New uniforms

This week has been a week of new uniforms.

Austin got his scout uniform.

Allynn got her marching band uniform.

Austin and his troop got to do the flag ceremony at the elementary school dance festival on Friday. Allynn will wear her uniform tomorrow (Memorial Day) in her first performance with the band. 

Eleven Years Old

Happy birthday to Austin. He really wanted a dog, but I think he is happy with the new bike!!!

While the boys are gone...

Tonight is the fathers and sons camp out. So, while The Dad and the boy are off on their adventure, the girls went to get their hair cut. 

Kelsey before.

Kelsey after. And she lost another tooth recently. The sucker stick fits nicely in that space.

Sydney before.

Sydney after. She had an idea in her head about what she wanted and is very pleased with the turn out. It is growing on me. It is cute down, too.

Allynn didn't take a before picture. She was gung-ho to cut her hair really short, too, but changed her mind at the last minute. She did add bangs and have about 5 inches cut off the back.

I happen to like my hair at the moment, so I didn't get anything done.  

Then we went to Zupa's for dinner and came home and watched Pete's Dragon.

It's Garden Time

The sun is out. There is afternoon rain. It must finally be spring. So, we have been working on our garden. We are very glad the people who lived here before created a very nice garden space with four grow boxes and automatic sprinkler system. 

We have pulled all the weeds. 

We added some IFA garden soil. 

We planted some peas, carrots, green onions, and bush beans from seeds. 

And things are starting to grow. 

The peas line the edges of the box so they can grow up the fence. The carrots are the bright green patch in the sunny spot. The green sprout at the bottom of the picture is a bush bean plant. 

A close up shot of the carrots. Still in the sunny spot. 

These tube pots are on the hill. They have drip lines in each one. This is where we put the zucchini, yellow and green. 

This is the cucumber. 

These are the tomatoes. 

These are the peppers that still need to be planted. Jalapeño, green bell, and Anaheim peppers. We like to make jalapeño jelly, stuffed bell pepper, and salsa. 

We are excited to watch it grow!

End of year crunch

It is the end of the school year. There are two Mondays, three Tuesdays, and four Fridays left. The end brings the rush to get every late homework finished... Every large project completed... And the need to go back through the calendar to make sure all assignments have been done, or reworked for the best grade possible. I don't remember having so many second chances when I was in school, but I guess times change. I do hope that we, parents and children, have learned from this year, and will do better next year.  

In the mean time, Allynn stayed home from school to finish a project.  Her punishment for not using her time wisely was to wear a piece of tape on her face for the day. Hopefully she will remember this and do better!

Guess what?


Allynn is going to play the Tuba in the American Fork Marching Band (afbands.org).  Yes, the Tuba.

With that said, she needs to raise $1870 this Summer and SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP!!!


The first of many fundraisers will be a Solar Powered Hybrid Spotlight by HybridLight.

Here are some details about this great product.

Featuring an adjustable handle, the Hybrid Spotlight can be carried with the arm extended in any of three positions for maximum comfort, function and efficiency.

Weighs 1lb 9oz, is 9.5 inches tall and 5.75 inches wide at lens - runs 6 hours on a full charge; and can be charged over and over again. Our Spotlight is also waterproof, floats and is rubber protected. Here's a spotlight that will be welcomed at any boating activity, outdoor event or for use when emergency lighting is needed.

Can be stored for years, Always Ready. The backup batteries (3AAA) provides up to 10 hours of backup power. Also included are 120volt AC and 12volt adapters.

The cost of this light is only $40 - what a STEAL!!!  It Retails for $59.95 on the HybridLight Site. She would like to sell 22 of them.

Method of Purchase:
Please send Jason an email to:           jasonlwells@yahoo.com

He will then send you an email with a link to pay for it via eCheck or Credit Card.

As your orders come in, we will post a 'Thank You' note on the Blog here.

Allynn sincerely appreciates your Support in helping her raise the money needed to participate in this once in a lifetime experience that is American Fork High School Marching Band.

Our new house

I have finally figured out that blogger has an app. So... Maybe I will blog more?? A good place to start is our new house.

We have been here now for two months and are loving it. We began looking for houses last fall. We thought about what we needed and what our budget would be. We wanted to be able to still do fun things. We wanted enough bedrooms for everyone to have their own (Jason and I agreed to share) and have a room for an office. The other major thing we wanted was at least two bathrooms. I really wanted a rambler style home so we could be old and still live in our house. I would really like to not have to move again. We didn't want more that two or three steps up to the front door. And we wanted good gathering space in the family room and kitchen. The next goal was to stay in the same ward. Since we live in Utah, the ward boundaries do not cover more than a ten by two block area. There were actually 3 possibilities. Two houses had been sold to investors, so we wanted to know if they would fix up the houses and sell them again or make them rentals. The 3rd option would have been a perfectly beautiful house, but it was priced WAY out of our budget. That meant we needed to venture out of the ward boundary.

The next boundary was to stay in the same school boundaries. That gave us a few more options, but most did not fit into the basic house requirements. So then we stared looking within just the high school boundaries. We just did not find anything that felt right.

When we didn't find what we wanted, we started looking closer to Jason's work. We looked at building a house. I started to think it would just be easier to stay with my parents until the big kids were done with school, then find something.

Then we were talking to friends in the ward who mentioned their neighbors were looking to sell. They had listed their house on and off in the last few years. So, Jason called to see if they still wanted to sell. And yes they did. After looking at so many houses, this one seemed kind of small and it was one room short, but the layout was comfortable. It was also in the perfect location. After talking about it with our family, the older girls agreed to share a room and the process of paperwork to buy this house started.

Since the A&W family had not been actively looking or preparing to go to a new house, we all agreed to give the process three months. That was a very long three months. And buying a house is stressful anyway. But, on March 1st we signed all the paperwork and got our keys.

Now almost all the boxes have a place and there are even some pictures on the walls. We are very comfortable and are getting nicely settled.