Photo Session Results

Here are our favorites from this year's photo shoot of the children. Ian is 7 years old, Erin is 2, and Megan is 10. We are biased, but we think they are pretty cute!

Karate Test Day

Congratulations to Ian!
4th Place Winner, USU Jr. Karate Tournament
28 April 2007

It started out as a usual Karate Test day for the Kyu Shin Ryu Chapter at USU. The children met at 8:00 a.m., paid their fees, warmed up, reviewed the test material, and then took their individual belt tests. Ian was well-prepared and earned his blue belt with no trouble.

Erin was very proud of him and cheered him on the entire time. Ian's good friend, Andrew, also earned his blue belt.

After a short break and snacks, the sparring sessions began. Ian won his first match, and then later he won his second match. By the fourth match, things were getting a bit more suspenseful for his parents because he was working his way up the winners' list. Before we knew it, he was one of the four finalists! He then sparred with classmate Taggart, and it was close--first Taggart scored, then Ian, then Taggart, then Ian again. The winner is the first to score three points, and Taggart got his third point first. Then Ian had his final match (to determine 3rd and 4th place winners) with an older and much larger blue belt student named Dillon. Ian got pushed down pretty hard, and it knocked the wind out of him. However, he got back up and did his best to finish the match, earning 4th place. He was so excited! He was awarded a nice trophy which he has been carrying around ever since.

Ian and classmate Taggart, who won 2nd place

A proud Ian with his first trophy!

Camping in Southern Utah

A Report by Megan Young

Starting on April 19, 2007, Dad and I went on a camping trip in southern Utah. We first drove to Brigham City, where we stayed for a few hours while Dad gave a lecture. We then met up with some people who drove with us for several hours all the way to Zions National Park. We found that both camping sites were full, so we found a new spot and slept in a closed parking lot. In the morning, we discovered a fallen down sign forbidding camping and overnight parking. So, that was our first campsite.

The next morning, we went back to Zions, and there were enough places for us. The Virgin River was very close to our campsite, so we went over there and I waded a bit. We saw a Dobson fly larvae. At our campsite in Zions there was a little pocket gopher, Botta’s Pocket Gopher (Thomomys bottae).

We rented a Tandem bike in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it rained, and we were totally soaked when we got back to camp. It was very fun, though. We passed a horse rental place while on our ride. Near the horse rentals was a place called The Lodge, where you could stay if you didn’t want to camp. On our way back, we stopped there for some hot chocolate. We passed a rock formation called “Court of the Patriarchs.” At the end of the trail, there was a rock formation called “Temple of Sinawawa.” The trail was at least twelve miles long. There was also a formation called “The Grotto.”

The next day, we drove out to the desert and looked for lizards. We got hot, and when we couldn’t catch the lizards we saw, we went down to a creek and waded in it. There were tons of tadpoles, and we found two more Dobson larvae. We also saw some raccoon tracks. Afterwards, we finally caught a lizard. It was a young female Desert Spiny Lizard (Sceloporus magister).I held her for a while, and then we let her go.

That night we drove to a hot spring. It was very warm, and we swam around in it for a while. We camped in that area for the night. In the morning we saw a nest of baby ravens. They were very funny looking. We tried predator calling, but didn’t succeed. We started driving back around eleven o’clock. We reached home at three o’clock.

The End

A Few Random Events

USU Piano Festival 2007

Megan and Ian participated in this event on Saturday, 14 April. They each spent a couple of months preparing and had both memorized their music. Besides performing and receiving comments from judges, they played theory games and earned small prizes.

The Wood Shed

With the lovely warm spring weather, we tackled a job that has been on our list for two years: cleaning out our messy wood shed. We sent the unusable wood and other scraps to the dump and sorted the remaining wood into similar size stacks. We also cleared out the 3 inches of sawdust and wood chips on the floor and discovered that the shed was built on a nice cement pad.

Wasp Nest

After working on the woodshed, we turned our efforts toward cleaning the children's club house. Inside we found a mud nest made by a type of wasp (sorry, but we couldn't find the specific name in our field guide). The children did not desire wasps in their play house, so we asked Dad to remove it.

When he dissected the nest, he discovered 9 pupae, still alive, and encased individually with a small black plug on the end. We felt bad for the efforts of the mother wasp, who did her best to ensure the survival of her progeny. However, they ended up becoming food for our pet tarantula.

Dress-up Fun

One morning Erin and Megan were playing dress-up while Mom was helping Ian practice the piano. They came down from the bedroom looking like this. Erin was wearing a duck head hat, cowgirl vest, bat wings, and black cape while carrying a spider monkey toy. We are unsure what character she was hoping to portray, but she won the award for creativity.

Tooth Number 2

Ian finally wiggled out his second loose tooth. The permanent one had already broken through the gums and was visibly growing in behind the loose one. Ian needed a lot of encouragement to put forth the effort to wiggle it enough to get it out.

Photo Contest Winner!

This picture of Ian and Erin, taken by Megan, was chosen as the winner of the youth division for the National LDS Homeschool Association's photo contest for their upcoming conference in August. The theme for this year is "Walk Beside Me," and the winners receive 2 tickets to the conference, a framed copy of their photo, and bookmarks of their photo. Hooray for Megan!

Happy Easter!

We celebrated Easter this year with grandparents once again. Saturday evening, the Youngs had a big family party with a lot of delicious food and some fun games. (We realized that we didn't take very good photos of that party.) Sunday morning, the children awoke to find surprises from "E.B." They had a little bit of time to play, and then they dressed in their new Easter clothes for church.

Here are Megan, Ian, and Erin with Grandma & Grandpa Young on the walk to church (through the gate in the back yard fence).

Sunday afternoon we celebrated at Grandma Tsukamoto's house where the children went on a little treasure hunt for some books and more treats.

We currently have far too much chocolate in our house thanks to both sets of grandparents, and Erin's new phrase is, "I want a chocolate egg!"