Tyler and Emily's birthday party!

Friday March 9th was Tyler's 8th Birthday and since they were down here for Ben's baptism and since Emily's birthday was a couple days later we decided to have a party! It was so much fun! They each had a cake. Emily's was a monkey and Tyler's was a Truffula tree -Dr. Seuss- and Paula had made a pinata! She's very crafty. She took Tyler to see Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax" and made it to look like him.



Here is everyone up to Josh trying to break it open. Sophie and Abby were mad because they didn't get a turn.






Here they are checking out their stash. Then we played a game where you try to pop a balloon between you and your partner. Jake and Emily just couldn't get it. Ben and Tyler were determined to win. It was super funny.

Then Sophie broke out her Double Dutch ropes and we went at it. Turns out we all did pretty good.


This one is of Paula being tricky. She was twirling around in circles WHILE turning the ropes! Truly talented.


And here is what we call, "Fun With Hats!" Click on Jan and Andy's picture to see it up close. It's awesome!


After we got the kids all settled down all of the adults went out to eat! Woo Hoo! Fun party for the kids and fun dinner for the adults. Well, who are we trying to kid. Did you see those adults at that party.

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.