St. John Family

Sunday February 22, 2015

Dear Cassidy,

Mom and I (written by dad) are combining for a letter today. We are afraid that we tell you the same things in our letters so you have to read stuff twice. We will try it this way today and you can let us know if it is a good thing or bad thing. Either way we probably won't do it this way every week anyway because I should be taking a nap at this time anyway.

Questions first:

1. I am sure you will tell us all this but let us know about your new companion, like where she is from, how long she has been out, what her ACT score was and stuff like that.

2. Mom wants to know about anything you might need as she prepares to send you an Easter package. Do you need your stomach pills, proactive etc.?

3. A guy at my work who went to Germany on his mission says that there is a neat family in Leipzig that all the missionaries like. Their name is the Leonhardt family. If you ever serve there or know the missionaries who have served there you should ask about them.

4. How is the 5K running going? Is the mission president going to have you run a half marathon before you come home?

5. How is the weather? I noticed that is was supposed to be mostly in the 40's with on an off rain for the next week. Is that pretty normal?

6. On your camera is your resolution set to the maximum? Mom says your pictures are not coming through very big.

We are glad that you were able to find your way home from your excursion into the Germany country side in your last letter. That sounded like quite the day.

Monday (Lunes)
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The kids didn't have school for presidents day. That is a day we celebrate our founding father presidents. I had to go to work like a normal day so it didn't seem any too special to me. Mom got up early for work so she could be done by 10am. Hadlie and River were both feeling sick so they didn't do much other than stay at home. Colten came home from his soccer tournament at about 5pm that day and was pretty worn out. We had family home evening and I was in charge of the activity. I wanted to have a Wii tournament but Colten had lent his controllers to his friends so we couldn't do that. I went downstairs to find something else to do and noticed the large stack of red cups from when Erika asked Colten to sweethearts. I had an idea. I took the cups upstairs to use them but found that I could not separate them. Colten had pressed them together with all his strength and they were all jammed together. After a few minutes of work we got enough separated to play the cup pyramid game. You know where you try to stack and unstack them as fast as you can. Mom had the fastest time, ~11s until after about 100 tries River beat it and got in the 10 second range.

As a side note, Mary Kilpatrick was at the same soccer tournament in Saint George that Colten was at, as was Maycee Allred. Tyler went and saw one of Colten's games and Colten saw one of Maycee's games. In one of Mary Kilpatrick's games she ran into the goalie and hurt her knee. After getting back they found out she has torn two tendons (ACL and MCL) and will have to have surgery after the swelling goes down.

Tuesday (Martes)

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Hadlie and River were still sick and stayed home from school. Mom made appointments for River to go to the doctor today and Hadlie for Wednesday. she also made an appointment with the NAET doctor for Wednesday. River just has a cold that the doctor said had to run its course. I (dad) went to the doctor on Tuesday as well because once I get a cold it never leaves my nose. We also did our new weekly school checkup with Colten and outlined what he needed to do to not be grounded for the weekend. He seems to be trying to get it done and has spent much more time doing his homework.

Wednesday (Miercoles)

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Mom stayed home and took Hadlie to Dr. Bennett and to the NAET doctor. Dr. Bennett couldn't find any bronchitis or airway ailments that would cause her to have her coughing fits. He took an X-ray of her nasal cavities and did find that her right side was 2/3rds full of fluid (mucus). I guess she has my nasal genetics. All he could do was suggest that she take some cough drops and wait it off. The NAET doctor treated her for anger, guilt and parasites and said that her medications were not doing anything. Her cough was significantly better after she went there.

Mom was excited when she got the mail because her shutterfly book of her blog came. It is mom's new scrapbooking methodology.

Thursday (Jueves)

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This was mostly a normal day. Both Mom and I went to work. River had gymnastics in the evening which meant that I got to cook dinner. Luckily it was beef stroganoff and I am able to make that pretty good. It actually tasted pretty good even though I didn't rinse off the noodles and they stuck together a bit.

Colten worked today as well because he was working for someone who had worked for him in one of the previous weeks when he was gone.

Friday (Viernes)

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I stayed at work all day today, which as you know is never a sure thing on Fridays. Colten worked again. Grandma Brenda came over during the day to have mom help her go over some picture with her. They are planning on doing a scrap away thing all the way up in Orem at Grandma's house this year. I guess Grandpa Mark would act as the Host or Butler. Mom took the girls Costco and My Sister's Closet (not really my sister that's just the name of the store). Hadlie got some jeans and boots and they got groceries at Costco. Mom says that it was "Super Fun". The girls didn't want to play with any friends for some reason.

Saturday (Sabado)
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Mom got up and took Hadlie to the stake young women's activity which she has probably told you about. She was very excited and impressed with her day when she got home. After dropping Hadlie off mom went to the gym to work out. She is continuing her wait loss saga after having lost 0lbs the last 3 weeks. I am about in the same boat. Somehow we can exercise more, eat less and still maintain our weight. Maybe some scientist should study us.

River woke up at about 7am because a box elder bug was on her face. She was quite disturbed. The box elder bugs never really died all the way because it has been such a warm winter.

After getting home and showering mom took River on a big shopping excursion. They went to Target, Hobby Lobby, Old Navy, waffle love, sweet tooth fairy, Deseret book. They were gone for like 5 hours. I stayed home and played music, vacuumed the floor and got French fries with Hadlie when she got back from her activity. Colten was gone most of the morning playing laser tag for his Sweet Heart date.

We waited for Colten's date to come pick him up. Cheryl Allred came over to take picture of them. Mom will send you a picture. It was quite cold and we actually had a couple of snow flurries but non of it stuck. Colten should have given you details about his date but I guess it went well with the exception of his feeling sick most of the evening.

After Colten left Mom, I and the girls went to dinner at Mama Chus. It tasted good but my food was not all the way hot.

Sunday (Domingo)

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Colten stayed home to rest after feeling sick on his date. Mom went to the YSA ward council and then to the Lone Pine ward because Sara Bass had her speech after returning from a mission. (Note I didn't say "homecoming"). I went to choir and then came home to pick up the girls. In our ward Alex Case's brother got home from his mission and spoke. (notice I didn't say "homecoming"). We taught our Sunday school class and went to our meetings.

After church I was in the middle of a long winter's nap and Ricky and Natalie's family came over. We are having the landscaper come over this week to see about putting in grass in the back yard this year. I told Ricky to see if he wanted to be there to get some ideas about what we could do with our yards next to each other. So Ricky came over to map out where their house might be and think about how we could merge our yards.

Hadlie and River, yes I said River, have Young Women's new beginnings tonight so she just left to go set up. We will be following shortly.

Mom and I love you and send you our prayers every day. We pray you will be guided by the spirit, (not necessarily in the not getting lost sense), and that you are happy and close to the Lord. We are being blessed as a family and continue to do the best we can in living the gospel.

Love,

Mom and Dad.