Battleship Texas

We enjoyed visitors this week and I didn't even get a picture of them together. I can't believe it. David and Betsy visited us on their Spring Break trip this year, it was so much fun to see them and to spend the day exploring this fun Battleship and piece of American History. We took Jongr out of school early so he could enjoy it with us too.

Here's Jongr posing as a sailor before we even got onboard the ship.

Jontu and Jongr climbed up on these guns as soon as we walked onto the ship, all of them are still movable so the boys had so much fun and wanted to climb on each one of them as we walked around the ship. They could be moved up and down on one side and side to side by the other side. I can't imagine what it must have been like to man one of the guns during an attack.

Jonev enjoyed them too!

This picture was taken below deck outside of the communications room. It was so amazing how much of the ship that we were able to see and to climb in. I am thankful that I wasn't a sailor and sleeping on a hanging bunk though.

Here is a picture from near the navigation room, quite the view from here.

A family picture on the windy deck of the boat.

Jonpa and his brother David, it was so nice to see them again!

Spring Break

We had such a fun and busy Spring Break and it seems that we just haven't caught up with life since then. We started off with an X wing birthday cake for Elder Peterson, it was fun to make, I just wish that I would have had more time for the details.

We ended the week with a 2 day camping trip to Lake Texana with our cousins. Here are the 2 youngest girls playing together.

We enjoyed some extra special activities with Ranger Cindy, like this talk about being a nature explorer. We learned that armadillo's can jump straight up 3-4 feet in the air and that is why you see so many of them dead on the side of the road. (the boys loved this tidbit)

Thanks to my cousin Brandon we were able to enjoy lots of fishing, here we all posed with a fish that Jonev caught.

Here is Jonev with another one, he was so proud. I am not sure how many of these little guys that we caught between all of the boys, it sure was fun though. Reminded me of the time that my family went fishing at Twin Falls Lakes and caught so many blue gills.

Jongr decided that he was old enough to sleep in his own tent next to his cousins. He enjoyed it so much the first night, but the second one he decided after the ghost stories around the campfire that he wanted to sleep with all of us in our big family tent. It didn't stop him from getting up early with his cousins though.

Thanks Brandon and Melinda for such a fun time!

Jongr begged to carry Jonli in the backpack every time that we put her in it, so we finally let him try it for a while. It only lasted a couple of minutes, I guess he realized that she was heavier than he thought.

We also had our first experience with Geocaching while we were on our hike, it was so much fun. The boys loved it and I think that we found us something to do on our hikes to make it more fun.

The picture above shows the "cache" and the one below shows what they took out of it.

The boys and Jonpa were also able to enjoy a little bit of canoeing out on the lake. Jontu was hoping to see an alligator a little closer, but they didn't find one while they were out.

What a fun Spring Break we had this year, we also loved Lake Texana and being outside enjoying the beautiful weather for a couple of days.

An Interview with Jongr

Fun Run

Each month at Jongr's school they have a "Fun Run", each grade runs for about 20-30 min. (don't really know how long the time is). They each get paper to have their laps recorded on, then they start running and the PE teachers and other volunteers mark their laps on the paper for them as they go around. This is the first one that we have made it to this year and I talked Jontu into running with Jongr. They got 18 laps each around the hardtop at the school. It is the most laps that Jongr has gotten this year and it was lots of fun for the two of them together. Sadly I forgot to take a picture while we were there of the two of them.

I decided that I would document for you how our day begins each and every day, we say good bye to daddy. I don't know exactly how the tradition got started, but we have been standing in on the front porch waving to dad as long as I can remember. Here is a picture that Jonpa took of us in all of our morning glory. Even Jonli loves to wave and say "bye, bye". Jonev usually has a two handed wave going.

They keep on waving from the doorstep until they can't see the car anymore. It is super cute! Who knows how long this phase of life will last.

Jonli has learned to hold on while her brothers take turns pushing her on this ride on toy. She laughs as they go faster and faster. (I have to keep telling them to slow down a little, she doesn't hold on too tight yet.) It is so nice that they can all play together.

In other news this week, I went to the cannery again, it brings me such peace to buy more food for our year supply. We are far from having a whole year, but every little bit puts us a little closer and makes me happy. If only we had more room to store it in.

We are looking forward to enjoying our Spring Break this week; check back next week to see what we were up to.

Around our House and the zoo

This week we enjoyed many things and remembered to take some pictures for our photo journal. We enjoyed a trip to the zoo with some friends from our ward. Jontu, Jonev, Jonli and I were able to finally see the new African Forest at the Houston zoo, it was such a great day at the zoo. I did forget my camera though, so this is the best picture from our trip that day from my phone.

Here is Jontu standing with a stork of some variety and his map from the zoo. (we love maps)

A fun picture of Jonev, Jonli, and Jontu taken at home when they were playing around.

How I frequently see Jontu, the boys really enjoy playing the iPod and will work for the privelege.

Sometimes Jongr is so engrossed in his books, it is hard to get his attention. He is serious about his reading and enjoys whatever books we bring him home from the public library.

Jonev playing in the backyard wearing his Super E cape (thanks Aunt Shanna). It has a big letter E on the back of it and he loves the show Super Why on PBS, so this has become his cape just like the show.

Jongr recently made a bird feeder and bird house in cub scouts and enjoyed putting them up in the backyard. In the right of the picture is the birdhouse and in center the feeder. We hope that some little bird enjoys its new house.

Another thing that happened this week was the boys all got much needed haircuts. Jonev was too cute on Sunday morning and Jonpa couldn't resist snapping this photo of our cute little man. Happy March!