Giant Jenga

Have you ever played the game Jenga? It looks like this...

My second counselor in Young Women is an awesome woman! She planned this fun night with our girls. We had a great mini-lesson on building on a sure foundation, and then we played Jenga like this...

 

In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Helaman gave this great counsel to his sons:

 

 "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the ^arock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your ^bfoundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty ^cstorm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." Helaman 5:12

 

Thanks Sister Ferrel for this great lesson and a fun night!

Pinewood Derby- One More to Go

It is hard to believe that it is Pinewood Derby time again. This is the second to last time we will do one of these events! Crazy! Rex did a great job designing his car. He had some wins and ended up in fifth place overall. Another one for the books!

Lucky Break II- Mom Takes a Day Off

If you read about building our shed, you may have felt bad that the kids didn't get to do anything fun over their spring break. Don't you worry, I took Thursday and Friday off, and I insisted we have some non-work related fun! It was a small stay-cation with some mini golf and go-cart riding. Good times!

Lucky Break

Theo was lucky enough to have the same spring break as the boys again this year. Unlucky for them, his idea of a vacation sometimes includes some kind of work detail. Theo has been wanting a shed for quite some time. Of course, the most cost effective way to get what he wanted also entailed some hard manual labor. I was fortunate sad to have to miss a lot of the excitement as I had to work most of the week. Come visit us, and we will give you the grand tour.

Blizzard on the Panhandle Plains

From the National Weather Service:

A historic blizzard struck the Panhandles during the early morning hours of Monday, February 25 and continued through the afternoon hours.  A very intense upper-level disturbance produced a band of heavy snow that set up over the central Panhandles from roughly Amarillo to Borger to Perryton during the early morning hours on Monday.  Within this band of snow, snowfall rates approached 2-3 inches per hour, thundersnow was observed, and extreme blizzard conditions were observed.  As this band moved west and east during the morning hours, many locations from Hereford to Beaver received more than 10 inches of snow.  The heavy snow and strong winds resulted in visibilities less than 50 feet at times for many of these locations.  As a result, this virtually crippled the entire area and made travel almost impossible.  In fact, all roads in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles were closed, including Interstate 40 from the New Mexico border to the Oklahoma border and Interstate 27 from Amarillo to Lubbock.  Conditions were so severe that Texas Department of Transportation crews were not able to work to keep the roads plowed.  Rick Husband International Airport in Amarillo was shut down for most of the day.  19 inches of snow accumulated at NWS Amarillo along with a peak wind gust of 75 mph late Monday morning.  A peak wind gust of 77 mph was also recorded at the Pantex Nuclear facility.  Unfortunately, many motorists were also stranded.
*This was the 3rd largest snowfall event at Amarillo -- only behind March 25-26, 1934 (20.6 inches) and December 26-27, 2000 (20.2 inches)
*This was the 2nd largest snowfall for a calendar day -- only behind March 25, 1934 (19.3 inches)
*This was the largest snowfall for a single day in the month of February.  The previous record was 12 inches on February 16, 1893
*The 17-inch snow depth at 6 AM on Tuesday, February 26 was the highest all-time snow depth measurement taken at Amarillo. 

For us, this translated into two days of no school, and even the service center where I work was shut down! The kids slept in nice and late Monday morning, and then spent time making a big breakfast. Each kid had his own idea of comfort food.

Rex makes waffles

Bowen bakes biscuits

Drake scrambles some eggs

Corbin feasts on it all

In the meantime, the wind was howling and the snow was piling up. This is a look out the back door. That is our grill, and although it is hard to see, there are huge drifts building up. Some were as high as 4 feet! You can also see the snow all stuck to the side of the house from the fierce blowing.

The boys were not going to miss it. They bundled up like crazy and went out into the raging storm. I was sure it would take them longer to get dressed than they would last. I was wrong. They dug a snow cave for some shelter and frolicked around making snowballs. By the end of the day, the sun came out, and we were able to dig a little path to the back gate.

Even though the blizzard had passed by Monday night, we were homebound for another day. The roads were so drifted with snow, it was more than a week before it was all melted. What a mess! I am not to sure about this weather out on the plains. It makes for some excitement, but I am ready for spring!

Sweet Valentine

My sweetie is such a good hubby. He got me these beautiful roses for Valentine's Day. In return, I got all of us some delicous gourmet cupcakes. I am spoiled.

Pigging Out at the Blue and Gold

At the end of January, our scout troop held the annual Blue and Gold Cub Scout banquet. The theme was a western one which I suppose is something most people around here are fairly comfortable with. One thing that I was really excited about was the decision by the scout leaders to carry on the tradition we started last year of making theme cakes with the dads. This is something we did in Page for years and have always enjoyed. When Theo talked with Rex about what he wanted to make. They came up with the following masterpiece.

 

I know, adorable, huh. The night of the big banquet, Rex fell ill, and was not even able to go to the festivities. We took his cake anyway. What a let down! Here are some of the other creations of the Amarillo scouts.