Easter...

Easter. Without it, Christmas would mean nothing. More importantly, life would be for nothing. Easter is Love and Hope and Everything. How grateful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life. He lives!

So, Hannah came down with strep during her Spring Break with enough time, barely, to not be contagious in order to host the wedding shower she had planned for her "twin" Becky. It's a bummer to be sick while on vacation, but it might have been worse to have missed her classes due to illness. And thankfully, it looks like the rest of us have managed to not catch it.

So, I guess it all worked out OK in the end. And she did such a fabulous job on the shower. She really is so creative. Of course, Pinterest helped, but she did all the work. Pancakes and Panties was the theme. It was really nice.

And the rest of us are just entering our break. That means not having to set an alarm to get up most mornings. Aaahh. One of the simple joys of life. No big plans for the week. Glen will be building set and I will be decluttering. And hopefully we will be able to play lots of games. I still need to beat Alex at Castles of Burgundy.

On Saturday, Alex and Glen went hiking with the scouts in the Stillwater Mountains. They had a great time, even if they didn't make it to their target of Job's Peak. They came home sun burnt, sore (at least Glen is), but happy and safe. Pictures coming soon, I hope.

Our friend Trenton was baptized last night. Alex was asked to give the talk on Baptism and he did such a great job. It was short and sweet and perfect. So excited for Trenton! I hope to be his seminary teacher.

And of course, there's basketball...

As a general rule, I love upsets. I was so sad when SF Austin didn't manage to beat Notre Dame, but the Xavier loss to Wisconsin busted my "Bragging" bracket.

I keep watching my ranking hop all over the place. The highest I was ranked this week, thanks to my "Back-up" bracket, was #5, the lowest was #20, and I am currently (Sunday morning) at #8. Hannah is #10, Alex is 33, Eric is 40, Ryan is 43, and Glen is 49. Alicia is #1, in case you were wondering.

Opportunities: Eric's workshop, Ryan's traveling, Hannah's (and my) singing, and my bragging (aka March Madness)

Many opportunities have come our way recently. We'll start with Eric's.

His blog post the other day was a riot. So, here's a part of it for your reading pleasure:

Madeleine (the one who, runs Animation Workshop) got into Animation Workshop about 15 minutes late, on a day where people actually showed up which they never do. I think it was this girl touring campus, interested in animation, who'd dragged along her whole family, or something like that... Without a teacher there, I just, took charge of everything, temporarily, going over Frank and Ollie's 12 Principles of Animation. Which we hadn't even officially finished covering in normal class, we still needed to do solidity and appeal, but I just ran through all of them (which isn't that tough when you've got a copy of The Illusion of Life on the table in front of you... nevertheless.)

   Even when Madeleine finally walked in a little over halfway through the 12 principles, she sat down and listened and occasionally commented, but, just like, a normal person being taught, and was apparently blown away. Or at least impressed enough that, see apparently she's not hosting the workshop next semester, but is sending me the required paperwork to become, myself, manager of the workshop.

   Well.

   Or, co-manager, if there's someone else to manage with me. Either way, we'll see where that takes us. Also seeing where it takes us: I'm, looking into, a job opening on campus, a graphic design job with application extended to all the graphic design students, who were in graphic design class, today. About, graphic design.


Cool, no? Good Luck with all of it, Eric!

Friday night we got a phone call from Ryan--on Andrew's phone! Ryan took a surprise quick trip down to Provo. It's only about 4 hours between Rexburg and Provo. 

Someone got into the baby formula and seems rather nonchalant about it

Yesterday was our Stake Relief Society birthday party (RS is now 174 years old). Months ago we were asked to memorize "The Living Christ" which was the central focus of the meeting. I will post "The Living Christ" next week on Easter. It's a beautiful document.

Anyway, Hannah and I were also asked to sing Sally DeFord's version of "Beautiful Savior" with 4 other women (Hannah sang 2nd soprano and I sang alto). The other 5 have all sung solos in church before. Many times. One is even a voice teacher. I have what I call a "choir" voice, but I hate turning people down (though I would turn down an invitation to sing a solo). I like to help when I can, but I was the weakest link. I think it turned out well and it was actually a bit of a confidence booster for me.  

I could not find a really decent recording of the song on youtube, but this one will do. It is the closest to how we sang it and the audio is not full of babies crying and such.

March Madness has begun! I made 2 brackets (Beth's Bragging and Beth's Back-up) for Glen's family's group Drink Milk and then 2 more just for fun.

My extra brackets were guided by:

1) Places I have lived
That is why I chose Buffalo over Miami and Stony Brook over Kentucky, for example. I actually lived in Buffalo (when I was too young to remember it, though) and Stony Brook is about 30 miles from where I was born. I have Oregon winning this bracket.

2) Coin tosses 
When the 2 teams' rankings were close I would just flip a coin to decide. I have Villanova winning this bracket. 

Eric also did a coin toss bracket but his is "alphabetical" and I think he did it all by coin tosses. He had FGSU winning...and FGSU (ranked 16th) lost the first day.

Hannah chose one of her 2 brackets by the mascots/logos with the UConn Huskies winning, of course. As of Saturday, they are out of the running.

It is a riot watching how our rankings change from one game to the next. I was briefly tied for 1st place in the beginning...tied with many others, though. We have 53 brackets in the mix so there's a lot of competition.

Our choices:
 
Glen: Utah
Beth: Xavier and UNC
Eric: Michigan St. and FGSU
Ryan: Kansas
Hannah: West Virginia and UConn
Alex: Kansas and Michigan St.

Drink Milk brackets chosen winners (with their ranking) that are still in the running (Michigan State losing knocked out 9 brackets):

9 for Kansas (1)
5 for UNC (1)
3 for UVA (1)
3 for Oregon (1)         
2 for Xavier (2)
2 for Oklahoma (2)
1 for Villanova (2)  
2 for Duke (4)
1 for Iowa St (4)        

As of Saturday night, Michael is in 1st place (but that won't last long since he doesn't have a lot of possible points left). Five are tied for second. 

My Bragging bracket is 7th with enough possible points left that I feel like I am still in the running to win. Original Hannah is 15th, my Back-up is 16th, Alex 1st is 24, Alex 2nd is 30, Ryan is 33, Eric's "the WINNA MON" is 45, Glen's is 49, and Eric's Coin Toss is 50. There are 53 brackets (if my 2 extra were in this group they would be ranked 39th and 49th, so they aren't doing too well).

Within my immediate family, I have the most points still possible--with my back-up actually leading my main bracket by 20 more possible points. I think I'm going to win here. Of course, the winner doesn't get anything other than bragging rights.

I'm bragging and smack talking now because by Sunday night, I may not be able to anymore...things can change quickly.
 
And in totally unrelated news, after 2 months on cholesterol-lowering medicine and 1 month on medicine for hypothyroidism, my cholesterol went from a 286 to a 168. It hasn't been below 202 for at least 15 years. I'm happy. Very happy. 
 

Henry, Family History Fair, and Spring is coming...

Henry (who turned 11 months old yesterday) took his first step on Monday! One of the best things about being a parent (and grandparent) is the joy that comes when milestones are reached. Way to go, Henry!

Yesterday Glen and I attended our Stake's Family History Fair. We thought it was very helpful.

For instance, we learned how to access the info at Ancestry.com through our familysearch.org accounts so that we don't have to pay for an Ancestry membership anymore, saving us a few hundred dollars a year. Fabulous. We also learned how to perform better searches at Ancestry. Plus there were some helpful hints for dealing with familysearch as well.

The following are photos of my great-great grandparents that I found on Ancestry yesterday. I had not had photos of them, so I'm really excited about this. Now I want to hunt down other photos to add to my albums...and add a few new ones of my own. While I was in Oregon last week, my parents gave me some more old family photos to add to my collection. I want to make a new family photos wall. I also need to scan them and get them onto the computer and up at familysearch and ancestry.

Mary Elizabeth Purdy Jervis 1825-1897

Scudder Carll Jervis (1823-1907)

Spring is coming...

...that means that Monday the 21st will be the 41st anniversary of my baptism into the Mormon Church. Best decision ever.

...that also means that it was time to finish taking down Christmas. It takes a while to take down 5 trees.  Two trees still need to go in their boxes, but all the ornaments are off of them and soon my living room will seem empty. Hannah wishes the trees were still up. Too funny.

...that also means it's time for March Madness! The one time a year where we pay attention to the sporting world. We will be filling out our brackets very soon. Of course it's total guessing on our part, but it's a blast. You can go and fill out your own brackets at ESPN.

Let the smack talk begin! (or at least it can begin as soon as I fill out my bracket and have chosen who I hope will win the tournament)

my brother, "we could have been sipping lemonade," Henry, and milestones

My brother, Kyle, whom I hadn't seen for 3 1/2 years, flew in from New Hampshire to see my parents in Oregon (thanks for sending him Melissa!). So, of course, Hannah and I, plus my sister Denise, had to go to Oregon, too!

Kyle came for a visit because he had graduated summa cum laude from surgical tech school. He was valedictorian, has already passed his certification test, and has his dream job lined up which will start in April.Congratulations Kyle!

We just hung out and also threw him a little surprise congratulations party. It was a riot. So much fun. Way too short. Kyle flew out on Saturday evening.

Hannah wasn't there to put the words on the ice cream cake...my skills are pathetic...

my parents trying to figure out what the cake says (Wow. Congrats Kyle!!!)

waiting for Kyle--the "horn" practicing session was hysterical

Kyle filming us while most of us were laughing so hard we couldn't blow

Rare sight--dad playing games. He won this 3 to 13 game

the ocean was quite choppy Sunday morning

On Sunday, Denise, Hannah and I went to sacrament meeting and then Hannah and I left for home, trying to beat the snow that was predicted for later. The only place the Weather Channel app forecast gave us a chance of snow would be when we hit Susanville about 5 or 6 in the afternoon, all the rest of the towns just gave us chances of rain, with 100% chance of rain in McCloud. Lies. All lies.

It was just starting to snow when we hit Weed. By the time we turned off from I-5 onto 89, it was snowing a lot and the roads were covered and slick. Hannah was driving. We slid off the road 3 times.

Hwy 89 between I-5 and McCloud

The first time we slid, we did a 180º turn so when we came to a stop, we were facing the way we had come. We were blessed in that there was no one immediately behind us and that we didn't keep sliding because we could have started to go down an embankment and would have hit a tree at some point. I don't think our lives were in danger, but our bodies' health and our car's condition were being threatened. It was a bit intense. That's when I texted Glen and Denise and asked them to pray for us. I just told them that the roads were slippery, not what had just happened. I figured we needed all the help we could get, but didn't want them to be too anxious (though I knew Glen was still in church and wouldn't be getting the text right away).

We carefully got back on the road and a short distance later we slid again. This time it was only about a 90º turn but we started sliding backwards towards the embankment. The 3rd time we didn't spin but just slowly drifted off the road to the small shoulder. The closer we got to McCloud (lower elevation), the less it was snowing and the better the roads were. We did hit more snow after that, but it hadn't accumulated and the roads weren't slippery. We made it home safe and sound and feeling very blessed--both for being able to go to Oregon in the first place and also for making it home in one piece. Phew.

So, as we were on better roads, Hannah, when talking about how calm we were as we were doing our 180º spin and I was telling her to just turn into the slide, said something like, "I felt like we could have been sipping lemonade." That comment really cracked me up. Just because I was talking calmly didn't mean that my adrenaline level wasn't shooting up.

We were sent some new photos of Henry with Andrew and Heather at the Provo City Temple Open House!

my sweet, happy boy

And now for milestones. Today is March 7, 2016. Not only is it my brother Scott's birthday, my friend Cathy's birthday, and our niece Susan's birthday, it also marks the day that I have now been married 1/2 my life. Wow. I guess I'll always be a Jervis, but starting tomorrow, I'll have been a Perazzo longer than I was a Jervis. Weird.