The first gathering that comes to mind is the celebration of Jeana's (my brother Stephen's wife) birthday in Park City. They arranged to stay in a time-share that my parents have and at the end of the week all their local family members came up for dinner, swimming, etc. We returned again to Park City just this past Friday night. This time my parents were enjoying the time share and shared it with everyone.
Happy Birthday to Jeana
(Note for future reference: The person who poses with his hand on a wall and a mischievously wide grin on his face is usually my brother Marshall. I call it the "I'm-not-supposed-to-be-in-this-photo" or its shorter name, the "hand-on-wall" pose, which I taught him at a tender age. But he has refined and perfected it far beyond what I have been able to achieve with it.)In late April we gathered at the main gathering place here in Utah (my parents' house) for an E Pluribus Unum celebration. Out of many family birthdays in April we made one party. (Get it? I know my niece Rachel gets it because she recently scored 35 on the ACT (out of 36) and you have to know Latin stuff like that to score so well.)
Happy Birthday to Everyone Else with a birthday in April
(Another note for future reference: The person who poses with his mouth full and a vapid look on his face is usually me. With frequent practice I have refined and perfected that pose. I must try to stop, though, because Thomas appears to have begun imitating me, at least in this one instance above.)
The Inspiration Sisters held another inspiring meeting this month. I am beginning to think that half the battle is just getting just a few prerequisites in place (good food, check, stemmed glassware, check, flowery centerpiece, check). I will note this future reference when I want to butter up, er...I mean inspire, Erika.
Thomas is off-track from school for the next several weeks. Before he went off-track he brought his drums to school to do a solo. He's dabbled in drums ever since we got them as a Christmas gift. He learned how to write drum notes on his own and has composed a few avant-garde pieces.
She's done it again. Erika made another diaper cake for her friend, Emily, who lives down the street from us. Another neighbor, Erin, hosted the baby shower. I know it's trite to say because we live in Utah, but I am still awe struck at how much louder sacrament meeting is at church ever since we moved here. We hope Emily's baby will add to the cacophony.
Erin, Emily, and Erika (E-cubed)
The friday before Mother's Day all the local Wards met downtown at the Golden Phoenix chinese restaurant. Apparently, it has become the traditional Mother's Day meal in our family. And I'm just fine with that. We got to meet Jeff, a pleasant fellow who is dating my sister Sarah and appears to the right of her below.
Happy Mother's Day
Matthew woke up one morning a couple weeks ago and declared that he would like a "spiked" haircut. I spent a few minutes learning a little more about what exactly he meant by that. We viewed some photos of boys' haircuts online, consulted with Erika, and then "Rolando, the hairdresser" went to work. Basically, he just wanted his hair to be much shorter and possibly sticking up a little on top. As you can see in the photo below, his new haircut makes him look more grown up. His intent was to look more "serious." One of his favorite cartoons of late is Curious George and I told him that I thought his haircut made him look a little more like Curious George. He retorted, "No, I look like Serious George!" By the way, the photo below was taken at the Harvest restaurant at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. While there we partook of a delicious Mother's Day brunch served annually on the Saturday before Mother's Day and went for a walk in the Thanksgiving Point gardens.
We love our Mother
As another Mother's Day treat I took Erika out on a fancy date to see an english language opera based on John Steinbeck's, "The Grapes of Wrath." In fact, many folks in our ward went with us on opening night because our choir director, Jen Hancock, performed in the opera. We carpooled for the trip and during the ride I got to meet one of the engineers for Control4. Control4 makes home automation products and I think those types of things are really neat. If they ever get big enough to ever need an in-house patent attorney I think I might try applying.
Ready for a night at the opera
We all posed for a photo with Jen in front the Capitol Theatre afterwards:
As you can imagine, the opera ended late, but the night was still young, as the kids say. So we went to the local Village Inn (think Arnold's Drive-In on Happy Days) to celebrate and get some after-show commentary from Jen. I don't think I've stayed out partying that late since my college days. Actually, I mean my undergraduate college days (my college days technically ended just a few months ago). As a result, I'm still working on those bags under my eyes. But it was fun.
Another activity that contributed to the bags under my eyes, but fun nonetheless, was a our family trip to Lagoon (an amusement park) yesterday. To avoid the risk of losing our camera we left it at home, so you'll just have to image me and Thomas riding a double-looped roller coaster and Erika and Matthew jetting down a waterslide on a miniature raft, among other things. It was super fun.
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