End of School

School ended with a lot of really cool honors for our boys. Mark set a family record on the ACT, accomplishing his goal of beating both Mom and Dad's score. Even better, he received a wonderful compliment from his favorite seminary teacher, Brother Marsden. Below are the texts that this teacher sent about Mark, which made us really proud.

Brother Marsden: "Hi there! Just wanted to let you know that Mark was in charge of devotional today in seminary and did a spectacular job. He is such a good kid and blessing to our class. He talked about how Christ is our advocate and shared super great application of that truth. I love being his teacher. Just an amazing kid. One of the best I've taught!"

Mark chose Super Chix to celebrate end of Junior year.

Dax also had some honors as he ended 8th grade. He enjoyed being a part of the National Junior Honor Society, and his grades were perfect. He also received some wonderful words of praise.

Mr. Shelley: I have enjoyed having Dax this year in science class. He is amazingly organized and stays up on his work very well. He knows how to plan his schedule so he gets everything done. Having said that, he does well in class because he focuses on learning and educating himself rather than just getting a grade. He's a hard worker and good member in group work as he can put forth ideas but also listen to others as well. Thank you for raising such a great kid! I look forward to working with Dax for the rest of the year.

Grandpa and Dax

Do you think Dax looks like Justin Bieber?

Seth wrapped up his 5th grade year. His teacher had a baby in March, so he was excited she came back for the last month of school. The big event at the end of school is the Dance Festival and the 5th grade did the song Footloose--a classic Lehi song. Seth did great, and Dax even came to watch with Mom. We are excited for Seth to be in 6th grade next year--the last year of elementary school for the Ockeys (well, other than Dad).

Mom and Dax enjoyed the Dance Festival.

Seth is always a good sport about the dance festival.

Only one more year of elementary school for Seth.

Dax's Birthday--the big 15!

Mom has a really fun tradition for Dax's birthday. She likes to check him out of school for lunch. This doesn't work with any other birthdays in the family, so Dax especially enjoys it. This year, he chose lunch at Cafe Rio. It's hard to believe that Dax is finally 15!

Dax loves the burrito.

Mom likes birthday lunch, too!

Dax got a few awesome presents for his birthday. He enjoyed the glowing basketball, the iTunes giftcard and book. Dax is such an amazing kid. He loves baseball, popcorn, and especially ice cream. He is a "perfect report card" student. He works hard at his Church callings and is a great friend. Oh, and he's also a burgeoning chicken farmer. 

Dax pulled each of his presents out of a different pocket of his new backpack.

Dax always wants mint brownies instead of birthday cake.

We went for pasta at Dax's favorite restaurant, Brick Oven.

Of course, age 15 means one thing: Learner's Permit for driving! Dax and Dad have been driving almost every day. Dax is a really responsible driver, even though sometimes he thinks he knows better than Dad. He has been in the church parking lot and finally out on the road quite a bit. He only has to raise and move Dad's seat about 10 inches to get into driving position.

Dax with his learner's permit.

Week of Mom: Mother's Day

Week of Mom

Dad works really hard to make things special for Mom for Mother's Day. He dubbed the week before Mother's Day the Week of Mom and gave her a gift every single day.

Monday: Pedicure (and he came with her, but didn't join in with his own pedicure)

Dad and Mom hanging out at the nail shop.

Mom loves getting a pedicure

Tuesday: New Griddle

Wednesday: Flowers

Thursday: Took everyone out to dinner

Friday: New tablecloth

Saturday: Mother's Day Brunch together. It was fun to hang out and see some old friends. We even got some professional pictures taken.

Mom is not a fan of pictures of herself.

Fancy pictures

Dad made up this pose and it is the best one!

Sunday: Dad made Mom breakfast. It was a new recipe--croissant waffles. They were delicious. 

This breakfast was super yummy!!!

Mark was also super nice and wrote Mom the nicest letter and bought her flowers and chocolates. He will be a great husband some day. 

Mom loved being with her family so much and taking a picture with her boys!

Seth is Tennis Champ

Seth is becoming quite a tennis player.

Seth played in the Utah Tennis League again, this year as a fifth grader in the 4-6 grade division. He had a new coach that was quite a bit older this year, and though the coach was sure that the 6-foot-tall sixth grader was going to be his star player, he learned to love Seth. Seth beat the big kid in multiple challenge matches and played #1 Singles throughout the entire season. By the end, the coach said, "I love that kid; Seth works hard, and is always a good citizen on the court! Seth is the first to help me clean-up and is so fun." 

Seth breezed through the season really well. He is an excellent tennis player, but mostly, he's smart on the court. He often played even until the score was 2-2. By then, he'd discovered his opponents weakness. He'd expose that weakness, working the backhand, or hitting dropshots or lobs. He'd finish with a 6-2 win. He only lost one match during season play to a kid named Ethan. This kid hit the ball a lot harder than anyone in the league and didn't seem to have a weakness. Though Seth stayed in it, he ended up losing 6-4 in a tight match. Of course, this led to one of Dad's Mental Toughness speeches, which became a running joke throughout the season. But we watched match after match where Seth's opponents fell apart as he kept his head in the game and scored the victory.

Seth's serve improved a lot this year.

On tournament day, this lesson would come in handy. The weather was in the 40's, but it felt like the low 30's with the 15 mph wind gusting to 25 mph. Seth breezed through the first match easily 6-2. Then he had Ethan in the second match. Luckily, Seth had learned to play the wind in that first match. He'd smash the ball into the wind, and dink it softly when hitting with the wind. Ethan only knew how to smash the ball, and Seth quickly jumped out to a 2-0 lead. From there, the match see-sawed to 4-2. At 40-40 (with no deuces), Seth won the biggest point of the match. He took a 5-2 lead and closed it out 6-3. "It was definitely his mental toughness," said Dad.

It was seriously freezing for the tournament!

Seth played so well despite the weather.

The Championship was much easier than the semifinal. Seth only lost two games, and both times were shady. He lost both those games at 40-40. He hit both balls in, and the other kid called them out, taking the games. The big drama came at the second match point, though. Seth led 5-2 and 15-40 with the other kid serving, and the snow started. It was packed iceballs somewhere between snow and hail, and it came suddenly. The other kid asked, "Do you want to call it?"

Seth didn't. Instead, he won the next point and took the 1st Singles Championship. It was a pretty great day! (for mental toughness)

Can you see the hail in the background?

April Adventures

April was a fun month. We started with a trip to Arches, and then baseball began, but we were able to squeeze in a few adventures and a lot of fun time together.

It wouldn't be a post without a fun selfie from Seth.

Seth is letting his hair grow long and it takes awesome pics.

We were able to see part of the solar eclipse.

It was a little cloudy, which made the pictures even more awesome.

Seth looking stylish in the eclipse glasses.

Mom loves the Tulip Festival and went two different times to see the flowers. She will probably go again in May, too!

One of Mom's favorite times of the year.

This was her favorite spot.

Second visit!

Mom also snuck in a trip to see the blossoms at the State Capitol.

We went to walk through the Taylorsville Temple. It was very nice! We timed our visit just right to avoid the rain and the crowds. 

The temple is really pretty.

Such beautiful flowers.

We all went to Cross E Ranch for their Spring Festival and to see the baby animals. They host such a fun event, and we loved spending time with the animals, especially the goats. They climbed right on top of everyone. This farm also had a fun tulip field.

The chicks were so cute!

The calves were soft!

These two goats climbed right onto Randy!

Then they visited Seth!

This goat loved eating Natalie's hair.

They even chewed on Mark's shoelaces.

The lambs were pretty friendly.

One of these guys just got a haircut!!

We loved all the fun activities at the farm.

Such pretty flowers!

Mom wants all the pictures with flowers.

We had a really fun time!

Baseball season hits full swing beginning mid April, so we will do a whole post about baseball soon. Here are a few pics from the start of the season.

Seth and I spend a lot of time at baseball games.

I let our friend Kate take a few pics! This was one of the better shots she got of the boys and her brother.

We have a lot of late nights talking about baseball after the games.

Here are a few more fun moments. 

Mark and Mom went to lunch.

We checked outa new drink shop in Highland.

Mom and Dad went to see Johnson Files Comedy show. It was so good!

Then we ended with treats at The Chocolate!

Seth played really well in his piano recital.

Somehow the boys convinced Mom to play Monopoly! She did not win!

The Pooles came to stay for a few days, and I only took two pictures!

But we had a lot of fun hanging with cousins!

Every month we organize ward temple night. Here is one of the outings!

One sister took pictures of everybody. 

We love being in the temple together!