An update

Here's a bit of an update about what we have been up to lately:

We attended Ben's last Blue and Gold Banquet for cub scouts.  It was the day before his birthday.  He was awarded his Arrow of Light and had the cross-over ceremony to boy scouts. 

For dessert at the Blue and Gold Banquet, the boys each make and decorate a cake.  This year's theme was Resourcefulness.  Ben chose a garden-themed cake.  I think it turned out pretty cute.   He was up against some pretty stiff competition this year since two of the boys have moms that are professional cake decorators.  And yes, their cakes were AWESOME.  One was a cub scout shirt complete with badges and ribbons and the other was a camp fire with melted red lifesavers flattened out and then broken to look like flames. 

Spring is coming!  Yay!  My crocuses bloomed beautifully, but were all eaten by some critter within a couple of days. 

Kate got a hair cut.  She loves her knew 'do and it makes our morning routine a breeze! 

Just couldn't resist sharing a picture of this sweet happy boy!  We had some sunshine for a few days and he was loving it!

Science fair:  Science fair projects dominated our lives for a week or so.  So glad they are finally done and the kids had success.  Ben's project was on which color of goldfish our pet turtles preferred.  The answer:  orange.  Ben put in 10 goldfish--five or each color--in the tank and then watched to see what happened.  Within 20 minutes, four out of five of the orange fish were eaten, while the turtles ignored all the brown fish.  After several days, one of the brown fish was still in the tank, while all of the orange ones were gone.

Kate's project was on play-doh, and what happens if you leave it out.  She took two containers of play-doh and weighed them both.  She left one out and put the other away in its container, and then weighed them periodically.  After a couple of weeks, the play-doh left out was significantly lighter, not to mention cracked and dry.  It was a good project and I think she learned some things about evaporation and why it is I always tell her to put the play-doh away! 

Here are the kids with their projects on display at the Science Fair.

For the past several weeks, we haven't seen much of Sarah.  She has been crazy busy playing in the pit orchestra for the school musical, Annie Get Your Gun.

She was the only flutist.  Her rehearsal often went until 10:00 at night.  Then once the show started, she was gone until usually 10:30 or 11:00.  Then up again for seminary at 5:00 a.m.  The schedule was brutal--especially for David and I who usually took turns doing the "late shift" picking her up.  Then she would come home and start on homework.  I'm sure she is sad the show is over, but we are all hoping to get more sleep around here.

The show really was fabulous.  We went on Thursday night and I was so impressed with the acting and all the special effects.  Congrats to the whole cast on a job well done.

In the midst of all of this, Sarah had a flute solo & ensemble competition.  She played an extremely hard piece and I accompanied her.  It was such a challenging piece for me to play also, made more difficult by the lack of time for us to practice together.  When she is gone from 6:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m., it is hard to fit in any practice time.  Thankfully--and with lots of prayers and blessings from above--we made it through and played it our very best for the competition. 

Sarah and her flute teacher

 I must say--I am very glad it is over. 

This was my receipt from a quick trip to the grocery store the other day.  I only spent $37.47, and while I thought I got some good deals, I didn't expect this:

Too bad I didn't actually get $1200 worth of groceries!

And last of all...

after a lifetime of looking (I'm not exaggerating!), David finally did it.  Here's a picture of our new boat! 

 We are hoping for lots of fun times with it in the years ahead!