The forecast predicted rain and even snow for yesterday but the morning broke clear and bright. As Derek drove off to help someone he home teaches he called to remind me to put out the bag for Scouting for Food. I put the bag of food outside lamenting that I hadn't gotten more food to contribute. Disappointed I closed the door and got on with the day. Derek called me later to tell me that he was at the Steve and Teresa's house. He said they'd just knocked down their garage and to come and see when Hyrum woke up. As I walked down to their house I passed the church parking lot where I'd seen large orange crates earlier in the week and wondered what they were. When I saw them now I understood.


They were for Scouting for Food bags. They were loading them into a huge military truck. I was amazed and relieved to see them brimming with white bags filled with food. I thought about how I hadn't contributed much but then looking at all of those bags I realized that everyone just did a little bit. All of us doing our little bit made a big difference. I need to remember that.

I got to Steven and Teresa's and saw all that was going on. It's so exciting that things are finally happening. It won't be as amazing to you because you didn't see it before, but this can be a reference for future updates.

That's where the garage and shed were!

This is where the addition is going to go. They took everything out of the crawl space because they won't be able to access it when the addition is complete.


They had to move all the stuff they had been storing in their garage on to the front lawn to demolish the garage and people kept coming up to ask if they were having a garage sale. They said that they weren't, but told them about the sale they'd be having on April 26th. They even had people asking about specific items. One man asked about a world war two trunk that was Steven's grandfathers and had his grandfathers uniform inside. And yes they intend to sell it to fund this build. The family historian in me was screaming "NO!!!!" I was thinking it would be great to buy it and give it back to them. I'm sure they'd stop at sacrificing nothing after seeing the generosity of complete strangers in their behalf.
My boys checking out the demolition and clean up. Hyrum was just fascinated with the little track hoe they rented for demolition day.

They had a really good turn out yesterday. A bunch of young men and elders and high priests, which I was really glad about. It's amazing how things like this bring people together. But in the flurry of activity I couldn't help but notice Steve. I thought how hard it must be, and has long been for him, not to be able to be out there helping, working, running, jumping, wrestling with his four boys. He was a clog dancer before this disease took the strength of his legs. As we looked at the pile of things in his front yard that had come out of the garage he was saying that he had so much that he didn't know why he saved. One of the things he mentioned was his clogging shirts from high school. The look on his face when he mentioned them told me why he kept them. Something inside wanted to hang on to the man that wore those shirts while dancing. And perhaps letting them go was letting go to the hope that he would one day dance again.

I was surprised by the weather yesterday because as I said they'd predicted rain and snow for the day. But I can't say that I was surprised to see 3 inches of snow on the ground this morning and it snowing all day today. I'm sure the storm was stayed to precipitate this effort. We're so glad it was. In church we were having a discussion on judging and the man pictured to the right of Steve was discussing that Steve probably envies the fact that others can walk and work while other men probably envy the fact that he gets to spend so much time with his boys. As he said that I noticed the look of a different perspective on Steve's face. Isn't so much of our happiness dependent upon perspective. I'm sure he'd considered that there were people much worse off then him that may envy his position but I don't think he ever considered that an able bodied man would ever envy his position.

As I picked up Hyrum, my scriptures, the diaper bag, Derek's scriptures, his notebook and a bag of clothes I lent someone and walked out of the room I was happy that I could do so. We could all stand to live with a better perspective. We could be even happier.


Since I've already told the story of this easter weekend to most who read this blog I'll spare you the repeat and just show you pictures!
Community Easter egg hunt: 5 minutes late= miss the whole thing
Not too sure about the Easter bunny

Cheerio trail to his easter basket and the very first bouncy ball he's ever owned! :)





















I put the Cheerios in his basket ( He wasn't too interested in following the trail) then while we were watching The Ten Commandments he found them and ate them like they were popcorn.

Sunday Best


































We are a Happy Family!!!















Some friends of ours invited us over for dinner. Then their daughters hid some eggs for Hyrum to find! We had a great time and a great Easter weekend! :)


Some have been asking me what is new with the ultimate makeover for our friends in American Fork. Well just this last weekend we opened the newspaper to find on the front page this article. So that's exciting! I guess there had previously been an article in the American Fork Citizen and the Lehi Free Press as well.

They have the blueprints for the addition which should be incredible and they are waiting for a building permit that they are hoping to get at a discounted price. They will be having a garage sale in April to raise funds for the build so if anyone is going to be in or near American Fork around that time stop on by. Or if you have anything you don't mind selling at their garage sale to help them make a little cash let me know. :)

Now I just need to get over there to do my visiting teaching. I'll try to make updates as I get them.

*Update: The plans are being overnighted to Utah and then they'll be able to get the ball rolling. They knocked down an old shed in back (which I guess was pretty spectacular) with the hopes of having people come over this weekend to help haul it away ( the garage will be moved back to where part of the shed had been) and knock down the garage if they have the people to do it. So preparations are being made for the big build! The garage sale will be held at the park in front of the library on April 26th so if your in town definitely stop by. I will absolutely have to look through all of my STUFF to see if I can dejunk into their sale.


From shared torrents from BitTorrent to many of the major networks making their shows available online, online video has certainly arrived.A collaboration between NBC and Fox was released to the general public earlier this week entitled Hulu. It's interesting to see the shift to on-demand/online video and the different attempts to monetize it. It's also fun to see older content becoming available either for free or nominal charge (ala Virtual Console games on the Wii).

In addition to it being completely free (for now) a few things have impressed me so far about Hulu:
  1. They have a fairly robust selection of both TV show AND movies
  2. It's completely an online solution so no download is required
  3. They seem to have embraced bloggers in making it easy to embed all their videos into your blog if you want to share a particular show or movie (see below)
They have both clips and full episodes/movies on there. Here's a few examples of vintage TV shows I've found:
  • The A-Team
  • The Addam's Family
  • Remington Steele
  • Airwolf
  • Buck Rogers
  • Battlestar Galactica (Classic)
The selection of movies is less impressive, but they do have a few fun ones:
  • Master & Commander
  • Ice Age
  • Three Amigos
  • Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story
  • Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
Anyway, worth checking out. And here's an example of what you can do.....



Yesterday was beautiful! Mid 50's and sunshine. So we ventured out into the courtyard with the other babies and their moms in the complex. Hyrum army crawled off the blanket then sat for awhile and took off like this...


I guess he was just waiting to be ten months old to show us that he could really crawl. I know this may not be that exciting to any of you really but I really thought he'd skip this milestone because he is determined to walk. One of our neighbors gave us a walker and he wouldn't use it much. We thought he didn't like it but when we got outside on the "open grass" away he went.



Just a quick new mom question...What is he doing?


Is he just experiencing the new sound? He seems to do this most when he's eating. Is he trying to say all done? He doesn't have a rhyme or reason to it. Any ideas?


I haven't posted for a while (crazy busy!), but today I received a check in the mail and thought I should share a fun little website that I found called MissingMoney.com. It checks to see if the government owes you any money and then helps you find the forms you need to fill out to claim your money. Old tax return refunds that you might never have received, long lost uncles having left you money in their will that is in control of the state, etc. I happened across it a couple of months ago and, just for kicks and giggles, decided to see if the government owed me any money.

You put in your name and the state where you live (or have lived) and it searches government public records of unclaimed property. Came to find out that the State of Idaho owed me money from an old tax refund that they never sent me. It typically doesn't disclose the amount (although mine disclosed that it was under $100), and then walks you through getting the state forms to send in to claim your moolah.

So, I sent in the forms and today got my check for $97.31. It was a pleasant surprise! Go check it out an see if the government has any of your money.


Derek grabs his guitar from it's case in the corner and sits down on the couch to practice. Hyrum hearing the thumping of the guitar against Derek's leg perks up. He drops to the ground and makes a beeline to the couch pulls himself up and stands there eyes full of anticipation and a huge smile on his face. Then he reaches for the strings.

Derek stops, puts the pick in Hyrum's hand and makes a chord. Hyrum is now all business as his hand is helped to strum the chord.

Maybe it's good that Derek hasn't played the guitar for very long. Maybe if he had been playing for a long time he'd be more alarmed when Hyrum grabs at and pulls the nylon strings out of tune.

Maybe it's good that his own excitement for learning to play the guitar hasn't faded yet so that he relishes the opportunity to share what little he knows about the guitar with his son and shares his enthusiasm to strum the strings.

Hyrum has loved the sound of the guitar since birth and maybe even before as Derek would often play for him in the womb. Nothing calms him like guitar music. I'm sure Hyrum is not unique in his passion for all things guitar. Most babies are intrigued by adult toys but this is one passion I hope he never loses. His affinity for putting plugs in his mouth, digging through garbage, pulling CDs onto the floor and sucking on the bottoms of shoes can go.