March Madness

 March was a randomly busy month this year.  It included spring break, plus a quick trip to Houston for one of Jake's builder 20 meetings. Now I've been to Houston and I don't need to go back.  Not my favorite place.  Our hotel was kind of in a random location and I was stuck in like a 4 block area the whole time.  There wasn't even a place to run, which has never happened before.  So two thumbs down for Houston.  Although, it was still really nice to get away with Jake.  I'm never going to complain about that part.

While we were in Houston, Zack participated in a state 3D printing competition.  He worked with a partner and their test was to print something that would help solve a problem.  His partner works in retail and says he frequently watches ladies did through their wallets to try to find the right credit card.  So they decided to print a wallet that would make your cards easier to see.  They worked for a couple of days straight to get it printed, and then headed to the competition.  They ended up getting first place and they get to go to nationals in Atlanta in June!  He's really excited and I think loved competing in something that he's so good at.  I'm so grateful for the engineering program our high school has.  Zack's learned so many great skills.  So much so that he's currently working as an intern for an engineering company in Heber.  They need him full time through the summer and are going to let him work remotely at Utah State.  Yay!    

This post has a lot about Zack in it, because now I have to talk about his latest Jeep project.  I have a love/hate relationship with that thing.  I love that he's done so much work himself and thus learned a lot of great lessons.  I hate how much time everything takes that he does and I hate watching him kill himself to try to get things done.  And as smart as he is, he's still a high school boy who makes not great decisions sometimes.  One of those not great decisions is when he decided to paint his Jeep.  Yep, the whole thing.  It started out with Jake telling him he needed to fix the rust spots before they got a lot worse.  Jake was thinking he would lightly sand and then touch up all the spots.  He went back in to check on Zack and there were multiple spots sanded all the way down to the metal.  Guess we're painting the whole Jeep.  This involved hours of work over like 10 days.  Hours.  Lots of late nights.  Lots of weekends.  I know for sure that halfway through Zack was feeling like he'd bitten off more than he could chew.  We got to a couple of days before we were supposed to go to St George to do some jeeping, which Zack really wanted to do, and it didn't look like he was going to make it.  He ended up coming a day after us so that he could stay home and finish.  I was so nervous to see what it looked like.  I mean, a lot of things can go wrong when you paint a car.  But it actually looks pretty good!  Phew.  Were there any lessons learned with all of this?  I'm not sure.  Pretty sure there are more big projects in the future.  But I guess he did learn to paint a car, so I guess that's something.

I went to a Van Gogh thing in SLC with some friends.  It was pretty cool and fun to do something different.

His paintings surrounded you.

One day Jake found a pizza dough recipe and made an excellent margherita pizza.  It was delicious so I'm happy to turn all future pizza making over to him.

Zack asked a girl to prom.  She said no.  And didn't give the candy bars back.  No I didn't egg her house.  Yet.

Mud season means cleaning all the mud off the equipment.  Good times.

Zack in the middle of his eternal project.

The wallet they printed.

A smile!

Spring Break

 For spring break we headed to St George.  Our break this year was earlier than almost everyone in Utah.  Some people hated it, but we loved it.  Usually St George is insanely crowded over spring break.  Not a place you want to be.  This year it was the least crowded I've ever seen it.  So much better.

We've been to St George a lot, but this is the first time we went jeeping down there.  We had so much fun!  The jeeping is a lot different than Moab.  We got to experience our first time driving in sand dunes.  I was equal parts happy and terrified on the sand.  Jake made me drive for a good portion of one trail.  I went over some scary things!  I may or may not have shut my eyes a few times.  Zack loved having his Jeep and continues to be a great driver.  We were there with the Mackays again.  They're great Jeep friends.

Greg came with us on one of the trails.

Greg climbs all over the place.  

This picture does not do justice to how tight this was.  We had to put the mirrors in.  Also, I'm driving here.  With my eyes shut.

Sage and Volleyball

 This started out as a February post, but then I realized the only thing to document besides Moab was Sage playing volleyball.  Sage decided to pick up a new sport and chose volleyball.  My favorite sport, so I'm ok with it.  She's constantly hitting the volleyball inside.  Not annoying at all.  But it's fun to have someone to hit the volleyball with.  Outside that is.  We experienced our first sports tournament.  I know, we can't complain since it was our first one.  But it was all day, and it was long.  Sage had a lot of fun though, and we enjoyed watching her play.