Hattie's Baptism

Hattie is the cutest.

For the first weekend of March, we drove to Vegas for Hattie's baptism. We left on Friday after school. With the time change into Nevada, it was pretty late when we got there. Still the kids played for a few minutes before climbing into bed on the air mattresses.

On Saturday morning, everyone started to gather. The Ferlans, the Ockeys, and both sets of grandparents joined the Poole's for the baptism. It was really nice, and Mom got to serve as a witness for the first time. Hattie was adorable in her special dress from Grandma. It was made from the bottom of Mom's wedding dress. 

Afterward, we took some family photos and then headed back for lunch. Jonny made several homemade pasta sauces, and the boys were really excited! He always cooks us up something delicious when we visit! Mom had made mint brownies at Hattie's request, so they were extra excited to eat those.

The Ferlans stayed at our house on the way down and we loved seeing James again.

Grandma and Randy have the best smiles!

We love spending time with family!

It was fun to see my beautiful wedding dress put to good use.

Mark and Ben are buds.

Most of the boy cousins, plus a few uncles.

We are loving spending so much time with James!

James definitely gets lots of attention!

The kids played and hung around. They lifted weights and went on a walk with the dog. Mom and Dad stayed up late playing games with Tiff and Jonny, of course! 

We played Werewolf and Ben was a werewolf twice. H even won one game! It was awesome!

The next day we had planned to head right home, but we found out two important things: 

1. Jonny was speaking in church.

2. Jonny was cooking his pork roast that he'd made last time we visited.

So obviously we had to stay. We loved Jonny's talk. He did a fantastic job speaking about grace. And we loved his pork, too! Everyone ate well, and then we headed home. We didn't get home until 11:00 pm, but it was a fun trip and worth it!

It's always hard to say goodbye to the cousins!

February Festivities

February was snowy and chilly, but we still had a lot of fun things happening! We were busy with basketball season, but found time for adventures, too.

We were invited to check out Dipped Haus--a new strawberry dipping business. It turned out to be super fun. We all tried a bunch of flavors and toppings, and the boys did great. It was definitely a success!

Decorating strawberries was super fun!

We loved this activity.

Dad always has parent teacher conferences in February, so on those late nights Mom lets the boys pick their favorite restaurant and we go pick up food. Then we come home and we all enjoy the food we wanted to eat. It works great because Dad would never do all those drive-thrus!

Of course!

Mom gave half her pizza to Dad!

Mark's favorite!

Dax changes it up, but this year he wanted Cafe Rio.

The Super Bowl happened in February and it was a fun family get together. Although the Bills didn't make it, we still supported our team. Mom had to leave early for a church meeting near the Saratoga Springs temple, and it was so beautiful she had to take a pic.

Go Bills!

Our new temple opens in August!

The boys hit during the winter with Taylor Snyder who is a great hitting coach. We took lessons from him last year and he is so kind and patient. We had a lot of fun and wish him the best of luck with the White Sox organization this year.

One day Taylor will be famous and we know him!

Basketball Seasons:

Mark played Junior Jazz with a bunch of his friends and they had a great time. They played well and only lost two games (to the same team). Most importantly they had fun playing together. Mark's team, the Drop Shot, ended up being the number one seed heading into the tournament, but the bad news was they had to play the team they lost to twice in the semi-final. Unfortunately, they lost again, but they all had a great season. Toward the middle of the second half, Mark went down with an injury. Someone's knee slammed into his thigh and it hurt a ton. He came out for a bit, but went back in to try and pull his team to victory. We could tell he was hurt since he wasn't running as well down the court. By the time we got home, it was hurting and swollen. Then, as you can see from the picture below, it was swollen to twice the size of his other leg the next morning. Now, about a month later, he is still struggling with it. It just gets tight after he moves around a lot. We are doing all we can to get it better before baseball season. 

Drop Shot

This leg injury has not been good.

Dax is in the years of basketball where they draft instead of let you request friends, so we created a Bantam team with his friends. Some of these friends had never played basketball before, but they are a great group of boys. Dax was the clear leader of the team leading them to a 6-4 season, which was amazing since they played some really tough teams. It was awesome to watch them learn and grow together. They all said they wanted to play together next year, so we are excited for another Bantam Season.

Lehi Bantam Team

Seth played in the 4th grade Junior Jazz league and was a super star. He was a great shooter, but we were really proud when he was able to get everyone to score during the season. Seth worked hard to help everyone get shots. He was a good sport and leader for his team. 

Seth's Team

Mark and Dax have also been playing church ball, and Seth got to fill in one week. He did amazing, but I loved how big the jersey was on him!

Dad coached all three of these teams! And he survived!

Here are a few other fun things that happened this February:

Mom heading out to shovel some snow. There were a few weeks that were FREEZING!!!

We stayed inside and played a lot of games.

There was a snow day! Look at those drifts. 

We had about 8 inches, but some places had up to 30 inches.

It was really an online day, so we all got to be home.

We bought a new coffee table, and the box became a little store for a week.

Dax performed in Federation and earned a Superior (the highest rating).

We made potato patties in honor of Grandma Ockey's birthday.

The final February adventure was after Mark's leg was not healing well. He stayed home from school because he had a cold, and could barely walk. So Mom took him for a long drive to Farmington Bay to get enough miles on the blue van to pass emissions, and to get him out of the house. We saw a lot of great birds and Mark took half of the pictures. He did doing really well with the long lens.

Mark still loves bird watching!

Kestrel

We loved watching the coots slip on the ice. It was hilarious.

We saw a lot of tundra swans.

Mark decided he loves pintails.

Great Blue Heron

Harlem Globetrotters

Dad's dreams came true at the Harlem Globetrotters.

Dad has always wanted to go see the Harlem Globetrotters. In the '80's when he was a kid, the Globetrotters were more popular than ever, appearing on Scooby Doo and even Gilligan's Island. Of course, Dad's older siblings would tell you that we DID see the Globetrotters, because THEY did see them. They also went to Disneyland, Yellowstone, Mesa Verde, and the Grand Canyon, before complaining that we grew up the spoiled little kids, while they were dirt poor. Go ahead, ask them about it! Dad didn't do any of those things until he was in his twenties.

Mom was able to go and see the Globetrotters a few times growing up and she remembered loving the show. She has wanted to take Dad and the boys for a long time.

Well, we finally made Dad's dream of seeing the Globetrotters come to life. It was a great night at the Jazz Arena, where we bumped into two of Dad's sisters, Sandy and Debbie. The boys enjoyed the game, and everyone chose their favorite player. The antics were funny and impressive, and we loved the dribbling and passing. Surprisingly, the Generals shot better from the four-point line than the Globetrotters did, but in the end, the boys from Harlem won! It was a great night!

It was a super fun night!

Seth loved his Globetrotters nickname! Big Dog!

Antelope Island Day

This winter has been record-breaking cold and wet. Well, not actually first place record-breaking, but top 10 cold and wet. It has been a great blessing because of the awful drought that we've been in, but it has made adventuring difficult. Visits to our website are down 10-15% because no one is leaving the house! We have been too cold, and too wet to do much ourselves. This week alone, we had storms on every day but Thursday, and the average high temperature is about 15 degrees below normal.

The lake was all icy around Antelope Island.

Luckily, we did find an opportunity to go to Antelope Island. This is one of our favorite drives, because we always see a lot of amazing animals. This year was no different. First, we stopped for Seth to complete the Junior Ranger program. He's done it before, but he enjoys working on it as we drive along. Mark and Dax spent more time looking for animals, and we saw plenty. As always, the bison were out in force. We saw a half-dozen porcupines in the trees, too. At one point, we were able to stand right beneath one sleepy guy, who dangled lethargically from a branch a dozen feet above us. At the end of the drive in the trees around Garr Ranch, we even saw a great-horned owl. It was a pretty awesome day. The kids were really good about trying a new Mongolian barbecue restaurant, which made Mark and Dad happy. 

It was a nice day for an outdoor adventure.

Dad thought to take this cute picture with Mom.

Seth loves Antelope Island.

We did one short hike.

The buffalo were right by the Visitor Center and this guy was rolling in the dirt.

We love finding the porcupines.

My porcupine hunters

We found our friend Mr. Owl.

We had a great time together.

Usually we miss the chukars, but Mom spotted one on the way out!

The blue sky was a nice treat on our outing.

Seth was the only to do the Junior Ranger and he did great!