Dinner with the Missionaries!

Whenever we can fit it in, we always like to have the missionaries over for dinner.  Tonight we had Elders Krueger and Werner over for dinner and a very nice visit.  Some how we pulled it off, from Lexine rushing to get dinner ready, to Caleb & I needing to be at his Jr. High orientation.  Always something going on in this family, but glad we can still take a few moments for the important things.  Only wish Kami could have been here with us...she's finishing up her last week-and-a-half of work before she leaves!  Fun times at the Sevark home!

Maizey's Evening of Excellence!

Maizey has been working hard to pull together this Evening of Excellence for quite some time now.  This was one of her 10 hour projects she chose for achieving her Personal Progress award.  We even made sure we made it home from our mini-vacation in plenty of time for her big night.  At last the moment arrived and Maizey pulled it off with ease.  Everything was perfect and she conducted the event with ease!  There were lots of compliments for her afterwards from leaders, friends and ward members.  I hears lots of "You're awesome", "you are amazing" (or how I like to say "you are Amaizey!" :-), and "you'll have lots more opportunities to do this in a few years when you're the Young Women's leader!".  Bishop shared a few closing comments as well...mentioning how strong the spirit was at Kami's farewell using her as an example, and how he sees so many young women dressing immodestly, then sees them again later in his office for problems.  Great job Maizey -- your hard work paid off!  We're proud of you!

Knott's Berry Farm Mini-Vacation!

Pretty much last minute, we decided to try to do one last escape vacation before Kami leaves on her mission! We realized that this may be the very last vacation that were all together as this family, Meaning in the future, other kids may be on missions or there may be additions to the family with spouses and grandkids. Scary!  But it was just a quick trip...  We rented a 15 passenger van and left Monday after school.  Traffic was starting to pickup during rush hour, so we decided to stop for dinner at Lee's Pete's Fish & Chips -- Thank you Lee!  It was then about 6PM that we started our drive to California.  The drive was fairly uneventful other than slow traffic coming out of Phoenix and Lexine realizing she book our hotel for the night one day later -- so she was on the phone trying to straighten that up.  We finally arrived around 10:30 at night (one hour time difference early than AZ).  Everyone was tired, so after checking into the hotel we went straight to bed.

The next morning we got up and ready, then had a little birthday celebration for Garrett, then watched him opened his presents.  We ate a quick breakfast at the hotel, then were off to the amusement park for the day!  When we arrived there, something seemed a little odd.  There was no traffic and the parking lot only had a few cars in it.  We walked to the opening gates where we had to wait 15 min until the part opened and saw that there were only about 50 people waiting to get it.  I thought "it will get a lot more crowded soon, but almost nobody else showed up".  When the gates finally opened, we went straight over to the Peanut's gang to take some quick pictures...again to my surprise, no lines!  The park was almost completely empty...and it stayed that way for the entire day!  We had a blast...riding the rides over and over.  No lines at all...the most we ever had to wait was being the 2nd group getting on the main roller coasters.  It was perfect and we all stuck together for must of the day.  Caleb was a little worried about going on the looping roller coasters, but by the end of the day, even he was doing them.  We had a great time, just as we had hoped it would be.

The partk closed at 6pm, so we loaded in our van and drove off to our hotel for the night.  We decided to stay in Palm Springs so we could be a couple hours closer to home -- since we would lose an hour on our drive back due to the time difference.  Again, we had a little bit of traffic to stall us and the kids all slept; exhausted from the long day of wild rides and walking.  When we arrived at our Red Roof Inn hotel, nobody felt hungry...in fact most felt a little nausea or upset stomachs from the rides.  So instead of dinner, we stopped by McDonald's and ate ice cream.  Then ran back to our hotel for some hot tubbing before turning in for the night.

This morning we awoke early and were out the door by 8am to head home.  We stopped by the lobby to check out and emptied out all their breakfast muffins.  Then began the long commute back home.  We arrived home around 1:30pm making fairly good time.  Even though it was a short trip, we all had a BLAST!!  I definitely think we'll be going back there again sometime!

Happy 15th Birthday Garrett!!

Happy Birthday Garrett! I can't believe its been 15 years since I raced mom to the hospital, then just under 2 hours later you were born; very early in the morning. It seems just like yesterday that you were carrying around chore sippy cup and Blankey...and getting mad at anybody who sat on "your" bus chair (Which was really my blue chair that mom gave me for Father's Day)! You wouldn't even let me sit on it with you! :-) But so much of you is the same, always loving to laugh and be happy! Those traits, combined with your genuine concern and caring for others will be a great strength to you someday. Mom would always say your intriguing eyes were going to knock out all the girls when you got to be a teenager. :-) You were a great kid and turned out to be such a fine young man. I couldn't be more proud of you as my son. I sure love you little buddy and hope today was a wonderful birthday for you!

Porter Got The Job!!!

What a crazy busy day -- working, kids getting home from school, trying to get out to door to pickup the van for our vacation, packing, loading, etc!  Porter and I have been applying everywhere to find him a job.  Last week Porter interviewed for an awesome position and we've been crossing our fingers that it would work out.  As I was picking up the van late this afternoon, the phone started ringing and I noticed it was Bro. Caldwell from our ward calling our home (I have it setup so my cell phone simultaneously rings when someone calls the house).  I was at the Car Rental counter, so I crossed my fingers that one of the kids answered the phone at home.  As soon as I finished, I called Porter to ask if he answered it...he was already a step ahead of me and said, "didn't you get my text?".  I hadn't looked yet being so busy with trying to get our on vacation -- so I said "What did he say?".  In Porter's no-emotion response, he said "I got the job." YESSSSS!!!!  I was so excited and relieved at the same time...we've worked really hard, applying all over the place to find him a job!  And now he got the best one of all!  This will be the perfect position for him -- working with software and websites.  He'll learn so much and it will keep him on the fast track of all the self-learning he's done.  Good job Porter...I'm so proud of you!  Now go give them your best work!  And a special BIG thank you to Bro. Caldwell in our ward for hiring him!  :-)

Kami's Farewell Sunday!

Kami's 15 min of fame has come and gone, now its time for her to get to work!  :-)  Kami's mission farewell was today...I can't believe it came so quickly!  I've been dreading this day because I knew I would be fighting my emotions.  We got to church at just about our normal time and already the family and friends started showing up...and then some more...and more...and more...and more!  I'm humbled we've been blessed to have so many great friends. It seemed like just about all our old Coronado 1st ward was there, as well as every bit of family.  Then so many of our good friends & neighbors attended as well...friends from the  distant past to the present.  And even some of her work colleagues attended as well.  It was so wonderful.  Seeing that our ward sacrament meeting looked more like a Stake Conference, triggered my emotions...not too mention that Lexine had pulled together a wonder musical number of all the Priests & Laurels of "We'll Bring the World His Truth" -- that one gets me every time -- and they were practicing as everyone was walking in.  I finally had to sit down instead of greet as I usually do...my emotions had the best of me by then.

Kami did a wonderful job speaking.  She was so confident and natural as she delivered her message.  I could see so much of Cindy in her.  But she did awesome speaking from a talk at our last general conference, "First Observe, Then Serve".  She related it to how she would be serving for the next 18 months on her mission.  Afterward, loads of people gathered to tell her how well she did and to come visit with us...it was a good 20 min or so before I even got to see her and tell her "well done".  Thank you all!

Afterwards we got together as family for a luncheon -- we figured since we had everyone travel all the way out here, we might as well enjoy a meal together.  The house was packed full of Severtson's, Porters and Grandma Glasgow!  We enjoyed Taco Salads made up of Grandma Severtson's gound beef and machac meat, and Lexine's homemade refried beads -- YUM!!

Later in the evening, as the day was drawing to an end, Caleb and I were out front throwing the football back and forth and talking about the day.  I asked him, "Do you think Mom was there today?'.  He said, "Yes".  So I asked him, "Where do you think she was sitting...she had better been sitting by me?!?".  His reply caught me off-guard, completely serious but revealed some of his memories, he said "She was probably sitting next to Brenda, because they talked and texted all the time!".  :-)

What an amazing day! I couldn't be more proud of this little girl I've been blessed to call my daughter.  You'll be a wonderful missionary Kambo!  And I'll be counting down the days until you come home!  :-)  I sure love you Kambo...

Basketball Week 6 Highlights!

Basketball is almost over...just one more week of the tournament!  The boys had some great games again this week.  Poor Caleb & Jonah still have yet to win a game this season, but I'm amazed at how good they've become! They played a team of really tall girls -- much taller than they were, but they did great! Noah's team played the other half of his team...they've done that on at least one other occasion, but this week they won!  No baskets scored this week by any of the boys, but some great moves, passes, blocking and stealing.  Fun times for these boys...I love to see their determination and drive...and that these tough games motivate them to become even better, rather than quit

Maizey gets Her Braces Off!

This morning Maizey got her braces off...has it already been almost 2 years since she got them on?  She's been very diligent in doing her part -- wearing her rubber bands, brushing good -- so she could get them off the earliest possible.  And never once did we catch her "locking braces" with any boys -- thank goodness!  :-) But wow does she look great now -- who would have thought she could be any prettier than she already was!  I guess we have one year left before we have to start fighting the boys when she starts dating!! You look absolutely beautiful Maizey!

Kami Speaks in the Desert Wells Ward

With such a large family, lately it seems we have someone speaking in church every week!  Today was Kami's turn...again.  She was asked by Bro. Alleman in our ward who sits on the High Council to speak with him.  She spoke about Elder Bednar's talk on Conversion and how that has influenced her decision to serve a mission.  Excellent Job Kambo!  I'm amazed at how great of a speaker you've become. No doubt you'll be an awesome missionary!

Basketball Week 5 Highlights!

Another great week of basketball!  Unfortunately again the boys lost both of their games, but they played well and did their best -- and that's all the really matters.  Caleb & Jonah thought they had a chance of beating their opposing team.  That team was made up of most of the boys in our ward...we had no idea there was several of the boys in our ward who signed up to be on the same time.  We were beating them at half time, but in the 2nd half we broke and they beat us by quite a bit.  I was feeling under the weather today -- probably from a long week in COLD Chicago this week -- so I wasn't able to make it to Noah's game, but Lexine said he did really good at defense...stealing the ball, blocking and assisting baskets. Caleb was then invited by his coach to play a second game with some of the older boys -- he said yes, but after practicing with them for a few minutes, he changed his mind...I think he felt a little intimidated.  Way to go this week guys!!

Jonah's Last Pinewood Derby!

Today was Jonah's last Pinewood Derby -- and the very last Pinewood Derby of the Sevark family!  For being a car design that was not so aero-dynamic, it did quite well!  I could tell it was going to do well because of how smooth and straight it rolled once the wheels were on.  At last the moment of truth, his car got pretty much first and second place in all his races.  Jo also brought his other 3 derby cars from previous years and got the chance to race all of them against eachother -- unfortunately last years car won!  :-)  Regardless, he had a great time and lots of fun.  "Cool been -- beans of coolness" as Jo always says. "Pretty Neat" car this year! Great job Jonah!  :-)

Kami Makes the ASU Dean's List!

One of the amazing qualities about Kami that I love is how she always tries to excel at everything she does.  It inspires me to be my best!  Well, she's done it again.  Not only does she work full time, as well as preparing to leave on her mission, but she also managed to make the Dean's List at ASU for her excellent grades!  Great job Kambo...I sure love you!  Always continue to strive for perfection!

Bentley Speaks in Church!

Bentley spoke in church today! You would've never guessed that she only had the evening before to prepare. Saturday night her young women's leader called and asked if she would speak today and of course, Bentley said yes. So she spent the rest of her Saturday evening and a little while on Sunday morning before her young women's presidency meetings preparing her talk. As always, she did wonderful!  She spoke on the first presidency's message in the "For the Strength of Youth" manual and of how important the temple is to her and all of us. It was a beautiful talk -- one that encourages us all to do better.  Well done Bentley...we sure are proud of you!

Always in the Middle of the Night!

Why do the batteries in your fire alarms always begin to fail in the middle of the night? Early this morning long before light, Caleb came into our room saying that their fire alarm was chirping. I told him to go back to bed and to shut his bedroom door. When he got up there, he realized that shutting the door did nothing since the chirping alarm was in his room. :-) After laying there for a few minutes, hearing the alarm over and over, I finally got up to find a battery. Of course we were all out of 9V batteries! So I got up, threw on some clothes and ran over to QT to buy a battery in the middle the night. When I got home, I grab the ladder and headed upstairs. I shut the boys room doors to not wake up the rest of the family. But the moment I pulled the battery out of the alarm, every alarm in the house went off...waking everyone! :-)  Hope this isn't a sign for how the day is going to go!  :-)

Basketball Season Week 4 Highlights!

Another week of basketball!  The boys played great again today...Noah did a great job stealing & blocking, Caleb scored the first 6 points and Jonah swooshed a basket also while they played against a pretty tough team! We stopped by CircleK on our way home to get Slurpees for playing to well, but they were out -- so they boys all opted for celebration Toquitos.  :-)  Great job today guys!!

 

Last Pinewood Derby!

Jonah and I have been getting ready for our very last pinewood derby of the Sevark family! Jonah designed his car as a Wii remote controller that he found on the Internet. It turned out "pretty neat"! I guess we'll see how it runs in another week! Great job on the hard work Jonah...and Lexine and me!! :-)

Gall Stones?!?

Hurray! Mayo thinks that Lexine simply had a Gall stone that was the cause of all her mayhem for her this last week. They believe she must have passed it some time while she was here, because she's not gotten sick after her last few meals. You've never seen two people happier to hear it was Gall stone! :-) Her liver enzyme counts have even already started dropping again. We're just both relieved that its not a reoccurrence of what she had last year. I'm here at Mayo picking her up now...along with the hefty hospital bill since today is the first day of our new high insurance deductible! Wouldn't you know it, the first in eleven years that I thought we wouldn't be max'ing out our insurance and then we go and do it on the very first day!! :-) The important thing though is that Lexine is okay and doing great again! And what a blessing it is that we have insurance! Happy New Year! :-)