Blue and Gold Banquet

Last night Jerrod received his Arrow of Light at the scouting Blue and Gold Banquet. For those of you who are not scouters, this award is the highest honor in cub scouting. The theme for the banquet was Chinese New Year. The boys made dragons and had a parade. They had a special guest come and do the arrow of light ceremony. He was dressed as an Indian chief and told the story about the history of scouting and painted the kids faces and gave each color a meaning. Then he incorporated stories we had given him about each boy and gave them their Webelo name. We told him several good things about Jerrod some of which included that Jerrod is a talker and will talk to anyone and that he has a talent of talking to horses :) So, Jerrod got the name "Gabby Horse". It was a really cute ceremony. We had a great time.

TGIF tomorrow

Yeah. I am done with school for the week. I am ready for this week to be over. It's just seemed long. On Tuesday the beemaster came and removed the honeycomb hive from inside our roof. It was only 100 lbs of honeycomb and filled one and a half huge lawn trash bag! Yikes. I really wanted a picture of it but they came while I was at class. Derek found out he passed his anatomy exam. Yay! Now he just has a cumulative final on Monday and he is done with that class. That has been a tough one for him. Only about 3 more weeks until spring break which we are looking forward to. Here are a couple of pictures I thought turned out good this week

Ginger's Haircut

Derek has been wanting to get Ginger groomed for a while so today he took her to Petsmart. They didn't have time to do it right then so they kenneled her for a few hours until they could get to her. She looks so different. I think I like her shaggy better but she is still cute. I don't think she likes her new do. She has been sulking all day since she got home. So, we called her favorite person, Uncle Jason to come over and try to cheer her up. She was happy to see him and then has gone back to her subdued self.

Warning! You might not want to see this!

I thought this picture was too funny not to share. Now I'll have to tell the story behind it. When we were packing up to head back to Las Vegas from Elko we had an impromptu snow fight. My brother Jason put snow down my back and threw Jerrod in it so when he bent over to put some luggage in the van I dumped some down his pants. So, to make a long story short, because he didn't have any extra clean underwear and because he didn't want to sit in wet ones on the way home he decided to go commando. On our way out of town we stopped off at Albertsons for some snacks. Derek and Jason thought it would be funny to have Jason drop some change or reach high for something in the store and see if they could get a reaction from any shoppers. Derek snapped this shot of him reaching for some crackers. What a DORK!

Our Trip To Elko

Here are a few random pictures from our trip to Elko over the weekend. Uncle Jason Crouch took the kids for rides on his new 4 wheeler and we got to meet our new nephew Clayton. We had a great time seeing all of our family.

Fun In the Snow

The kids were so excited to play in the snow in Elko. It was Ava's first experience with snow and she kept calling it a snowman.

Allison's Baptism

We baptized Allison in Elko last Saturday. We had a great day. She had lots of family there. Thanks to everyone who came and especially Steve and Ko and Jenny and James who traveled to be with us! Here are some pictures from her baptism in Elko and some that I took at the temple grounds here.

The Bee Saga Continues..............

Well, we had pest control come out to our house yesterday to check on the bee situation and he said that we needed a bee master. So, we called the bee master and they came out this morning. They ended up pulling off some roof tiles and tar paper, and underneath they found a honeycomb about 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet in our house. So, they sprayed all of the bees and then in a few days when everything has settled down they will schedule a time when they can come remove all of the honeycomb. Once they see how much there is we can get an estimate of how long they have been up there. Poor little Ava got stung on the toe by one yesterday. It was hiding in a pile of laundry and when she stepped on it it got her. So, I decided I would call the property manager and let him know that I was pretty angry that nothing had been done about this until now. I called twice over 3 months ago and told him that we had bees! There are dead bees clear around the block from our house and they are covering our roof. It is pretty gross. But, hopefully the problem is solved.

P.S. they really weren't killer bees, i just took some dramatic license on my last blog title in case some of you were really worried.

Attack of the Killer Bees!

Ever since we moved here we have had a few bees here and there and we have told our property manager on more than one occasion about them and he has never done anything about it. So tonight after seeing another one Derek decided that he and Jason would go to the store and get some bee spray and then go check in the attic to see if there was a hive. Well, there definitely was a hive. The boys sprayed it and now we have angry bees swarming in our attic and several of them are escaping through the recessed lighting into the house.

Here is a picture of the hive in the attic.

As the bees came out of the attic we were sucking them up with the vacuum.

It's Been a While

It's been a while since I updated. I got into all of my classes which means I have 13 credits. It has taken a lot more of my time than I thought it would, but, it's been fun. Ava started going to day care on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 5 hours each day last week. Boy, that was hard the first day to drop her off. I felt tremendous guilt for putting her in a strange place but she is doing great! They said that she acts as though she has been there forever which made me feel a lot better. Jerrod, Allison and Emma started piano lessons this past week also. They are all really excited. Derek is in the middle of test week so he has been busy studying. We leave next Friday to go to Elko for Allison's baptism. We are all excited to see family but dreading the cold weather :) I took her to the temple grounds yesterday to take some pictures of her in her baptism dress. Here are a couple of pictures we took yesterday. I'll post more after her baptism.

Our Beautiful Day!

Today it was in the mid 60s so we took advantage of the beautiful weather and played outside.