St. John Family

Sunday February 8, 2015

Dear Cassidy –

Hello! - I already sent you an email about my grandpa Allred (Papa's dad) but I thought I'd throw in a couple of things I remember about him. My grandpa Ellis was tall. Like 6'3". I remember visiting him and grandma in Idaho. Sometimes we'd go around Easter. I remember that Grandpa always smelled good, like aftershave and that he was tall. He looked quite a bit different than my dad. He had much darker skin. He loved to fish and was good at it. But the thing I remember the most is that he was funny. He was always saying funny little sayings, much like my dad does. They have a lot of similarities in their mannerisms. And I remember Grandpa Allred being a hard worker. When he came to visit us he was always busy helping my dad spruce up our yard, etc. I hope these few things are helpful.

I think you'll have a zone meeting coming up this week? I hope so, so you can get our package!

So about your last letter...
We did get the instructions about how to open the chocolate. I tried it on the first one and it broke the chocolate pieces and squished the nugat stuff out of the middle. So I just opened the others differently.

Your week sounded like it was good. I love hearing about when you teach David. I hope it's still going well. And I was sad to hear about your contact that decided to go Lutheran! Stupid Satan is right!

How fun/interesting that you got to be with Sister Lisonbee's parents! How was it for her? Was it hard when they left? Or has it been ok?

Well as for things here...

It has been a pretty normal week in most ways.

Monday River wasn't feeling well (I think she was mostly tired) so she and I were home all day.

Tuesday Hadlie had job shadow day with Dad. She did alright, but got bored, naturally. She called me about 3 times that day just to chat:) She also had had a sore throat and then that day it turned into a full blown cold. She stayed home on Wed. and coughed & sneezed & blew her nose 80,000 times. She's still pretty sick but has been able to go to school.

Wednesday River got to go to YW! They invited all the 11 year old girls to a "get to know you" activity. She'll also be going to New Beginnings later this month. Can you believe this? Colten also got asked to Sweetheart's today by Erika! We're still waiting for him to decide how to answer her back.

Thursday I took River to gymnastics. We got her into the Nebo Gym for a class now that she's decided she doesn't want to do her hip hop class anymore. Cheyenne Randquist and Peyton Hunter were 2 of her teachers at the new gym. She has a little friend from school in her class and also Christa (uncle Jamie's ex-wife) has a daughter in the same class. Anyway - River really seemed to like it the last 2 weeks. I hope she can stick with it for a while. After her class I went to our Relief Society meeting at the church. We had a missionary activity where we wrote notes to all our 22 missionaries! So in my next package I'll be sending you all those notes. They'll be valentines, but probably for Easter:)

Friday Dad stayed home from work. He continues to have a tough time on those Fridays you know:) We went to the gym together and then for the rest of the day we ran errands together. That was really nice of him to do with me. I like having him around. Friday was also the Science Fair for River. I'll just tell you that I'm not sad that's over! River is so stinkin independent! She was pretty ornery about this whole project. She had people come sample different kinds of popcorn and found which kinds kids preferred and which adults preferred. The testing itself went great, but putting the poster together...:/

She so wanted to do it ALL herself and even when she'd have questions and ask for help, I'd try to help and she'd get mad at me. It was not fun. One night I ended up just going to the gym and letting her do it herself with minimal supervision from Dad. It all turned out fine and I'll send you a few pictures. Once you see her poster you'll understand.

Saturday was my free day. We ate at 5 Guys and it was delicious, but honestly I couldn't eat hardly anything else the whole rest of the day. That night dad & I went with the Jackson's to the BYU Men's volleyball game. It was fun. Oh and it's been so warm here this week! Like in the 60's! We've broken records a couple of days for the highest temps for this week!

Today was Jordan (Becky & Bob's) Smith's mission homecoming. He did a fantastic job and is like a whole different person. His testimony is awesome. And Becky is thrilled to have him home! River woke up in the middle of the night last night with a fever. She's been throwing up today. And dad has got another cold. So that leaves me and Colten and hopefully you that are feeling well!

So this week is Valentine's Day and I will miss you! We'll have to have our traditional Valentine's dinner not on Valentine's day since Colten will be leaving on Friday for a soccer tournament in St. George. He's going down with Logan & Leslie and staying at Leslie's parents house. I hope it turns out to be a good experience for him. He's got to find someone to take his shifts at work for both Friday and Saturday and he's let me know he wants me to stay out of it and let him try to handle it. It's very hard for me because really, he can't remember anything! I hope he gets it worked out.

Also a little update that Jamie & Chalis's boys, Chance & TJ are doing really well. They have them in the same incubator and they cuddle up to each other all the time. They both are still around 2 lbs which was expected and now they should start to gain some weight. Ricky and Natalie are going to Hawaii for a week in March. We are going to help out with their kids for a couple of day I think. They have also been over here a few times this week looking at lots. They prices for the lots have been reduced quite a bit and I guess they're thinking about it a little more seriously. On the other side of the family - little Penny got blessed last Sunday and Chelsie's family have been in Disneyland for the last week. A side note about Disneyland - there's been a bit of a Measles outbreak stemming from there. It's been about a month now that a bunch of people who visited during a certain week came down with the measles. Of course they all live in different states and so now a few more cases have been happening. There's been a big push for immunization and Disneyland even cautioned people to not bring anyone there who hadn't been vaccinated for measles. Interesting stuff.

Well - as always I hope you're doing fabulously well and that you're being blessed and taken care of. I love you so much and I'm so proud of you!

Love - Mom