it's finally Spring Break!/Andrew and Ryan's birthdays are coming up

We have the week off from school for Spring Break and then it's only 9 weeks left of school! Ahhh.

And that's the biggest news there is in this household for this week.

During Spring Break, we aren't planning on going anywhere (except to Reno one day). Sometimes staying home is the best break available. I'm really looking forward to it.

Besides cleaning, I'm starting my new Old Testament chronological reading plan (did you know that Job lived before Abraham and so his story goes before Genesis 12? I didn't). I've written about it on my other blog, if you're interested:

http://mypensieve-beth.blogspot.com/2014/03/ot-reading-plan-gearing-up-for-summer.html

It's birthday season again for our family.

Andrew's 24th birthday is April 2nd. Drop him a line at:
andrewgperazzo@gmail.com

Ryan's 20th birthday is April 6th. Drop him a line at:
ryan.perazzo@myldsmail.net

a photo from last year

Hannah helped me put together a box for Ryan. She is so creative.

Sadly, all my teams are out of the running for March Madness. I am tied with Ben for 22nd place in the family brackets. There are only 2 lower than we are. :( Calista, who is due to have her baby on Andrew's birthday, is in the lead! Good luck with everything this week, Calista.

We are working on choosing our words for next weekend's General Conference--the skittles are bought and we are about ready (when one of our words is spoken, we get a skittle--it really helps everyone to pay attention). I love Conference weekend.

Glen--family
Beth--testament
Andrew-covenants
Heather--Atonement
Eric--we forgot to get words from Eric, so I am using his last 2 conference words: lost and chariot
Ryan--remember
Hannah--care/caring
Alex-forgive

The weekend before General Conference we get to hear the Women's Broadcast from Salt Lake, so it was last night and it was phenomenal:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2014/04?lang=eng&vid=3408781210001

and that's about it for now.

another competition for Hannah, March Madness, and other stuff

Hannah, Nathan, and the Rotary Club Competition

I forgot to mention last week that the Rotary Club had an essay and talent competition. They let the students know on Monday and the competition was on Wednesday, so Hannah and our friend Nathan were the only 2 who entered.

They both played the piano as their talent...and since Nathan is phenomenally skilled, having taken piano since he was a wee one, he won that part of the competition and Hannah came in 2nd (earning her $50). Miss Hannah, after writing her speech on Tuesday night and forgetting to save said essay, had to wing it, but she did well and won--especially since Nathan hadn't written an essay and she was the only one in that competition (earning her $100 for that effort).

They both progress onto the next round of the competition, but I don't know when that will be--it'll probably be when we are at Andrew's graduation since last year she was eligible to move on to the next round, too, but Andrew was getting married and she missed the competition. Congratulations to Hannah and Nathan!

So March Madness is upon us.

This is the only time this household pays any attention to sports. I quickly picked a bracket at the beginning of the week, hoping to go back and really read the blurbs about the teams as I usually do, but that didn't happen. No one else in our home made a bracket.

Out of the 26 entries for our "Drink Milk" group, I am currently ranked a lowly 21st, but at least the team I picked to win the tournament, Virginia, is still in the running. Eleven of our group can't say the same thing. There were some definite upsets (and not the ones I picked). Two of the teams that I picked for the Final Four are already out of the running (Ohio St and Duke). In the past few years when I've played, I wasn't leading the pack, but I at least had a chance to win. I think I'm already dead in the water. Oh, well. It's still fun. But not as much fun. But still fun.

Glen went to Henderson

Glen was gone for 4 days this week as he took 3 of his theatre students to the state theatre competition in Henderson. One boy qualified for the International competition in Nebraska in June. Glen will not be attending that, but good luck to Jared when he goes.

My productive Saturday

I had a wonderfully productive day yesterday. I made butter, made yogurt, made banana bread, did laundry, ironed, watched Harry Potter #4 in Spanish, graded papers, inputted the grades, worked on my Personal Progress goals for Young Women's, ordered a birthday gift for Ryan, scrubbed the shower, trimmed my hair, sewed elastic into the waistband of my 2 newest pairs of jeans so they stay up better, and finished book #3 of the Lunar Chronicles "Cress" by Marissa Meyer (and I loved it). The only thing that would have made my day better was if I had gotten some exercise in (scrubbing the shower almost counted). I just love productive days.

Oh, and I tried a new thing in the kitchen. Our Bountiful Baskets order from 2 weeks ago gave us 8 large, hot peppers. I flame broiled them on my kitchen stove, peeled off the skin, and used them in a mock chile relleño recipe. It was really fun, once I got over the intimidation of a new technique. The peppers make a popping sound as their skin is being charred. Weird. And very cool.

charred on the left; charred and already peeled on the right

talent show, President Alex, and an early spring

Not as slow this week as it has been.

March Madness is almost here...we don't follow sports, but we love making up brackets at ESPN and playing against Glen's family. Can't wait to see how it goes this year. It's time for someone to dethrone Maddie as the winner! Though if I can't win, I think it'd be great if she won again...

Eric says he's currently working on mostly Hindu mythological creatures now--remember how his assignment was to input info into a program so it can later keep people from downloading false genealogies into familysearch? He's moved into a different culture now. It sounds like he is continuing to do well.

Ryan likes his new companion and things are fine down in Louisiana. Ryan got to go to the Baton Rouge temple the previous week--first time since the MTC last May. His birthday is coming up on April 6th, so if you want to send him a card, his address is to the right.

Hannah, Geoff, and their friend Paolo performed at the talent show held at the high school on Friday. I thought they did an excellent job, though they didn't place. Paola and Hannah sang while Geoff accompanied them on a guitar. The song was "Living Dead" by Have Mercy.

 

 And today, Alex was set apart as the Deacon's quorum (12 and 13 year old boys) President at church. His cousin Ben just turned 12 this past week, so Ben is now a Deacon along with 3 other boys. Good luck Alex. I know you'll do a great job leading your group.

Spring has sprung early. Because Andrew's birthday is April 2nd, I always have a marker for when the trees start turning green...and it's usually not until after Andrew's birthday. Well, here it is a few weeks before and we've got some green going on in the trees (not all--the apple and elms are still bare). We'll take it. I just wonder if there's still another frost or two that will be coming our way.

one of our trees

Carey's yard, across the street, is much prettier--and more colorful--than ours

Found out that the teacher I'm subbing for won't be back to school until April 21st instead of April 7th, like we originally thought. Perfect timing as that's the week Andrew graduates from BYU (!), so Scott would need another sub if he were still going to be out. I had an OK week subbing. I'm a week ahead on my lesson plans, so I'm feeling pretty good now.

My bad toothache turned out to be a dead tooth with an infection--root canal and a crown will be in the near future for me. I'm just glad the pain is mostly gone.

With church, scouts, and school, Glen continues to keep very busy. He's heading down to Vegas this week with a few of his students who placed in the regional Theatre competition and are going to be completing at the state level. Good luck everyone!

So, that about does it for this week. Until later. Chao y que tengan una buena semana.

no, it's not my birthday

Friday during school, the above vase of flowers was delivered to me in my classroom. Someone from the office wanted to know if they were for my birthday. No, it's not my birthday. It's just the teacher I'm subbing for saying "thank you" to me for being his sub. Wow. Glen saw them and made a comment about how he never gets me flowers. My answer was that it's OK for Scott to give me flowers and not Glen, because if Glen were to give me flowers the money for them would come out of my checking account. 

Anyway, it was very nice of Scott to do that. The flowers are gorgeous.

Things are a bit better in my classroom, and now that I've learned that reminders to be quiet don't work, but kicking kids out of the classroom for disrupting the learning really helps, things should be even better.

Alex's scout camp out in the snow this weekend, the Klondike, got cancelled. I think he was happy about that.

Hannah participated on the dodgeball team Lincoln's Army as part of a fundraiser for NHS. Her team was eliminated in the first round but they won the best costume award--they had fake beards and stove-pipe hats.

One of Hannah and Geoff's projects yesterday involved cutting off the top of a soda bottle (Leninade) and smoothing the edge and planting a plant in it. It was kind of a pinterest fail...first they tried the pinterest method of soaking yarn in fingernail polish remover, wrapping it around the top of the bottle, lighting the yarn on fire, then putting the bottle in ice cold water. They wound up using my glass cutter. That method wasn't easy, but they managed to get one done.

Ryan's companion was transferred and made his Zone Leader this week. We don't know anything about his new companion yet. This is the first time Ryan's been the one to stay behind in an area and show his companion around.

Eric was stuck in his apartment most of the week with a sick companion. He was going a bit stir-crazy.

Yep. That about does it for us this week. We're busy, but there's nothing exciting to report. I guess that's a good thing.