2 Down 3 to Go!

So this last Sunday night was a fabulous night for the Rollins clan!

Josh and Aaron both received their Eagle Scout Awards at a fabulous court of honor.

They were lucky to have four of their good friends get their Eagles the same night so it was quite the party.

  Both of the boys were so excited and they talked about it well into the night.  They even made Dave dig out all his Scouting paraphernalia so they could see the "old" patches and pins.

Speaking of old.  Here are my two boys with a bunch of old guys who also happened to be Eagle Scouts.  B. Rad, Mark, Andrew, Paul, and Nate are pictured here with Dave and my boys.  We are missing Bryan and Mitch who were also Eagle Scouts.  We have a strong scouting tradition in both of our families.  My dad was a scouting enthusiast to put it mildly.  I am sure he is thrilled with his grandsons accomplishment.

It was a delightful night.  When you have 4 families involved you are able to do some fun things.  We had a fabulous video of all the boys in their scouting adventures.  

I loved the giant flag that we used as our backdrop for this event.  

We also had a fabulous Eagle presentation that the boys couldn't stop talking about. 

They got to be up close and personal with the Eagle who was named Liberty.  Josh claimed that it bruised his chest with its beak and Aaron said its wing bopped him on the nose.  These are the stories that I am sure will get bigger and better as time goes on. Someday I will hear them say remember at our Eagle Court of Honor when the Eagle attacked us and tried to peck out our eyes? 

Good Times.

Congrats boys! You pretty much rock!

A Day Off

Today Joe is home from school because of end of year Kindergarten testing.  He has been playing a very extensive game of make believe.

It all started with this line.. "Mom pretend you are a Grandma and I am your son."  OK.  He proceeded to go into the explanation that he has come over to give me a TV for Mother's Day. (Can you tell what Dave got his mother for MD?)

He then also proceeded to tell his wife that he didn't get her anything. (Hmmm. I wonder where he heard that one!!)

I yelled from the other room to get his wife a gift for heavens sake!

He bought her a football and proceeded to tell me she was playing on a women's football team.  I started  laughing and started asking more questions and got an entire family history from this little guy.   Here is my family in 25 years...

• Josh married a girl named Taia and they have 4 kids.  3 girls and 1 boy.  He is a police officer.  They live next door to me. Josh served a mission to Russia.  He graduated from a college in Greenland.? 
• Aaron married a girl named Savannah and they have 5 kids.  3 boys and 2 girls.  He makes movies.  They live next door to Joe and his wife.  Aaron went on a mission to Chicago and he graduated from BYU!  Savannah is a Primary President. 
• Jonathan married a girl named Taylor and they have 6 kids. 3 boys and 3 girls.  He is a computer guy.  They live in China and they don't speak English.  Jonathan went on his mission to Venezuela and went to the U.
• Alex married a girl named Hannah and they have 2 kids.  1 boy and 1 girl.  He is a zoo keeper.  They live in Texas.  But he comes and visits all day every day.  Alex went on a mission to Peru and he went to BYU. 
• Joe married a girl named Grace.  They have 2 boys named David and Andrew and 1 girl named Madison.  Grace is a doctor and Joe is a worker and he works next door to his dad, Dave and they go to lunch together everyday.  He took the day off today to be with me but Dad wouldn't.  (typical) Joe went on his mission to New York.  He graduated from BYU.  His wife went on a mission to Argentina and graduated from BYU.  They are pretty happy right now because they are going to have another baby soon. 
• Dave did take some time off from work to go on a mission with me to Africa.  We are very happy and we love go shopping together and buy flowers. (We hate shopping and we don't buy flower very often so things are obviously going to change.)   We also like to go out to dinner and go to church.

So that is my future according to Joe.  I can't believe how fast time has just flown by!  It seems like just yesterday they were all running around driving their mom insane!

All in all it sounds pretty nice except I don't really want Jonathan to live in China.  Maybe he is just there temporarily.  I miss him and his family.  It makes me a little sad that I don't see them very often.  I appreciate that Alex comes in from TX to see me every day.  All day.

So now you know what Joe does on his day off.

I gotta run.  I am suddenly interested in learning Chinese.

Day by Day.

So a good friend of mine "gently" reminded me that I should probably update my lonely blog.  I replied that I have nothing exciting to talk about.  However I must admit I am sick of seeing my big ole tree on my blog every time I come to my blog.  (It is strange because sometimes I visit my blog to see if someone has written something witty and interesting for me on my blog.  I am sometimes very annoyed nobody has updated it.  Is that strange?)  So I decided that I wouldn't look for something witty and interesting.  I will just write about what I did today.  No apologies for the past 4 months.  (OK I am really sorry). 

So today was an unusual day because today I spent a few hours doing genealogy. Yep today I got wrapped up in the world's 2nd most popular hobby (1st place goes to gardening, FYI).

 I was working with my mom on my dad's side of the family. She said "Wow, you have a lot of work to do on this side of the family."  Then she laughed wickedly because she is like that.   So here are some of the things that I noticed while working with my mom.

One observation to you people who are naming your kids made-up- funny- sounding- one- of- a- kind names.  Be warned. You are setting your child up for pure mockery.  Maybe not necessarily in his or her lifetime but eventually when their great-great-great-great grandchildren find them on FamilySearch.  They will laugh.  No disrespect to my ancestors but let me tell you.....

Nobody should be named Nimrod or Alethestan. Hello Nimrod! (Doesn't that sound insulting?) He does look a bit peeved.

 If you name your daughter Rassemine or  Henrietta nobody is going to use her name as a cute middle name.   Hey Henri!  She was pretty.

I hate to break it to you but Mads is ending with your son.  Here is old Mads now.  Guess what? He had a son named Mads so I lied.  It didn't end with your son.  It ended with your grandson.

Sophronia may be shortened to something cute but I can guarantee that Umpstead is not cute shortened in any way shape or form.  I mean really, Umpy?  Stead?  I guess you could go for Ted.

Speaking of Umpstead.  That poor man is so miss-named on FamilySearch.  Here are a few.  Umstead, Unstead, Upstead, Hempstead, Umpsteel, and my personal favorite Nimpstead. Poor guy.  That wouldn't have happened if his name was David.

Here are some of his children.  Have you ever noticed that people with unusual names usually opt for more traditional names for their children.  Here are Umpstead's children's names, Caroline, James, Mary, John, Peter, Abram, Elizabeth, William, Benjamin, Joseph, Emma, Ammon, Thomas.  Not a strange name in the bunch.   Ok Abram is strange.  But he was my great grandfather so back off.

So that is what I did today.  What did you do?

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

Today was quite the adventure.  Good ole Davis County had HUGE winds today and it wreaked havoc on our neighborhood and our little home was no exception.  Our home was apparently fine at 5:00 am when Dave left.  At 7:00 when I was kicking my high schooler out to catch the bus he opened the door and said "Hey, our tree fell down."  I honestly thought it was a procrastination attempt so I said in my lovely cheerful mother voice..."Whatever, go catch the bus."  He was so shocked that I didn't believe him that I actually went to the door and looked.  According to my kids I gasped and said my traditional "Oh my stars!  Call your father!"  So here is what our house looked like.

My house is behind that tree.  If you look closely you can see the garage on the left and the roof on the right. So just in time for Christmas we have a new Christmas tree!  If only we could get out of our house we could throw some lights on it and call it good!  

But wait!  There's more!  In the true spirit of Christmas we shared our joy with our neighbors by gifting them a beautiful tree also!  You are welcome, neighbor!

Here is the another view of the tree.

Our fantastic Emergency Crew and our Amazing Neighbors took great care of us and after the wind finally died down they came and helped clear the one tree from the front of the house!

They were so helpful and we were so appreciative of their kind service and strong muscles. 

And here is the spectator gallery.  Just teasing they worked hard also!  It was a huge job but they made fast work of it!  What a grand adventure!

We are out of power at my house so I came over to dry some clothes at Mom's.  I will write more later!