Called to Serve

This week is Missionary Week in Seminary.

Cassidy received her call to serve in Belgium. She was excited!
She is amazing us with her obedience to ALL the mission rules:

Up at 6:00am for 30 minute scripture study
No TV
Only church music
(she actually gave up David Archuletta for the week!)
Make your own meals
(I love having help in the kitchen!)
No calling or texting boys unless school related
(This is where the other girls drew the line!)
Memorize Doctrine & Covenants 4
Do your own laundry and ironing
(Mom is having a hard time with this one!)
No internet unless school related
Morning and evening prayers
Keeping a safe distance from the boys
In bed by 10:30pm
Extra points for sharing the gospel with a non-member,
giving out a Book of Mormon (Cass gave out 1!)
and bearing your testimony

You go, Sister!

Milestone

In Clark's never ending quest to push himself, he ran a personal best in the mile yesterday.

5:45 was the time. That's 17 seconds faster than last week.

He lives for Wednesday.

Next Wednesday's goal: improve his time.

He figures if he can shave off 12 more seconds, he can land a spot in Poston History.

One of the top 10 mile times for 7th grade boys.

Wish him luck!

Eagle Project

We spent Valentine's Day completing Clark's Eagle Project.
Clark wanted to pick citrus and donate it to the United Food Bank. He has spent the past several weeks coordinating with the Food Bank, passing out fliers to 400 homes asking if they would like their citrus picked, recruiting volunteers, organizing teams and leaders and planning the breakfast.

We had no idea how many volunteers to expect. We were so appreciative of the over 80 family members, ward members, Scout leaders, neighbors and friends who spent part of their morning helping Clark. With the help of 8 team leaders, we were able to pick about 48 orange, lemon, grapefruit, and tangerine trees.

Gathering for breakfast of donughts, milk and juice...
Clark giving one of our great "team leaders" his instructions...

Some of our faithful volunteers...

Awesome family members who worked so hard...

just a few of the juicy grapefruit that were picked...

Does it get any better than climbing trees and tossing fruit?...

Filling up one of the 10 gaylords that was distributed around the neighborhood...

When all the fruit was picked, we put the lids on the gaylords and sealed them with wrap.

We are so appreciative of all those that made this a successful project.

Clark was able to surpass his goal of 4000 lbs of citrus and he accumulated over 260 hours in just 4 hours from all the volunteers!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to all those that participated!

Mesa City Track Meet

Oh, how I wish I was a photographer, or even tech savvy enough to know how to put the video of this race on my blog...but since I am neither, these pictures will have to tell the story.

Clark qualified to participate in the Mesa City Boys Track Meet last week.
It was for just 7th and 8th grade boys.
Clark chose to run the 400 (once around the track)

Here he is walking to the starting blocks. He refuses to look at me!
Here he is in the middle of the pack...(Clark is 3rd from the left)

Coming up on the guy in the lead...

Blowing past everyone and finishing all alone...and in 1st Place!

With his blue ribbon and a time of 1:03, yes that's one minute, three seconds!

(First place in his heat and also overall!)

It was such a great race and Clark was smart enough to know to just run his own pace.

He wasn't distracted by the guys that sprinted the first 100 yards, only to burn out.

He kept a steady pace and was able to kick it in high gear the last 100 yards.

I keep reminding Curt that he could have possibly inherited his quickness from me!

Clark also ran the 200 and finished 1st. Sorry, no pictures!

He is new goal is to break 6 minutes in the mile. Yesterday he ran a 6:02 mile.

You're almost there, Clark!

The Agony and the Ecstasy!

This is the agony... Haley had two huge bags of ice taped to her knees the other day when I picked her up from tennis. She has been having a lot of pain in her knees. One doctor thinks she might have Osgood Schlatter's Disease. She is taking Glucosamine Chondroitin (joint stuff) and Aleve for the inflamation. We are happy though, that she made the Mt. View Tennis Team and look forward to watching her play! (hopefully without too much pain!)


The ecstasy...

Clark loves to run and is actually pretty good at it. He got "Miler of the Month" for the 7th grade boys at Poston. His time was 6:09, which to me is very impressive! He says it's not that great and he is now motivated to beat his cousin Caleb who ran the mile at his school in 5:58.

Run Clark, run!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday.

I have always known that I was blessed beyond measure to be born to the parents that I was.
They are practically perfect in their love of me, my siblings, my children and all those that they come in contact with.

This is my dad at 6 months. I have always loved this picture.

As a little girl I would go down to my grandparent's master bedroom and study all the little family snapshots, but especially the portraits that Grandma had done of each of her six children at this age. It left an impression, becuase I did the same with each of my own babies.
I think this is high school graduation...
When my girls first saw this picture they said, "Dang, Grandpa was HOT when he was younger!"

A favorite past time of Grandpa's. If only there was more time...

This is with Cassidy and Bennett, nine years ago, when Cassidy was 5 and Bennett 2.
Bennett has inherited his Grandpa's love of fishing, thus Bennett's recent birthday gift of a fishing pole of his very own!


At Disneyland with several of the grandkids...

and today...tirelessly working and serving with his favorite companion!

We love you, Dad, and are so grateful for your example of love, service, hard work and testimony to each of us! We are so blessed to live near you and to not only see your example daily, but feel it, too!

Go here for another birthday post.

Winter Formal

Haley had Winter Formal last night.
Here is her group... All the guys...

All the gals...

Haley and her date Dallas...

and as she was running out the door to pick up her date...

Haley spent most of the day decorating for the dance with Student Council. The theme was "Circus in the Snow". They have been working for months painting the decorations and making sure all the details were in place.

She made it home in time to rest for a bit, and then it was time for all the fun.

The group had a great time taking pictures, eating at BJ's, going to the dance, and playing games for the night activity.

Last Saturday, was their "day activity" where they had an Amazing Race contest which ended with the group riding the light rail to Tempe Town Lakes for a picnic and games.

It was a great night and Haley looked beautiful!