February Flew By!

Mexican Travels

We have a new family member!

Grandma has a new dog. Her full name is Chiquita De La Playa Del Mogote En La Paz (Little Girl Of The Mogote Beach In La Paz) but we call her Chica.  She is a rescued beach dog and she only speaks Spanish.  When she was found by some friends abandoned among the beach mangroves of Mogote Peninsula she was about 3 months old, skin and bones, with only wispy tufts of hair.  Etta Rae took her to the vet, got medicine and vitamins and nursed her back to health.  Etta Rae has another dog, so she had to find a home for Chica.  Grandma to the rescue.

Being a Spanish-speaking Mexican Baja beach dog, Shaver Lake is going to be quite an adjustment for her.  Neighboring dogs will probably find her accent amusing, and the coats Grandma will have to make for her to keep her warm will be awkward socially.  But life is full of new beginnings, and what will we do with her if we go to Peru next winter?  Hmmm.

Grandkids

Valencia Crew

Ani is gearing up for her license test and Prom, which is April 15th.  We have an LDS Prom here in our area and it's held at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum.  The boy she likes asked her and she's excited to go with her group of friends from church.

After a long four day weekend last weekend, she's already gearing up for Spring Break which is the first week of April. I think Jeff's taking the kiddos up to Utah for General Conference so I think they're looking forward to that.

Tessa is singing her heart out in choir and is so excited for her New York trip over Easter Weekend at the end of April.  She's getting pretty awesome at doing sit-ups most every day and walking the hill in our neighborhood (if it's not raining).  She's just as excited as Ani is for Prom and is looking forward to helping her pick her dress out and all that fun stuff.  

Noah is sticking with the Cello...for now.  He told me he's done at the end of the school year, but we'll see if he changes his mind.  We sure had fun at the cub scout Blue and Gold this last Thursday night and I included a couple of pics of the crazy boys. It was a western theme and someone brought a real live horse named Zoe!  Mason fell in love with her and spent most of the evening out with her. He got to get up and sit on her several times and tried talking her owner into letting him walk around the parking lot with her...no go.

Missionary Report

Kai is happy in his new area of Paisley, Scotland with Elder Milburn.  I guess Elder Calton from the Beestons neck of the woods is in his district and they like to swap Derik B. stories.  His letters are positive and pretty funny sometimes, and the other night we swapped emails several times because I was up pretty late and he was emailing early on his end.  It was pretty exciting to almost "talk" to him and it totally made my week! Here's his blog link:

http://missionarykai.blogspot.com/ 

(also on the side bar of the blog) 

Texas Gang

February started out strong for the Texas Johnston’s!  We purchased a new car (with exciting details like stow & go seating) and we enjoyed watching Ella perform as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz.  Both boys basketball teams made it into the playoff weekend, too!  And Julia can recognize all of her letters and sounds - great work all around.

Jack had his tonsils & adenoids removed - they are not kidding when they tell you how long that recovery will take!  Thankfully, we discovered the Flash on Netflix, and our neighborhood is bookended by Sonics with a variety of slushy options- and thanks to 4 years of undergraduate education we developed some fun hydration strategies to keep Jack full of fluids (when anyone says Dr. Wells, DRINK;  when you see a yellow flash, DRINK; when someone says Flash, DRINK, etc)

Liam's orchestra concert featured 2 pieces that ACTUALLY SOUNDED LIKE REAL MUSIC!!!  My hat's off to middle school orchestra teachers... they have a rare combination of skills, patience and passion. (He's the bass on the back right).

Julia was kind enough to bring home the flu from some of her preschool friends - she is so good at sharing!?!  Liam came down with it while he was out shoveling mulch with the scouts to raise money for scout camp.  He worked through about 12 landscapes before mentioning anything to his leaders - I picked him up early and the poor kid slept for the next 5 hours!  It’s been steady sleep, Motrin, Powerade and Flash episodes since Saturday afternoon. 

In between drinking with Jack, keeping Ella's fever at bay, and picking Liam up early, our dogs managed to break a hole through the fence and escape... which led to this super cute rescue plan from Julia. She is always thinking!! There was some drama when we found the dogs before getting the wolfs from Wolftown to help, but she recovered quickly. And in case anyone would like to visit- we don't actually live right across the street from Wolftown (I believe that's closer to Austin.)

Vegas Clan

Blakely watching TV with dad

Madi came home from school in the same outfit as her mom 😂

Luke got his permit!

It's been raining!

Blakely got her hair straightened one day and suddenly looked like a four year old

Roxy had her 100th day of kindergarten

Madi went right past her mom in height 😯

Glamour shots

Cambrie learning a layout!
(she's in the back in the hot pink)

Beestonians

Alison is staying busy at Snow. Working hard as always...but having some fun too! Training started up again for soccer. She was named one of the Captains for next year's soccer season. They will play a handful of pre-season games in the Spring.

Larissa is a budding photographer. She loves her camera and her new tripod and did a "shoot" with her friends last weekend. Cheer is also keeping her busy of course. She looks up to (figuratively of course) the seniors on her team who have been so good to her. She is working hard to be ready for tryouts for next year, which will be at the end of March.

Artists at Work: Tanner and Lauren

Making the most of their time in Hawaii! Tanner is trying his hand at water colors with a replica of his mode of transportation...the Element or "boy blue". Not too Shabby! Lauren is keeping busy with her videography.

Weekend Getaway: Derik and Sarah

Took a little weekend trip to St. George over President's Day. They just needed a little getaway between school, work, and volunteering at the hospital and with a mentor program. It rained pretty much the entire time and their traveling companions decided to break up while they were there but nonetheless they were glad they got away.

I love my wife way more than cheeseburgers and I love cheeseburgers like a ton! She is an actual angel! -Derik 

Freezing in Provo: Hadley and Kal

I'm getting ready to film a wedding in March and am super excited to work with a photographer Kal introduced me to. Kal is preparing to run a half marathon at Thanksgiving point in a couple months. Sally has started crawling and is super fast! She just had her nine month checkup and everything looks great. She loves bottles and eating whatever I'm eating. There was some sunshine a few weeks ago so we took her to the park for her first swing ride!

We are thinking we'll need to move this summer even though we love living at on-campus housing. When Kal graduates in December we are not sure when or where the army will assign him, and we'll need to be somewhere that won't kick us out for not being students anymore so we can wait around a while.

Winter looks like it is here to stay... ugh. But other than that, things are going really good, and we are really looking forward to this semester being over and some warmer weather.

Grown Up Stuff

Lisa

I'm busy with my special education credential/Masters in Ed. and feeling like I'm way too old for this business!  Working, school, kids, eating...it's all so annoying sometimes :)  We sure got the rain we've been praying for, but we're about to float away at this point!  I think it's safe to say that we are in drought remission at this point.  I'm tired and happy and overwhelmed and extremely blessed!  Love you guys!

Brian

Brian had the opportunity to fly numerous, numerous basketball teams around the country - and kept his cool while being yelled at by the coach from the ASU Men’s Basketball team (proving again that U of A is always better).  He even flew to Oregon and picked up some t-shirts from Tanya's alma mater and toured the Spruce Goose!

Michele 

I graduated from JetBlue university and am now working at the salt lake center for the next week and a half. Bought a desk from the classifieds and painted it. Thanks to Lauren fro letting me borrow her cute chair until I get one of my own. Trying to keep from going completely insane. Just kidding...maybe not completely insane. I'm slowly getting the hang of things. I hear there's a three-month hump. Counting the days. Love working from home!!

Thanks everyone! Make sure to check out the important dates section and see if I have all the birthday/ anniversaries. These dates are coming up in March:

26- Terry's Birthday🎂

Let's Catch Up!

Terry and Vicki 

Are loving their time in Mexico. I will be uploading a page with all their newsletters so we can keep up to date on their adventures.

Lisa and Kids

Lisa is back in school working to get her special education teaching credential and is busy substituting for the local high schools. 

Kai is loving serving the people of Scotland and his release date is October 3! Here is a link to Kai's blog with a countdown to his homecoming as well as weekly updates (they're usually pretty short and sweet.) 

Ani will be getting her driver's license in a few weeks, and is finishing up her sophomore year of high school. Tessa is almost done with her first year of high school. She is also finishing up a research study that she participated in with Cedars Sinai. The thing she is most looking forward to this year is going to New York for a choir trip in April. Both boys are involved with boy scouts and love it! Noah is playing the cello and reading like crazy. He and Mason are both blazing thru books and driving everyone crazy with all their energy. 

Hadley, Kal, and Sally 

Hadley is finishing her LAST class at BYU and is a teaching assistant for two other classes in her media arts program until she graduates this April. She is also playing on an intramural soccer team and loves taking Sally to the pool at the Recreation Center. 

Kal is busy with being a full time student, working security for basketball and football games, and earning his scholarship with the ROTC Army. He is graduating in December and is contracted to work for the army for four years after that.

Sally is 8 months old and loves to blow spit bubbles and scream all the time. She started sleeping through the night (yay!) but has decided morning starts at 5:00AM (just like her dad.) Definitely a super happy baby and loves to put on the charm around strangers. 

Kal bought a camera a couple weeks ago and so far it's just pictures of Sally:

Michele and Joe

Just this last weekend Larissa's cheer team won first in the state! Here is a video of Larissa's cheer routine she is the blonde ponytail that starts in the back right corner. Great job Rissa!

Michele has been busy with training for her new job with Jet Blue and has a calling as a gospel doctrine teacher. Joe is a Priest Quorum's advisor. They took a trip to Hawaii at the end of last year to see Tanner off on his new adventure on the island.

Ali just celebrated her 19th birthday!

She played soccer for Snow College this past season and helped her team become regional champions. Now she is getting ready to start spring training.

Tanner and Lauren

Tanner is going to school for business and marketing while waiting for his million dollar idea to hit him! He is also doing Segway tours for work. Lauren is filming weddings and doing product shoots. If you go to Lauren's business website you can see some of the amazing work that she does. She also nanny's two little kids. They love to surf, and try to get into the ocean everyday! They are loving it out there in Hawaii

Derik and Sarah 

Sarah is attending BYU and working on building her photography business. Derik is attending UVU and working full time. They are keeping busy and living in student housing right next to Hadley and Kal. 

Brian and Tanya 

2017 started with some good laughs, as they celebrated New Years Eve together playing ridiculous games and enjoying their annual fondue feast. Basketball season is the best and worst of times - Brian is out flying NCAA teams (they hope to see him again after March Madness), and Liam and Jack both play ball. They've been blessed with amazing coaches for both boys this year, and they are both developing some great ball handling skills. 

Ella has thoroughly enjoyed her rehearsals for the Wizard of Oz, and the family is looking forward to seeing their little munchkin perform later this week. She gets to lead the curtain call at the end of each performance, which she is excited about. On Tanya's best night, she manages to get Liam to practice 15 minutes early and just barely pick Jack up 5 minutes late from his practice, while Ella is driving home from play practice with a friend.

Julia is a good sport on these evenings - she brings most of the stuffed animals from the house, and sings and chatters in the car for the entire drive (those kindergarten teachers have no idea what is coming for them next year!)

New Years Eve minute-to-win-it games!

A gorgeous January day at the park.

This is Julia wearing her Frozen shirt, cleopatra dress and pink cowgirl boots - typical wardrobe decisions. And yes they do take her out in public like that, it must be awesome to be 4.

Collin and Kathryn 

Luke just finished his club volleyball season. He is starting his school season in a month. He had a great weekend at a volleyball tournament in Anaheim. Even though they lost a few his coach told him he's a better setter then the other 16's team and the 17's and one of the refs told him he had awesome hands.

Collin is super busy but hiring on new doctors this coming month and that should make his life a little easier as medical director. 

Madi celebrated her 13th birthday on January 16th by hanging out with a bunch of friends and doing makeovers. 

 Then the next day, Blake decided she'd try her hand at Madi's new makeup.

Meet at the Mountain

I wanted to create this blog so that everyone in our family could have a chance to reconnect. Shaver Lake, or Grandma's Mountain as it was lovingly known, was the place that we would come to each year to visit and catch up with one another. Since the grandkids have decided to grow up and families have settled down in various states, it has become more and more difficult for us to all be in the same place at the same time. I hope this can become our new "mountain" where we can come together virtually and post about what is happening in our lives, share pictures of our growing kids, and have a common place where we can look to for updates.

The format of this project will be similar to a monthly newsletter of sorts. Whenever something of mention happens (a vacation, a won soccer game, a new job, etc.) if you could let me know about it (me is Hadley) either through my email: holyoakhadley@gmail.com or a text: 661-964-9271 and I will compile everything every month and do a large post with all the new information. Please include pictures/ video! 

There is also a page where I've listed birthdays and anniversaries, please let me know if I got a date wrong. Also, right under that is a page where I will put photos of our get togethers throughout the years. So if you happen along old group photos of us, send them my way!