March Went Out Like a Ferocious Lamb

The last day of March we had a little bit of snow but my sister farther North had many many inches of snow. She was still able to make it down to UVU for a concert my niece was in. You know that niece.

Great performances by all the students. I also got to see both my sisters and we got a picture together. The last time we got a sisters picture with all three of us was right before my nephew left for his mission February of 2020.

I've gotten pictures with each of my sisters since but it was so nice that we were all together again that night.

I love my sisters.

Celebrating Other Than Holidays in March

There were opportunities to support and cheer on family members in March.

Lucky had a 3rd grade concert at school and he did a great job.

 

The elementary school had a read-a-thon that was Harry Potter themed. The students tried to read the most minutes possible. Jr. Jr.'s "house" got the most minutes of the school and won the "house cup."

Lucky got one of the highest amounts of minutes in his grade.

Jeremy, Jet, and I went to school with Jr. Jr. and Lucky one morning for "Parents and Pastries" to listen to a storyteller and have breakfast.

Lucky participated in Battle of the Books. His team made it to the final battles and got second place overall. He got his first trophy! He also got a book for being in the finals. For reading all 20 books, he got a box of candy and another book. And earlier, all the students who participated got a box of candy. 

I know he worked hard on this and it paid off. I got to go to four of his five original battles and Jet and I went to his final battle.

I was going to support Nichole by going to see her get an outstanding student award at school but I ended up sick that day so I couldn't go. She was understanding. She is such a sweet girl. Her orchestra teacher nominated her and had this to say, that she "has been a consistent example of hard work, dedication, and quiet service through her three years at Orem High. She notices things that need to be done and goes about making a difference without any request or expectation of acknowledgement." Way to go, Nichole.

The kids supported me a few times by coming on drives with me. The boys were content if they got to bring devices. Nichole and I got to chat. One day she and Jet and I went for a walk while the boys hung out in the van.

Another day we drove into Provo Canyon and were able to see where avalanches were.

That second picture is Bridal Veil Falls. There was an avalanche back in January. This picture was taken while driving by in March. I'll talk more about it and share more pictures when I catch up on May. Stay tuned... for a while. Let's just say it's now June and the road down by Bridal Veil Falls is still closed (it usually opens the beginning of May).

Jeremy got me a present. The kids wanted me to open it so Lucky tried to hurry me through eating my food so I would open it sooner. 

It was a comfy hoodie. Jeremy has a matching one but in a different color (and size). They are so comfortable.

 

March was busy and chaos and exhausting. But we made it through. Go, Telfords!

Celebrating Holidays in March

Started this post back in April but you know... chaos... then Jr. Jr. and Lucky like to "help" with my blog posts.

 

Bear with me as I have a whole month of holidays to talk about so I won't remember all of them especially if I didn't take pictures.

March 1: Share a Smile Day. I already posted the picture I took that day of Jet, Lucky, and I sharing a smile. I posted it on March 26, 2023.

March 2: Dr. Seuss' Birthday. We had green shelled eggs from neighbors' chickens. We also had ham. We ate breakfast burritos.

March 3: I Want You To Be Happy Day. Going to the library makes Nichole happy. Running around the library makes Jet happy.

March 6: Birthday of the Oreo cookie.

March 7: National Cereal Day. Some of us had cereal. Some of us had cheese and pickle sandwiches.

March 8: Kenneth Grahame's Birthday. We had The Reluctant Dragon checked out of the library for this.

Also National Proofreading Day. Nichole wrote.

March 9: Popcorn Lover's Day.

March 14: Pi Day and National Potato Chip Day and Learn About Butterflies Day.

March 15: Ides of March. Lucky was quite happy we had Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps.

March 16: National Panda Day. "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?"

Also Artichoke Hearts Day. We may or may not have had alfredo pizza with artichoke hearts. I'm leaning toward we did.

March 17: St. Patrick's Day. We wore green.

March 18: Sloppy Joe Day. Jeremy made us sloppy joes and onion roasted potatoes while the kids and I were out. I tried to get a picture of all of us. It wasn't easy so I made the comment that the picture was horrible so I needed to try again. Lucky commented, "Why is the picture horrible? Oh, because of your face?" Don't exactly know how to take that.

March 19: Poultry Day. Cooked chicken drumsticks and made some Indian food to go with them because we had ingredients we needed to use up.

Also Chocolate Caramel Day. 

Also Let's Laugh Day. Have you met my family? Of course there was laughing.

March 20: Vernal Equinox/First Day of Spring and National Snowman Burning Day. Jr. Jr.'s Family Home Evening activity- making paper snowmen and burning them. We started with a jar and ended on a pie plate which worked better. 

I was going to make snowman sandwiches for dinner. Grilled cheese snowman sandwiches. We had had grilled cheese and grilled pb&j but forgot the raisins so they weren't snowman sandwiches.

March 21: French Bread Day. These loaves turned out gorgeous if I do say so myself.

March 24: National Cheesesteak Day. We made Chilly Pheesesteaks. 

March 28: Something on a Stick Day. I made pizza muffins and ham and cheese muffins and we ate them on toothpicks. 

March 29: Manatee Appreciation Day. I went around singing "Barbara Manatee" most of the day.

There. I did it. Blogged about holidays in March. Phew.

Hey, Look. It's the Sky

To say things have been crazy lately is an understatement. At least one person has used the appropriate word- chaos.

So here is a picture of the sky from a family outing one night to walk along a trail by the lake. Lots of birds and bugs. We didn't think to bring bug spray. It's been a while... 

 

since we last walked. 

 

Please send lots of money so we can rebuild the destruction Jet made at our home and the doctor said my leg would be fine. I hope Jet doesn't go crazy again. Jet right now is stuck in a playpen so he doesn't bite one of us again. I hope he can't get out. Oh no he got out help us all!!! I shall lock myself in my bedroom like last time but there is twenty five locks instead of one. He is hitting the door what if he gets in! He's broken nine of the locks no I mean ten. Wait... he broke ten more only five more to go. How about I hide in my closet. I think he broke all of the locks and is in it won't be long before he finds me I hope he doesn't bite off my arm so I can keep typing. Help!!! He got my other leg I must escape I must run. I got away I will lock him in the house. It worked! He's now stuck in my house. Until next time. 

Catch of the Day

 

Can you tell Jeremy drove the van before me?

Jet's First Trip Out of State

We had the opportunity toward the beginning of the month of March to go to our niece's baby blessing in Idaho. We got up really early in the morning to make it. Because of the roads, we were worried we might not make it on time. There were areas we lost a lot of time and some we made up time and in the end it balanced out. We walked into Sacrament Meeting during the opening song. Woohoo.

Jeremy's parents had driven there from Washington so we got to spend time with them and since it was Jet's first trip out of Utah (and my first trip since before he was born), several of us got to meet my sister-in-law-in-law and niece and nephew for the first time. Jeremy and our two oldest had visited them on their way back from a fair a couple years ago and they went to Washington when they got married a few years ago.

Lucky was good at entertaining his new cousin by making faces. She loved it.

 

It was a nice trip. I told the kids stories about Winter when I lived there so many years ago. Jet had fun stomping around in the snow calling out, "Idaho! Idaho!"

This was not the deep snow.

It was cold so I hopped in the trunk to make sandwiches for lunch to eat on our way home. Jeremy spotted a tree filled with waxwings. Most of them were Bohemian Waxwings. We're used to seeing Cedar Waxwings in Utah. We've only seen one Bohemian Waxwing before. And of course we hadn't brought our birding camera or our binoculars. Sigh. But we saw them. I saw them after I was let out of the closed trunk.

Then we headed home and had an adventure. This is what Jeremy texted to my mom and my sisters as I was driving:

 

This is Jeremy. Kristin wanted me to relate a story. So we took a family trip today to Rexburg, ID to see my brother bless his baby girl. I drove the whole way up and despite the roads we made it with minutes to spare. I was exhausted from the early hour and drive though and asked Kristin to drive home. We needed to get gas and Idaho Falls Costco was suggested by my family. We got gas and Kristin followed the directions on the GPS to get us going home. Only the GPS wasn't talking aloud (something to do with a Bluetooth connection to our CD player in the van). As we traveled Jr.'s book fell to the floor of the car. Trying to reach it his seat belt locked and became uncomfortable. We promised to stop at the next rest area so he could unbuckle and rebuckle. We approached the city of Dubois, stopped at a gas station, and went back to the freeway. But the GPS wanted us to go toward Idaho Falls. We had already traveled more than an hour from Idaho Falls. That didn't make sense! Somehow we must have gotten turned around after getting gas. I can only imagine how many times the GPS was trying to say "When possible make a u-turn." We are almost back to Idaho Falls now. At least we got to see Bald Eagles, Golden Eagles, and a few different types of hawks and falcons. :) Kristin wanted me to share so we could laugh together. We left Rexburg almost two hours ago, the roads are clear, no construction, and no traffic, and we have almost made it to Idaho Falls says Kristin.

 

I was not laughing about it at the time. Interestingly, the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday before I had joined watching RootsTech online (family history conference). One of the speakers had talked about stories, mentioning specifically a family trip where horrible things happened on the way but they were able to laugh about it later and that became a family trait, recognizing that they might not be okay in the moment but they knew later they would be. I was thinking about that during our trip home.

By the time we got to Ogden, it was snowing in such a way in the dark that it was messing with my brain. You're all familiar with snow that is like the Millenium Falcon traveling through hyperspace. It was like that but I couldn't handle it. Luckily we were able to switch drivers and Jeremy got us the rest of the way home by 9pm. Thanks, Jeremy. So it was a longer trip than expected when we left at lunchtime but 9pm isn't too bad. And of course it was most important that we made it to the baby blessing on time.

I am laughing because this trip was to go to our niece's baby blessing but less than a month before that we went to my niece's baby's blessing. That can happen when between Jeremy and I, one of us is one of the oldest in the family and one of us is one of the youngest. Definitely some babies being born in our family and baby blessings. Jet was blessed in 2020 (in our backyard). My niece's son was blessed in 2021 (which we participated over Zoom). My nephew was blessed in 2022 (which we missed because of the weather). And my niece's daughter and my niece were both blessed in 2023.

Mommy, Look

Jet: I'm riding a horse.