Family Weekend

We went to Logan for a family weekend. Just the 5 of us. We were going to go camping, but our camper wasn't quite ready yet, so we decided to stay in a motel instead. Abigail had a dance competition on Saturday and we were able to swim in the motel's pool, go to the zoo, and play at the park. It is nice to just get away every now and then.

Logan's Willow Park Zoo

We went to Logan's Willow Park Zoo. It is a really small zoo, but perfect for our crew's attention span. The girls loved it and it was only $0.50 per person. Almost Free!

A Perfect Play at the Park

The weather was perfect in Logan, so we couldn't resist going to the park.

Emily is braver than most 6 year olds (and she is only two). She went straight for the tallest slide on the play ground and did not want any help. We were standing below hoping that she wouldn't take a tumble down those stairs.

Elizabeth is trying to work up the courage to climb the little stairs to the little slide.

Abigail needs to build that upper body strength she didn't quite make it all the way across the monkey bars.

Another Trip to the ER

You can't really see what happened in this picture, which is probably a good thing for our blog readers, but I will tell you what happened. Last Wednesday, when Abigail came home from school she was playing with some flowers that I had made with wooden dowels used for the stem. Abigail still puts everything in her mouth and she was chewing on the end of the stick, when she tripped and fell into a chair. The wooden dowel went in her mouth and punctured her soft palate. OUCH! There was so much blood that I couldn't really see what happened, so I rushed her to the hospital. They got the bleeding to stop and did some X-Rays and told her to take some pain medicine, rinse her mouth several times a day with salt water, take an antibiotic to prevent infection and stay on a soft foods diet for a while. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was and we are lucky that It wasn't as bad as it could have been. I sure hope all kids aren't this accident prone.

Gearing up for another swim season.

We are getting ready for another swimming season with the Stocker Swim School. The Stocker Swim School website is complete (for now) after only 27 hours of web designing!

Check it out, and let me know what you think! http://www.stockerswimschool.com/ Also if you live in North Texas tell your friends about it and sign up on June 1st for tuition discounts! Can you believe it is my 16th year doing this? (Yes, I started working for my mom when I was 12) I thought it would end ages ago, but the water and sun (and money) keep sucking me back for another season.

Whirlwind Weekend

On Thursday (April 1st) Grand Nan, Papa, Harrison, and Thomas came for a weekend visit. It was no joke this time, I really knew that they were coming. We had every minute of every day scheduled for a weekend full of fun and fun we had. The family arrived at about 6:00 p.m. on Thursday. We celebrated my mom's birthday and my parents wedding anniversary with a home cooked dinner and a chocolate fudge cake. Heather and Shane were able to come and celebrate with us, so it was a lot of fun.

The cake said "85 great years and counting." It was my dad's idea, he has a weird sense of humor. (Sorry, dad). It was my mom's 56th birthday and my parents 29th wedding anniversary (56 + 29 = 85). Get it. Ha Ha.

On Friday, we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesdays to keep celebrating. The twins got all dressed up for the occasion. Emily is making her "popeye" face for the picture.

An Early Easter

On Friday morning we pretended like it was Easter and got up and had a late breakfast and an Easter lesson, then the kids went to play in the playroom while the Easter Bunny Came. My parents were in charge of the Egg Hunt and I think that they forgot that I only have 3 kids, not 30. There were so many eggs, that Abigail's Easter basket broke and she resorted to using a feeding bucket as her new and improved Easter basket.


Elizabeth

Emily

Elizabeth - checking out her loot.

Abigail's feeding bucket full of eggs.

Farm Tour

After lunch on Friday, we took the family on a farm tour. Thomas and Harrison enjoyed gathering the eggs, checking on the cows, and bucking hay to feed the cows.

I haven't really explored the farm in a couple of years, so I decided to take some pictures of old stuff on the farm. I am not a great photographer or even a good one, but I like looking at old things sometimes.

Abigail

The old farm houses are made out of lath and plaster.

We were snooping around an old tool shed and came across a nest of baby rats. I am sure glad that I didn't find them first, I probably would have peed myself.

We went to Rock Creek, which is just about 7 minutes from where we live. It is beautiful there, but it was too cold and windy on Friday to stay for a long time.

Conference Weekend

On Friday after we went to Ruby Tuesdays we said good bye to Heather and Shane and the boys headed to Salt Lake and the girls headed to Idaho Falls. On Saturday morning, the boys (Carl, Darin, Harrison, and Thomas) were able to attend the first session of general conference. The girls went to another one of Abigail's dance competitions and we were pretty happy with the results. Abigail's team got 1st and 2nd place in her age group and category. After the dance competition, we rushed to Salt Lake and made it there just in time for the second session of general conference. I loved it!!! I can't remember when I started liking conference, but I really enjoyed myself this time. If any one is needing direction in their lives or wants to better understand what mormons believe, general conference is the place to get it. You can go to https://beta.lds.org/general-conference?locale=eng

My two favorite talks on Saturday were given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland the name of his talk was "No place for the enemy of my soul." He basically talked about how immorality is destroying families and how to protect ourselves and our families from being destroyed.
and Elder David A. Bednar his talk was named "Watching with all perseverance." He talked about how we can give our children spiritual guidence.

Sunday

My favorite speakers on Sunday were:

James B. Martino. I am of course a little bit biased because he was my bishop when I was baptized at the age of 8 in Denton, Texas. I grew up with his kids and know where he comes from. It is pretty cool to personally know a general authority. The name of his talk was "All things work together for good." He basically talked about how we should react to trials and adversity.
I loved Donald L. Hallstrom's talk called "Turn to the Lord." He basically said that we should turn to the Lord when we face life's challenges not away from Him.

I can't think of a better way to spend an Easter morning. We got to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing before the first Sunday session of general conference and it was amazing. We are so lucky to have the Tabernacle Choir as a huge part of our church. They are really one of the best choirs in the world and they sing for free. Can you believe it? AMAZING is all I can say

There was no orchestra there, just the choir this time.

I just love Dieter F. Uchtdorf. I think he is a great story teller. His talk was called "You are my hands." It was a great talk about how God needs to use us to bring people to him.

I am so grateful to hear from the general authorities and I know that they are called by God. I am grateful for general conference and I can't wait unit October to listen to it again. It seems that there is so much for me to learn and every time I go to conference, my cup is filled.

Life on the farm is tough sometimes

We had a great weekend with my parents and were spiritually up lifted for the time being, but when we came back to the real world we had a few tough things to deal with. We were knew we would be gone for two days, so we hired Darin's dad Del to watch over the herd for those two days. When we came home, this is what we found out.

This red cow went into labor, but never delivered the calf because she never dilated. We had the vet come out to give her a check up and found out that the baby calf died inside the momma cow. The vet had to perform a c-section to get the baby calf out and try to save the momma cow, when the vet was doing the c-section, he noticed that the reason why the cow didn't dilate properly is because it had cancer. We had to put the cow down, so we lost a momma cow and a baby cow. Be glad that I have left out most of the gory details on this story.
On Saturday morning, there was a blizzard and another cow decided to have her baby right in the middle of the blizzard, when Darin's dad checked on the cows he noticed that the calf had been born, but it was way too cold. The calf had to be brought into my kitchen and had heaters, leg warmers, and blow dryers, so that it could be warmed up. Luckily, Darin's dad knows what he is doing and he was able to save the calf from freezing. He in listed in the help of Darin's mom, and sisters for their blow drying expertise. We named the calf Lucky and decided that we would keep it because it is a heifer.

Of course all of this stuff has to happen when we dedide to go somewhere for the weekend. Silly cows. Okay, I think I really am done blogging about cows for now.