Happy birthday to Jared!

This is what I got Jared for his birthday. He has always loved words and the English language. This mug made me laugh and I thought he would get a kick out of it. The other pictures are just a couple of my favorites.

Snowed In

Jacob decided it would be fun to go to Casper for a weekend of wrestling. The Bulldogs put on an impressive show with three state champions and placing third as a team. Dino, Nathan, and Jacob B. each took home top honors with Jacob A snatching third, Jacob M placing fourth and Hyrum snagging sixth.

It was a great weekend and we had intentions of getting home by 11:00 at night but the Wyoming winter caught up with us and we are still in Casper. Drat. I needed to get home so I could be in Burlington this morning to listen to my nephew Sam report on his mission. He got home from Scotland. The roads are all closed and I really hope I get home in time for primary. I am in charge of sharing time....

In other happy news...We got a super nice and early in the morning phone call from Mark. He was able to call us from the airport on his way out to Seattle. He sounded great. We are looking forward to getting that first email from the mission field.

E-mail

This is an e-mail from Mark while he is at the MTC. He sounds great.

His address in Seattle will be:
Elder Mark Grant
Washington Seattle Mission
10675 NE 20th Street
Bellvue, WA 98004-2860

i know i told you that my p day was on thursdays but due to some tings it was changed to today. well i am the last of the 3 weekers. so that means that the 2 weekers and the 3 weekers are leaving at the same time. we set a reacord for the most missionaries living the mtc in one week. there are like 1500 leaving or someting like that. yes i have seen dimas a couple of times. i got a picture with him too. i also saw a friend from larimie as well. that was fun. tell jacob to keep up the work it sounds like he is doing really well. i leave the mtc on the 19th. thank you for the shirts and tie. thanks for everything. tell everyone that i am doing great. and have learned a lot. but i am a terible teacher. every missionary is a terible teacher. but throught the lords power we are mighty. we have to teach through the spirit. that is the only way. the lord has his hand in this work and nothing will stop it. if god be for us, who can be against us. it is so amazing. my companion is great. we are really getting along.
thank you so much for all that you do and for your love letters and prayers.
Love, Elder Grant.

Primary Party

We had an awesome primary party on Tuesday. We decorated cookies, made valentine cards and played games. When the kiddos first got there we played sharks and minnows. They absolutely love that game of tag. Then we decorated sugar cookies. There were so many different ideas that the kids made. We supplied lots of icing and candy to put on top. After making the cards we played Duck, Duck, Goose. That game never goes out of style. We had some very kind older kids make sure that everyone got a turn. We had some inactive kids come so that was especially nice.

Showalter Music Festival

Jacob spent all day Saturday at the Showalter music festival in Powell.  He had a couple of numbers to perform.  Bright and early at 8:06 he sang "Got a Whale of a Tale".  He never ceases to amaze me with his confidence and talent.  I thought he did very well and apparently so did the judge. Jacob's efforts scored a '1'.  You can click on this to hear him. A Whale of a Tale I know his voice will eventually change but Mrs. Dickson has worked with him and encouraged him to develop the voice that he has. A number of choir students got special honors at the festival.

Jacob also performed in a Baritone trio.  The boys are Jacob, Zachary Abraham and Brandon Holzer.  They played Edelweiss and did a pretty good job.  Just remember that this is the first year of playing their instruments. You can listen to it here. Edelweiss I can't say enough good things about our music program.  Chauna does a great job preparing these kiddos to read music and play recorders and the guitars in elementary school.  Then Linnea takes over in middle and high school for choir.  We just got a new band teacher.  I think she is doing just fine with that.

Jacob's Wrestling Pics

Here are the wrestling pictures of Jacob and his team.  He is looking pretty tough and strong.

Notice that Jacob is wearing a different sweatshirt.  His got lost somewhere but luckily we still had Mark's from six years ago, so he didn't look completely out of place or like a manager. It's nice to be able to find clothes from older brothers.

A Letter!

We finally got our first letter from Mark! His P day is on Thursday but he didn't get it last week, so he sent a short note to let us know that he made it there. It sounds like he is very busy and is enjoying it. This is a short post. I think life will get back to normal now and maybe slow down a bit.

Come to think of it... what is normal anyway? We will be following Jacob around for wrestling this weekend and a choir festival and we have a dinner to go to for seminary. Life is good. My mom is well, Spike's mom is well, things are going well for Jared, Lucas and Rachael and their respective families. Mark is happy and Jacob keeps us busy. Yes, life is good.

Wrestling over the weekend

Jacob wrestled in the Lovell tournament last Saturday and he did pretty well.  He only had two matches and was winning the first match. He kept breaking down the opponent and then putting a half on him but then he didn't know what to do with him, so the kid kept getting up.  So the score was like 10 to 4 with eighteen seconds left.  Jacob was exhausted by this point and thought he could just ride it out and he would probably win.  Rats.  Not so. He got pinned with a very quick call by the ref.  It was a very good match and Jacob learned a lot from the experience.

His second match went much better.  He squeaked by the first period and then broke down his guy, again, put a half on him and then pinned him. Yes! Here are some pictures and if you want you can go to this link to watch.  Just a reminder.....it is middle school wrestling.Jacob's first pin

Pin!

He wins!