Backyard Theatre

Grandma Besaw has a great selection of kids costumes, and the kids all love to dress up in them. Often when we go to Grandma and Grandpa Besaw's, Madison and Mackenzie become on-the-spot playwrights and conjure a skit for everyone's entertainment as the evening's grand finale.

The top picture is of them rehearsing for a recent production. I was honored to meet one of the play's central figures who let me take a picture of her. She truly did a remarkable job of playing the blue fish in act one and the lovely princess in act two.

Happy Birthday to Melissa

Melissa just recently celebrated her birthday. I didn't take her to NYC, but I did take her to Olive Garden with the rest of the family. During the day she accompanied Morgan on a preschool field trip. That evening we went out to eat and opened presents. The kids were all very excited to give her gifts. I put Mackenzie in charge of all of the wrapping; she did a fabulous job. Hope you had a happy birthday, Melissa! Incidentally, Morgan took the picture of Melissa with the gifts. Looks like we may have a budding photographer on our hands!

Calamari Anyone?

For our anniversary, I took Melissa to Market Street Grill and we had calamari for an appetizer. Melissa thought it would be a good idea to take some home for the kids so they could try some.

We made sure to save nice big ones with tentacles. Morgan didn't want anything to do with it, but the rest of the kids were interested in trying it. Believe it or not, Clayton liked it! Madison (left), too. Mackenzie (right) not so much; she found it quite disgusting!

Hope of America

Madison and Mackenzie got to participate in the Hope of America program, which was part of the kickoff for America's Freedom Festival. They've had a great year in 5th grade with Mrs. Styler, and they've looked forward to Hope of America for a long time. About 3,600 kids from elementary schools in Utah County performed in the program at the Marriott Center at BYU.

The kids all sat on one side of the Marriott Center and wore red, white, blue, or yellow shirts to create the image of the American flag. The program consisted of a number of patriotic songs. The preceding video was the finale song, which was quite spectacular. Watch to the end to see what the "flag" looked like.

The girls were very excited for Grandma and Grandpa Besaw to come watch them, and it worked out great for me as I happened to teach class that evening and just walked over from my classroom after finishing teaching.

After the program we went to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream treat. The kids are always crazy about ice cream. In the end, they all zonked out on the way home! They were so exhausted it was funny. We all had a lot of fun, though.

Spring Break at Zermatt

For Spring Break this year we spent a week in Midway at Zermatt. No phone calls. No doorbell. No work. No Disneyland. It was fabulous!


We probably spent about 20 hours actually in the pool. The kids were completely content to swim, swim, swim. When we weren't swimming we were either playing games or watching Hannah Montana or Suite Life of Zach and Cody.

We did make an occasional trip into Heber for treats. The kids loved Dairy Keen and Melissa and I particularly enjoyed the bakery at Tarahumara. I would so like a chocolate chip pecan cookie right now! Unfortunately, we also had to take Madison to an InstaCare as she got an earache. She rebounded really well, though.

What is the fascination with jumping on elevators? Clayton and Morgan were quite the crack-up as they'd jump up and down on the elevator and tear out lickity-split as soon as the doors opened, racing down the hallway.

When asked whether they liked Disneyland or Zermatt better, they all agreed: "Tie!" Looks like there's no need to go to Disneyland again. It was nice to spend so much time together as a family.

Our First 5K

Kent (Melissa's brother) is the superstar runner in our family. A few months ago he took Clayton on a 5K fun run. Apparently Clayton has runner's blood coursing through his veins because he did quite well. And so began our family adventure of preparing for the big 5K held by Clayton's school.

Before getting ready for this 5K, I think the farthest I'd ever run was about 800 meters, so running 5 kilometers seemed like a mountain of a hurdle. Melissa, Clayton, and I prepared for a couple months, though, by jogging the course 2-3 times per week. By the time the big day arrived, I'd gotten to the point where I could at least jog the whole thing. Hurray!

On the day of the run it poured buckets, and it was very chilly out. The run was on May 2nd, which should have been decent weather.

As you can see from Clayton's big toothless smile as he crossed the finish line, he probably had a lot more gas left in him. He's a natural at age 7 clocking in at 29:18. Among the students from his school who ran the race, he came in 3rd; 1st and 2nd were two 12-year-olds, so he did pretty darn good! He beat Melissa by a minute, and he beat me by just over two minutes! But we all finished! We're very proud of Clayton for doing so well, and we're grateful to Kent for getting us off the couch! Oh, and by the way, Kent won Men's Overall . . . of course.

New York for a Weekend

Melissa surprised me on my 40th with an announcement that we were going on a trip to New York City. We had a great time. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the top of the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, American Museum of Natural History, the Manhattan Temple, and a couple of plays--Mary Poppins and Blithe Spirit. It was fun to see Rupert Everett and an 83-year-old Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit. We unsuccessfully tried the lottery to get Wicked tickets, but that didn't work out. We still had a great time, though, but I'd have been pretty bummed if we hadn't already seen Wicked.

Eating there was a lot of fun, too. We went to Tavern on the Green, Serendipity, Magnolia's Bakery, Katz's Deli (Where Harry Met Sally), Mimi's, Maoz, and even the Sbarro on Times Square where the stunt driver just crashed a Ferrari filming the upcoming Nicholas Cage movie. What's not to love about eating in NYC? Especially WITHOUT kids!!! Melissa was so excited to eat warm food when it was supposed to be warm and cold food when it was supposed to be cold! Ah, heaven. The frozen hot chocolate was rather exquisite . . . especially after Melissa made me jog from the American Girl store near the Rockefeller Center to Serendipity so that we could make our reservation on time!

Of course we went to Canal Street, Wall Street, Ground Zero, the Rockefeller Center, Central Park, and a number of other places, too. We had quite the clandestine experience on Canal Street getting whooshed away into a minivan on a side street by a little Asian woman covertly transmitting messages to her sidekicks to determine whether the coast was clear. Melissa was quite pleased with the outcome of the operation. Mission accomplished!


Thanks, Melissa, for a wonderful 40th birthday party! Thanks also to Rod and Terry for watching the kids (and picking us up from the airport), and to Dad for dropping us off! It took a team to pull it off, but we did! It was a fabulous couple's getaway.