On Tuesday it was Kevin’s birthday.  In his email last week, he wrote this:

I am excited to turn 21, but I plan on doing it in peace and silence.  There is the tradition of breaking eggs and a bag of flour on the head of the celebrated here.  I hope no one has figured it out, but at any rate, I will be reading my wonderful letters and perhaps some more that the Todds will have brought from Tana.  Then I may use some of the brown sugar I have been saving and make a carmel pudding cake, just “out of the blue”.   

We decided it would be fun to make his birthday cake here, just in case he didn’t get the chance to.  I called up Josie and got the recipe.  We made it up, and cooked it.  In honor of Kevin, we put a candle in the cake.  It started sinking though.  Apparently we didn’t wait long enough for the cake to cool.

I pulled out the candle and discovered it was melting and sinking into the cake.

Oops, oh well.  So we put it back in, lit it, and blew it out.

Then we pulled out the candle and surveyed the damage.

We decided to let the cake cool for a while longer, then we scooped out what wax we could.  The cake ended up being very tasty.  Happy birthday Kevin!

A few weeks ago our good friends James and Erica Peterson came down to Utah for their nephew’s baby blessing.  We were able to meet up with them at Iggy’s in SLC for dinner.  Our waiter was really slow and overwhelmed, but it wan’t a problem for us.  It gave us lots of time to chat and catch up.  And since he felt bad about the slow service, gave us all free dessert.  It was great to be able to see them.

Happy March 23rd to our Lovely Blog Readers!  Kathryn here, coming out of Blogging MIA to update you all on our hillarious weekend.  First, a background story:  I love the website Pinterest.  2 Christmases ago, my sisters-in-law Marta & Emily explained that there was most likely a gap in my soul because I hadn’t discovered Pinterest Feaver.  Later that night, I signed up for an account and have been hooked ever since!  For those of you who don’t know about all things Pinteresting, the website is basically a digital photo album where the photos are links to websites that teach you how to make that DIY (Do It Yourself) craft or make that copycat recipe from your favorite restaurant.   In addition to having your own ideas saved, Pinterest allows you to share ideas with your friends.  That is where todays blog post originates: from a funny idea Larry and I saw on my darling sis-in-law’s profile board “For Husband”.  Emily and Ben are Californians and rightly categorized Utah’s weather with the following pie chart:  (be sure to notice the smallest sliver)

When I saw that a few weeks ago Larry and I couldn’t stop laughing!  We hoped that this year, that pie chart would be more of a joke than reality…. well keep dreaming!  Because we couldn’t have said it better than the chart when we woke up this morning (MARCH 23rd) to THIS…

Booo!  So much for our t-shirts and blooming tulips.  Crazy weather, but at least we had the warning from the Bemilys.  Thanks guys!  At least hot chocolate is in-season again.  Toodles!

Say what!?  Yep, Kathryn and I adopted 9 teenage kids for the weekend for our Stake Youth Conference.  The Youth Conference this year was located at the Heber Valley girls camp.  Here is our family:

(Sorry the picture is a little blurry.  The hand taking the picture wasn’t the steadiest it seems.)

The theme was SMILE: spiritually-minded is life eternal from 2 Nephi 9:39.  We had some great firesides and morning-sides.  One of the things I shared with our kids that I felt tied in well with the SMILE theme was the quote

• Thoughts lead to feelings
• Feelings lead to actions
• Actions lead to habits
• Habits determine character
• Character determines eternal life 

Like it says in Proverbs 23:7 “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…”  Who you are really does all start with your thoughts, so smile!

Another highlight as far as the instructional part of Youth Conference goes came from Rachael Tomco, an anatomy professor at BYU who is in our stake.  She gave an incredible lesson on how our bodies are temples and one of God’s most wonderful creations.  Nothing that man makes can even compare with the wonder and splendor of the body.  She had some really cool visual aids too, including

• An artificial hip joint
• A pacemaker
• A lung from a 103 year old lady and one from a smoker who died at 40 some years old
• A heart that had undergone double bypass surgery
• A brain
• A spinal cord

It was so cool to see all these amazing parts of our body.  Just a really cool experience.

A large part of the youth conference was activity based.  Being winter up in the mountains a lot of it involved playing in the snow naturally.  The weather has been quite warm lately, but there was still a good amount of snow up there.  In the day when the sun was out, it was warm enough to be in short sleeves.  When the sun was not shining brightly, it could be quite chilly.

One of the activities was to make snow forts.  This one was from our group as was by far the best.

We also worked on a humanitarian aid project making hats.  It was a lot of fun to do.  Maybe Kathryn and I will start making these while watching tv.  Who knows.

We also had a lot of fun during family time.  I took this cool panorama shot of the inside of our Yurt while we were playing the game “Signs.”  The Yurt is a circular cabin with bunk beds around the wall.  When you where “it” during the game, it felt like you where on trial being judged the way the people where sitting up high above you on all sides.  Kathryn and I made a quadruple batch of muddy buddies that where a huge hit too.

All too soon, Saturday afternoon came and it was time to go home.  We had an amazing time at Youth Conference and loved our family.  They were fantastic.  We look forward to seeing them around at other stake activities in the future.