Krysti

Ben's sister Krysti passed away on June 19, 2009, at the age of 42. She was such an amazing mom, wife, sister, daughter, and friend. We will miss her so much. She always made everyone feel welcomed and loved. We loved to visit their house and she and Bryan were always very kind to let us stay with them on our drives to and from Utah County or Idaho. We love Krysti and pray for her husband, Bryan, and her children, Zach, Brenna, and Anna.

We went up to St. George for her funeral and spent time with family. While we were there we welcomed Zach home from his mission in Brazil. Here are some pictures of our time with Ben's family.

At the St. George airport when Zach came home.

Stephanie, Alexis, and Jessica

Watching for Zach's plane to land

Zach and Bryan

Zach and Grandpa Walker

At the viewing

Most of the girl Walker cousins

Some of the boy Walker cousins

At the cemetery in Hurricane.

The brothers, Jake, Ben, Chuck, and Matt

Ben's family, Jake, Margie, Jeanette, Ben, Chuck, Sandra, Matt, and Dad

Our family, Bonnie was grimacing because she was not feeling well. We drove back to Arizona after the funeral and Bonnie was sick the whole way home. Thank goodness for ziplock bags.

It was good to be with Ben's family at this time and to see what good friends they all are and how they all bonded together to help each other at this time. We love them all so much and are grateful for the knowledge we have that families are forever.

Sprint Triathlon

Ben did a sprint triathlon last week out at Lake pleasant.
It was a 1000 m swim, 23 km bike, and 5 km run.
I wasn't able to go see him race, but a friend of mine was there and got a picture thankfully.

This picture was taken by the photographers they had at the event.

Times:
Swim: 27:01
Bike: 47:04
Run: 32:38

Overall Time: 1:46:44

Way to go Ben!! You are BE-AWESOME!!

Gwen's Preschool Graduation

So I am a little late posting this, but Gwen graduated from Preschool on may 15th. She was so excited for this graduation that I heard about it constantly. The day before her graduation she came and climbed into my bed at 6 in the morning and said, "Mom, can you believe I am going to graduate tomorrow?"

When the day finally arrived she was wore her favorite dress and was ready to go long before we needed to leave. However, we did finally make it there and it was fantastic. Here are some pictures and videos.

Gwen in her cap and gown.

Her certificate for Story telling because she loved to tell them all about everything going on in her life.

With her teachers Miss Tracy and Miss Megan.

They sang several songs during the graduation and Gwen always sang at the top of her lungs, and about a half note behind everyone else. It was awesome. I think on this particular song she actually stayed with the rest of the class.

Fathers & Sons/Girls Night

This weekend was Fathers and Sons. Unfortunately Nathan had a fever on Friday so Ben and the boys couldn't go camping. To compensate for this they set up the tent in the front room and Ben, Nate, and Jared camped out in there.

Nate and Jared trying to get the best of each other while pretending not to since I was taking a picture.


Nate, Ben, and Jared in the tent

The girls and I always have a girls night on the weekend of Fathers and Sons so we went ahead and did that. The boys got to watch a movie on Ben's laptop in the tent while we watched a movie in the family room on the t.v. We also painted our nails and then Bonnie and Gwen had a sleepover in my room.

Gwen, me, and Bonnie


Our beautiful fingernails and toenails

All the kids playing in the tent on Saturday Morning. The blankets on top were making it dark so that it could be a cave.

Pinewood Derby

This week Nate had his pinewood derby. His car took 5th place overall. He was pretty happy about this considering last year his car didn't even make it to the end of the track until we turned it backward, then it limped across the finish line. However, we do figure that Jared will benefit from all the things that Ben has learned while helping Nate with his cars.

Bad Cooking?

Today I made Gwen a sandwich on a biscuit for lunch because we were all out of bread. Apparently this was not okay since her prayer included this line, "Please bless that this sandwich won't taste as bad as I think it will."

I love being a mom!

Program, pets, plants, and a broken bone

So the death of animals seems to be a curse I am doomed to live with for the rest of my life. Ben and I were at a Strengthening Families class on Wednesday night when our babysitter called to inform us that two of our hamsters were dead. Needless to say many tears ensued and the kids were not sent to bed before we returned home, mostly out of compassion for all parties involved including the babysitter. By the way this was not the same babysitter that was watching the kids during the bird incident.

On Friday the kids didn't have school so we went to a nursery to get some trees and grape plants for our back yard. We then proceeded on to the pet store to look for replacement hamsters. After much discussion and debate we ended up coming home with 2 rats instead. I have to admit I like the rats better than the hamsters. They never bite and just seem more interesting.

Diamond in the corner and Sadie up front. Their eyes really aren't red it was just the camera. We did not buy devil rats for our children.

On Saturday we purchased the wood to make arbors for our grapes and spent the day building arbors, and planting all our plants. That is until about 4:30 when Bonnie came home from a friends house crying very dramatically because she was sure she had broken her hand. I should have learned to listen to her about broken bones at this point because this is the 3rd one she has had and she has been right every time. However, I gave her some pain reliever and told her to put ice on it until it felt better. I did finally take her to the urgent care when I noticed it was starting to swell. She had broken her 5th metacarpal, the bone in her hand right under her pinky finger.

Bonnie with her splint and sling until we get her to see the orthopedic surgeon.

Ben continued to work on the back yard while we were gone and I came back to help him finish. We still need to finish the arbors, but overall it looks pretty good.

Nate mowing the lawn before we started. This also gives you a good before view of our back fence.

Starting the work.


A couple of after pictures. We will post more when we finish the arbors.



On Tuesday this week Jared had a Kindergarten program called "The Seasons of Kindergarten". It was very cute with lots of singing and we took some videos. Unfortunately for some reason our camera did not record any sound. I am adding this video anyway because Jared's actions crack me up. The part he gets very intense about he is singing "Gonna catch a rainbow, gonna catch a rainbow." It was better with sound, but even without it's pretty funny.