The injury

Somehow Bridget twisted her ankle in PE. The result is not pretty as you can see. This picture is four days after it happened. Most of her foot was purple and that is not so bad anymore in this picture. It looks like her days running the 800 in track are over at least for this season. She only really had one more track meet anyway. But Prom is this Saturday so the high heels should be interesting. Luckily her dress is long so it wont show too much.
In other news, Garrett is off to Olympia today to take over the government. Yesterday he got all his signatures and turned in his paper work for his eagle project. What a relief! It looks like he will actually have this done before he is 18.
Eli continues to entertain. Every time he falls down or coughs he yells "I'm okay!" Even if he is upstairs and I am downstairs he runs to the top of the stairs and yells "I'm okay!" Then I know for sure he has either fallen or coughed and he is okay. As a typical male he also likes to pass gas. Every time he announces "I tooted!" very loudly. Then he says, "Mom, say eeeeeeeeeeeew." When I say it he just wears a very pleased grin. Typical.
I am in the thick of preparations for the senior teacher appreciation dinner. I am working on making the invitations now. We are also in the thick of wedding season. So I am spending lots of time at showers and receptions.
And we just heard that Rachel and Josh chose our #1 pick Gonzaga for Law school! We are so happy to have them come closer to us! Okay so it is 2 1/2 hours away but the possibilities are endless!

Just one question

One day last week Bridget woke up to a big sign with her name on it on her car.










Hmmm, very exciting. What could this mean? As she drove to school there were lots more signs. Beneath the stop sign at the edge of our neighborhood there was a large sign that said "Good Morning". Each sign after that had only one word attached to poles all along the way to school. I believe these were the words on the signs.
JUST -

ONE-

QUESTION -

WILL -

YOU -

GO -

TO

PROM -

WITH
ME?

He had told her in advance that she could park in his parking spot that day. (Apparently he is so special he has his own parking place at school) So he was standing in the parking spot holding this sign. Since the signs were all along the route to school everyone at school asked her if she said yes. Apparently word got out who the signs were for. The elementary school is right down the street and those little kids were really excited about seeing those signs on the way to school. When our friend's children found out they were for Bridget they couldn't wait to tell their friends that they knew the girl those signs were for. I told Bridget she is like a rock star at the elementary school.
Garrett also is going to prom. I asked him how he was going to ask Julia to prom. He said he was going to say "I guess we shouldn't waste that dress you bought for prom." I didn't think that was very romantic. But he wasn't really serious. So he gave her two plants with a sign that said "I'll wet my plants if you don't go to prom with me." I asked him to take a picture for me but of course he was doing it last minute and didn't have time. I got this idea from a long time ago when I was visiting my sister, Linda, and my nephew, Richard, asked someone to prom this way. This was about twelve years ago. Great memory I know. So now we are in the thick of prom preparations here.

Now I have just one question. When did white men's dress shoes come back into fashion? I couldn't believe it when Garrett insisted he just had to have these shoes for prom. I could hardly believe it. It was almost more than I could do to buy these. I tried to tell him about the crazy redneck brother-in-law on those Vacation movies. But he wouldn't hear any of it. How did this happen?

Samantha came home

Samantha came home for a little over a week between semesters. She brought home her roommate Carmen. She is a sweet girl and we really enjoyed having her. Samantha loved showing Carmen all around her town and hangin out with the fam. If you think they look like they could be related you are not alone. One lady in the ward asked if they were twins. (It's weird that there are people in the ward who don't know all my children. Makes me feel old.) And a Young Man who has known Samantha almost his whole life had an entire conversation with Carmen before he realized it wasn't Samantha. Right before she came home she worked the BYU-I graduation banquet. Everyone that works in food services has to work the banquet. (Samantha works at the McKay Cafe in the library) Of all the people working, Samantha got to be the one to serve Pres. and Sis. Clark AND Elder Ballard. Her boss told her that she was not to touch him or talk to him. He told her if she so much as even slightly put her hand out to shake his hand he would fire her and then kill her. She was a good girl and didn't even spill anything on him.





The little kids loved the attention from Samantha and Carmen. They took them to Pioneer park for a picnic and to our little neighborhood park for a picnic there another day.

Bridget and Landin went to the movies with them.










Bridget and Samantha and Carmen and I went to the Tri-Cities for some shopping. We got to go to PF Changs while we were there. YUM! It's new here so everyone in town was there but worth the wait. It was a fun day thanks to Dallin and Garrett who stayed home with the little ones.
The next day we had to say goodbye but she will be back in July.

Elijah the super Hero

Here is Elijah wearing his super hero cape. It's actually just a piece of fabric he found lying around the house. It can turn him into any number of super heroes. Sometimes it is "Spiderman Hero, here to save the day!" or "Superman to the rescue!" He yells these things while jumping off of anything and everything because this cape can definitely make you fly.

This is a weird one. One day he just picked up a rubber band and put it around his face. He said, "Look Mom, I'm a cool spied." I think this means a spy. I don't know how that works but now he just puts it on every so often and walks around the house like that saying he is a cool spied.

There are a couple of other super heroes in his life and they are Garrett and Dallin. When they are mowing the lawn he has to get his lawn mower and mirror their every move.

Licensed Driver!

Finally, Bridget got her license. She could have gotten it six months ago but never quite got around to it. She is always so busy and the DMV just won't work around her schedule. Anyway who needs a license when you have a chauffeur? (See the Sadies pictures for him) So on spring break a couple of weeks ago she finally got her license. I feel like I have spent the last three years at the DMV. I was doing a dance on the way out just thinking that I don't have to come back for another three years. (I did spend quite a lot of time there with Bridget, we wont say why) Anyway, she did pass the driving part with flying colors on her first try. And now she is off! It took me over two weeks to get this picture because she is always running. Garrett likes to point out that on the day after she got her license she brought the car home with a big dent in it. But he leaves out the part that this was not her fault. She wasn't even in the car. She had it appropriately parked at a friend's house and someone backed into it. So now we have three drivers. I knew this day was coming their whole lives but it is hard to believe this day is here.

Eagle Project

It finally happened! Garrett has had all the merit badges and has been ready for four years to do his project and it finally happened. Yes, and just two months before his 18th birthday. His project was to restore and repaint the grandstands and concession stands for a baseball field. This required lots of scraping and replacing of rotting boards and painting.

Ethan and Landin were real troopers and stayed out to help Garrett all day. Ethan is one of Garrett's best friends and has been for a long time.

Landin is one of Garrett's friends and one of Bridget's best friends. This still did not get her out to help. But it did motivate her to bring out some pizza and ice cream bars for them.

Matt is one of Garrett's favorite YM leaders. He is definitely cool and obviously a great painter.

Dallin loves to shadow his big brother. Garrett helps Dallin on the worst part of his paper route...Sunday Morning! For this Dallin is forever grateful.

Jordan and Tyler came out to help too.

Garrett finally to the fun part... spray painting.

Dad helping with the fun part.

Brian was good enough to come out and supervise after Todd had to go to work. Brian was one of Todd's counselors for almost five years until he was recently made the YM pres.

I also need to give a little shoutout to Rachel for making my cute header for me. Thanks Rach! Sorry I'm such a computer-tard.

SENIOR!

Garrett is a senior this year. Only two months until graduation! I can hardly believe it. We will have two high school graduates. That happened fast. Garrett has been keeping himself very busy this year. He is in every club that is doing anything interesting this year (ie. taking a trip) He is the vice president of the Youth in Government club. They will be taking a trip to Olympia soon and taking over the state capital and presenting their mock bills and mock running the government. He is on the knowledge bowl team. They go to knowledge bowl meets and answer questions knowledgeably competing against other teams. He has joined the school newspaper as a staff writer. He is taking AP Psychology and Advanced Photography. So he can psychoanalyze our crazy family. He made it home safe from the mancation and Mt Hood seems to be in one piece. He was accepted to BYUI for the Summer/Fall track. This puts him and Samantha on different tracks which means they will not live together again except for breaks between semesters. If all goes as planned he will start school this fall and leave for his mission next summer. These are a couple of his senior portraits.