Happy 20th Birthday, Luke

A wonderful weekend celebrating Luke's 20th birthday. It was like the "old days" with his friends hanging out in the playroom, then snacking, laughing and playing cards around the kitchen table.

Luke was determined NOT to get any germs on the pie by just barely blowing out each candle.

One of his friends got him this lovely T-shirt for his birthday.

Wonderful to have him home. Can't wait until Spring Break!

 

Deer Valley

Tim and Mason are having a great time skiing in Deer Valley, Utah.  I really wanted some fantastic pictures of their great father/son trip.  I guess I can just be thankful that I got any pictures at all.  This first one was after a lengthy discussion as to whether or not guys should ever take "selfies."  Mallory has some very strict guidelines for guys regarding this.  Feel free to ask her what they are.  This one fit into the acceptable range since it was just for family, not to be posted on social media (oops!), showing something specific that they are doing, does not show an arm holding the phone, and isn't trying to say "look how cool we are."

 God has blessed the guys with amazing weather.  It has snowed 29 inches since they got there!  Each day they get to ski on new, fresh snow.  The weather is in the 30s, so they are not cold at all.  Tim accidentally left his ski jacket at home.  Wow.  If you are going to remember one thing on a ski trip...But he has not missed it at all.

 Deer Valley has a very famous seafood buffet that the guys really enjoyed.

 Mason had a hard time climbing out of 4 feet of powder here.  It also took him a while to find his buried ski.

 There you have it...the only pictures I will be getting from the trip.  Maybe we should have relaxed those selfie rules…

More.....

 Okay, when we were at the Dallas Aquarium last week, this sloth was brought out of its cage and was in a tree, out in the open....here it is at the bottom of the tree, so we could get so close, I could have reached out and touched it!!!!! soooo cool!

 I think it's the males that have this marking...again- soo cool, it got done eating and slowly climbed up the tree- amazing to see so close up!!!!!

Nienstadt stuff

 Trudy made these dresses for the girls for our church Father Daughter dance.

 After the dance, when they got home.

 We went to the Dallas Aquarium on a field trip- we love these Japanese Garden Eels!  They go in and out of the sand...so cute!

 Happy Birthday Faith!!!

More Nienstadt Cruise

 people were tossing food from their balconies for the birds - they would come so close!

Youth and Government State Conference

We just returned from Austin where M&M participated in the State Conference for Y&G.  It was a good time as usual.

 The bills to be presented in the Senate at the Capitol are determined by the order that they are passed out of committee.  Both M&M used some tricky rules to get their bills passed without debate (in order to save time) so they could be on the docket for the Capitol.  There are 62 Senators and they can usually only do 7 or 8 bills at the Capitol.  Mason was #4 and Mallory was #6.

 We found it so precious that M&M sat by each other on the Senate floor.  

 The theme Friday night was Comic Con.  And….Phil (the polar bear) just always goes to state for some reason.

 It is a bit of a long story, but Mason ended up chairing some bills in the Senate on Saturday.  It was really special to watch.  

 This is while Mason was presenting his bill.  Mallory had written a speech to speak pro on it.

 It was so fun that Mason was the chair while Mal presented her bill.

 Mason was awarded Outstanding Statesman for the Senate.  It was quite an honor.  We were also thrilled that his bill passed the Senate and House and was signed into law.  He had a good final year of Y&G!

So happy he can play again!

A beautiful day to play! Won two matches, lost third in a grueling tie-breaker, but he kept his cool.

Midland High, where this USTA Tournament was held, is in the middle of downtown Midland! First Permian UIL Tournament is next weekend in Lubbock.