2007 in Review - March

After losing one of his front teeth several months ago, Ryan finally lost his other front tooth. March 7 was Papa’s birthday, and Ryan told him that he’d pull it on his birthday. Ryan is one of those kids who would rather pull his own teeth than have any help. He worked on it for quite a while, but did finally pull it out – with just hours left in Papa’s birthday.

Every night we read from three books: The Book of Mormon, whichever Magic Tree House book we’re on at the time, and whichever Harry Potter book we’re on at the time. On March 8, Mary Pope Osborne, the author of the Magic Tree House books, came to the Layton Hills Mall for a book signing. Ryan loved having the opportunity to meet her, and we had her autograph several of his books (see photo below). Our Pack Meeting that night was with Kevin Eubank, talking about weather. Ryan was starstruck all day!

Jeff decided to sell the house in Herriman and move back to Kanarraville. Interestingly, Ryan has been much more devastated about not seeing Kelli on a regular basis than he is about his dad moving several hours away. His latest phrase in his prayers has been "Please bless Kelli that she will be happier without my dad." If the past few years of my life are any indication, after this first initial period of disbelief and drama, things will get A LOT better. St. Patrick's Day this year was the 5th anniversary of our separation. In the 1800+ days since then, I have been grateful every single day that I made the decision I did.

One of my work friends (Blake) lives in Enterprise, Alabama. She was one that I took to the Tabernacle Choir rehearsal. Enterprise had a very serious tornado in March, which leveled a large part of the town, including one of the schools. Blake wasn't directly affected by the tornado (her home, at least), but she used to teach at the school that was hit. She was pretty shaken by the whole experience, as is to be expected. I guess it's a town of about 20,000 people. Being a former teacher, she knows a lot of the families in town. She knows a lot that were personally affected. It's times like this that I'm grateful that our major weather situations only involve extremely large amounts of snow. I can deal with that.

Ry's school had a "Night of the Arts" in place of the Reflections Contest. It's optional - the kids can enter a poem or story or painting or drawing or sculpture or original music piece, etc. The theme this year is "Come Discover..." Ryan wrote a poem about Hawaii and did a drawing/painting of himself snorkeling and looking into the water at all kinds of colorful fish. He won first place for his poem, and honorable mention (the "Superstar Award") for his painting.

We also worked quite a bit on a book report for his Language Arts class. Not only written, but an oral presentation AND a diorama! (Remember, the child is in 1st grade.) He did it on the "Dolphins and Sharks" research guide from the “Magic Tree House” series (of course!). We put blue plastic wrap (which we always have on hand to cover goodies taken to BYU-related parties) in the bottom of a shoebox, then put in a few plastic dolphins and sharks. Then we put another layer of blue plastic wrap, then a couple of dolphins "jumping" out of the "water." It turned out to be really cute.