Eggcellent!!!

The Bunny Brunch eggstravaganza was a huge success!! Thanks to the generous support of people both in and out of our ward we have earned all the money we needed for girls camp this year.

Top Dog Homers

We went to a little morning assembly on Thursday for two of our kids. McCoy and Kate were both recognized as "Top Dogs" at Midvalley Elementary, a quarterly award to recognize good all around students. We're proud of our little junior Huskies!!

Bunny Brunch

Are you looking for something fun to do Saturday morning? Our Young Women are having a camp fundraiser Saturday morning and would love to have you all come! We are having a yummy Easter Brunch, games and activities for the kids including an Easter Egg Hunt, and a bake sale. The Easter Bunny will be there too, so come and get your picture taken with him. Come anytime between 9:30 and 11:30am at our church, 240 East 7570 South. Bring your friends and family!

March Madness!!

We got our chief bracketologist, Kristin, keeping us all organized and hyped up for the big dance. It's fun on the weekends with everyone calling out scores and winners so we can mark them off on our brackets.

I looked out the window and what did I see?

Wow, real live popcorn popping on the apricot tree! These are branches we pruned on Saturday's beautiful spring day. Of course it snowed all day today, but at least we have a little taste of spring in our home.

Balloonagami with McCoy

There is a new hobby in the works at the Homer's. All the little ones are excited to watch their cool older brother make balloon animals, hats, and flowers with balloons. It's sort of a balloonish origami. He's going to do it at the YW Camp fundraiser next week. We hear pops as balloons break and we fight with balloon swords. If anyone is interested you can catch McCoy at the Goldstein's Bar Mitzvah on Thursday and Elder Dogood's homecoming on Saturday.

Check out McCoy's demonstration video:

Guaranteed to pump up any family get-together:

Kiss Me, I'm Irish

We had a very green St. Patrick's Day. Everywhere we went we saw people wearing green. The playground at school, the grocery store, people walking on the street , it was fun to see so many people get into the spirit of the day.

We enjoyed a green dinner of green chicken over rice, broccoli, green jello, and shamrock floats (lime sherbet and sprite.)

Our little Leprechaun enjoying an afternoon snack of green milk and shamrock cookies.

Home Sweet Trailer

I came home one day to find a huge trailer in my driveway. I never know what crazy Grandpa Homer is going to do next. I guess the latest scheme is living in a trailer. Mom and dad haven't done this before so why not? Actually, on Sunday we got the grand tour of their home for the next six months on their mission at the Willie Rescue site on the Mormon Trail in the middle of Wyoming--in other words, the middle of nowhere.


The happy couple with their new home--ready to start their latest adventure. Wyoming Ho!!

The spacious family room/kitchen/entryway/mudroom/breakfast nook/den.

These are the finest guest accomodations.

Of course, mom wanted the largest master bedroom available.

Happy Birthday, Russ!

What a fun little b-day party for ol' Russell we had on Sunday. Wow, 71 years old. During dinner we were reminiscing about dad's famous 40th birthday party and that really seems like a long time ago. A lot has happened since then, and at the time (I was 14 years old) I thought dad had already done it all. After all, 40 years old is really old!

We had a great dinner of fluffy mashed potatoes, carrots a la Keith, tri-tip steak, rolls, Sarah salad and some pudding desert thing. I loved just stuffing my face. It was fun to have Aunt Marilee there, along with Ashton Carroll up from BYU, and Brad with his "friend" Jerilynn. McCoy used his latest hobby, balloon-tying, to create a birthday crown.

Happy Birthday!

Kickin' and Screamin' Again

We're back in. Soccer started up for McCoy again on Saturday morning. He was so excited to get out there again running around and kicking that little round ball. Here we go again.

Making the Temple Right at the Buzzer

We finally got it together enough as a family to go the Draper Temple Open House on Friday evening. Kristin had gone with the YW/YM on Wednesday. They had left at 6:30 and had arrived back home at 10:30 so we decided to try another strategy. We got to the Draper Temple grounds right before 9:00pm, before they stopped letting people in. We even parked in the parking lot up front. We walked right in and walked around with no lines.

Here we are watching the little movie at the beginning. Notice the lack of crowds?
I think McCoy and Samantha loved the cookies the best! And they had these cool little water bottles!

Families can be frozen together!

Date Night at the Movies: The Class (Entre les Murs)

Kristin and I actually went to a movie on Saturday afternoon, since we couldn't get away for our real date on Friday night. We saw a recent French film called "The Class" (Entre les Murs). It's one of those teacher movies that come around, but this one was different--it was real. It was almost too much to watch--the dialogue, personalities, and interactions reminded me of daily events when I taught at Glendale Middle School, only in French.

It portrayed a "year in a life" of a young French teacher in a troubled inner-city Parisian school, where he tried his best to connect and teach these "at-risk" multi-cultural students. In the larger sense it was an interesting view and commentary on France's troubled (and getting worse) race relations, but I loved it for the view of an educator's work.

Unlike other teacher movies (Dangerous Minds-duh, etc.) there are no clear heroes nor villains. No Holland Opus moments or Pretty-white-lady Freedom writers to save the day in the end. Just a human being giving and giving, failing and succeeding at the same time and all within the larger context of a system that had basically failed these kids.

The film raises fundamental issues in education such as discipline, authority, and learning but doesn't claim to have any easy answers (sorry, Buttars). And, after a glimpse into the somewhat insulated world "between the walls" of the classroom, we learn there are no happy endings--very different from the Dead Poets glory of American films.

Without fawning over teachers it makes room for a realistic respect for the grinding challenges teachers face daily without judging them. With its subtle documentary style it's easy for some American viewers to dismiss the "plot", but just like real life, for a teacher the plot isn't anything more than September and June and whatever may happen in between.

Check out more info and clips at IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1068646/

Winter Wonderland Cure for Spring Fever?

The temperature was in the 60's the past few days. We worked in the yard the past couple of Saturdays, everything was melted, and the flowers are poking up. And this is what we woke up to this morning!

Freecreditreport.com

This is McCoy with his own take on the Freecredit.com commercial. He is challenging anyone else to post their own version of any of their ads.

Yes, we watch way too much! You can catch the original TV ad at YouTube by clicking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMXv0__CYSU&feature=related