Happy Birthday Leo!

Leo turned 17 in February, so we had a little party for him. One of his friends brought over his karaoke machine and Leo and his friends spent most of the night singing songs. After having his first ice cream cake a couple weeks before, he requested that his birthday cake be an ice cream cake, so I got a yummy cake from Coldstone.

The cake and the birthday boy making his wish (notice the nice off-center picture courtesy of my broken camera!):

Backtracking- Snowboarding

Nate took Jefferson and Leo snowboarding for the first time in December. We took advantage of a 2-for-1 lessons promotion the resort was offering and Jefferson was able to take a 4-hour lesson and Leo took the 2-hour lesson. Jefferson did really well for his first time, as did Leo. Afterward, they were both anxious to go again. Unfortunately, it took until the end of the season to get back.

Some video of Jefferson snowboarding (that Nate took using his cellphone, so poor quality- oh, and one is sideways):


A picture of Leo:


Video of Nate boarding through the trees (also sideways):

Backtracking- Auto Show

Every year we check out the Utah International Auto Show, and this year was no exception. It's fun to see all the cars- from the concept cars, to new car, redesigns, and the exotic. This year was a bit of a disappointment since some automakers chose not to participate, meaning fewer cars to see and some dealerships also brought used cars- umm, not what I'm at the auto show to see!

We still had some fun and enjoyed seeing this car (especially Jefferson):


I told Nate that I'd be okay with him getting a Bumblebee Camaro as his "mid-life crisis" car (which he's been planning for for awhile- it's been an Audi TT, but he's wavering on that now).

Leo enjoyed getting in cars and pretending he was driving it:

Backtracking- Thanksgiving: Hoover Dam

After our trip to California for Thanksgiving with Nate's family, we decided to spend a couple days in Vegas, since we had to drop Nate off there for a business trip. We hadn't ever been to the Hoover Dam, so we drove out there and showed the kids where "Megatron" had been kept all those years.

The new bridge they've been building for awhile:


The Hoover Dam


Jefferson in awe:


Jenson hanging out in the van:


1st group shot


2nd group shot


We didn't take the time to walk along the dam, hopefully we'll go back soon and do that, but it was way cool to see in person!

Our fifth son!

We now are the proud host parents of a foreign exchange student from Brazil! He came to us on September 15th, around 2pm, at a tall 6'2"-ish, and 16 years old. His name is Leo.

How did we end up hosting an exchange student, you ask? Well, a woman in our neighborhood works for a organization that places exchange students, and she asked me if we were interested- not once, not twice, but three times! The first two times, I pretty quickly said "no" thinking it would just be too difficult with 4 kids of our own and a foreign exchange student shoved into 2 bedrooms, plus I figured Nate wouldn't be interested (which he initially wasn't). But, the third time's the charm, and we agreed (Nate was surprisingly easy to convince). Initially, we were going to host a student that needed to be relocated due to being in a bad situation, but that had some issues that took some time to resolve, so we were sent a list of other students that needed new host families asap. When I saw that there was a boy from Brazil on the list, I knew Nate would want him to be the one to join our family for the next year, so I let Kristene know (our neighborhood friend), filled out all the paperwork and the rest all happened pretty quick- only about a week from agreeing to host to Leo's arrival.

Here's Leo:

We love having Leo living with us! The boys love having an older brother and Leo said that his favorite thing about being here is having brothers (he only has a 3-year-old sister).

So, do you want to host a foreign exchange student? There's always more kids that need a Host Family.