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.