Our Five for This Week!

Five: Memorial Day Sleepover at Grandma's
Our boys are pretty lucky to have a grandma that BEGS to spend time with them! She is always offering to take her grandkids for overnighters, play dates, outings and small trips! Anything at all, she is up for ALL of it. Steve and I are pretty grateful to her for always being so willing to do this. She offered to have Lewis and Conner sleepover at the Bloomington house on Sunday, "Memorial Day Eve." Steve and I didn't realize it at first, but we totally needed that little break away from the kids. We watched movies that night and SLEPT IN Monday morning! It was heaven compared to our crazy week before. We even had uninterrupted time to get our house spic and span from top to bottom. Even though our boys are older now and generally helpful about household chores, it was just so nice to be able to get it all done so quickly and efficiently and to know the kids were at Grandma's having the time of their lives! We had the housework done and started on some projects before they came home that afternoon. It was so nice. Thanks Grandma for showing our boys such a great time and for allowing us that time to ourselves to "detox" from the leftover "school craziness".

Four: Brother's Day Fun!
Per request of the boys, we spent Tuesday immersed in the wonderful world of brotherly LOVE! To celebrate our new found holiday, we went to Adventure Pizza and spent a small fortune on food and video games. I thoroughly enjoyed watching these two brothers help each other earn tickets and take turns with the games. I was a little saddened by how little they needed MY help to do anything. They are so big! They can work those coin machines and video games like pros! Steve and I just sat back and enjoyed the show. We commented (as we do often) how grateful we are for the two of them and how glad we are that they have each other. They really are best of friends. Also, on this day, the boys somehow weasled their way out of all their usual household chores! (I think they were thinking back to Mother's Day when Steve took over all my jobs.)They would turn down any request I made of them to put away their clothes or toys or take out the garbage! So cute to hear them say, "Nope, not today Mom. It's Brother's Day!" Indeed, it WAS Brother's Day-and boy, we really had to LIVE IT UP!
Three: A Successful Baseball Season Ends!
Both boys had a great experience this year with baseball. Being able to have the same coach was an added bonus. Lewis played on the 7-8 year-old team with one of the coach's sons and Conner played on the 5-6 year-old team with the coach's other son. So, their practices were always back to back and their games on the same night. It was such a convenient thing for us commuters. But, that was just an added bonus. The biggest perk for both the boys and the parents is the great coach. He truly loves what he does and it shows. These boys LOVE baseball and on top of that, they are good at it! Coach Todd did wonders for my boys. We are so grateful to him for all his dedication to the Angels!

Two: Spontaneous Trip to Wyoming!
Okay, this will make Laura in particular so proud! I am actually being super duper spontaneous this weekend! In fact, right now I am typing this post from one of the rooms at the Presidential View Resort in South Dakota! We had NO clue we'd be here until this morning when we decided to come! We started off with plans to go my sister's baby's blessing in Casper Wyoming and while we were driving, we just decided we might as well make a small vay-cay out of it! So, we are set to see Mt. Rushmore tomorrow morning and I am stoked! But, more on that later. Right now I want to document something amazing and special that happened to our family yesterday on the way to Casper. Steve likes to listen to books on CD as we drive and on this trip, we borrowed his dad's copy of the April 2008 conference talks. Steve really liked the music from the Priesthood session talks so we put in that CD and listened to the music and the talks as we drove. One particular talk was given by Elder McMullin (I think) and he was talking about service for one another and shared some stories about the pioneers and the rescue at Martin's Cove. Both Steve and I have heard stories about this experience many times in our lives and I am always blown away by the things that I've heard. This talk brought back all those memories and feelings of gratitude that I have for our pioneers who paved the way for us to have the gospel in our lives today. Well, only minutes after this talk on the CD ended, what did we come across on the left hand side of the road? A sign that said "Martin's Cove, straight ahead." It was so amazing to see the actual place after we had just been reminded about it by that wonderful speaker. We parked in the visitor center parking and tagged along with a crowd of teenagers who had just pulled up in a tourist bus. We spent some time walking through the exhibits and listening to the missionaries tell about the property.
The boys enjoyed the exhibits and the movie, but their favorite part was exploring the grounds and pushing each other in some of the hand carts. I really enjoyed walking around and reading the accounts of these early pioneers and their major struggles.
To read of the actual stories written by these faithful pioneers is just breathtaking. It really puts it all into perspective. I loved walking around and listening to these young high school graduates talking amongst themselves about this place. When we were looking at the exhibit that tells of the rescue of the Willie Handcart Company (the story of the scouts who were sent to help take the women and children across the freezing river) I heard a boy say this, "These kids were as old as WE are! They gave their lives to save others." Wow! They really did. How many eighteen year-olds would be willing to do that today? The boy went on to say, "No WAY is this time that WE live in harder than it was back then." I was so grateful my boys were listening to these kinds of conversations. Especially after we had just spent hours in the car listening to them squack and argue about this and that and hearing Conner complain that he didn't have enough "treats"! Man are we spoiled rotten. Yes, it was a great way to pause and reflect on what really matters most and to be grateful for what our founding fathers did for us. What FAITH they must have had to WALK all that way in order to remain true to their beliefs. How amazing. I was completely inspired after this SPONTANEOUS trip to Martin's Cove.











One: Meeting Baby Grant!
It was a LONG drive, but SOOOO worth it! The whole time, Steve and I kept saying, we get to hold that new baby when we get there! And, he did not dissapoint! He was cute as can be and I got lots of pictures of him! Definitely THE highlight of our week!