cold weather

Allison and Emma playing in the snow

The little kids enjoy the blanket fort while the big kids are at school

The weather has really turned into winter cold as of the past month or so. So of course we are inside on the really cold days, and outside sledding on the not so cold days. Michael seems to have decided that sledding is his favourite thing to do. My favourite thing is when Mike gets going down a hill you can hear him most of the way down, "yahoooooo!" He was pretty timid with this last year but thankfully has discovered the joy of zipping down a snowy/icy hill with cold wind on your face and some snow blowing in your eyes and mouth and reaching the bottom in 3 seconds, only to have to turn back and take three minutes to climb the hill. Ahh the life of a kid.

Emma is toothless! Emma had to try on Kate's snowsuit...a little snug

In november Emma lost her first tooth, then her second a week later. William was happy for her even though he is two years older and hasn't lost a tooth yet! Ah well I'll enjoy his gr. 12 grad pictures with no front teeth. Laurel also had her ninth birthday. We played our version of olympics at the church. The kids came dressed in their (assigned) country colours and competed against the worlds best. It was fun for all. Now is the Christmas rush which we would love to avoid but with six kids and other family we can't avoid it entirely. We all look forward to spending time with family in Red Deer and playing with all the cousins, aunts and uncles.

The athlete's compete in donut hole eating.

family pictures

We had our family pictures done in the beginning of October. I love the fall so this is my favorite time to have pictures done; that and they turn out way better than school photos so I don't ever order school pics. This second one of the kids makes me laugh because this was at the end of the hour and a half session so they were pretty much done...and it shows!

It has been a busy month. Nathan went to Creston with our friend Adam to pick up about 10 000 lbs of apples one day, then we juiced about 80 gallons of juice, and canned 40 gallons the next day. Then we had the Stephan retreat over Thanksgiving weekend which was so fun. We have had a few bouts of strep in the house, so the calendar is full of initials and countdowns of antibiotic doses. But most exciting was Emma learning to ride a two wheeler! Nathan and I were cleaning out the garage and I took out a bike that had one training wheel on it (the other had fallen off). Emma said take off the training wheel I am going to ride a two wheeler! Although she wouldn't try it with training wheels because she was too scared. So I took off the wheel and she got on, and within minutes she was riding by herself. Now that is all she wants to do!

Big family fun

We had our annual Stephan family retreat this past Thanksgiving weekend and man was it great! This year we went to Mountainview instead of the usual Canmore, and although there wasn't a pool for all to use, we went to Waterton to hike and the kids all loved the big house we could all fit in, and the playground outside. Laurel's favorite was when we rented the surreys in Waterton and the big kids took to the streets (which weren't too busy as busy season is over). Before we left we booked a week there next august with all the family.

Uncle Jarad dipping Alli. The packed surrey.

family pictures

This past Saturday we all went to a park here in town and had a photographer friend take some family pictures. At the end of the session I thought, man there is nothing like family pictures with little kids to make you not like your family! As we were taking some of the last ones of the kids I was literally doing the threatening mother look at my boys saying through gritted teeth, "smile boys!". I almost wish I could see that from afar because I would be laughing at the crazed mother who is doing nothing to inspire her kids to smile. I can't wait to see the finished product. Lisa (our photographer) sent me a couple unedited teasers until then.

dancing fools

Last weekend I found someone selling a game for the wii called dance dance revolution 2. I thought it would be a pretty fun game for the girls especially and so Laurel and I went and picked it up. You play the game by watching the screen and while the music plays you step on certain squares on the dance matt attached to the wii, and have to shake the controllers in your hands at certain times too. The kids played a little on saturday and laurel has played a little here and there throughout the week. Tonight I played with the girls before bed, then later when all the kids were in bed I went downstairs to lock up and thought 'what the heck'. It's a really fun game and Nathan is away so I let loose looking like a crazy person who isn't in control of my limbs. The last song I did on expert level, and man is it hard, so I thought I could pass the level if I just ran in circles really fast on the matt, and wave my hands really crazy above my head because I couldn't keep up with all the arrows coming up the screen. And what do you know I passed the song! Haha! I was laughing (and sweating) by the end of that one. Sometimes its fun to be a little nuts.

runners

Every year some of us do the Sheep River Road Race here in Okotoks. It is a chaotic and fun morning, where usually mom gets a break from running after the kids to run for no good reason at all! This year Laurel and Will ran the 2k kids race and did great. William actually came in 8th place, he was pretty excited about that. Then mom ran the 10k and finished with an okay time of 52 minutes.

The next weekend we also did the family fun run our church put on. Laurel did amazingly well finishing the 5k run in 33 minutes! She did better than most adults. Way to go Laurel!

first day of school

It has finally come! School is back in. I have to say I was really looking forward to this September as the kids are all so young and this summer seemed like day after day of barely organized chaos. Having one of the young women in our ward was a great help in a couple of ways. First, I had an extra set of hands to help the twins go to the bathroom, get lunch, and not get into so much mischief. Secondly it made for a better summer, as I felt like if I had the help I needed to go do things with the kids more often, so it was a field trip summer.

Emma started kindergarden, Will grade one, and Laurel grade four. The twins (particularly Alli) had a hard time with Emma leaving for the day, but they soon got over it and were happy to play with everyone's things while they were away at school. I will say it is easier to enjoy the twins when there are fewer of us around for me to watch.

my kind of vacation

Since we decided not to do the long drive out to Manitoba this summer we were left thinking what should we do with the kids for a family vacation...camping (NO!)...day trips (maybe). Then Nathan called me from work one day and said he had just booked us in at the Delta Lodge in Kananaskis. He and I had stayed there before and thought it would be worth trying with the kids. It turns out it was great! The pool was big and we swam twice a day, there was a big kids playroom inside with a playhouse, games, movies and more. We played tennis, basketball, had a cookout, and relaxed. This place is definately on our list to go back.

I do not think that means what you think it means.

The kids like to flex their muscles from time to time to show how strong they are. When they ask me to flex my muscles they are impressed with my bicep and think that it looks like a ball is inside my arm. So they started calling their bicep muscles a ball. This of course has led to some rather funny comments that, if heard by an outsider, would probably be considered a little crude. There has a been recent requests to see balls, feel balls, or compare the relative size of balls. The best one however was the following:

Will (while flexing): Emma look at me, I'm strong.

Emma: Well Will, you are strong, but you don't have any balls.

Needless to say, Tracey and I have started to tell the kids to start calling it muscles instead of balls.

Nathan's Post - Young Mens Camp

A week and a half ago, I went with my young men to stake young men's camp at Impeeza. Typically I'm not too excited about the stake young men's camps as I prefer to do a little more adventurous outings when I camp, and not be quite as scheduled. But I have to say, this year's camp was excellent. Bruce Orr and I had 20 young men with us, which was the largest group in the stake. I also think that we have some of the best young men in the stake as there are few issues with the young men, and the ones who do have issues, the other young men have learned to be supportive, accepting and relatively patient with them. Some of the fun things included a hike up to the top of Table Mountain for the deacons, fly fishing for teachers, a raft war for the priests, a game of predator prey, and the typical Impeeza activities (archery, climbing wall, obstacle course, zip line and canoeing).

Cimarron Deacons Quorum at the top of Table Mountain

My favorite memory however, was from an experience that was at the time a little frustrating. One of the young men had gotten involved with some stinging nettle during the predator / prey game played on Tuesday night. After a night that was uncomfortable and with little sleep, he was understandably in a poor mood the next day, even though the worst of the actual stinging nettle issue was behind him. After lunch, he started bugging me to let him call his parents to see if they would come and pick him up. I tried to encourage him to stay, as we were going home the next day anyways, but he persisted in wanting to call his parents. After trying to get him to see his parents position (i.e., driving 4+ hours for a non-emergency when the young man would be home the next afternoon), he still persisted, so I let him borrow my phone to call home. Thankfully the boys parent told him to tough it out. From that point on I tried to get him and another young man who was also suffering from some self imposed boredom, to get more involved. We went down to the dock and started a "King of the Dock" battle that lasted for a good 45 minutes, had a nice supper, and then all the youth planned an awesome skit for the fireside that evening. It was a McDonald's order rap that most had seen on the internet, that they did hilariously for the fireside. All of our young men got involved and it really served to pull them even closer together as a group. That night as we walked back to camp, the young man said to me, "aren't you glad that I stayed?" To which I said, "Sure, but aren't you glad that you stayed?" He said he was. I guess the lesson was that sometimes its better to try and make the best out of what can seem to be a poor situation, and in some cases you will blessed with the best experiences you have had all camp.

That evening I was informed that the youth were going to be woken up at 6:00 in the morning for a hike that they were to be informed was going to occur at 7:00. Around the fire that evening I told the young men of the 7 am hike, which was met with groans and requests to sleep in instead. I told the young men that the stake had something special planned for the hike, and that if they slept in they would be missing out. To which I was still met with requests to miss the hike. I then told them that this would be the only time that they could participate in the hike, and that they could sleep on the way home from the camp and that they could sleep all they wanted when they got home. I asked them why they would choose to miss the hike, which had the potential to be something special, for something that they could have at any time afterwards. I think that is like a lot of decisions in life, and one that I hope the young men will relate to their mission decision. Sometimes we are offered limited opportunities to participate in something that has the potential to be very special, but we look for reasons to not participate, because participation is not always easy. Or we are willing to miss out on something unique, because we want to do something ordinary.

Most of the young men started to agree with the reasoning and decided to come on the hike. Two of them came to me and asked if they could still stay in bed to which I said, I would prefer they chose to come on the hike because I had no desire to drag them out of their beds that morning. So they said, "So we can choose to stay in bed", and I said. "Yes, but that means I'll have to drag you out in the morning." They finally got the point that I would compel them to come if they didn't choose to. The next morning the stake young mens presidency came by at 6 am calling everyone to assemble in 15 minutes to "redeem their brethren in Missouri". Bruce Orr was out of his tent very quickly challenging our youth to be the first up to the meeting place. I think this challenge actually got a lot of the youth in the stake going, but our group was the first up and assembled. The hike was about 2 hours, and was a bit of a history lesson on Zion's camp. At the halfway point we had a testimony meeting. When one of Bruce's sons got up to bear his testimony Bruce turned to me and said, "This is new." It was a great way to end the camp.

Early morning hike with "Zion's Camp"

On the way home the youth wanted to go to a McDonalds to actually perform their McDonalds rap and dance in public. It was hilarious, the highlight was Jonathan Jeffries doing the worm with a pillow stuffed up his shirt on the floor of McDonalds. Here is a video, you can't really hear it very well, and its pretty shaky because I was laughing so hard. Bruce got one that was a little better.

Sheep river falls

Today we went to Sheep river falls in k-country. This morning when Nathan suggested we go out to the mountains, the kids loudly voiced their objections, "NO...No we don't want to go!" blah...blah...blah. But we went anyway. On the way there, William suggested we look for stampeding "Willabeefs" (wildebeests), those things are very dangerous here in Alberta! At the end of the trip, on the drive home, all the kids said they want to go back tomorrow! Its a good thing we don't listen to our kids...hahahaha.

Our favorite baby

Katelynn is almost six months now, and she is still everyone's favorite baby. Laurel, Will, and Emma still can't wait to see her every morning. They want to hold her, and sing to her, and make her smile any chance they get. She of course loves them too. I kind of thought that after a couple of months her charm on them would dissipate, but they love her just as much as when they first saw her. Many people ask me if she is a good baby (which I think is a weird question because most mothers won't say "my baby is terrible!"), but I can honestly say she is a great baby. She is starting to get stranger anxiety but that is pretty normal. We love our "katey-cat"!

fun family nights

On a beautiful monday night in July, I decided to do an obstacle course for the kids. It was pretty fun for them, and hard for Nathan and I as we are a little too big to use some of the "course equipment" . Anyhow mostly good times had by all...as long as William got to beat someone in each race!

fun in kananaskis

We love going out to the mountains, especially with friends. So after the big church stampede breakfast in mid july, we went out to Allen Bill ponds in k-country, with our friends the Salmons.

The kids loved using the dingys and Will even took an involuntary swim off the side of one of the boats! It was an afternoon of great fun.

Laurel's post- library reading program

So me and Will started a reading program! At first Will got scared and did not want to go at all

but then he finally came to one and said 'oh I like it'. So now Will is reading for like one minute

and saying it`s two hours so that he can get a prize for reading. The summer reading club is fun!!!

free fun

So this summer we are trying to get the kids out and have some fun. We have hired one of the young women in the ward to help me at home three times a week, so I can take the crew out and not lose anyone. We go to the river park, the science centre, and today we went to the new splash park here in town. The kids had a great time.

This past saturday we all went to Spruce meadows for "the National" (a horse jumping competition) It was sponsored by everyone's favorite bank, TD. There were people there throwing TD shirts into the crowd, so of course the kids had to have them. They were an adult large size, so the girls wear them to bed and Will seems to think the shirt fits him just fine so he wears it with shorts, although the shirt covers his shorts entirely. Anyhow the kids really enjoyed Spruce Meadows and were sad to leave (it was about to rain), the best part was the day was free!

Nathan's Post - Mr. Mom

So on Saturday, Tracey took a flight to Manitoba to stay with her Grandpa for a few days. Back here in Okotoks, one of her uncles just passed away from cancer. Tracey and I were talking on our way to Red Deer on Friday night about the fact that Tracey's Grandma (her aunt's mother) was not going to be able to make it to the funeral as the grandpa has not been in very good health the last few years, and would not be able to make the trip. Grandpa needs 24 hour care, and Grandma provides it. We agreed that the aunt would probably appreciate it more if her mother was there than if Tracey was, so we decided to call up Grandma and have Tracey offer to look after Grandpa for a few days so that Grandma could come to the funeral. So Saturday morning it was all arranged, and Saturday night, on our way back from Red Deer (where we had a short visit with my parents) we dropped Tracey and Katelynn off at the airport. The kids have been great while Tracey has been gone. What has helped out is that Grandma Linda bought them a Wii. In general Tracey (more than I) don't like our kids to have video games, but I think that Linda appreciated what we were doing for her Mom and Dad, and decided to go and get the kids the present. Only bad part was that it only came with one controller. So I got on Kijiji and got a couple of used ones with nunchuks for $50 (new they would have been about $80 each for a controller with a nunchuk). The kids like it a little too much, hopefully the novelty wears off soon. But they are good at doing their chores and other jobs I give them before playing. I hope no injuries happen this time either (last time Emma got nailed in the head and got a cut over the eye by an overaggressive tennis forehand from Laurel). Right now we have one of Tracey's cousins, her husband, and 3 children staying the night. I don't know a lot of Tracey's family that well, but these ones seem good enough.

Summer is here!

The past week has been pretty fun. We had Laurel and Will's last day of school, Laurel received the "you can count on me" award (with a number of other kids in each grade) in her awards ceremony, we were very happy for her. Then on Wednesday was William's seventh birthday! We had a party at the gymnastics center here in town, we all had fun at that one, jumping on the tramps, swinging on the ropes, jumping in the foam pit (or for Nathan...throwing kids in the foam pit) it was great! Then today for Canada day we went to the church celebration in calgary, it was chilly but still a good time. Now we are tired and the house is a mess!

Nathan's Post - Rattlesnake

I took the priest's quorum to Writing on Stone provincial park for a quick camping trip this week. I had never been there, and was surprised at how nice the area is. The young men and I ran around and on the hoodoo formations in the park all evening. I had to stop myself from doing some the climbing and jumping that they were doing, as the last time I did a similar risky activity with the young men I tore my MCL. As we were walking back to our campsite at about 9:30 pm, one of the park workers was on the road and asked us if we wanted to see a rattlesnake. As we approached him, coiled up on the road was what he described as a good size rattler, about 7 years old (it had 8 rattles, but they can shed their skin more than once during a year when they are younger). It was smaller than I expected, but still has about 5 feet long. He used a rake to annoy the rattler into moving. I have to admit when the rattler took a strike position with its rattle going my heart started beating a little faster. Two of the young men took a big step backwards at that point as well. Eventually the rattler slithered off into the grass, shaking its rattle as it went. Two of the young men who are attending priests quorum are moving on this summer as they have graduated. I'll miss having Colton around the quorum. He was a good example to the other young men, and a very steadying influence on them as well. After some late campfire talking we finally got to sleep around 1:30 in the morning, only to be waken up at around 7 a.m. by some strong winds and weather that looked like it might dump a lot of water on us. Myself and a couple of the young men saw the advantages of pulling ourselves out of bed and breaking our respective camps early, as taking down tents and packing up in the rain is not pleasant. All in all a good camp, and we had one of our less active quorum members attend. Hopefully I will see more of him in the coming weeks.

busyness

This week is another busy one as Nathan is away for most of it and the kids are finishing their activities. Will and Emma have been doing swimming lessons and gymnastics, and the three oldest have been doing soccer in high river. All of these end this week! Yeah! I'm watching some other kids on various days, Emma is going to the dentist today and Laurel is starting a paper route today as well. That should be interesting as she has no sense of direction, she cannot orient herself anywhere, even somewhere familiar, so I'm sending my cell phone and the dog with her. Well best get started ...

We finally did it. Bought the biiiigg van! I never thought I cared what I drove, but I loved my suburban and was sad to see it go but the kids and Nathan really like the van, I'm getting used to it. I guess part of the mental block towards the van is that I thought, "man those are not nice or cool lookin vehicles" and I always have referred to them as huterite vans. So I guess it is peotic justice that this van of ours was previously a mennonite school bus! Whatever, we have more elbow room and its really hard to hear the kids when they are all the way in the back....win,win.

Today I decided to pull out the exersaucer for Katelynn, she just turned four months yesterday and is still a happy smiley baby. She seemed a little unsure at first but warmed up to it as soon as the other kids stopped tipping it and spinning her around in it! We love our Katie!

A day in the life...

Right now my twins and katelynn are sleeping! That doesn't usually happen, especially when the other three are at school. So I thought I would write about a day in my life right now, so when I look back in twenty years I can laugh and be grateful for my hopefully less busy life.

Yesterday I woke up at 6:30 to feed Kate. I got her back to sleep and went downstairs to say goodmorning to the rest of the kids who had all mostly just finished breakfast. I then went outside in the backyard to clean up the toys and pull out the hose to fertilize the lawn with liquid fertilizer. After the back and the front were done, Laurel headed off to school (she takes the bus), and I went upstairs and changed into my running gear. I put a movie on downstairs for the kids and I ran 5 miles on the treadmill (took 42 mins), then I had a shower and got ready for the day. After eating a bowl of cereal I fed Kate again (who had just woken up) then went outside with Will, Emma, Michael, Allison, and Kate, to blow bubbles and ride bikes around the close. We came in around 1 for a late lunch of grilled cheese and watermelon. Then the kids played outside in the yard after I put Kate back to bed, and I picked up toys, laundry and movies in the basement, then dusted,vacuumed and cleaned the bathrooms downstairs and on the main floor. Laurel came home as I was finishing (3:45 pm) and I talked with her and helped the kids get a snack. Kate then woke up again and I fed her while reading scriptures and managing the kids who were starting to get into everything. Nathan came home about 5 mintues to five and I took Emma and Will to swimming lessons. Nathan made supper (it was great) and ate with everyone at home. Emma and Will and I ate at 6:30 when we got home. Alli was already sleeping on the couch so she got put in bed for the night, Nathan read scriptures with the kids, and then went to print some pictures for one of the young men in the ward. Finally all the kids were in bed by 8:30 (later than usual) and I went to the store to get some milk...again. Most days bed time for the kids then myself is my favorite part of the day, its like I have reached the finish line for the day.

Nathan's Post - Fire Marshall Will

Tonight for family home evening, Will decided that he wanted to a fire safety lesson for us. So he got everyone together (we had put the twins to bed as they were already losing it), and asked us to sit down to learn about fire safety. He then proceeded to say, "Hi, my name is William, and I am going to teach you about fire safety". He actually gave a really good lesson. He marched us through the house and showed us which items were a fire hazard and what things could also hurt us if not used properly. He also told us that lava and bombs could also cause a fire and were dangerous. He then proceeded to teach us what to do if a fire alarm went off while you were in your room at night (get on the floor, crawl to the door and feel if it is hot, if safe go out the back door, if not safe, open the window, punch out the screen and crawl out onto the ground). I then went through with the kids how to unlock their windows. He then taught us what to do if you catch on fire (stop, drop and roll). We realized that we didn't have a designated meeting place, so we established one. We also then went and tested the fire alarms in the house. The kids thought that was neat. We did the "test" button on them, and then I lit a little paper on fire to create smoke and tested that the sensor was working. They do, and Tracey got after us to stop as it was disturbing her and Kate. Apparently if one alarm goes off in our house they all do...who knew!

Will then asked me to give him a blessing as he was sick last night. He said that when he turned 10 and got the priesthood he could give me blessings when I wasn't feeling good. Technically incorrect, but his heart is in the right place. William really surprises Tracey and I at times. He doesn't seem to have much of an attention span, but many nights rather than a picture book he'll ask me to read the Book of Mormon to him. He calls himself William Nathan Stephan - Nephite from time to time. Also, today Tracey showed me a page of math equations that William had done. They were number like 38 + 38 = 76, etc. Tracey didn't see how Will had done them, so she asked him a few times. He just said things like, "with a pencil", or "I'm just smart", or "math is easy". We are going to send it to school for his teacher to look at with a note that says, "do you know how he did this?"

The top is before the reno, and the bottom is after with the new bed!

Its finally done!

I have been working on making a king sized bed frame as Nathan thought I should get a king sized bed for my birthday. With a new born it is a little hard to get things done so the bed has taken about 6 weeks to do, but I got to use power tools so its all worth it! Of course with a new bed frame I had to redo the whole room (haha) so here is the finished results (above).

Mike and Allison are 3!

I can't believe it has been three years we have had these little monkeys but it has.The first year of their life is like a black hole in my memory. On tuesday we celebrated the twins birthday by going to the zoo with all of the kids, then going swimming. The day went pretty well, it always does when we are more laid back and make the day just about having fun with the kids (and you let them have ice cream for breakfast). At the zoo it was about 28 degrees and so we got a screamer (ice cream and slush together) for a treat. The large size is pretty big so Nathan just bought one and when the kids saw him with it they swarmed him and finished the whole thing in about three minutes! I could only get quick glimpses of the cup as their heads were crammed together over the cup, each one diving for the spoon as soon as it was coming up with some ice cream/slush on it. Later, on the way home from swimming I was asking the twins if they had a good birthday, and Emma asked, "is Alli really three because she still acts like she is two?". I asked her how she thought a three year old should act and William said, "good", to which I explained that three year olds are seldom good, but it would be nice if you could describe them that way. I think the most frequent conversation I hear between the twins now is, "shut up" "no you shut up" "you shut up" "you shut up"... then it degrades even further to "you're stupid" "no you're stupid" "you're stupid" "Mike called me stupid!" (mom says)"stop calling each other stupid" (Alli whispers) "you're stupid!"

Nathan's Post - Sunday Fun

Sundays are always interesting for our family. Mikey got a batman t-shirt the other day, and doesn't ever want to take it off. When I got back from my morning meeting, all the kids were dressed, but Mike was having a meltdown because he couldn't wear Batman. So I decided it wasn't worth the battle and threw it on over his Sunday shirt. When we got to church (just as the meeting was starting of course), the 3 older ones sprinted into the building as we got the twins and Kate out of their seats. As Tracey and I walked into the chapel, we looked for our kids, and to our dismay they were sitting down in the center row at the very front of the chapel. Oh great, said Tracey, echoing my thoughts, as we walked up to the front. Will then proceeded to get a fabric Potato head doll that Tracey made out of the kids activity bag and race it on the top of the seat and make crazy noises, much to the amusement / distraction of the people behind us. Mikey looked around and when he saw someone he knew he would stand up and smile and show off his batman shirt. They were actually pretty good for sacrament, but then Katelynn started to cry, and Tracey had to leave. Allison and Mikey then wanted to follow her, and I ended up having to take them out, leaving the 3 older ones on the bench by themselves. When I got back I sat down and tried to finish my talk that I had to give, while Will and Emma kept asking me if I was writing my talk, just so the people behind me knew I wasn't quite done preparing. Then I went up to the front, and of course Tracey had to take the twins out the back as they wanted to follow me up to the front. The 3 older ones were actually pretty good by themselves, as the Gregson's helped occupy them from time to time while I spoke. After I was done speaking and the closing hymn was being sung, William ran up to the front to sit on my knee. Which wasn't too bad, except his nose had been running a little, so he had shoved a whole kleenex in it (apparently it had been in there for quite awhile, so the Bishop and others got a small chuckle thanks to William looking around the meeting room). So I had to smile a little at the sight of him and then took the kleenex out quickly and put it in my suit pocket (note to others: don't be shoving your hands in my suit pockets). Ahhh the Sabbath, a day of rest.

Nathan's Post - Friendship

The other night Laurel, William and I were talking about missions (they had just watched "The Other Side of Heaven" which is a Disney movie based on Elder Groberg's mission to Tonga). The conversation got me thinking about my mission in France and Switzerland and the great experience it was. I was blessed to be able to teach and participate in the baptism of a young man named Dario when I served in the city of Grenoble. Dario was introduced to the church by his future wife, Sandrine. We became friends while I was on my mission, and continued our friendship afterwards, with Tracey, Laurel and I staying with Dario and his family twice when we visited Europe. Over the last few years I hadn't kept up my contact with Dario, even though I had thought about him and his family many times during those years. So last night I looked him up on the internet and found what I was pretty certain was his address and phone number. This afternoon I called him to say hi. It was great to talk with him and catch up on what was going on in his life. He talked about how his oldest son received the Aaronic priesthood a couple of weeks ago, and how he is serving in his branch presidency, and his wife is the stake young women's president. I think I understood a little how Alma felt when he met the sons of Mosiah after their mission to Lamanites, in that he rejoiced in having met his friends, but his joy was even greater that they were still his brethern in the Lord.

The snipe

I am sitting here watching the movie UP with the twins and I was reminded of our trip to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. There are always peacocks walking around the zoo, and one walked past Mike and I as we were going in to see the hippos. Both Mike and Allison got really excited and tried to pet it. Then as it walked away from us Mike pointed at it and said "Kevin!". It took me a minute to realize he thought it was the 'snipe' bird from the movie UP. He obviously related the colour of the peacock to the colourful bird in the movie. I love glimpses into the mind of a child.

Katelynn

I just have to say I love my new little girl. I love her smiles the most and she is so very generous with them. I am very grateful for my children, even though many days I do wish for some uninterrupted time to myself. I really can't wait to learn more about this sweet girl's personality.