PV Preference

At state swim Shayne asked Cashe, Alex asked Mitchel and Meagan asked Kyle to go to Pine View's Preference Dance. Well actually Joel and I did the dirty work but it was cute. We put up banners in their hotel rooms with balloons. It was fun. Actually, now that I think of it, I made the banners, bought the balloons and Joel helped me hang them. So the girls did SQUAT! They owe me.




For Shayne and Cashe's day date they didn't get to go with the others to have fun. They had to go to Dixie College for a Computer Programing competition. Well, Shayne had to for her grade and she just got Cashe and Kyson to come help her out because there needed to be 3 on a team and believe it or not they like that kind of thing. So, they left at 8:30 and got done around 4. So this is the hair do we ended up with since we only had 10 minutes to do it in. She also is wearing the same dress she wore to Homecoming because #1 it's comfy and #2 she slacked off and didn't find a different one to wear. But the shoes were different because Cashe is barely an inch taller than her. And they were so cute!

Madi asked Zack and they all had a ball.

One of their friends took the pictures and I have no idea why she chose the side of a building and a city work truck for the backdrop. I would have settled for an old historic building or something like that. Oh, wait a sec. That's where they were standing. Too bad she didn't take them from the other direction. The kids look great though.



I do like this one. They are on top of a parking garage. Very Creative. You can click on it to see it closer. That's a great bunch of kids. I'm glad she has such high standards and amazing friends.

Snow and Daffodils!

It finally snowed!! March 6th. Better late than never. We were afraid that we'd miss it this year. The flakes were HUGE! It lasted 20 minutes and melted as it landed but it was so pretty coming down. Even my daffodils like the snow. FUN!!!!

Lake to Lakers!

On March 3rd our Beckstrand Boys did the Lake to Lake Relay. It's a 50 mile, 5 person team, relay from Gunlock Reservoir to Sand Hollow Reservoir. Our boys team had Grandpa, Joel, John, Brian and James. The girls had Kristal, Debra, Kellie and 2 of their friends. The race is broken up into 10 different legs about 5 miles long, each person gets 2 and runs about 10 miles total.


Last year they did it and just called themselves the Beckstrand Boys. This year they got creative and had Jared use the Lakers Basketball team logo and change it to say, "Lake to Lakers." So that is officially their team name for now on. They got running shirts made with their nicknames and numbers on the back. I wish I would have gotten a picture of that. Next year. Anyway, they all are such hard core fans that the rest of their uniform consisted of stuff they already had in their closets.

Here is Joel on his second leg that takes him passed Staheli Farm high fiving our 4 youngest kids.


The night before Jared went over to Brian's and wrote Lake 2 Lakers on the windows of his SUV. It looked so good.

Here is one of the exchange spots. This is at the end of Joel's where he has to tag Brian and then Brian can start his 2nd leg.

And here they all are at the finish line. Good Job everyone!

Dog Town 1/2 Feb 25th

At the last minute Red Rock decided to have Joel, John and Cedric run the half marathon with one of their boys. We always do the Dam Road aide station with the Wells'. John did an amazing job and here is Ben and David handing him water and Gatorade.


Then Joel and Ryan Duckworth came through.


Then Kyle got to us and stopped. He just needed to do a 7 mile run that day and didn't want to register for the race. So he started with them all and finished with us.

Here is Sophie and Emily handing out oranges and bananas.

Here are the rest of the kids and JoEllen - in red - helping out.


Here is our friend Jolene Ipson.

The kids all did great until SOMEONE started a waterfight and everyone ended up wet and cold. It was fun.

End of Basketball Season for Jaden

Jaden plays ball for Desert Hills High School. He is the only reason we would ever go to a DHHS game at DHHS and we went to everyone of the DHHS home games. They were so fun to go and cheer him on. Their team took Region and went to the playoffs that were luckily here at Dixie College. They first played and beat Dixie High for the Semifinals. Here are some pictures:
The first one is of where the Wells family sat to watch the game and the next one is from where we watched the game.


Jaden with a great jumpshot.

#4

His never fail free-throws.

They won Dixie in an incredibly close game and then played Hurricane for the state title. We love Hurricane and actually know more kids on the Hurricane team than Desert Hills from when we lived there and our kids went to school with these boys. But we cheered for Desert Hills. Jaden played so well and his behavior on and off the court was impeccable, which to me means more than winning. He is such an incredibly wonderful kid. DHHS ended up barely losing to Hurricane and took 2nd in State. We will miss watching him play but he decided to try-out for the baseball team and made it so now I get to go watch him play my favorite sport! Here are some pictures of Jaden and Taylor Parker #21. We have known Taylor since he was 8 so about 10 years. He and Shayne are still great friends and set each other up on blind dates so they can double date. She hated that they had defended each other.


Jaden with another great shot.

Back to work after 15 years!

Well, a month ago Spencer told me to take my resume' into his office because they were hiring for a Medical Assistant that had a Phlebotomy background. Well, that was me - 15 years ago. Things have changed. After making a resume' - hahaha - I took it in and the lady at the desk said she'd fax it to the HR guy. The resume went to a place called Physicians Assistant Something or other. And I got a call from a guy named Brent Davis asking me if I was still looking for a job. I was kind of confused as to why this stranger was calling me but he told me that they do all the hiring for the Dr.'s office so the Dr.'s don't have to. So I met with him and he got me an interview with Dr. Court Empey that I had known 15 years ago when he was the neighbor kid named Courtney. Now all grown up and a Dr. So I met with him and thought things went well. The only problem was the filing system that they used was ALL computerized. They didn't have a single piece of paper in that office. I had no idea how to do that. Back in my day notes where written on paper and put into and actual file. Not any more. So that didn't quite work out but I wondered why any of this ever even happened because I wasn't thinking about going back to work until the start of next school year because David is only in Kindergarten and gets out at 12:30 everyday. But for some reason we felt really good about applying to work with Spencer and Court. We figured that if that is what I'm supposed to do then it would all work out. It didn't. So, a month passes and I get a call from Brent again wondering if I was still looking for work. Well, I wasn't really. I just thought that it would be fun to work with them and after it was over the thought never crossed my mind again to apply anywhere else. But I told him sure if he still needs me. In my mind I thought Spencer and Court still needed another person but it ends up that Brent hires for many Dr.'s and clinic. So, he had me go into an interview Wednesday at 9am to meet with Dr. LaRowe at the River View Medical Clinic. It was a great interview and he asked me if I could just stay and start working right that second. At first I thought he was kidding but he wasn't. I started the next day. I work from 8am to Noon. I leave there and go straight to the Elementary school to pick David up. It's amazing! I usually just workout or go play tennis with JoEllen before noon everyday so I don't feel like I'm missing anything. When I get home I still have time to do everything else. After the kids get out on May I will start full time. There are 2 other Dr.'s that work there and the people are great. 1st day on the job and I already had drawn 3 different people's blood. It was just like riding a bike. I didn't tell anyone that it had been 15 years since I last poked anyone. No need to. I'm a PRO! I rock! It's been fun to get back into the medical field and a small little office is right where I need to be. Not a lot of the people there are LDS so I feel this will be a really good experience for me. I will need to be on my best behavior all the time. I have already ran into a lot of people in the medical field that I knew from before. It feels like home. I am so comfortable there. I'm excited. Dr. LaRowe asked me today if I could go full time tomorrow so I know it's where I need to be and will work out for the best. My goal here is to get our family out of debt so Joel can be home more often and to save for missions and weddings. YIKES! Weddings? I guess you start to think about that when your daughter is 18. I'm old. Well, I love my new job and love that I can be home for David. Jan, Andy, JoEllen, Kyle and Joel and I are going out to dinner tomorrow to celebrate! I love my family!

Birthday #8!

Eight years ago I had the fastest delivery ever! So fast it in fact that Joel didn't even have the camera out. The other three took at least 15 hours from when we got in to the time they actually decided to grace us with their presence and they needed forceps and/or a plunger to get them out but not Ben. Ben decided that he wanted out and he wanted out now. My Dr. always scheduled me to be induced since Shayne broke my tailbone with her huge head and my babies were all around 8 pounds two weeks early. But with Ben he waited until only 4 days before my due date and I thought for sure I would have to deliver him C-Section. Joel and I had told Heavenly Father that if we were done having kids then this delivery would be be a C-Section so they could just tie my tubes while they were in there and we'd be done. If not we knew that we needed to have 1 more kid. Well when the time came to go to the hospital we packed the kids up to sleep overnight at grandma & grandpa Beckstrands and dropped them off. The hospital is 2 blocks from their house which was really nice. We got to the hospital and they broke my water because I was already dilated to a 6. I always dilate a month early so that was no big surprise. And my water never broke with any of my other babies so everything was going as planned. It had been 4 years since Josh and so naturally I thought it would be the same 13 hours of labor and 2 of pushing because my body would have to relearn a few things. So I got my epidural - my best friend - and we settled in. I turned on the TV and Joel went back to his parents house to make sure the kids got ready to for bed and then to Subway to pick him up some dinner. Well, by the time he got back and got his sandwich out the nurse came in to check me and slammed my legs together and said, "Don't push!" and ran out of the room. It was just after 10pm and luckily Dr. Chamberlain was making his last rounds at the hospital and was just 2 rooms down. He and 5 other nurses came running in all a blaze trying to get everything ready. A couple minutes later he said push and I did and then he said to stop because his head was out and the cord was in the way. So he moved it and and told me to push again and he was out. 1 contraction, 2 pushes and out came a dark haired 8 pound 6 ounce 20 inch baby boy at 10:15pm. My biggest baby. Tons of black hair! I was so happy because the other 3 took after Joel and were all toe heads. I yelled to Joel to get a camera and the first picture he got was of them weighing him. I don't even know if there is a picture of me with him in the hospital. One thing is for sure...we knew there was one more baby waiting to come down to us. But until then we would enjoy this dark haired dark eyed baby that turned into a blonde haired blue eyed boy.

We don't do the big, invite the whole neighborhood, birthday parties for our kids every year. We do one on the 8th, 12th, 16th and 18th. Milestone birthdays. All the rest consist of cake and ice cream with the cousins on the closest Sunday to their birthday. Well, since this was #8 we went all out. We invited the whole neighborhood thinking that some of them will be no shows. Nope. All 17 kids showed up. It was pretty funny. I drove my van full, Joel drove his van full and JoEllen drove her van full over to AntiGravity Arena. It was really fun. The kids ended up loving dodgeball. They played it most of the time.







Then we took them all to the closest park and had pizza and cupcakes and let them run around for awhile and play. At the end I made them all climb up the rick wall and head to a van. Ben loved it.



That night we went to the Dixie College game and The JAZZ BEAR was there. Ben got a little basketball from one of the security guards. It was a long, fun, busy day. I'm glad I have 4 more years until his next one.