Jonah's 2014 Fall Orchestra Concert

Jonah's Fall Orchestra Concert.   This was my favorite selection:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn3PPMMReps\

Tell Tale Heart

Jonah is the seventh head from the left side (including the pianist).  He is behind a girl with dark brown hair.  You can only occasionally see his face.

[I can't get it to load the actual video, so a link will have to suffice.]

Craters of the Moon

For Fall Break last week, our family took a 24-hour trip up to Pocatello Idaho.  We spend the night and early the next morning drove out to Craters of the Moon. Trent and I had been there before, but the boys had not.  It is an amazing site to see the miles and miles of lava fields. 

 Jonah and Isaac climbing Inferno Cone.  It's amazing that this cone erupted 2000 years ago and nothing is growing on it!

 Issac, Jonah and Wendy at one of the spatter cones.

 Trent, Isaac and Jonah in front of miles of lava fields.

 

 Jonah and Isaac walking out onto the lava fields on their way to the lava tubes.

 Isaac inside of Beauty Cave (a lava tube).  If you look carefully, you can see Jonah in the background.  These caves were so dark that even the headlamps only illuminated a few steps in front of you.  I took this picture, trying to get a sense of the shape of the cave, not knowing that Isaac or Jonah would be in the photo.

Cavestock

I'm months-slow posting these videos.  Noah and Jonah both auditioned with their bands and were chosen to participate in an annual American Fork High School tradition - Cavestock.  Cavestock is an afternoon of back-to-back bands performing in the common area of the American Fork High School grounds.  There were four other bands besides Noah's and Jonah's.

Here are some highlights:  (You might have to turn "safe-search" off in order to see the videos, but I promise that there isn't anything in them to be concerned about).

 Noah - Red Balloons (vocals and bass guitar)

 Jonah - The Distance (vocals)

 Jonah - Steady as She Goes (guitar)

Isaac's First Recital

Isaac playing at his first recital.  He is playing Fireflies by Carolyn Miller.  

He has been taking lessons for 9 months (since January 2014).  Video is below:

Noah in McAllen

Noah (7th from the right), President & Sister Maluenda, and 22 other missionaries who make up the largest incoming group to the Texas McAllen Mission.

This is the missionary chain that I made for Isaac, with a loop for every week that Noah will be gone.  

When Trent was on his mission, I actually kept a daily chart.  I found that it was too hard to focus on the time passing day by day.  So far, tracking weeks seems to be much better.  

The time is already flying, but we still miss him every day!

First Day of School

Isaac's first day of third grade.  

Isaac was up before Trent and I (but not before Jonah).  He was dressed and ready to go, saying "I don't need breakfast!" 45 minutes before school started.

Unfortunately, Jonah leaves before he showers (for a cross-country run) and then gets home late in the day, needing to shower again (after another cross-country run).  I think his days of "first-day of school" pictures might be over. 

Elder Noah Hickman

You can read his letters here @

Noah's Missionary Blog:

 http://eldernoahhickman.blogspot.com

Sending Noah on his mission was one of the hardest things I've ever done.  I knew it would be hard.  I prepared for it to be hard, but two or three days before he left it reached a level of hard that I couldn't imagine.  We always miss him.  A lot!  Noah  has such a big spirit and has left a huge hole in our home.  We find ourselves turning, thinking he's come into the room, only to remind ourselves that he is actually in Mexico City.  I keep counting my kids, always one short.  He is always missing.  We can always feel it.

In his last letter he said, "I still miss you, but I know this is where I am supposed to be."  If it weren't for that knowledge, that he is where he is supposed to be, we wouldn't be able to do this.  Noah's friend Brianna brought us a little plaque that says,

In some ways this is (in a very small way) like an Abrahamic sacrifice, to send Noah away for two years, skyping only four times and receiving emails only once a week.  But we do it because we believe it.  We believe that Noah can bring happiness, because of Jesus Christ, to the families in McAllen Texas. He gets to teach them about repentance, forgiveness and about forever families. 

We love Noah and we miss him.

101 weeks and 4 days to go . . .

BYU Devotional

(Photo Credit: BYU)

Four days after Noah's graduation, Trent spoke at the BYU Devotional.  It was nice to have Trent's parents in the audience as well as the boys, E. & M. Jenson, R. Davy, Jessica & Brianna, K. Sumsion, as well as many of his BYU & English Department colleagues.

It has been a month since he spoke and we continue to hear comments from those who are just seeing it.  My favorite comments come from family or friends who didn't know that Trent was speaking who just happen upon his address as it is rebroadcast on BYUtv and are very surprised!

Several news sources published recaps of the devotional.  Here are a few links:

BYU News Release

BYU Universe

BYU Speeches

Read (html)

Watch (YouTube)

Print (pdf)

Listen (mp3)

Video from You Tube:

Noah's Graduation

 Graduation Announcement

We were so proud of Noah for graduating!  Noah finished on a high note by earning a competitive full-year Creative Writing Scholarship to BYU as well as a Utah Regents' Scholarship.  The Regents' Scholarship served as a goal for Noah throughout his whole high school career.  There were a lot of late nights, fighting to meet the minimum grades that it required.

Noah sang with the AFHS Chamber Choir, served as President of the Poetry Club, published poems in various literary journals including Hanging Loose, took and passed 6 AP classes and tests, got 5s on his AP Literature test (without having taken the class) and his AP Stats test (Mr. Mostert should be proud!), and preformed at Cavestock as lead singer with Pizza of Death (post on that coming soon).  It was a great high school career!

Most of all, he became a thoughtful and kind young man who cares about how he acts and treats others.  He learned to love learning.  He also learned that hard work pays off.  He is such a good boy.  He is going to make a great missionary and future husband and father!

As many friends as we could gather:  

Top left to right - Emily, Kayleigh, Brianna, Jessica, Breanna, Rachel

Bottom left to right - Aaron, Steven, Conner, Noah, Tanner, Brandan

 Noah & Brianna

A VERY proud mom!

Noah turns 18!

Candy Cake:  This is the cake of choice for our boys lately.  None of us are really fans of cake.  We've done ice-cream cakes, cookie cakes, and all sorts of other treats.  The online versions of this cake have cake topped with candy, but this is 100% skittles inside the Kit Kat shell.

 A sweet hug between Noah and Isaac after Isaac gave him his gift.  We gave Noah a shuffle and speaker (to take on his mission) as well as a new shoulder bag. 

I didn't quite get this moment.  But this is Noah getting his personal bottle of "I Love Sports" sanitizer.  Not sure why, but he loves this scent!

Isaac's Baptism Day

Isaac was baptized by Trent on May 3!

Cavestock Auditions

This is Jonah's band, A Dingo Ate My Baby (I know, I know . . .) playing The Final Countdown for their Cavestock audition.  They made it!  The solo at the end is Jonah playing (far left).

Senior Prom 2014

 

 Noah & Brianna

The Whole Group

 Love this picture!  All of these boys have received their mission calls and will be leaving this summer.  Bolivia (Tyler), Texas (Noah), West Indies (Cole), Madagascar (Brandan and Nathan), Japan (Tanner)

Isaac's 8th Birthday

 Isaac's candy birthday "cake."  There is no cake - just jelly beans.  Making it was a bit of a structural engineering challenge!  But it is just what he wanted.

Minecraft was the main theme of his birthday gifts.  This is a creeper minifig from Noah.  Of course, his dinner of choice was a trip to McDonalds with his friend, Josh.

Mission Call

Noah received his mission call last week.  Here is a video:

We're so excited for him!  If you couldn't understand the video, he leaves July 23. 

AFHS Choir Tour Concert

Noah singing lead with Quorum at the AFHS Choir Tour Concert.  He had a terrible cold, but did great!  I'm also including a clip of "Sleep" by the Chamber Choir (Noah) and another song by Men's Choir (Jonah - joined by Noah and the rest of the Chamber men).

Quorum singing Apologize

Chamber Choir singing Sleep

Men's Choir

Hero Dance - February 15, 2014

Jonah is 16 now.  He doesn't have his license yet, but will be soon.  He and Noah doubled for his first date ever.  After a trip to the BYU Art Museum, and shakes at The Creamery, we hosted 7 couples at our house for Cafe Rio style burritos and then they headed to the dance.  Here are some pictures:

 Noah and Emily

Abbi and Jonah

Jonah said that the neon pineapples looked pretty great under the black lights at the dance!

2013 Christmas Time

Life is spinning by.  I'd like to stop it and linger on a few moments, instead I just try to remember to cherish every moment that I can.

Here are a few highlights from Christmas:

Choir Christmas Concert - Sorry this is shaky and the audio cuts out.  Noah is front and center.

 

 Zach, Isaac and Ryan - Waiting to open presents at Aunt Jeneile's house on Christmas Eve

 

 The aftermath:  Isaac after opening presents on Christmas morning.

Jonah with his new electric guitar.  It's a Squire Strat with humbucker and strat pickups (and the fact that I can tell you that tells you something about my immersion into the world of guitars).