Gentry and Jessica and wish them the best life together.

This weekend we decided to travel to Death Valley and hike Telescope Peak. I was a little nervous about this one because it was a 14 mile round trip hike. I wasn't sure how the kids would do. It was a great hike considering that it had a great trail to follow. It was pretty easy going until the last bit of the hike where the trail was snowed over so we had to make find our own trail up. It was beautiful at the top and you could over look Death Valley and Owen's Valley (I think). We could even see Mt. Whitney and several other mountains in the distance. There were people from all over hiking at the same time as us. We met a man from Germany, a scout troop from Bakersfield, some guys from San Diego, and a couple of guys from somewhere in Asia. On the way back we tried to take the actual trail, but there was too much snow and it ended up being more difficult than we thought it would be. Justin had left us to go and find a Camelback we left on the trail so hear were me and the boys trying to find our way, but it was frustrating and scary because we kept sliding down the hill. Justin finally came to our rescue and got us back on the trail. The rule now is to always stay together! The way back was long and tiresome. The kids were done so it took some coaxing to get them going. They all made it and it was quite the accomplishment. Justin promised the kids he would take them out to dinner when we got bake, so we dropped by Carls Jr when we got back into town. The hike took us 11 hours so we were tired when we got home and showered and tried to watch a movie but me and Tyler couldn't make it through the movies and crashed on the couch.

What kind of mother I would like to be...

For this mothers day I woke up thinking what kind of mom as I and what kind of mom would I like to be. In the scriptures it mentions in Psalms 113:9 "He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children". I have been blessed with this, although I have not been blessed with bearing my own children. Now I have to admit not being able to bear children has always been a hard thing for me, but the Lord has blessed me with the two most beautiful boys that anyone could have. I always tell them that they would have come into our home no matter what. Heavenly Father knew that we needed to be a family.

In the Proclamation to the world on Families it states "The mother is primarily responsible for the nurture of her children" In the dictionary nurture is defined as :

–verb (used with object)
1. to feed and protect: to nurture one's offspring.
2. to support and encourage, as during the period of training or development; foster: to nurture
3. to bring up; train; educate.
–noun
4. rearing, upbringing, training, education, or the like.
5. development: the nurture of young artists.
6. something that nourishes; nourishment; food.

So this is what the church tells us our roll is, and it is a big one because we are essentially responsible for the way are kids turn out, but we also need to remember to not be discouraged when they don't follow the things we tell them and love them anyways.

Now the kind of mom I want to be, well I am going to use lots of words and adjectives to describe this. I hope that I can be: loving, encouraging, supportive, kind, understanding, a good listener, helpful, courageous, fun, give wise discipline, faithful, patient, responsible, respectful, show reverence, simple, obedient, hopeful, faithful, show compassion and charity, be a good example, teacher, serve. The list could go on forever. There are so many things that I would like to be and do. I am grateful for the example of my own mother. She did a great job, I think!

Anyway, Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mothers!

Square Dancing

What a handsome Cowboy!

Mackay's Partner Mia.

My handsome partner Mackay teaching me to Square Dance.

Mackay's group of Square Dancers.

On Friday we headed over to the elementary school to watch Mackay do some square dancing. Square dance is a folk dance with four couples (eight dancers) arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, beginning with Couple 1 facing away from the music and going counter-clockwise until getting to Couple 4. Couples 1 and 3 are known as the head couples, while Couples 2 and 4 are the side couples. Each dance begins and ends each sequence with "sets-in-order" in the square formation. He did a great job and was fun to watch! I even got to join in for the last dance and Mackay taught me how square dance.