Birthday Party

Judy has spent most of her time with the children. I have been working on floor projects in the house. This afternoon I went with Rob and his brother Jeff and shot Rob's shot gun at clay pigions. It was in part a gift to Jeff for his 35th birthday. For me it was a lot of fun and a large bruise on my shoulder. We each too 45 shots. In the evening we went over to Jeff's for desert and played some simple games. I didn't get pictures of our earlier activity but here are some at the birthday party.

Here are the children with their cousin Tanner who is holding a red balloon.
They are such hams. We have been trying to potty train the twins but as you can see they didn't even make it to the party so they are in diapers.

Memorial Day

This is the first year in many that we have not been able to go to our parents graves and decorate them with flowers from our yard. We were able to go on a picnic that was probably the coldest in our record book.

Judy and Rob's brother and sister in-law were basking in the beautiful cool weather on Memorial Day.

Rob with the twins enjoying the day.

Judy and Taylor waiting for cake that was topped with glazed strawberrys.

Jenni got a little close to the topping. I think she was licking the spoon.

We are excited because Judy has had success getting the twins to pee in the toilet. We have high hopes.

We just got word that our visa's are in at the missionary department so there will be no delays for our departure. We have made reservations to fly to SLC on May 5, where we hope to see family and enjoy the area before we enter the MTC in Provo.

Some Pictures

This is a shot from the upper entrance to Jenni's neighborhood. It shows what is left of the original Highlands Ranch, and how much higher than it is than Denver in the distance. I hope you can see the downtown buildings in the upper right.

Here is Chase with his new T-Ball baseball hat. I havn't seen him without it all daly.

Here is Zach on the landing leading to his parents bed room. On the left is their playroom and on the right is the hall leading to the three bedrooms and bathroom.
Here is a bull on the ranch with the rockies in the background. Sorry I didn't get the pictures a very good order.
This is the originall ranch house and out buildings, etc.

This is the entrance to the neighborhood accross the street from the ranch where the bull was standing.
Here is Chase sleeping with his soccor trophy. After his first T-Ball practice he asked where his new T-ball trophy was.

Latest Project

Thought you might like to see my handy work.

On the left is the step up to the bath tub. We are still trying to put that project together. I have to cut the lip off the step and then there will be some tile cutting to do.

Here is our oldest grandson Jeremy Hoagland, who will be joining the Air Force as soon as he graduates from Aloha High School in early June. We are sad that we will not be able to be there as we are very proud of him and want to wish him the best in his Air Force career.

Above is our littlest grandchild, Taylor. She is a lot of fun as is her twin brother Jesse (in the background). We are so glad to get to know them before we leave for NZ. All four of the children have been Judy's project and are keeping her very busy.

Jenni is getting some much needed relief from all her labors although there is still plenty for her to do. I have enjoyed going to the different stores with her as we get materials, etc. for the tiling projects. I have enjoyed this time with her as we talk in the car and while we work together.

The finished product, new AC grills

Here are some excerpts from Jack's diary. He spent nearly two weeks in Salina, Utah helping his brother get his recently purchased motel in better shape.

On Monday, April 21, Gary flew me to Salt Lake City, picked me up, and drove me to Salina, Utah where I have been helping get his motel into shape. I spent the first three days putting new cover grills over the air conditioning units (60 of them). It was a very difficult job for an old guy like me. I worked on my knees having some difficulty removing the old grills. They were fastened from the inside so I had to drill out the bolts. Some had outside screws and others (2 or 3) were very loosely attached. The person who measured did not measure all the openings so some openings were too small and others were a little too big. We had to cut the brick to make the small ones work and the larger ones just added to the difficulty. I attached the new ones to the brick by drilling six pilot holes and driving screws into plastic anchors. This created quite a mess which I had to clean up each evening.
Next I fixed old anchor marks in the bathrooms by knocking them back enough to make a small hole and filling them with chalk and then painting. I also put in new threshold rubber inserts in 20 units. Helped change a hose bib and re-chalked 12 bath tubs. I also put in several door stops.
On Saturday the 26th Loretta, Gary & I went on a drive down hwy 12 which is known to be one of the most scenic drives in the country. It was very nice but the morning was pretty hazy. We then went on to Bryce National Park which I found to be magnificent. We had a good trip together. I took lots of pictures.
Thursday, May 1, I finished up some of the work I was doing in the morning. I went to lunch with Gary’s contractor, Craig and his maintenance man, Chris. We had a good visit and I explained what I had done and what I hadn’t done so they could finish up. Around 2:45 Loretta took me to the airport. Gary thought I was going home on Friday and Loretta would only have to make one trip. He was wrong; he had made my flight a day Above is a shot from HWY 12 earlier so now she will have to make 2, four hour trips to the airport. They have to make another trip on Sunday when Loretta fly’s with their daughter Kelly to Texas.

This is my brother Gary and me at Bryce Canyon. It is the only time you will see me look taller than Gary as you can see the angle of the ground by the rail.

Saturday, May 3, I took Chase to his soccer game. He has a reputation of not running very much. While he did stand a lot, today he played a lot more. He even took the ball the length of the field and scored a goal, which amazed everyone. When he fell down he would just stand there until someone cleaned him off. Quite a four year old. This afternoon I got on the trampoline with all the kids had them all squealing as I bounced them around and tickled them. It didn’t take long to wear me out. The trampoline is set into a hillside so you can enter on ground level. I was sitting just outside the net opening and little Chase would come out every so often and give me a big hug and then go back in and jump some more. They can all just melt your heart.