We Know the Way

This post is a little late in coming, but better late than never.

We went to San Jose for a visit the second week in July. On the way down we stopped in Lodi to see Marsha's aunt, Marlene. We had a fun visit with them and then continued on to San Jose.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this will be a long post.

Monday we went to San Francisco.

Mark and Afton present Alcatraz

Mechanical Museum at Fisherman's Wharf

The crew at the Grant Street entrance to Chinatown

Grandpa and Mark with a lion in Chinatown

The fam at the Golden Gate Bridge

Ghirardelli ice cream shop

How good is it? Joseph knows

Thanks for the wonderful day to our great tour guides, grandpa and grandma (and of course Aunt Stef)

Tuesday we went to Santa Cruz

The weather was awesome. The water was cold.

Look out BYU, here comes Mark!

Joe in the waves

Ryan in action

It feels good to get buried in warm sand after the cold water

Joe with a personalized burial

Tuesday happened to be dollar night, so we did some rides as well. Sorry we didn't get pictures of those. Mark and Lauren rode the Giant Dipper a couple of times (best roller coaster ever!) Ryan even rode it, but didn't want to go again. Joe wasn't tall enough to ride the Giant Dipper, but liked the log ride.

Wednesday we lazed around for a while. Marsha and Lauren went shopping while I took the boys to the discovery museum.

Thursday we headed down to Monterey and Carmel. In Monterrey we went to the aquarium.

Guess who loves the aquarium more than anyone?

That would be Rayn (here with the rays)

I though this picture was hilarious - both for Ryan's expression and the fish eating his head

After a long day at the aquarium. Derek looks like he is about 150 years old

I thought this picture of my favorite people was fantastic

In Carmel we went to shops and then the beach. It was a bit foggy and cold, but we love the beach.

On the beach in Carmel

Ryan was excited

Joe and Lauren display the seaweed they captured in Carmel

We then drove up the coast to Asilomar. We had so much fun at the rocks/tide pools during the family reunion we decided to make another trip.

Ryan at work in the tide pools

Lauren preaching from the rocks

We have lots of pictures of Lauren and Grandpa together. The camera is a permanent fixture

We had an awesome dinner at Meyers afterwards. Thanks guys.

Friday we went to Castle Rock

The hills are alive...

Mark and Ryan in a cave in the rock

Joe and Lauren in the same cave

We topped off the vacation with a trip to Sweet Retreat

It must have been a successful vacation because the kids said they didn't want to go home when it was time. Thanks Mom, Dad, Stef, Brad and Afton (Brady was at EFY) for the great time.

The Cherry Salesman

It's cherry season at the Lindsey's. I have posted about our cherries before. This year we had a bumper crop. In the past, I have posted pictures of our cherries and various attempts to keep the birds away. This year we had so many cherries I thought about putting out a sign directing the birds to the tree because we weren't sure what we were going to do with them all. After picking several giant bowls full and giving them to visiting teaching families, etc., we had barely scratched the surface.

Marsha had the brilliant idea of having the kids take the cherries around the neighborhood to sell them. Lauren, Ryan and Joe loaded a big cooler in the wagon and headed out. They had two sizes of bags - the 1 lb. bag went for $2 and the 2 lb. bag went for $4.

Joseph holding a 2 lb. bag of cherries

 Lauren was the route planner. Ryan was the wagon puller / reptile wrangler (He made sure there were no lizards or snakes in the area.) Joseph was the face of the operation. He loves to sell stuff to the neighbors. He has the hard sell down pat (more on that later.)

How could you resist someone like this coming to your door to sell cherries? One family bought 6 lbs. of cherries. Lauren asked what they were going to do with them all. They said they just liked eating them and wanted to have a lot around. Wow!

They were earning money to help send Belle to obedience school. Their goal was $40. They ended up selling all of the cherries in a few hours. They made a grand total of $74. That's lots of lbs. of cherries. Considering the bags were actually about 1.2 and 2.4 lbs. respectively, that would come to a total of over 40 lbs. of cherries. That doesn't include the ones we kept, gave away or the birds ate.

I think we know what Joseph is going to do for his occupation - he is an impressive salesman. In April, he decided he wanted to open a lemonade stand. We decided that would require too much parental involvement. Marsha made the suggestion that he take a less passive approach and sell individual cups of lemonade to the neighbors. He would take a cup and disappear for a few minutes and then come back with a quarter looking for another cup of lemonade. He repeated this pattern several times and brought home quite an impressive number of quarters.

The star salesman

One of our neighbors who is a salesman by trade and more recently has switched to training and recruiting salesman and authoring self-help books about achieving goals and presenting your best self was the recipient of one of Joe's sales calls. He called us later to tell us how it went. He said Joe showed up at his door with his cup of lemonade. He handed it to the neighbor and said, "Here is a cup of lemonade. I need a quarter for that." The neighbor was cracking up, but asked if he could use that approach in some of his training material. "No is not an option."

Maybe he will take over A+ Pest Control when the original owners retire.

Mark's Dad

Well, it's official. Mark has graduated from high school.

Our little graduate

Sometimes it's hard to believe that he's done. Other times it seems like it is about time. The graduation ceremony was held 30 May 2012 in the events center on the Utah Valley University campus. Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson and Aunt Val were able to attend as well. Since Mark was in the top 20 of his class, he sat on the stage and was recognized with them for their accomplishment. (As a side note, five of the top 20 were from our ward. I thought that was pretty remarkable.)

Several people asked us if the graduation was emotional for us. Mark has always had high aspirations, so the graduation was a foregone conclusion. It was not an emotional experience, but it was a nice recognition.

We had a low-key celebration afterward. Marsha made lasagna for dinner and we bought a giant Costco apple pie for dessert. Mark had a grad night at the school starting at 11:00 that night. It lasted until 4:00 AM and then he spent the rest of the night with some friends.

Here are some of Mark's HS accomplishments:

• Knowledge Bowl team member in 9th grade (1st place finish)
• Tennis team 4 years
• Sterling Scholar in science
• 4.0 grade point average for all four years of school
• Top 20 in his graduating class (they didn't publish the order)
• Scholarships to BYU, BYU-I, Utah State, U of U (going to BYU in the fall)
• Voted most likely to create the next wonder of the world
• 11 AP classes (and tests) including seven his senior year
• Orchestra grades 9-11 (a couple of stints as concert master)
• Marching band 11th grade
• Symphonic band (trombone) 10th grade
• Jazz band (piano) 12th grade

One of Mark's senior portraits

 One of the most impressive things to me about Mark and his group of friends is that they made a goal to do baptisms for the dead in every active LDS temple in Utah. There are currently three under construction and one closed for reconstruction. Outside of those, they have visited the other 12 temples in the state. What a great thing for a group of seniors in high school to do!

Senior portrait with violin

Over the last few weeks as school was coming to a close, we had the opportunity to attend concerts (jazz band), awards ceremonies and graduation for Mark. On several occasions, I have had people say to me, "You must be Mark's dad." and then talk about something they like about Mark. What an honor it is to be seen in the glow from such an awesome kid!

Congratulations Mark! We are proud of you. I am proud to be known as Mark's dad.

Soccer Boys

Ryan and Joseph are just finishing up soccer season. They sign up for a league that plays games in both the fall and the spring. They have the same teams and coach for both seasons, so it's kind of nice to keep the consistency. I have written before about having polite soccer players - if another player looks like they want to kick the ball then it's best to back off and let them do it. Well this season we started coming out of that.

Ryan has really made some good progress in his soccer skills and has a more aggressive attitude. I didn't get any pictures of him actually playing this year, but here is a picture of him with his team and by himself.

When grandpa was here, he got some great pictures of Ryan playing, but I don't have those yet. After the last game, the coach gave out medals and said something about each of the boys. He told Ryan that his defense in the game was the best he'd ever seen. Way to go Ryan!

Joseph has never really had the polite soccer gene. He has always liked getting in and mixing it up. Unfortunately, he got his lung capacity and endurance from his father and gets tired out easily. There is a little girl named Emmy on his team who is really good. She usually scores most of the goals. Something happened in the last game on Saturday. Joe was running all over the place and ended up scoring four goals.

On a break-away for one of his goals

Soccer action

Joe with his team

BTW: Ryan's team was called the Blue Sharks. Joe's team was the Lizards.

Aspen Grove

For Spring Break our friends the Warrens invited us to Aspen Grove for a couple of days. Aspen Grove is some property owned by BYU. It is up Provo Canyon (Alpine Loop) past the Sundance ski resort. BYU uses it to host parties for many of their camps and clubs. They also rent it out for family reunions and other such activities. We went up Monday and came back Wednesday.

We celebrated Lauren's 14th birthday there. Can you believe she is 14? She is no longer a Beehive.

Cute picture of Lauren with her loot

Lauren and her birthday muffin

There was tons of stuff to do there. Here are some of the activities we did while we were there:

Old fire truck to climb on (Joseph)

Ryan loved playing aerobie on the field

Joseph loved the mini golf

Ryan and Joe playing racquetball. Ryan could have played all day.

Joe also loved playing "pool ball" in the game room.

Ryan lining up the air hockey shot

Some of the activities that we didn't take pictures of:

• Tennis courts
• Shuffle board
• Swimming pool (frozen over this time of year)
• Disc golf course
• Swing set
• Hiking (could see the trail head to Stuart Falls from our room)
• Several outdoor basketball courts
• Miniature western town for kids to play and climb
• Climbing wall
• The game room had three pool tables, two ping pong tables, two foosball tables and air hockey
• Conference room with huge TV
• Craft center (not opened while we were there)
• High-bounce trampoline (not opened while we were there)
• Two racquetball courts (one of which could be used for wally ball)
• Rumor has it that there was a shooting range as well, but I didn't see it.

All of the equipment for the sports activities was provided.

Did I mention that it was in a beautiful alpine setting?

Back of Mt. Timpanogos

It's probably a bit pricey and may not even be available, but anyone for a family reunion there?

We had to high tail it home on Wednesday because Mark had an appointment to get his wisdom teeth taken out.

Mark just after surgery

Marsha said he was really giggly when he woke up from the surgery. Mark has no recollection of that.

Six on Easter

Today is Easter Sunday. It also happens to be Joseph's sixth birthday. He's not a little kid any more. Here are some pictures of the festivities.

Party with the playgroup: Andrew, Marcus, Joseph, Bryan and Cannon

Traditional birthday pancakes

Opening soccer nets

More than anything else, Joe wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. He got one from Aunt Val

Fishing pole from Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson

What better cake for an Easter birthday than a bunny cake? Love the strawberry bow tie.

We had an Easter egg hunt. Hunters: Cozi, Mark, Ryan, Joseph and Lauren

Happy birthday, Joe. We love you.

Happy Easter everyone.