Matthew's Graduation

Yes we are very proud parents! Matthew graduated today from Utah State University. He majored in mechanical engineering with an emphasis in aerospace.

Matthew seems to have a certain criteria in his friend selection. Just about all of his friends names are Aaron. We finally were able to meet two of them this year. (Pictured above with Matthew is one of them.)

The three of them took a class building a rocket. He and his class mates took their rocket to Huntsville Alabama for a contest sponsered by NASA. Their rocket so far has won Best Overall Design with an emphasis on the safety. Matthew just happened to be in charge of the safety portion of the rocket.

The rocket above is the first rocket that Matthew actually built himself. This rocket was used for Matthew's qualifaction. He had to take a test and shoot off this rocket so that he could be the safety officer.

This is the rocket that they flew in Hunstville. Pictured is Aaron, Matthew and Dan.

This is what was left of the first rocket they were hoping to use in the competition. As you can see, there wasn't much left of their 7 1/2 foot rocket. They had to rebuild.

Below is the actual graduation. The two guys that received their diploma before Matthew are the two Aarons. Yep I'm not surprised they were together.

Bunny rolls

Last week Tania came home with roll in the shape of a bunny. So now she would like to make some for Easter. I am hearing all of this through my husband so I hope that I relate this story accurately. Anyway, Tania told my husband they needed to go to Costco so they could get some of this dough that they used to make these bunnies. David had just made some Rhodes rolls that morning, so he said that we all ready had the dough. It would be the same stuff that he had used to make his rolls. Tania was pretty adamant that she needed to go to Costco to get this dough, David's dough was not the right stuff. Somewhere in all this David convince Tania to call a friend and ask her what dough she should buy at Costco. David overheard the phone conversation. Her friend Katie told her to buy this dough spelled "r" "h" "o" "b" "e" "s". David then said "Well Tania, that's what we have is Rhodes dough." Tania was still convinced that we had the wrong dough. So David pulled the package out of the freezer and said "Tania, what is the name of this dough. Look at how it is spelled. Do you think maybe it is the same dough?" Thus with Tania looking at the package and comparing the spelling she realized we have the right dough. David said she did her really cute "hehe" laugh. He got quite a chuckle.

So I guess we will have bunny rolls for Easter now. At least someone in my family is trying to make Sunday a little bit special. I am generally not very good about doing anything for Easter. I am so busy with work every year at this time that I just don't have time to plan anything.

Our nephew just got home from his mission.

Our nephew just got home from his mission. Yep he went to
Ukraine. So tonight we went down to Spanish Fork (David's parents house) to see
him. It's a little ironic that we drove so far to see him when he lives in
walking distance of our home.

The kids had a great time talking to him. Before we could all get into the
house the three of them were talking Ukrainian/Russian. It was really cute.
David and I plied him with questions about anything from food, to housing, to
baboushkas, to language, to statues. As the subject would change away from
Ukrainian things, our nephew and our two kids would go into the kitchen and
talk Ukrainian. They would come back into the living room and talk for a little
while and then go back into the kitchen and talk Ukrainian.

After a while we asked our nephew if all of our questions were bothering him.
His answer - "no you have asked the most meaningful questions anyone has asked
me so far. Everyone else just asks how was the mission?"

Changes

We've had lots of changes in the last few months. All have been good.

Yes we finally moved into our new house in April. I have included some pictures of the house before we moved in. We also found some hats from San Fransico. We bought them a few years ago and were packed away in boxes for the last couple of years. The kids had fun goofing off with them while we moved.

The other changes that we have gone through are:

Katelyn moved back home for the summer. She also got her job back from Dimple Dell. She had to quit last fall when she went up to school. She is really glad to be working again. She might also work at Midvale Middle School. She will be a lifeguard and teach swimming lessons at both places.

Matthew got a good raise. He also got a change in his job description from Technition to Engineer 1. It sounds like they really like him as ES3.

Tania just started working at Dairy Queen in the South Towne Mall. Her picture in her uniform is above.

Sasha, we think, has a job at Smith's. He should start that job when we get back from our family vacation. Sasha also got his driver's license. He had to have his license for his job. We aren't letting him drive by himself yet.

We have been attending our new ward. We are really enjoying it. It is a little hard not knowing anyone but the ward has been very good about introducing themselves to us. We are even remembering some names. We are keeping really busy in the ward.

Father's Day

A couple of weeks ago the Laurels decorated ties for their dads. We are so proud of the dad's. They all wore them to church.

Drivers License, misc. conversations & the house

Hooray!! Tania has good enough grades to get her license. She is even going to make the honor roll. Sasha has good enough grades to get his license but he is not eligible for another month.

So today David took Tania to get her drivers license. He actually had to take her twice because Tania did not wear her contacts or bring her glassess. She couldn't pass the eye test without them. When they got back to the DMV they ended up talking to the same person from the first time they were there. After Tania's eye test, the DMV offficial wrote some words on a piece of paper and asked Tania to read the paper. He wanted to make sure she could really see the letters correctly or so he said. The words were "I must kill moose and squirrel". The DMV official said that he had to hear the saying in the native tongue.

David had a great time with the official but now he had to explain about moose and squirrel and why one of his best friends has a nickname of moose and squirrel.

Earlier this week as I was driving the kids home from school, when Tania mentioned that her friend makes it a habit to ask each of her teachers "How are you doing, my favorite teacher?" We kind of laughed about it but we talked about what a difference that might make with attitudes of teachers toward them. I encouraged them to try saying the same thing to each of their teachers to see what would happen. I haven't heard anything back yet. I'll let you know if the kids notice a difference.

This next comment is for Brent M. In answer to your question if the kids ever appreciate anything. At the beginning of the week, David took Tania to Bountiful to see her friend's dance performance. It was a very long and gruelling hour and half for David. He really doesn't enjoy stuff like that very much. When they got into the truck to come home, Tania actually thanked David for taking her to the performance. It was very sincere and very appreciated.

This comment is for Wendy. Our friend Wendy has her son write down something he is grateful for every day. I thought we could at least tell each other what we were grateful for at the dinner table on Sunday. I have been waiting for the right opportunity to start this little idea. Last Sunday was the first time for us to say what we were grateful for. I was pleased to hear what Tania was grateful for. I don't think Sasha was really comfortable. I hope next time he will be more comfortable. But at least after dinner Sasha was quite willing to give out hugs. He was in a great mood. I like to think that our grateful talk put everyone in a great mood. It was really nice.

Tania's room. This picture makes her room look purple but it is really very pink! It should match her new bedding very well.

Laundry room

More laundry room. The countertop was supposed to be completely installed the other day but apparently the installer was talking to his wife when he cut the top. Oops, he cut it wrong. So now they are making a new top.


We have our new fridge and our double ovens. My children laugh at me because I have wanted double ovens so badly. The pantry door is still covered with a film. Once the film is removed it should look really cool.

This is Tania after she spent a couple of hours cleaning the new house. Obviously, we need to have her work on the house we are living in.

There have been some fun times as the house has been built. Quite often we go see the house when it is dark outside. We had to bring flashlights with us since we didn't have any lights. The more we went to see it in the dark, the more hiding in closets, hiding behind walls and standing quite still in a dark room occurred. So as we had more hiding, I'm sure you can guess, we had more screaming and jumping as people jumped out of their hiding spots. It has been so bad that I have had to lead the crowd around before they would go anywhere. Of course that really didn't help because I new something would happen and just walked on by whoever was hiding. I must admit, I might need hearing aides after Tania has screamed several times in my ear.

The outside of our house is really looking like a real house. Tomorrow they are going to start working on the driveway.

Cabinets in the mater bath.

Our kitchen.

More kitchen

The family room.

The kitchen's new hardwood floors.

Our stairwell and front entry.

They lined all of the inside doors to paint. It was really kind of bizarre looking.