A Big Week

Wow, what a week!

We had a couple of events pending. The grandparents were going to be here, so we decided to cram as many important events into the same week as we could.

Ryan turned 8 years old on Sunday 11/27. He had a party with friends on Saturday (complete with pinata, pin the fly on the chameleon's tongue and freeze dancing) and a family party on Sunday.

I love the look of pure happiness at the sight of Legos

Cute boy with his birthday apple pie

Since Ryan turned eight years old, that means it was time to get baptized! Grandpa and Grandma Lindsey came to town on Monday and Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson came to town on Thursday. (You would have thought the sets of grandparents were the oldest and dearest friends with the amount of conversation flowing between them. It was fun.)

The baptism went great! Grandpa Sorenson gave a talk on baptism and Grandma Lindsey gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. I ran into Quentin L. Cook in the bathroom after we changed our clothes. We are proud of you, Ryan!

Derek and Ryan getting ready for the baptism

Ryan with Grandma and Grandpa Sorenson

The whole group after the baptism

Ryan's new baptism scriptures

We had a lunch at our house after the baptism. We had four kinds of soups, salad and rolls. It was delicious. Because of a scheduling change with the baptism, we had to scarf down the food and head to the church for Mark's Eagle Court of Honor. He finally finished! We had a very non-traditional Eagle Court of Honor. We didn't do the typical scouting things you might expect. Grandpa Sorenson talked about scouting (pulling double duty with his baptism talk as well.)

Mark played a Mozart's Sonata in D on the piano. Before he played, he said, "This is something that you've probably never heard at a court of honor." He was probably right. You can see the the video of him playing by clicking here.

Marsha and I both did a little Mark tribute (i.e. embarassment) and Grandpa Lindsey presented Mark with the Eagle award.

Grandpa L. presenting the Eagle award

Mom and Dad with the newly minted Eagle Scout

Great job, Mark. We are proud of you!

Lest you think that the fun was over at that point, we were just getting started. Since Grandpa Lindsey was called as a Patriarch, he is able to give Patriarchal Blessings to his grandkids. We figured that this would be the perfect time for that to happen. Sunday after church was the selected time. It is a pretty awesome experience to listen to your child receive a Patriarchal Blessing (own personal scripture) and even more incredible to have grandpa give it.

Mark and Grandpa L. just before the blessing

Both Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson and Grandpa and Grandma Lindsey were going to leave on Monday, but both changed their flights to be able to attend Lauren's piano recital on Monday night. It was a Christmas recital. Lauren played "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." It was a really fun version of it and she did really well. Unfortunately, my camera malfunctioned and I was not able to get a video of the performance. Hopefully I can get one from grandpa to share at some point.

After the recital, we went to dinner at Chili's (should be called Salty's) We had a fun time and Ryan and Joe demolished a Chocolate Lava Cake like piranhas on a cow.

Eating at Chili's

In addition to the above, we also attended a live Nativity in Alpine that was really nice. We had several dinners together with Sorensons, Lindseys, Lindseys and Ogborns. Lauren also found riddle buddies in her grandpas. It was super cute to see her sitting there chatting with her grandpas.

We are glad our parents could come and visit. We had a great time with them.