Youth

Youthful Energy

My children are balls of energy.  And confidence.  The other day, Dash sat at breakfast and with an absolute straight face, he announced his belief that he could beat me in a mile race while running in the 8th lane.  He meant he would be running in the 8th lane.  That's too blatant a challenge to be ignored.  So, that afternoon, while Brandan taught summer school, the kids and I headed over to the high school track.  I took my GPS watch, and a baseball cap and sunglasses, just in case.  I convinced Dash that we should both run in the 1st lane and I planned to beat him soundly without putting out too much effort.  After all, I had already worked out that morning and it was a hot afternoon.  And he is seven.  I guess I forgot that my children have been taught since infancy to compete.  That son-of-a-gun child ran a 7:33 mile! And that's not all.  Colt wore his flip flops over to the track, but at the last second he decided to join the race and run around the track barefoot.  I figured he would jog around a bit and then get bored, or hurt, or hot, or tired.  Colt ran a 9:36 mile barefoot! He's five.  Sport and Sis participated as well.  Sport placed himself strategically around the track in push up position and acted as a human hurdle.  Sis threw rocks at us from the sidelines.  I believe she ate some as well.

Girlish Looks

Last weekend I took a group of girls over to Green River for a Regional Youth Conference.  Not once, not twice, but three different times I was mistook (accused?) of being one of the Youth.  A 14-18 year old girl.  The first incident occurred when I tried to sign in at the leader table.  Later, when my service group leader asked all the drivers to step forward for their directions, I was instructed that only leaders need come forward.  The final straw was later in the afternoon, when I was standing on the sidelines of the games (like all the other leaders who happen to be over 5' 1") and the Green River Stake President sympathetically asked me if I was having a good time.  I spent the remaining part of the afternoon in the van and during the dance that night I made my face a stern look of disapproval in order to avoid being asked to Cupid Shuffle with a 15 year old boy.  I would love to take it all as a compliment, but I'm afraid it might just be a result of my juvenile clothing and hair.  I like sweatshirts and ponytails, okay?

Young at Heart

Brandan is an incredible father.  Much of his success comes from the fact that he is willing to play with his kids.  I don't want to downplay the work that goes into playing with 4 children, but, seriously, I think Brandan enjoys the games as much as the kids.  And that's why we got him a new baseball mitt for Fathers Day.  I think he really loves it.  He has spent much of the last week breaking in the leather and playing catch in the backyard. 

Breakfast in bed.  Dash came into our room at 6:15 Sunday morning and whispered to me that he had woken up all the kids and they were waiting to bring in Dad's breakfast.  

Brand's Fathers' Day mitt.  With breakfast out of the way early, they were all able to be in the yard throwing around a ball before 8 am.

This is the note Sport wrote to Brandan during Primary.  10 years old, 6 feet and 400 pounds, but he loves to go run.

Colt's note.  10 1/2 feet tall, 5.2 pounds with red hair just like Colt.

Dash's note.  Ninety percent of his answers include the word basketball, but he also mentioned that he and his Dad hate stretching.