Easter Family Pictures

Porter in his easter outfit. I wish I could have taken a picture by some spring flowers, but we have had nothing but rainy weather here for quite some time. The grass is turning green and the daffodils are coming up though. I am excited for spring. It is my favorite season of the year.

We went to the temple on saturday and had a little family picture. It is always a wonderful experience to go to the temple. We had planned to go to a session, but when we got there it was already full and we even got there early. We had Porter and Kelcy, Terry's niece, was babysitting him. We thought it would be to long to wait to go to the next session, so we did a few sealings. It was good to hear the blessings and covenants given in the temple sealing again and again. I felt a little bad that we weren't doing an endowment session. I just had to remind myself that any part of the work was great and as the temple sealer put it as we left the sealing room, "Thank you for being saviors on Mount Zion for your kindred dead." So simply put, but so inspiring. The best part of all was that it only took like 45 minutes to do sealings and so then Terry and I just went and sat in the celestial room for a half an hour. That was such a treat!! Sometimes I feel like after 2 hours of being in the session you almost feel like you need to enjoy the celestial room, but just don't have the time. This time we had plenty of time to just relax, because Kelcy was thinking we would be gone for 2 hours and we had only been gone for an hour. There was only one other person in there so it was so peaceful! Our temple trip was great!!

Zoo

We decided to go to the Zoo in Indianapolis as one of our spring break adventures. Terry has been so excited and talking about it non-stop. He looked it up on the internet and had all the sites to see mapped out. He was most excited about the exhibit that let you touch real live sharks. It was pretty fun. The weather wasn't cooperating, but it made for active animals to watch. It was overcast and sprinkled rain a little while. We got to see jellyfish, shrimp, seahorses and the highlight of the ocean life was the sharks. We can now add touching live sharks to our list of exceptional life experiences.

We saw the polar bear swim in the water. We got a view from here and one from down below where you can see them underwater through glass windows.

There were elephants, rhinos, kangaroos and zebras. The anticipation of the whole trip was to see how Porter would react to all the different animals. I thought that him being a dog and cat lover he would be so excited the whole time. I'm not sure if he really loved it. The glass windows that you can look through the water made him nervous. I think he thought that he was going to fall in. Either that or the animals were going to get him.

Porter's favorite I would have to say were the plain old ordinary farm animals. He loved the sheep, goats, horses and cows. He was excited about touching them.

My favorite was the dolphin show we went to. We all left wanting to be dolphin trainers. It looked so fun. The dolphins did all kinds of tricks and were so cute.

Easter

Happy Easter!! We had a fun Friday night coloring easter eggs. The easter bunny came Sunday morning. Porter loved the egg hunt. He wished that he could have stuffed the whole egg in his mouth. He loved his peeps too! Sacrament meeting was great! The bishop had picked excellent speakers and I felt the spirit so strong. I enjoyed being able to spend that whole sacrament meeting time just listening to the testimonies of the resurrection. I also know that Christ lives and that we will be resurrected as well. One interesting thing that was brought up was that the resurrection is an ordinance and priesthood holders will perform that. I guess I knew that before, but had never really heard it in such simple terms. We had a ham and potatoes easter dinner with Terry's parents and Sister and niece. It was a fun and relaxing afternoon. It wasn't very warm and sunny outside though. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures.

So whats Terry up to these days?

Well Bethany has encouraged me more than once to write some entries to the blog which I have only done once now. However, I think it is about time to bore you once again. This year has been crazy for me. I started three new jobs. The first is by far the least favorite. I supervise in-school detention and after school at Bedford North Lawrence High School (which is the high school I went to). I get to deal with the kids that are discipline problems, don't know when to get to class on time or like to skip school. It's not that bad but it's not teaching. There are some great opportunities for being able to teach next year with teachers retiring and I am doing and saying everything I can to be able to get one of the spots. The other two jobs are time consuming but I love doing them. I am the assistant coach for the boys swim team at my high school and the assistant coach for the local Lawrence county swim club, which is basically a feeder program for the high school team. The other guy I coach with is the head coach of both the teams as well. We get along great, work well with each other and have fun. It is much different and better than last years coaching experience (check out the blog entry about our sectional win). I have been coaching solid for almost 7 months and now we have a three week break before the club season starts up in April. I am looking forward to getting home at 4 o'clock rather than 8 o'clock and being able to spend more time with Bethany and Porter and with the weather getting warmer hopefully that time will be outside as much as possible.
Well if you didn't know this by now I am a little over weight. When Bethany and I were married I weighed 220 lbs. from then until now I have ballooned to 257lbs. I know, I know, very unhealthy and very depressing. However, I am going to remedy that problem. The school district I work for has gotten together with one of the gyms in town and have started a contest. They have started a biggest loser challenge, much like the T.V. show. there are over 100 contestants. We get limited memberships to the gym and free diet counseling. In order to be in the contest we had to take a health screening and measurements and all that stuff. Needless to say after I was done with all my pre-contest health tests I was very depressed. I dare not share the details in fear of making you think less of me. Needless to say I need a big health change if I want to enjoy life for years to come.
Along with all this I am the first counselor in the young men's presidency in our ward. We have a good scout program and some great boys. All the guys in the presidency are really good guys that I get along well with and we have a lot of fun. This Saturday is the young men's stake basketball tournament and it has fallen upon me to be coach. This hasn't happened because of my superior basketball skills or knowledge but rather because all the other leaders are busy on Saturday. I think it will be fun and we have a really good shot at winning. Well that's whats going on with me. I know there are no cool pictures or anything, lets face it people only want to see pictures of Porter but if your lucky I will find a picture gem and put it on here some time.

WORK!!!???

I just thought I would write a little update on how my new adventure of starting to work while raising a family was turning out. I hate to admit it but so far it is wonderful!! Only because I get to work in the best place in the hospital. I am going to work on the Mother/baby unit, but these last few days I have been orienting to different areas first. They like to do that just so you can get an idea of what they do in the other areas related to mother/baby. I spent one day in the NICU another day in the nursery and one day on labor and delivery. My favorite was in the nursery. I just held babies all day long. Can you even call that work and get paid for it too??? I think that I might want to transfer there soon!! Anyway, I really liked all the areas. So far I haven't missed out on anything fun and actually had a wonderful blessing come out of it all. My little Porter got sick on Thursday and I was scheduled to work on Friday. I just didn't know what to do. Donna couldn't babysit because she was going to the temple too. I convinced Terry to take a sick day but was still worried about what we were going to do with Porter after school while Terry went to swim practice. I went to work leaving the mess in Terry's hands to figure out what to do, praying all the while that it would all work out. I went to work and at about 11 am looked out the window and it was snowing and blowing and had already snowed about three inches. You've got to remember that we had had 50 degree wheather before this and thought the snow was done for the winter. All it takes is an inch of snow on the ground for school to be cancelled here. I called Terry and sure enough school was cancelled and so they had to cancel all school functions after school too! So Terry was able to stay with Porter all day. He took him into the doctor's office and he had two ear infections. Needless to say I was soooo grateful that it did work out. I know it may sound simple and such a little thing but at the time I felt like it was the biggest blessing ever! I just don't want Porter to get any less than the best because I am working!

Best husband of the week award!!!

You know you are loved when all your husband can think about is you as he goes to the store to buy potatoes. Terry came home so excited with a little surprise in hand. He went pretty late in the evening to the store and saw this lady taking down the Idaho Potato display. He had the nerve to ask the lady what she was going to do with the extra balloons. She said she could give him one if he wanted. Terry thought it was perfect for me. On the balloon it says Grown in IDAHO. I have to admit it describes me well. My roots are firmly planted. He made me give it a big hug when he got home. He is so funny! Gotta love him though. What would life be like without a husband who did random acts of kindness that made you know that he loved you so much! I love you Terry!Porter is enjoying an orange. He has 4 teeth now at 10 months old.