April Antics

 Welcome back for another addition of the Davis Family 2024 year in review.  Today we will be discussing April 2024.   Be prepared for a massive photo dump because I did take a LOT of photos, but they are cool photos, or at least I think they are.  So, without any further ado, let's talk about it.

Whitley is not a very snuggly kitty.  He likes pets and attention on his own terms. So, I was very surprised when out of the blue, he jumped up on me for some snuggles.

Isn't he just the cutest thing??  Also, when I went to Colorado to visit with Elizabeth, I wore that blue blanket hoodie and Elizabeth and I decided that it's name needed to be Cookie Monster, and yes, I do call it Cookie Monster whenever I put it on.

You can always tell when the weather warms up and starts getting nice, because I start sporting around injuries on my arms.  No, Nathan doesn't beat me, the yard does.

Grignard decided to help us clean the leaves out of the ditch.  I also sat on a wasp and it stung me in a very sensitive spot.  That was not fun at all.  Yet, I still remain unafraid of wasps.

Cocoa Bean is my snuggly cat, and I just love it when she snuggles me.

In August of 2017 there was a total eclipse of the sun that went through the United States and we drove up to Idaho to watch it.  The drive home from that was an absolute nightmare, but we had a great time.  Well, the next predicted total eclipse of the sun to go through the United States was predicted to happen in April of 2024.  Back in 2017 we talked about going to see the eclipse in 2024, but life got in the way and it didn't seem like we would be able to make the plans to go.  Well, it's a total eclipse and we really didn't want to miss it, especially since the next eclipse in the USA won't be until 2044, so we made some VERY last minute plans and took off on a very wild four day adventure out to Russelville, Arkansas.  The Eclipse was set to happen on Monday, April 8th, and we (me, Nathan, Meow-meow, and Eilee) loaded up Moby and set off in the wee hours of Saturday April 6th.  It was General Conference weekend, so we listened to Conference on our drive.  We stayed in a hotel in Colorado which was near the Colorado/Kansas border.  I remember that it was very windy and the wind woke us all up at an unearthly hour.  Since we were all awake, we decided to get an early start on the day.  We drove through Kansas and Oklahoma and stayed in a hotel in Sallisaw, Oklahoma which was near the border of Arkansas.  There were a lot of people staying at that hotel for the very reason we were.  We planned on getting up really early so we could hopefully beat traffic getting into Oklahoma because we were attempting to get as close to the center of the path of totality as we possibly could.  We got an early start that Monday morning, and thankfully didn't run into to much traffic getting to the eclipse, leaving is a whole different story.  The location we settled on was a little town in Arkansas called, Russelville where we found a lovely little park, and were the first ones to arrive there.  It didn't take very long though before the park was filled up to the brim with people who had traveled from all over to see the eclipse.  Eilee and I walked through the parking lot and found license plates from all over the United States, we even found two other cars from Utah, so we weren't the only ones representing Utah!!  We hit a ton of traffic on the drive home, but it wasn't nearly as bad as trying to get out of Idaho in 2017!!  I think it's because there is a lot more highways and freeways in and out of Arkansas so that we weren't stuck in heavy traffic for too long.  We took a different route home that took us through the Ozarks, which are beautiful by the way.  We went through Missouri, cutting through Kansas, and then into Nebraska where we stayed at a hotel in Manhattan, Nebraska.  The final leg of our journey was on Tuesday the 9th, where we arrived home late in the evening, very worn out from 4 days on the road, 22 hours each way, but very happy that we made the crazy trip to go see the eclipse.  And now for the promised and long anticipated photo dump....

Starting out our journey in the wee hours of Saturday morning.  It was cold and dark as it is in the early parts of April

Welcome to Wyoming

I somehow missed taking pictures of getting into Colorado and Kansas.  The traffic in Colorado was terrible!!  The wind in Colorado was also terrible!!

We had adventures on the road, especially in Oklahoma.  Those adventures involved an entire biker gang.  See, there were these two cars who thought it was a good idea to tailgate said biker gang, and said biker gang did not appreciate it any.  We had front row seats to watch as these two cars tried to pass the biker gang, only to be thwarted by them.  This cat and mouse game went on for several miles before the biker gang got off the freeway.  It was quite hilarious.  The scariest part about our road adventures was when we were coming home.  We had just passed through Laramie, Wyoming when to semi trucks decided to have a bit of road rage "fun."  One semi purposefully tried to run the other semi off the road, so the other semi tailgated him, then passed him and cut him off to the point that he had to slam on his brakes, which almost caused an accident.  Again, we had a front row seat to the whole affair, and that was a front row seat I'd rather not have been a part of.  The minute we could safely get passed those two idiot truck drivers, we put the pedal to the metal and got as far ahead of them as we could.

There was a nice playground at the park we went to, and Meow-meow made some friends.

It was cold in Utah, but a lovely 83 degrees in Arkansas.

Someone told us that if we put some paper towels around our glasses, it would make a kind of shield that would help keep out the light and make our viewing experience much better.

I think it just made us look like a bunch of goobers.  I guess it did help a little.

Eilee enjoying the sunshine and warmth.  Actually she was probably overheating, but I was sure enjoying the warmth.

Meow-meow just chillin' in the back of Moby.

Kicked back, relaxed, enjoying the sunshine and the heat, waiting for the eclipse.  You couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.  

There were several people who came to the park with fancy telescopes.  This is a picture of the eclipse they took looking through their telescope.  It was pretty cool.

I loved how the clouds made weird patterns during the eclipse.

If you look closely, even shadows from the chair made an interesting pattern.

And of course the crescent shaped patterns the leaves made

Looks like you are 35,000 feet in the air flying over some mountain ranges.

It's really cool how the eclipse makes things the shadows look so different.

I was pleasantly surprised to get such a decent shot with just my little phone camera.

This is one I took by putting my viewing glasses over my camera lense.  

Goodness, it was such a lovely day.  

Getting darker.

Totality

This is the traffic we had to sit through after the eclipse.

It still wasn't as bad as 2017 trying to get out of Idaho.

We took a different route home that took us through the Ozarks.  They are very beautiful, but they are still baby mountains.

Some morning fog in Nebraska.

Sunrise in Nebraska.

Welcome back to Utah!!  We were so exhausted by this point and just wanted to get home.  We all cheered when we saw this sign!!

A friend in my ward shared these photos of the eclipse that her son took.  They went down to Texas for the eclipse and were worried if they would get to see the eclipse or not because Texas was having some storms going on.  There were quite a few people that we talked to at the park we were at who said that they had originally gone to Texas to view the eclipse, but because of the weather down there, they decided to make their way up to Arkansas.  Thankfully the clouds parted and the people down in Texas were able to see the eclipse.  

Got me some personalized license plates for Moby II.  He was perfect for loading up mine and Jacen's recumbent bikes.  We found a lovely bike path and would often load up our bikes, drive to the bike path, and have a lovely time riding around.

Tiger Lily winning more awards at wrestling.

I married a giant.

Eilee got her drivers license!!!  YAY!!!

We went to the Layton Temple open house!!  I was so excited for the temple to open!!  I've never lived this close to a temple before, I mean, I can see it from my bedroom window!!  Plus, the exciting news is that I was going to be an Ordinance Worker when it opened in June!! Which, by the way, I absolutely love!!

So, one particular day, Jacen and I decided to go for a bike ride on a different bike path than our usual one.  It was less shady, we rode longer than we normally did, and I forgot the sunblock..... Yeah, it was quite painful.  I won't be doing that again!

Meow-meow and his cousins making up plays.

He's almost as tall as she is.

And that's all she wrote for April 2024!................... 

Speaking of Jimmy.  Shall we see what fun things Jimmy was doing during the month of April 2024?

We got two emails from Jimmy during the month of April, and this is what he had to say.

The first email is from April 9th

Good stuff, good stuff. Just like be baptizing fr fr.  Nothing really notable happened these last two weeks. Pretty much missionary work. Did a puzzle, almost done with my tie which is sick. The betkers are anchored ️ so that is sweet. General Conference was fire from the heavens. Elder Holland is back and dang that talk he gave was an opener. Also clearly a lot of talk about temples and covenants. Plus a whole new 15 temples, 2 in Utah alone.  Went on an exchange with some elders it's been fun. Elder hammy has a week and a day or two days left. Single digits for him. He's getting excited. The eclipse was cool. Only like a little bit here and there tho. What's funny is that when ever we go to the betkers the 3 kids there all think elder Hammond and i are trees they have us stick our arms out and then they swing on them. Looks like I get Indian burns afterwards. Anyways I hope you all are having a great April so far. Keep it going hard my dear family and Friends. 

Now general conference was a great opportunity for me to take some notes and really improve upon them. Usually at home I would pull up a desk and chair and play some "mindless" games. But this conference I really tried to write down things that stuck out or that I felt like I should write down. Now I could share what I wrote down with you. But I would rather share with you all just the feeling I got during this fruitful april general conference. The feelings I felt were: peace, wonder, focus, unfillable, warmth, strength, patience. From galatians 5: 22-23 it tells us how we feel the spirt, what feelings does the spirit give us. It says 

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 

23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

Especially for people who are newer to the gospel, understanding general conference and the language of the scriptures can be difficult. But before you understand the scriptures and our Beloved prophets and apostles, you must understand the spirit. Our bishop invites everyone at their baptism to go home and write down in asmuch detail the feelings, thoughts, and impressions they got while at their baptism. Which is what I am going to invite you all reading this to do. No matter if you are new to the gospel or not. But I'm going to invite you to pick a talk from this last conference, and listen carefully. While listening write down the feelings you get. From that I can promise you that what ever you need to hear. The spirit will testify it to you through your feelings.

The second email is from April 17th

How are you all doing? Made it throught another week or so. It's been lots of extravagant fun out here. General Conference was super cool, lots of great talks from our Beloved church leaders, apostles and even our wonderous prophet of God. Still studying them talks. Softball was super good. Got the whole zone out and played ball what can I say. Got some eyescream. Yum yum. Finished another puzzle, went on a fun exchange while elder Hammond went to go get Departing interviews. And the betkers 2 got baptized! This time the baptism went a lot smoother. While filling up the font we found like a bug that was like 1.5" long. The thing was massive and we couldn't even kill it. Eventually it's fate caught up with it and we through it away. Thank goodness it didn't pop up during the baptism. This wonderful ordinance of God always uplifts me and I am so happy for the betkers. We found them through the 5 list( lessactives, prospective elders, part member families, ect for those who don't know) such a lovely family and the path of rightness is what's ahead of them. There was this guy named Kevin who we taught a little bit. But we have been seeing him everywhere now. We were in the Hamptons(an apartment complex) and he just appeared out of no where and said, HEY, I know you. We also were waiting for a stop light with our bikes and he said, HEY, and start waving his hands everywhere in his car. After that we saw him in his old apartment, he came out and was for sure on some WoW. He started Kung fu fighting. Literally was like spinjitzuing and doing Kung fu chops and like kept hugging us. Got like super close to elder Hammonds face. But no worries, no harm was done just some laughs. After that we left and he went back in. Other than Kung fu fighting kevin, it was a pretty regular week. Elder Hammond has entered into the trunkNess stage, the endless stage of packing and asking members if they are going up to Utah sometime soon. We went to a members funeral which was very sweet, met her once but she was basically the grandma of the ward and she was from Japan. Finished my tie, and the sister made all the elders in my district ties aswell. And it's getting hotter down here. Past few days have been bright sun, high 80's. A member also gave us a drink. The drink is called liquid death. It's basically water packaged in a can that looks like beer. Its funny cause its just water. Anyways a meber comes out with a whole box of them to give to elder Hammond. We had brother Jacobsen our with us and he didnt know what it was. So when we popped one out hes face was of must concern towards elder Hammond. It was funny. Then we got to go to the temple with a recent convert. Transfers came up, elde Hammond is going home. Im staying, my new companion is elder barker. That's pretty much the week. Thanks for tuning in.

-Elder Davis

Stay tuned for tomorrow when there will be an even bigger photo dump than from today.

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.