Back online again

This is the last wards' words ever.

April Fools!

Obviously we've missed a few of our regular updates. It was a bit of a rough period there, but now we expect to be regular writers again. The main event that took up our time was studying for and taking the Utah bar exam. I expect to find out if I passed in 2-4 weeks. After that was over we spent some time getting our house the way we want it, e.g., painting a few rooms, setting up a computer network with digital TV recording capabilities, you know, just the essentials. The TV/computer (i.e., windows media center) was the gift I gave myself for finishing law school.



The above sign was on the door at my parents' house when I came over to celebrate the end of the Utah bar exam ordeal. It's a word-play on my family nickname (RJ). "Got the uRJe to sue? RJ is for you. 1-800-RJ-SUE-YOU." It was created by my sister-in-law, Jeana, who is very adept at computer graphics/layouts. Although you cannot see it well, my teeth have a bright shiny sparkle (too compensate for the fact that I'm a sleazy lawyer now, I guess). It's a good thing she found a photo of me with my hair washed and combed down properly, unlike this photo. I may not be a sleazy lawyer, but I'm usually a slick-haired lawyer.

Getting a ride in the back of Lew, the ol' green Ford that Grandpa restored

Some time in the past three months (please apply this preface to everything in this particular edition of wards' words), Erika threw a baby shower and helped organize a murder mystery dinner. Below is the "diaper cake" she made for our neighbor across the street, Erin.

Erika with the guest of honor and the diaper cake

Here are some of the ladies who attended the baby shower (there were 30 all together!):

Neighbors gather in our living room for Erin's baby shower

Erika was a promiscuous singer at the 1940's murder mystery game. She was a murder suspect because the person who was murdered was her fiance and had dumped her that morning after telling her that he was really married to someone else and having other affairs. Erika was angry enough to kill him, but she didn't do it. His secretary took care of it instead.

In character for the 1940's murder mystery
(actual murderer on Erika's left - your right)

Police officer interrogates the murder suspects

It may seem like all we ever do is party. And ... well it's true. We also do hard work, like get ready for parties and get Matthew into the bathtub (more on the hard work later). So we deserve it. Plus, how can you resist when the neighborhood association, which we pay beaucoup bucks for, is throwing a fully catered prom with limo service to and from the party?

Thanks for babysitting, Marshall and Kirsten!

Ready to rock and roll, babe?

We limo'd home with the prom king and queen and they let us try on their crowns

Another daybreak sponsored party was attended by the boys. It was a kid version of mardi-gras. They taught the kids about the history of mardi-gras, gave them "king's cakes" and threw candy and beads from a balcony.

Matthew (R) and Thomas (L) sport their new Mardi Gras beads

Matthew catching a gold bead necklace

We strive to have family home evening each week and we take turns teaching the lesson. Thomas taught us a lesson about staying on the straight and narrow. With some parental help he set up a tangled maze of strings to follow up the stairs with prizes at the end for those who stayed on track (all of us).

Stay on the straight and narrow path

Erika did a lesson one week about happiness through serving others. She taped spoon to the ends of pool sticks and filled the spoons with peppermint whipped cream. She asked each boy to hold one end of their pool stick and eat the treat. They couldn't do it, but with some gentle hints they realized they could feed each other the whipped cream. As you may have guessed, we had several requests for spoon refills.

True happiness comes from serving others

Erika's former BYU roommate, Rachel, and her family came to stay with us for a long weekend visit from Texas. While visiting, she and her husband,Alex, took us downtown to an evening performance at the conference center. Rach's two sisters watched all the children so that we could have a double date. On the way downtown they told us about the vacation home they are building in the Dominican Republic and said we could visit when it's complete.

Breakfast and fun with Rach

Thomas yukking it up with his friends

This winter we had some abundant snowfall and so we found the closest hill to sled down. I don't know where the boys saw or heard of snow-boarding, but they were quite eager to try it out. A couple of times Erika came with a thermos of hot chocolate (yum), but mostly it was a boy activity.

Ready to take on the giant sledding hill

Thomas snowboards on his sled?!

Ron looks on, from near the sky, as Thomas and Matthew take in the amazing slopes near our house

All winter long the neighborhood had free horse-drawn carriage rides and hot chocolate. We took advantage.

Enjoying hot chocolate and a carriage ride through our "neigh"-borhood

Lately we've been teaching Thomas some piano on and off. He has taken a little interest in learning and had significant improvement for a few weeks there. The interest has waned a little most recently, but we hope to continue the lessons again soon.

Matthew found a nice perch from which to observe the proceedings

Let's see, what else happened in the past few months. Erika fell ill with strep throat for the first time. Her fever spiked up to 104 a couple times-very uncomfortable. We got a doctor's prescription for an antibiotic after a several days of suffering and that did the trick within about 24 hours. We were so glad to have her back. I had the lovely experience of upgrading the backflow preventer in our sprinkler system. The old one had cracked from freezing water. I am still have some trouble getting rid of leaks in the joints of the new installation. It makes me hate grass.