Carmen's Baptism

Growing up I worked at Baskin Robbins from age 14 to age 20.  The woman that owned and operated the shop was Carmen Harding.  Since all of my siblings worked there for numerous years she became like a second mother ot me.  In fact, some people thought that I was her daughter since I worked at the shop for so long.  Anyway,  after 30 years of our family knowing Carmen, she decided to be baptized into the Church over Memorial Day weekend.  We all love her so much that all of my siblings except for Melanie traveled to be there for her special day.  It turned out to be a fun trip because we got to return to Laramie and see my old stomping grounds as well as some old friends.  While we were there we went to Cheyenne and celebrated Afton's (Ryan's oldest daughter) 5th birthday.  It was kind of a long drive but lots of fun.  I am grateful for the reminder of how important being a good example and living what you believe is.  We never know who is watching or what seeds are being planted.  

Afton's Birthday party.

Carmen asked my dad to baptize her

Best Friends! Carmen and my mom

End of the School Year

I think I look forward to this time of year more than most parents do because I am a teacher.  This year was an especially rough class of students so I was happy to be done with it.  Haylie and Zander were also ready to be done with school for a while.  Zander kept telling me that is always knew all the answers on his math work so there was nothing left for him to learn in kindergarten.  Both kids had a good year.  Haylie had Mr. Lasslo for second grade.  We spent the year hearing all sorts of facts and/or opinions prefaced with the phrase, "Mr. Lasslo said...".  Apparently he was the expert on anything and everything and we knew nothing.  Zander had Mrs. Sjogren for kindergarten.  Haylie had her as well and she is an awesome kindergarten teacher.  Zander learned so much from her over the year.  I was worried about him starting kindergarten but he learn everything we needed to know and even aced the end of year kindergarten test!  Here are some pictures from the last days of school.  Haylie wouldn't go stand by Mr. Lasslo for a picture.  She is still too shy to even think of it.  Zander put on a big show about not wanting to be by his teacher but she grabbed him and pulled him in for a hug that he secretly liked.