Jarrod won Science Fair

Jarrod entered the school science fair and went to county. (See Previous Post). He went to the awards ceremony expecting on a participation ribbon. He was completely shocked when he was first in his category.

Nathan's Graduation

We flew to Utah this last week for Nathan's graduation in accounting from BYU. We are able to fly with friends in a private plane directly to the Provo airport. We averaged 370 mph at 33,000 feet taking only 1.5 hours.

This is Nathan in line as he entered the Marriott Center in Thursday's ceremony.

We took seats that were at the top behind the speakers. Not the best for viewing, but it allowed us to have room for Katelynn to move. She did very well.

Aren't they cute!!!

Hard to tell by this photo, but Alyssa is due in August.

On Friday, the business department held their ceremony in the Marriott Center. Of the over 6000 graduations from BYU, over 1000 were from the business college. It took awhile, but again, Katelynn did well.

Alyssa's birthday was Sunday, just after we left to return to California. Saturday was the day to move apartments so we celebrated her bday on Friday night. Saturday, we moved Nathan/Jennifer to a storage unit (they will in Orange County over the summer doing an internship but to Logan in the fall for his masters). Then Alyssa/Ben to Nathan/Jennifer's apartment. It was alot of hard work but we had help from Ben's dad (he came up to help) and local friends.

Nathan as a hotdog

Katelynn loves Mickey Mouse Club. There is a song/dance that is one of those you can't get out of your head. (See Nathan's blog). We took this of Nate when we were is UT 2 weeks ago.

Birthday dinner

While on vacation in Utah, we went to P.F. Chang's chinese restaurant.

Family Vacation to UT

For spring break we combined Rick's continuing education with a vacation. He took a course in Las Vegas on Saturday and Sunday. While he was in class, Sue and Jarrod enjoyed the city. They took a tour of the Hoover Dam. Jarrod enjoyed going deep inside to see the turbines. It is enormous! They returned to Vegas and saw a display called "The Body". It is a display of dissected bodies. It sounds gross but was very educational. The human body is an amazing structure!!

Saturday was a beautiful day to see the dam. We left Vegas at noon for Utah. We had just passed Beaver when it began to snow. Fortunately, it wasn't cold enough to stick on the pavement (except a little on the peak near Holden). But this is the FIRST OF APRIL!!

But Monday was gorgeous! It was nice for snowball fights and making a snowman.

But what was really beautiful was Katelynn. She found a hat and jewelry.

On Tuesday, we went to the zoo in Salt Lake City. Katelynn really likes elephants. Tuesday evening, we went with the entire family to P.F. Chang's for dinner. Sorry, no good photos.

On Wednesday, Rick and Jarrod went to Sundance for a day of skiing. It was surprising good for this late in the season. It was sunny in the AM for overcast with some light snow the rest of the day so not too slushy until late in the afternoon. We also went with Rick, Adam, and Kyle Christensen from Orange (and Logan, Caroline Christensen's husband). We have photos of them skiing you can request.

This was only Jarrod's third time on skis. He did extremely well. The photo below on the Top Gun slope - a black diamond level run. He was able to do it several times quite well.

You can see, he's doing good. The guy cutting between us is Logan.

Science Project

For his science fair project, Jarrod used a small generator and voltage meter to determine the best type of blade. He used 3 lengths (6, 12, 18), 3 angles (12, 24, 36) and 3 blades numbers (3, 4, 6). He took 2nd place in the aerodynamics category for his school. He will be in the district science fair later this month.

Kids Visits

Nathan had a job interview last weekend (make that 2 weekends ago - had an issue with Google publishing this last week) with an accounting firm in Irvine. He flew in on Thursday night. Unknown to us (until they showed up on Friday) Alyssa and Ben drove down with Ben's sister. So we had 3 of the 4 kids here for the weekend. It was great having them here - though we missed Jen/Katelynn & Josh/Hayley. Nathan had to work on his application for his Master's program. But we were still able to have time to some fun. We went to Dromo1 (go carts), a movie (Jumper [wait for the video]), and dinner (Greg & Diane met us there).

LATE POSTING
Nathan got the internship in Irvine. He will be here for the summer.

Alyssa/Ben's baby's first pictures

You surely didn't expect a real photo. She's not due until August 12th. These will have to due until then. Isn't he or she just the cutest little, uh... fetus you've ever seen? That is if you can figure out what is what.

Jarrod paintballing

On President's Day, Jarrod and his friend Adam spent the day playing paintball wars. The course is at the Orange County Fair Grounds. We thought it would only be a few hours. They played from 10:30 to 5:30. They stopped only because we had to get them to tennis practice by 6:00. The hazey photos are through the screen that covered the course.

It's "safe" but can still leave a mark as Adam shows us a welt on his arm and Jarood has one on his upper arm.

Wearing the mask is a must. This would not have been a pretty sight if he's not been wearing the mask. I saw one young man life the mask a little to wipe the fog inside. The ref pronounced him dead and he had to leave the field.

They don't look like it, but they had a good time.

Family News

We haven't had much to take pictures of, so no new pictures. However, there have been some exciting news this month.

• Alyssa and Ben are expecting!!! They are due in August. They are very excited.
  
• Jarrod got a 447 out of 300 on his Biology lab final. He got one of the highest scores. Since the teacher grades on a curve it pushed his score over the top.
• Jarrod had try-outs for Villa Park High School's tennis team. He played 4 games and won all 4. The last game was against the best junior varsity player. He was excited to make the team!!