Well, look who we found!

Brian was driving home from his morning church meetings when he came across this in the street...

We all thought it was the extinct desert tortoise and immediately called the hotline to find out what we should do with it. They had Brian describe it, and we found out it was a Russian tortoise, a female (so we changed her name from Max to Maxine) more commonly found pets. Brian was told to give it lettuce and water and put it in a box and look for the owner. Signs were made and put up on the community mailboxes. Days went by and no one called looking for their pet so Brian decided to build a burrow for her. Although the kids called her Maxine, dad calls her "turd" for 2 reasons. 1- when he found her in the street she must of scared because she pooed, and 2- she ate dad's watermelon plants that were just starting to blossom! Oh turd, uh I mean Maxine! She is our second pet to date. Although we haven't seen her for a while...

2012 Father/Daughter Campout

The Hafens have taken all the daughters camping once a year for the last three years. This year they went to Mt.Charleston and had a great time! The girls planned activities like marble racing, and a nature scavenger hunts.

They really enjoyed playing in the tents, and really didn't enjoy "hiking." The dads cooked up some good grub, complete with dad and his power-tool mixer for cake batter. These girls are lucky to have such great dads!

Erick's 2nd Grade Program

The last couple of months of school the entire 2nd grade worked on a musical production called, "Under the Sea." They sang, danced, and some of the kids had speaking parts. Erick was one of the narrators and memorized all of his parts. They practiced a lot with the music teacher Ms.Kellums, it was really cute! I especially liked that each class made different sea creatures, Erick made a sea horse. It went perfectly with their end of the year theme of Oceans that I was lucky enough to teach while finishing the year out in Erick's class. It was a lot of fun to learn about!

Field Day 2012

This year for field day the PTA provided different colored shirts for every grade level, it looked so neat to see the rainbow of shirts out there! They had so much fun being with their classes and playing all the fun activities. Erick's favorite event was jumping the hurdles. Rachel's favorite event was jump the river. (She actually said it was the break station, but I made her give me a second favorite, oh that Rachel!)

Rachel's Golden Birthday

The last day of school we celebrated Rachel's birthday with a luau party. We made smoothies, had hula hooping contests, and Rachel's Aunt Kortni who lived in Hawaii and worked at the Polynesian Cultural Center came and taught the girls how to do the hula and twirl poi balls. She was a real professional! It was a fun way to end the school year!

End of the School Year Awards- 2012

This year Erick finished 2nd grade and Rachel finished 4th grade. Their school has an end of the year awards ceremony. This year I was fortunate enough to finish out the last 2 and half weeks in Erick's class while his teacher was out having a baby. So that gave me the job of presenting the awards to his class. I had to be clear that I gave the message to the parents that Mrs. Conway and the specialist teachers actually picked the students who received the awards, lest anyone think I chose my own kid! Erick was the recipient of the Language Arts award and the PE award. Rachel was the recipient of the principle's award. The teacher chooses one boy and one girl from each class and writes a nice letter about them and the principle reads it to everyone. We are very happy with the kids and how hard they worked this year! I am especially glad that they behave well at school, otherwise all the teachers would let me know;)

Erick's 1st Pine Wood Derby

The much anticipated first Pine Wood Derby finally came for Brian and Erick. The whole ward attended in conjunction with the fundraiser and adult pine wood derby. Brian put his engineer skills to good use and designed a cool car that both he and Erick used. Lucky for us Grandpa Hafen has a huge workshop complete with a handy machine that is programmed to cut cars. As a rookie dad at Pine Wood Derby cars, Brian spent A LOT of time getting this car cut and designed. Then Erick put it together and painted it! Erick's car took 2nd place and he got a trophy, so he was thrilled! It happened upon Brian's birthday, which wasn't his first choice for celebrating his day, but Erick's first pine wood derby doesn't happen everyday! I think everyone had fun! Our ward does a great job organizing everything and we are grateful to be a part of it!