March Madness

 Good morning, I hope you are all well rested and ready for another Davis Family Year in Review adventure.  Just to give you fair warning, I didn't take many pictures in March 2024, but let's talk about the ones I did take....

My dear cousin, Elizabeth lives in Castle Rock, Colorado.  She divorced her husband at the end of 2023.  During their marriage, he built this monstrosity of a rock fireplace and Elizabeth wanted it taken down.  Well, Nathan surprised us both by purchasing me plane tickets to fly out for a week to help her take it down.  It looks pretty and all, but don't let that fool you, this thing was HUGE and the hearth took up half the room.

It was quite the adventure taking it all down.  That's a 16 foot vaulted ceiling.  That ladder didn't quite reach all the way up there and we had to be "creative" in how we got all the rock down from up in that one corner.

But we managed to get it all down, get the sheetrock taken down, cleaned up, and ready for new sheetrock to be put on

Me and Elizabeth working hard.

That's as far as we got with the sheetrock before I had to go home.  

It was wonderful to see Elizabeth again and get to visit with her.  We had way too much fun and were quite goofy together, but that is what cousins are supposed to do.  We made many, many trips to the Home Depot where we saw an employee that looked exactly like our cousin Adam, and so we just started calling him, "not Adam," because that's what you do.  The funniest thing happened on the night I arrived in Colorado.  My flight got in pretty late and so we stopped off at the Culvers in Castle Rock for some dinner.  After we ordered our food, I went over to where the condiment dispenser were, looking for the fry sauce.  I was a bit surprised to not find any fry sauce anywhere, especially since I knew for a FACT that MY Culvers has fry sauce dispensers.  When our food got delivered to our table, I asked the server if they had any fry sauce.  She looked at me like I was from a different planet.  It was obvious that she had no idea what I was talking about, but she did her best by offering me the sauces they did have, like BBQ sauce, and a Culver's sauce.  It was at that moment that it dawned on me, and I said it out loud for all to hear, "oh, duh, I'm not in Utah anymore!"  Elizabeth burst out laughing, which made me laugh, which only confused our poor server even more.  I then asked her if she had ketchup and mayo packets.  She looked even more confused, but said that they did, and then brought me some, and then watched as I mixed the two together, and when I was done, pointed at it and proudly exclaimed, "FRY SAUCE!"  She walked away from us and I'm sure she was wondering if she needed to call the loony bin or something because Elizabeth and I were laughing so hard because I had forgot that I wasn't in Utah anymore and outside of Utah, nobody knows what fry sauce is because it's a Utah thing.  Basically the majority of the time we were getting into shenanigans and having fits and fits of giggles.  

Whitley likes to help, a lot.  This particular day he decided that I needed help with my scripture study.  And as we saw in one of Jimmy's mission photos, apparently cats need the gospel too.

I feel like Cocoa Bean is judging me here.

But she is one very snuggly kitty cat.

Again with the judging.

They LIVE for treat time.

And snow, we got lots and lots of snow.

Tiger Lily winning awards at school because she is just that awesome!!

Not sure what award ceremony this was because I think it took place while I was in Colorado, but Tiger Lily is being recognized for doing something awesome.

Whitley loves his blankets.

Meow-meow earned his yellow striped belt.

And then there was Easter.  When you have 7 children and you hide 12 eggs for each child, you end up having to hide 84 eggs.  Trying to remember where you hid 84 eggs is a challenge.  It was too wet and rainy to hide the eggs outside and so I had to get creative inside.  So, in order to remember where I hid all 84 eggs, I took pictures of where I hid them.  I like to be creative when I hide my eggs.  Don't worry, you aren't going to be subjected to looking at 84 hidden egg pictures, but here are some of what I thought were the more creative hiding places I came up with.

Naturally one should hide an egg in the curtain tie.

It's still in sight even though it was in the storage under the stairs, on the top shelf, behind a board.

Now this one, I thought was one of my more brilliant hiding spots.  It took the kids a while to find that one, it also took some engineering to get it to stay in the hangars.

Still in sight, even though it was in a box, under another box, in the back of the storage room.

That's a spicy egg!!

Our basement has some unfinished ceilings, and what better place to hid an egg than in an unfinished ceiling?!?!  I have tall kids, it's well within their line of sight.

Because of some flooding, our basement is under construction, so I figured I should take advantage of the sheetrock lying around.

I set the recyclables in a certain spot for the kids to take out to the recycling, but quite often they walk right past it, so perfect hiding spot for an egg, right?!?  They found that one rather quickly though.

Hidden, but not hidden.

This one was my second ingenious hiding spot, the first being the hangars.  It took them a while to find that one as well.

We got so much rain and snow that we got an impromptu lake in our back yard.

Tiger Lily at one of her matches.  She won of course!

Jimmy got his mission plaque.  Right now it resides at the church in a display case and when he gets home from his mission, they will give it to him.

Speaking of Jimmy, here are some of the photos he sent us during the month of March 2024...

We got two emails from Jimmy in March, so here they are....

The first email is from March 12

Hous it going everyjuan. Just another 2 weeks of missionary work, sorry about last week. But great things have been happening. Let go. First of all the last two weeks have been very windy which makes biking really relaxing if you are going with the wind or very silly if you are going against the wind, but my morning breakfast of oatmeal and Jimmy dean bacon egg and cheese crossinant sandwich be keeping me going. Starting off two weeks ago, aniya got baptized. She is super cool and definitely is intune with the spirit. God is wonderful. When the confirmation was finished she shivered up like she got the chills, it was funny. And then our friends the betkers are getting baptized. Jordan their dad is a returning member aswell! Been meeting new people, Same ol same ol. Learned how to play solitare. Played poker, skull king, chair soccer.  . Other than than that we been good. Very little bike struggles. . Gonna my companion got a Lil sick, been deep cleaning our apartment. We hike up to Frenchman mountain. It was cool. 

Anyways, always be chilling. Transfers came up. Which means this elders no longer in training.

Alma 42:10 "Therefore, as they had become carnal, sensual, and devilish, by nature, this probationary state became a state for them to prepare; it became a preparatory state."

Because we naturally fell. How can we prepare to get back up?

Great love from Elder D.

The second email is from March 26th 

Well we'll well. hey hey hey, sin sin sin city be goin goin goin. elder homer of the seventy came to our zone conference he is cool, and had a great time with him. Although driving to and back from zone conference we saw 3 car crashes. Which caused traffic to be a little silly. I thought utah drivers we bad. Vegas is like if you put a baloon filled with tiny goats and drugs in a drivers seet of a car that is missing its back two blinkers and 3 of 4 wheels are spare wheels, and always staring at the Dutch bros right across the street, and that's the average driver here. Nothing new here, been teaching, finding, fellowshipin, and baptizing! Love it, the betkers got baptized and we are so happy for them it's 2 young children. And a returning member who was their dad baptized them. Good stuff. Had a fun exchange with elder Bates, it started flooding and down pouring rain, BUT we grateful for the rain. Also the betkers cousins live 3 doors down and they also want two of their kids baptized. And the mom for betkers one wants to be baptized too so elder Hammond us going out with a bang! He sure is a good missionary. He ain't trunky at all even tho he has less than a month away from being home. It's funny cause he's the oldest missionary in the mission. He went home for 2 months then came back out to finish it off. So he has been here longer than everyone except one of the old office ladies I think. But still cool. Anyways I rolled my ankle playing soccer, but that's okay cause I can still walk. We also played some pickleball. Got a new sweet blanket. And I'm trying to make some new ties. Well see how they turn out. Had to some elder davis action on my blue pants, they ripped in the rain stop cause my bike was a little slippy and I slipped onto my knee, all good thou, made me really sad about my pants. Been having a little bit og bike troubles again. Not too crazy just the chain keeps not catching and then finally does catch and whips back in place. But I am getting a new mission bike. Speaking of bikes I got my wheels back. Funny stuff. Either I get an okay one or I fall backwards and jump off. Elder Timothy taught me, both me and mostly elder Tim taught elder audd, then elder audd taught elder Hammond. Plus elder gudmunsen can wheelie to so our district is a wheelying one. Also Don’t think I mentioned it but elder timy is gone, booted out of valley. But someone from out of valley came in, elder g for gudmunsen (good-men-sin). He is cool, likes van Halen and 80s rock, so we get along well. Fell asleep after eating pizza. We also taught a lesson in our little new people class on Sunday. Went real well. And we taught our bishop's wife's seminary class. 

We also finally got to enter a whole new condo complex in our area, adds a lot more potential. Bringing bags of joy to people here and Vegas and there is nothing more I love then to see the spirit working on someone. Also I got some of my grandparents jam, thank you grandma and grandpa, my breakfasts and lunches have been incredibly nice. Other than that, we gud. Super mega BIEN

Anyways happy  Easter everybody.

I hope you all collet some candy filled eggs, but most of all rejoice, rejoice in our savior for he is risen. Infact I love hynm #199. I it is such a joyful song. Especially the parts where it goes "He is risen! He is resen" in Bible terms when someone says something twice they really mean it is important. Also " he hath opened heavens Gate. We are free from sins dark prison" we all sin, it's our human nature. And we fall into prison. But because of him and the thing he did for us, which is why we celibate Easter, he can bail us out. Because of that we are forever in his debt " death is conquered; man is free" because of jesus christ, our firm foundation, our salvation, we too are overcoming physical and spiritual death, to become free. I hope you all have an amazing Easter this week, and I would invite you all reading this to read about jesus resurrection. Lucky for us members of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, we get extra reading from the book of Mormon, when Jesus comes to America 34 AD and teaches over to the people there. Easter Study Plan:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/easter-plan?lang=eng

For those who aren't pros at the gospel library app here is a link to its study plan. I hope the spirit inticeth all you wonderfully. 

-elder davis outy.

We love you Elder Davis!!  Anyway, that's all I have for March 2024.  Come back tomorrow because April 2024 will have WAY more pictures, I promise.