ARE WE THERE YET?

Have you ever heard of the Donner Party? Well, how about the Parkin Party? After leaving Utah on Sunday we thought we were making pretty good time in getting home, that was until we hit the agricultural check station outside of Truckee, CA. That's when the real fun began. After sitting in traffic for almost four hours (we traveled a whole 9 miles) we found out the we really did need chains to go over Donner Summit. So we went back to Truckee, bought chains, and got back in line to go over the summit. What would normally take about three hours took us 7 1/2. Are we there yet was an understatement.

Fairwell

Ken's parents are going on a mission to Arizona. To put it more precisely, they will be living on the Navajo Reservation 2 1/2 hours for anything that could be called civilization, Page, Arizona. We made a very quick trip to Utah over the weekend for their fairwell and they enter the MTC on Monday, March 2.

Monterey Bay

Alyssa and I went on one of my most favorite field trips yesterday. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The weather was beautiful. No rain or clouds or fog. Alyssa said she didn't have a favorite part but I love to see all the jelly fish. It's a very cool exhibit.

Thanks for the Rain

Grandma and Grandpa Staheli visited last week and wouldn't you know it, it rained while they were here. They're notorious for bring rain with them when they come to visit. We might have been stuck inside, but we had fun together. Kayla and Alyssa made the ever popular trip to the jelly belly with them and they got to hang out with our crazy friends during the crab feed. Shelisa taught grandpa the difference between the search bar and the address bar on the Internet. And of course, grandpa made sure he teased everyone a ton before he left. Thanks for visiting Grandma and Grandpa. We had fun!!!

Got Crabs?

We had 16 couples over last night for a crab fest. For those who don't know, my family room is 18x27. So I have plenty of room to set up tables and chairs for 32 people. Anyway, we had about 25 pounds of Alaskan King Crab legs, salads, rolls, potato dishes and dessert and there wasn't anything left. My mom and dad are here visiting and they joined in. We all had a great time.

BYU...Here she comes!!!

It's official! Shelisa has been accepted into BYU, Provo. After a very long wait, Shelisa application was submitted on November 20, 2008, Shelisa was notified today. We're all very excited for her. Good Luck Shelisa!

You're Having A Birthday...Shout Hooray!

Happy Birthday Ken!!!



I'm sure you were hoping we wouldn't make it quite so public. But I had to do something. There's no way anything I do will compare to the birthday gift you gave me this year. I hope you have a great day!

Thanks!

Thanks to Ken and all my friends who helped me with Senior Breakfast this morning. It was a lot of work and I couldn't have done it without you. THANKS!!!

Hot New Video, Hot New Sound

Not to be out done by Liz (my sister) I have to post something about one of the most exciting events in the last four years. Okay, we've had other exciting events, but this one I've been waiting for since I saw them live November 8, 2005. U2 have a new album coming out and they've just released their first single and video for the single. Check out their performance on the Grammy's!

Note: U2's performance on the Grammy's was taken off of YouTube. If you want to see their new video or listen to Get On Your Boots go to www.u2.com.

Cool Classroom

Two of the school board members toured our school yesterday. They came into the computer lab and liked the way I have it decorated so much they asked me to take pictures for them. They want to show other schools that you can have a computer lab that is fun and inviting for the kids to be in. They said they have been in so many computer labs that are boring and they would like to encourage other computer lab instructors to make their rooms more inviting and fun.

Weird Science

It was the science fair last night. Alyssa and her friend Brianna put together a project and displayed it yesterday at school. They didn't win anything, which Alyssa was happy for. Last year she won and went to the district science fair and it was "boring". But they had a lot of fun doing their project. Their project was on invisible ink. They looked up different things that they could use as invisible ink. They used lemon juice and milk. They wrote messages on colored paper, photo paper, index cards, and computer paper. They discovered that the message could be seen best on the colored paper and the photo paper and when they used milk.

Obsession

So we're officially obsessed with one of our games on Wii. To bad the game is 17 years old and we need Alyssa to continually supply us with more lives so we can try to get throught the next level. That's right, we are obsessed with Super Mario Brothers. We bought it with Wii points and downloaded it. Ken and I used to play it 17 years ago (Shelisa was a baby) on our dearly departed Super Nintendo gaming machine. Our family has even gone so far as to for go watching American Idol (don't worry we're still DVRing it) to play Mario Brothers. Had I known Super Mario Brother's was going to be such a family hit, I would have kept the old Super Nintendo around and saved us a lot of money. We're calling our new gaming adventure our family bonding time. Everyone has been playing and we're having a BLAST!!!