The mountains are gorgeous, the sky is blue!

This was taken on Sunday when we arrived for church.  

The mountains are so beautiful this time of year!  

Nature is a wonderful gift from a loving Heavenly Father!

Amy turned 15 on Monday!  We had our traditional breakfast in bed and then we had birthday dinner (Amy's favorite-tortellini).  Sophie and Aubrey came over for birthday cake and singing.  They took Amy out to Panda Express afterwards.  Amy wants to go to EFY this summer for her Christmas/birthday present.  She wants to go by herself so she can meet lots of new friends!  

We had to get another car by Tuesday, so on Monday, your Tim took some time off of work and we got a little 2005 Honda Civic.  We took the rental back on Tuesday.  It turned out to be a blessing that we got hit because Todd had slid on ice in the Corolla and had an accident that left the car in bad shape.  We got to drive a new rental for two months and then the new car we got is much better. So it turned out to be a huge blessing.

Cousin Adrian Mickelson (Kim's husband) from Boise, ID was working at Micron in Lehi this week.  He brought back the two suits we'd left in Boise when we were there.  We had him over for dinner (Japanese food, of course)!  He served his mission in Sendai and he travels to Tokyo about 4 times a year so he is a Japanese food fan too.  We had a great visit.

Luke loves to swim and he went swimming for 3 hours on Friday and then for 3 hours on Saturday after his swimming lessons with Kaylee.  He is getting quite proficient with the back stroke.

Gas prices continue to fall-LOVE IT!!!

Amy took her driver's test.

Thursday was parent teacher conferences.  Friday I took Luke swimming for 3 hours, then we went to Tanner Frandsen's reception.  He married a girl from Wisconsin.  They had real fish in fishbowls for the center pieces-cool! .  On Saturday morning Luke had swimming lessons and then we stayed at the pool another 3 hours.  His poor eyes have chlorine burns-I think we over did it this time!  Saturday, Amy's friend, Kylie from Waterford came over for dinner and then the girls went to a fun Stake dance in Alpine.  They had a great time.

Todd is trying to maximize his fun times with Brian Mickelson before he leaves on his mission in just a few weeks.

Teaching the boys how to eat with chopsticks

Tim and Lexi Beth

Tonight we had the Eric and Mindy's family over over. We had dinner and visited until about 8 pm. 

Amy gave a great talk in church today. The topic was, "Fasting." 

Amy has started to decorate her room!

After we painted it.  She got three round mirrors and some soft comfy blankets.  Also candles and candy dishes.  She is already 15 in Japan where she was born, but it the States, her birthday is technically tomorrow ;)

 Amy made this collage!

Luke started a new semester in school!

This week it was our turn to take care of Grandma and David. We spend several days over there. On Friday, we shared pizza with them and we took down the Christmas decorations that Rick and Kelsee had put up for Grandma.  They did a fantastic job! Grandma was especially grateful. While we were there Luke disappeared for a a few minutes. When Tim went to look for him, He found him in Grandma's bathroom with red something all over his face and hands - lipstick. Turns out he had eaten three full tubes of lipstick. Not to worry, it's made mostly of wax. So Tim bought Grandma some new lipstick the next day. It's a wonder that little boy is still alive! 

She is just starting to feel a bit better after her fall.  Tim went down on Saturday to help out with a few things for David.  Uncle Rick was there too to help with David's computer.

Luke attended Special Needs mutual this week and he stayed for an hour or so.  They played a relay game where you blow up a balloon and then sit on it to pop it.  We also took him swimming.

The dump truck driver's insurance company (the guy that hit our gray car) settled with us on the car which means we will be getting another one.  We spent a lot of time looking for another car and still haven't found one we really like, but we have to turn in the rental car on Tuesday, so I think we will go ahead and get the best one we've found so far tomorrow.  We spent a lot of time this week car shopping!  Hopefully the one we get will be good enough to get us through for the next little while.

Couldn't help but take a picture at Costco the other day - gas prices have fallen to $1.79! That's really going to help the budget. We've been spending $400 a month on gas, and that's going to drop in half. Not to mention the price of everything in the store is affected by the cost of the gas used by delivery trucks. Yep, I'm a little excited. 

Today Tim visited the primary and introduced this month's theme, "I believe in God the Eternal Father and his Son Jesus Christ." He shared an experience, bore testimony, and gave a promise. The experience he shared was of when he was a primary age boy. His family took a trip to New York and visited the sacred grove. He was very young, and didn't understand the significance of that place. But, he asked his mom, "What's that feeling?" She said, "What do you mean?" He asked again, "What's that special feeling?" Then, she explained that the place where we were was where Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ visited the prophet Joseph Smith. She told him that the special feeling was the Holy Ghost testifying to him that this was a special place where a sacred thing happened over 100 years ago.