Ben's 1st Piano Recital

Ben loves to listen to George play the piano and I will often times find him playing songs he's heard before like Harry Potter and Angry Birds, but he does not like to practice and actually play the piano.  He wants to skip all the in between stuff and go straight to the fun part.  I think we all did.  If that really happens then a lot less kids would quit before they knew the hymns. Ben did a great job and played 2 pieces.  1 he chose and the other was one he was working on.  He chose I hope they call me on a mission,  for his sister Shayne who would leave 3 days later for the MTC.  It was wonderfully sweet.  Grandma & Grandpa Beckstrand, Kellie, Garrett and Jen all came to listen.  It was very nice.  He did a great job!

 

Dogtown 1/2 2013

Joel's school had 7 kids run in the Dogtown half so John, Brian and Joel ran it too.  There aren't any pictures of John because he runs to fast for me to get there in time to take actual pictures of him running.  They all did great.  It was a warm up race to the Lake 2 Lake that is the next weekend.

Lowe's Build N. Grow

My friend Kalo got me started on these great FREE Saturday projects that she takes her kids to.  Lowe's and Home Depot both do them but Lowe's are far nicer.  They are every other Saturday and are wood crafts that they have to hammer together.  It's been interesting to see Ben and David's personalities come out while doing these.  David loves doing them and looks at the picture instructions carefully so he doesn't do them wrong.  Ben has anger issues and takes them out on his project.  It is pretty crazy.  He might need to be medicated.  Just kidding.  But, he has no patients at all and could care less about the order in which things need to be done.  He looks at the final picture only and tries to make it how he thinks it should be made. Needless to say Davids always turns out very nice and Ben's is always a little skiwampus.

 I always make Josh go with me because they both need a little help.  Below next to Josh is Kalo helping her daughter. We were making Santa Sleigh's before Christmas.  They were harder that they appeared.  For Christmas Ben and David both got a racecar kit and their own kid sized hammer in their stocking.  Within minutes of seeing it David was hammering it together.  It took 3 days before Ben even looked at his and that was only because David asked him if he could do it.

 I made Shayne and Sophie come with me this last time because Josh went on a day hike with the Scouts.  

 

We made the "Grave Digger" Monster Truck.  It was cool and surprisingly easy.

 Notice Sophie is pulling out a nail.

 Notice Shayne is pulling out a nail.  HAHAHA!

 This is Kalo's little boy.  She had to wake him up to come this morning and he wasn't quite awake yet.

 The race was on to see who could put the decals on the fastest.

 This was the final project.  It was really fun.  They are super sturdy too.  David likes to stand on both of them and use them as rollerskates.

Lake 2 Lakers Strike Back!

The Lake 2 Lake Relay came around again and this year they almost didn't sign up for it because John and Joel were right in the middle if their training for the Ironman but Brian and Dad wanted to run so they signed up.  About a week before the race, dad found out that he had prostate cancer and couldn't run in the relay.  So Joel asked Daniel Cluff to fill in.  He was able to run Dad's legs without any problem.  It started off with Daniel

 and then he handed off to John

 who handed off to Joel

 

who handed off to Brian seen here at the Snow Canyon Baseball Park.

Brain ran it to James

who ran it Daniel who

handed it off to Joel.

Joel handed off to Brian who took it down 3rd east to the Dam Road  

 

Then went through the back dirt road to give it to James who went up the HUGE hill and over to Sand Hollow where he handed off to John to finish the race.

Last year they came in 16th.  This year they came in 9th dropping something like 45 minutes.  They all had a great time. This is a wonderful race that has become a fun family tradition.