First Quarter Catch-up

Now into the second quarter, we finally add data to the first quarter catch-up. Good thing we're nobody's accountant!

Nin staged a surprise visit over Lia's birthday to watch the kids while Justin gave the devotional at BYU-Idaho. True to course, while here she packed two weeks activities into just a few days' stay. We painted an Easter Nativity scene with our neighbor and ministering sister, Carolee.

Attended the Lindon Temple Open House.

Had a tea party and went to the kid-friendly ballet The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at the Capitol Theatre. This was especially noteworthy because thirty years before Nin had taken Lia to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Capitol Theatre in connection with her 13th birthday. A grand time was had by all! (Though a little longer grand time by the girls than by Lia, who had to spend some of it finding parking for a very large vehicle within clearance-unfriendly parking garages.)

A few weeks before Nin's visit, President Oaks gave his first major address as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during a BYU devotional. Lia and Justin had the privilege of attending the luncheon and hosted President Oaks' oldest daughter Sharmon and her husband, and youngest daughter Jenny and her husband, daughter, and granddaughter. With a two-year old of our own, the powers that be must have felt we'd be best equipped to handle that energy.

During Nin's visit, she also treated Lia to a night at the Utah Symphony to hear Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, a favorite of both Julia and Elisabeth. Pianist Alexander Malofeev was stunning and answered his encore with a beautiful selection from Swan Lake.

Lia taught her second-to-last Joy School on the Joy of Spontaneous Delight. The kids were full of it!

Gwyndelin performed her National History Day performance on Sanite Belair and the Haitian Revolution, winning a berth at the State Competition a few months later. She was very convincing!

Dream come true: Julia, Katharine, and Lia were asked to play background music in the tent of the VIP tours of the Lindon Temple Open House. Not wanting to take this privilege only to herself--and to keep anyone from stressing too much--Lia split the thirty minutes of allotted playing time with a young pianist in the ward and selected an easy to intermediate book of Marshall Macdonald arrangements. Getting to play beautiful hymns beautifully arranged was experience and reward enough, but they were above and beyond rewarded by a treat of the catered food and a VIP tour. We got to see the bride's rooms and initiatory rooms in addition to the offerings of the public tours which opened later. It was an amazing day! 
 

Miriam enjoying her ice cream at the DQ after Abdiel's second place finish in the Orem Rec basketball tournament. They lost to a team made up by 80% of a Bantam team (i.e. a high school feeder team who practices four days a week, two hours each time) and lost by only one point, so we were very proud of him!

Hamantaschen to celebrate Purim on March 2nd.

Fun at the Rec center, which we're tying to have lots of since we forked over lots of cash for a pass.

Katharine's cello family at her very last Federation performance! She performed Schelomo, which was breathtaking. 

More pics at the Symphony. Lia has a history of growing strange sculptures out of her head.

Our friends Elaine and Warren Lake joined us for the lunch at BYU-Idaho afterward, as well as Kirk and Gretchen Cheney. We haven't seen the Lakes since our summer internship in D.C., so it was great to catch up. It was also fun to see the Cheneys feted like the returning hometown heroes since Kirk is the only BYU-Idaho grad ever to get into an Ivy League law school. Well-deserved praise! Both these couples are awesome!

We discovered a new, sandy floored park near Utah Lake and went there with Nin.

Trying to have a little homeschool fun, we took Abdiel to his old stomping grounds of the dinosaur museum. Though his new love is sports and sports statistics, he remembered a surprising number of his childhood dinosaur facts.